In this episode, we have the privilege of hearing from Barton Priebe, Lead Pastor of Central Baptist Church in Victoria, as he talked with Jessica Powell about his new book, “Adopted by God: Discover the Life-Transforming Joy of a Neglected Truth.”

You’ll get to hear him explain why the doctrine of adoption is such an important one, why he says it’s been a neglected truth in the church, and how there is life-transforming joy to be found when we truly embrace our identities as sons and daughters of God. He also shares how understanding and teaching this doctrine can be incredibly helpful for us as church leaders who are trying to help navigate our churches through controversies, such as the ones many of us are dealing with now during Covid!

Get the book:

Adopted by God (Barton Priebe)

BARTON PRIEBE

After working four years at Trinity Western University and thirteen years as lead pastor at Dunbar Heights Baptist Church in Vancouver, Barton became the lead pastor of Central Baptist Church in 2015. You will enjoy his preaching as he knows how to ask the right questions, engage attention, and thoughtfully guide you to biblical answers that impact all areas of faith and life. Barton enjoys cycling, skiing, sushi, reading, date nights with his wife, and having fun with his four children. He received his Doctor of Ministry from Northwest Baptist Seminary. He is also the author of "Adopted by God," "The Problem with Christianity: Six Unsettling Questions You Have Asked," "Belonging to God's Family: Measuring the Effect of Sermons on Paul's Doctrine of Adoption in the Lives of Believers," and co-author of "Everyday Apologetics: Answering Common Objections to the Christian Faith."

Our Leadership Development team has had the opportunity this year to partner with a group of women in Kampala, Uganda who had reached out to us as they were looking for resources for mentoring women in leadership.

In this episode, Krista Penner had a conversation with Betty Mutunda, who is on the ground in Uganda — serving God with her gifts and mentoring other women to do the same. You’ll get to hear her share about the challenges the church in Uganda is facing and how they are serving their communities in the midst of it.

What God is doing through these women is incredibly inspiring and we are so grateful that Fellowship Pacific gets to play a small part in partnering with them in their ministry!

Parenting is hard. We know that. As parents we love our kids deeply and we long to see them flourish and thrive, but knowing how to help them do that often feels like a complete mystery. And then on top of that there’s the pressure we sometimes put on ourselves as leaders in the church to be setting an example in how we raise our kids!

Whether you’re in the middle of raising teens yourself, preparing to do so in the future, or simply want to be able to come alongside other parents in your church to help and encourage them, you will definitely benefit from this conversation.

In this episode, Elizabeth Faulkner sat down with Mark Gregston—cofounder of Heartlight Ministries and Parenting Today’s Teens—to talk about what the most important thing to know is about parenting teenagers.

For resources mentioned, visit the episode page HERE.

MARK GREGSTON

Mark Gregston, along with his wife Jan, are cofounders of Heartlight Ministries and Parenting Today’s Teens. Mark is the Executive Director of Heartlight, a residential counseling center for teens in crisis located in Hallsville, Texas. Heartlight has become one of the country's finest residential counseling centers for teens and is known throughout North America as the “place to be” if your teen is struggling and hope is diminishing.

Mark is also the host of Heartlight Radio's weekend program and heard on hundreds of stations with their daily program, Parenting Today's Teens. He has authored 12 books, written hundreds of articles about parenting teens in a difficult culture and is also the host of the nationally acclaimed read program. From his 45+ years of experience of working with teens and their families, Mark shares his insight and wisdom through podcasts, the Heartlight Stories YouTube channel, seminars, and weekend parenting retreats.

It’s a brand new ministry year and once again, it’s a ministry year that is beginning in the midst of a lot of the kind of change and uncertainty that makes leading well even harder than it usually is.

So to kick off this new season of the podcast, we turned to three incredible leaders who are very familiar with the challenges of leadership and who also happen to be on our very own Fellowship Pacific team!

You’ll get to hear Krista Penner, Elizabeth Faulkner, and David Horita talk about their own leadership journeys and what they’ve learned from all the highs and lows — or the “good, bad, and ugly” — of leading.

Recommended Resources:

Leadership and Self-Deception (The Arbinger Institute)

The Culture Code (Daniel Coyle)

KRISTA PENNER

Krista Penner is the Team Lead for the Leadership Development Team at Fellowship Pacific and also manages the Immerse program.

Krista has a degree in the Humanities and over 20 years of corporate experience that she has the privilege of drawing from as she teaches board governance and leadership principles in our Fellowship Pacific churches. She has been with the Fellowship Pacific team since 2008, and although her role has expanded and changed over the years, her passion for the mission and vision of Fellowship Pacific has remained crystal clear.

