COMMUNITY BAPTIST BIBLE CHURCH

December 30th, 1975 a moving company loaded all of our earthly belongings into their truck and headed for Abbotsford, British ColumbiaMeanwhile, I came down with a touch of the flu.  So, as a family, we spent one more night in the parsonage in Lethbridge, our bed was the floor and my diet was ginger ale.

A blizzard blew in on the 31st, but by the late afternoon I figured that I could make it to Calgary where we had been invited to stay with a widow friend, who had been a member of our congregation in Lousana.  So, we bade farewell to Lethbridge and headed to Calgary.

The morning of January 1st, 1976 we set off for Abbotsford.  What a treat, having had to detour to get out of Calgary, due to the blizzard of the day before, to arrive in the balmy spring like BC city of Abbotsford.

One of the many Sunday School buses

Pastor Milton Johnson had invited me to be an assistant pastor at the rapidly growing Community Baptist Bible Church in Abbotsford.  He had resigned from the Sevenoaks Alliance Church and started this independent church three years prior to our arrival.  My role, as an assistant, was to supervise the eleven bus routes that were already in place.   I assisted with the leadership of the Sunday School and various other ministries, which eventually included writing the weekly Sunday School lessons.  I also oversaw the visitation ministry, which included door to door evangelism with both the youth and adults.  I had the opportunity to preach occasionally on Sundays and also the occasional chapel message in the church's school.

Just prior to our arrival, the church had reached a record attendance of over 700.  That was a few months before their third anniversary.  However, that record was never ever broken.  When we arrived, the attendance was already beginning to decline.

By March one of my bus drivers told me they were leaving the church.  In May three key families left the church.  I was baffled.  Why would they leave such a successful ministry?  By November, three more key families left the church.  At this point, I began to understand why these key families were leaving.  I prefer not to document their reasons in this blog.  The Lord keeps the books.  However, from that point on Leona and I knew that our time at CBBC was going to be shortened.  What we thought would be our ministry for the rest of our years would end very soon.

The church also had an elementary and high school of about 200 students.  The church building, built on a twenty acre site, with expansion in mind, had been designed with classrooms that served as school classrooms Monday to Friday and Sunday School classes on Sundays.  Since my salary was only $900.00 a month, we had three boarders at a time, which brought in additional income. These boarders were all Chinese high school students from Indonesia, who were attending the Community Baptist Academy.  Over the period of time that we were there, we had five different young fellows, the youngest being fifteen years of age.  Leona began teaching at the school in September of our first year, however, by November we could see that this was not going to be a long term ministry.  Dan, Brian and Sharilyn had a wealth of friends in the school and church.   I believe that they were happy, but Leona and I were becoming restless before our first year was completed.

The three students on the left lived with us

The year 1977, our second year, was unlike any other year in all of my pastoral years.  I had about ten or eleven different leads or invitations to be a pastoral candidate.  These invitations came from various places in Canada and the USA.  Some of these were from totally unknown sources.  For example, one day I received a phone call and the caller said that they had been given my name and wondered whether I would consider being a candidate at their Baptist church in Vancouver.  A letter was received from a church in Montana.  I had never heard anything about that church  and wondered how they had known anything about me.  I had not shared with anyone that we were considering leaving, that is until I began to interact with Rev. Roy McIntyre in late September.  Other requests came in the mail.  Such leads were from Baptist, Independent and Alliance churches.

Leona concluded her school teaching in June 1977 and started packing.  We were beginning to gear up to leave CBBC, but had no idea where or when we were going.  We had fallen in love with the congregation.  Never had I seen, to that point, such committed church members.  Dozens and dozens of people were involved in some kind of ministry.  There were bus captains, bus drivers, people who made lunches for the kids that road the buses.  Some children had not had breakfast.  There were choir members, young and old involved in door to door visitation, Sunday School staff, etc. etc.  We loved living in Abbotsford and were enjoying our house.  However, we knew that we were meant to be somewhere else.

Our home - 31731 Old Yale Road, Abbotsford 

In September the Western Canadian District Conference of the C&MA was held at Sevenoaks Alliance Church in Abbotsford.  The opening night of the conference was a Wednesday night and that was one night that we were free.  So Leona and I went to their opening night.  Following the service, we were surrounded by so many friends that I've often said that we had never ever experienced such an overwhelming shower of love as we did that night.  One dear old friend and retired missionary spoke to me and said, "Brother, Goldsmith, do you really feel that you are where God wants you to be?"  Wow, if he only knew what we were struggling with.  His question was just one more confirmation that our thoughts, that we should be moving on, were certainly of God.

The next afternoon I had been out doing some pastoral visitation and stopped by our home on the way back to the church.  It was about 3:30 or 4:00pm.  Leona said that Rev. Roy McIntyre had phoned and wanted to talk with me.  Instead of heading back to my office, I turned around and went to Sevenoaks Alliance Church.  Roy had a couple other pastors with him and his first question, once I was seated was, "Dan, what can we do for you?"

Well, I need to shorten this story, but let me say that before we parted he offered me an interim senior pastoral position with a church in BC that had experienced some problems.  He was asking if I would consider filling in there for at least one year, after which if that church wanted me to continue, I could do so, or else he would find another church for me.  I was to think it over and get back to him.

Two days later, Saturday, I went back to Sevenoaks Alliance Church to meet with him.  I didn't see him, but saw several of my pastoral friends who were on their way to a banquet in the church gym. As best I remember, without exception, they were all inviting me to join them at the meal.  I chatted with many, but declined stating that Leona was fixing supper and I should go home.  When I arrived home I told Leona what had happened.  She said, "You go back and to the dinner!"  Words cannot express how much I have valued the love, encouragement and many timely words from Leona that have been of the Lord.

I went back, bought a ticket and enjoyed renewing fellowship with many friends.  I was so warmly welcomed, I could not get over it.  I had left them almost two years before and gone with the Baptist and here they were, showering me with love.  Following the meal, Garth Hunt, who had been serving as a C&MA Chaplain in Viet Nam, was the guest speaker.  Part way through his talk, I felt a tap on my shoulder and it was Roy McIntyre motioning me to follow him.

In the hallway, outside of the gym, Roy introduced an elder and his wife from Rockyview Alliance Church in Calgary.  Mr. McIntyre shared that the pastor of Rockyview Alliance Church had just resigned and as he saw me sitting there thought that church would be a good fit for me.  In the space of about twenty minutes, I told Dean and Sylvia Gillette that I would go to Calgary two weeks from that weekend and be a pastoral candidate.

The Wednesday following our weekend in Calgary, October 4th & 5th, I received a phone call from the chairman of the Rockyview Alliance Church board inviting me to be their pastor.  I submitted my resignation to Pastor Johnson the next day.  Since he was leaving soon for a three week preaching ministry in Korea, my farewell Sunday was not until November 6th.  We moved to Calgary the weekend of November 19th & 20th.




Comments

Popular posts from this blog