ELIZABETH FAULKNER

Elizabeth Faulkner serves on the Leadership Development team for Fellowship Pacific.

She has a Bachelor’s degree from Northwest and 15 years experience leading a variety of teams and ministries at SouthRidge Fellowship including children, family, discipleship and interns. She is passionate about mentoring and developing leaders and teams and loves using her experience in those areas to serve our churches.

DAVID HORITA

David is the Regional Director of Fellowship Pacific.

After completing his Master of Divinity at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, he has served in both small and large churches, as well as planting a church in Surrey in 1990. During those years he also received his Doctor of Ministry degree, and worked extensively on a variety of Fellowship Pacific Boards.

Throughout the last twelve years, David has enjoyed working alongside others in the Fellowship Pacific Ministry Centre, applying much of his education and experience to developing church focused tools to help them achieve their unique vision within the Kingdom of God.

In all the many conversations we’ve been having about what the future holds for the post-Covid church, there’s been one common idea that we keep hearing: a sense that God is at work doing something new in His church through Covid and a deep desire to participate with Him in whatever that is.

But how do we know what it is that He’s asking us to participate in?

In this episode, Jessica Powell sat down with Jon Thompson, Senior Pastor of Sanctus Church and author of the books Convergence and Deliverance to talk about the importance of asking God if He has something specific for us to do before we jump into making our plans and what that actually looks like in practice for us as church leaders who are trying to discern what to do in a post pandemic world.

More from Jon Thompson:

www.thrivewithconvergence

Books:

Convergence

Deliverance

JON THOMPSON

Jon Thompson is the Senior Pastor of Sanctus Church, a multi-site church in the Greater Toronto Area where he has been on staff for more than 20 years. Under Jon’s leadership, Sanctus is characterized by dynamic Biblical teaching, vibrant community groups, compelling media, and powerful times in worship.

Jon has a Master of Theological Studies from Tyndale Seminary, Toronto and a Doctorate of Missiology from Fuller Seminary, California. Jon is husband to Joanna and father to three kids—Hannah, Emma, and Noah.

Jon speaks and teaches globally on the convergence of spiritual gifts, spiritual practices, and spiritual experiences in the life of the believer and the local church.

We know from Revelation that heaven is going to be an incredible, multicultural celebration—more than we could ever imagine! And if we are serious about joining Jesus in asking for God’s kingdom come here on earth, then shouldn’t we expect our churches to start looking more like that multicultural reality?

In this episode, Mike Mawhorter had a conversation with Josh Buys (Lead Pastor of Kingdom Life Community Church), Mark Buhler (Multicultural Pastor at Faith Fellowship Baptist Church), and Don Schuiling (Lead Pastor of Richmond Baptist Church) about what it takes to be intentional about growing diversity in our churches and why it matters.

JOSH BUYS

Josh is the Lead Pastor of Kingdom Life Community Church.

MARK BUHLER

Mark is married to Catherine and is blessed to have 4 children and 7 grandchildren.  He is a trained high school Math and Science teacher, personal and career counselor and school administrator. He chose to follow Christ while on a trip to India right after university. He served at Rift Valley Academy in Kenya for 20 years in education and community development. Upon returning to Canada in 2011 he has served at Faith Fellowship Baptist Church in Vancouver in multicultural ministry and mentoring / discipleship.

DON SCHUILING

Don has been in ministry in a variety of roles for over 30 years. He loves people and walking through life with them. Helping people gain a better understanding of who Jesus is and how much he loves to lavish grace on them is what motivates his pastor’s heart. Don and his wife Deb enjoy being outdoors whether it is just taking a walk in a local park or hiking in a more remote place. Their family is extremely important to them and they love getting together with their adult children.

We have some incredible partnering ministries here in Fellowship Pacific and one of those is New Hope Community Services. New Hope provides housing, support, community, and so much more to refugee families as they transition to healthy living.

In this episode, Krista Penner from our Leadership Development team sat down to talk with Ann Barnard Ball, Executive Director of New Hope, about what’s bringing hope to New Hope as they navigate the Covid-19 pandemic and look to a post-Covid future along with the rest of us.

You’ll get to hear incredible stories of some of the residents of New Hope and you’ll learn about how God has been working through this ministry as they love and support the families He has brought them.

CLICK HERE to visit the episode page on our website where you can find out more about how to pray for New Hope and other ways you can get involved.

ANN BARNARD BALL

Ann Barnard Ball is the Executive Director of New Hope Community Services, which provides the first home and a community of care for refugees during their first eighteen months in Canada.  Ann has spent the last 25 years as an advocate of social justice in the areas of child welfare, poverty, and newcomers through organizations like the Children’s Aid Foundation, Yonge Street Mission and New Hope Community Services.  Ann also spent several years as the Executive Director of Advancement at Power to Change Ministries.

She has a heart to see people of faith engage with and extend friendship to people who have struggled to be fully included in society.  Ann is also working on a Master of Urban Studies at Simon Fraser University.  Ann, her husband Steven and feline fur baby, Morse, live in Maple Ridge.

For the past year and a half, the majority of our ministries have been on hold and with that, our volunteer needs have been lessened. But now that we can actually start planning for in-person church, we’re faced with the challenge of filling a lot of serving needs all at once.

In this episode, Elizabeth Faulkner from our Leadership Development team talks with Paul Olson, Executive Pastor at SouthRidge Fellowship about how churches can start preparing now to re-engage our congregations in serving.

PAUL OLSON

Paul currently serves at SouthRidge Fellowship Church where he has been the Executive Pastor for the past 2 1/2 years. Before that he served at Burnett Fellowship in Maple Ridge for 22 years in various pastoral roles.

He and his lovely wife Julie have been married 27 years and have 5 children. Paul has been part of FEB Pacific churches since coming to Christ close to 40 years with 28 of those serving in pastoral roles in Feb churches. Paul loves to see people grow in their walk with Christ and build community relationships that share the power of the Gospel.

Every generation grows up in a different time and a different cultural environment than the one before it, which causes it to be defined by different characteristics. And those differences can have a tendency to disrupt things and force us to ask ourselves what we care about more, engaging the next generation in a way that draws them to Jesus or sticking with the methods that have become very comfortable to us.

In this episode, Elizabeth Faulkner from our Leadership Development team had a conversation with two of our Immerse students who are heavily invested in reaching Gen Z as they lead youth ministries in their churches—Peter Bird, Youth Pastor at The Meeting Place Church in Nanaimo and Eric Vila, Youth Intern at Central Baptist Church in Victoria.

You’ll get to hear them share what they see in Gen Z, what their hopes are for this generation, and what we as the church need to do to engage them in meaningful ways.

PETER BIRD

My name is Peter Bird, and I’ve been working as the Youth Pastor at The Meeting Place Church since 2015. My wife, Emily, and I have been married for just over 7 years, and we love living in Nanaimo! I also enjoy having conversations about the Bible, God, and life in general, and I especially love having these conversations and sharing God’s love with youth.

Other than work, I currently spend a lot of time working towards my MDiv through the Immerse Program, and when I’m not working, doing school, or hanging out with Emily, you can find me playing music, playing goalie in ice hockey, or looking for my ball on the golf course.

ERIC VILA

Hey! My name is Eric, and I’m the Youth Intern at Central Baptist Church. I live here in Victoria, BC with my beautiful wife, Sarah. I have been working at Central since 2018, and love working in youth ministry! I am passionate about nurturing, guiding, and raising up future leaders, both inside and outside of the church walls. Aside from work, I am pursuing my M.Div through the Immerse program. When I’m not busy with work or school, you can find me playing my guitars, hitting the road with my bike, or out on a hunt for good coffee!

In the past year, Covid has presented us with many challenges and as our collective stress level has been steadily rising, we have seen the pressure of the pandemic lead to a surfacing of issues that are now causing significant levels of division both in our country, our communities, and sadly, even in our churches.

In this episode, Dan Cody from our Church Management Solutions team had a conversation with Scott Sauls, Senior Pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Tennessee. Scott is the author of several books, including his most recent work, A Gentle Answer, in which he discusses how followers of Jesus can live and love like Christ in a defensive and divided era.

They talk about what it means to abide in the gentleness of Christ and why it is imperative that we model our posture after Him in the way that we share our strong convictions.

For a list of resources, visit the episode page on our website.

SCOTT SAULS

Scott Sauls is husband to Patti, dad to Abby and Ellie, and serves as Senior Pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Tennessee. Prior to Nashville, Scott was a Lead and Preaching Pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian in New York City after planting two churches in Kansas City and Saint Louis.

Scott has authored several books, including Jesus Outside the Lines and his most recent work, A Gentle Answer. He blogs regularly at scottsauls.com. His work has been featured in Christianity Today, Relevant Magazine, Qideas, Catalyst, Leadership Magazine, Outreach Magazine, annvoskamp.com, The Gospel Coalition, and several other publications.