Reflecting (Part Two)

A few years ago, our church was able to purchase a 10 acre site for our proposed new church building in Port Coquitlam (Poco). Land is getting scarce in the metropolitan Vancouver area and the neighbourhood of our Poco church had been one of the last areas where good parcels of property were still available. Today, because of rising land values, our 10 acres have at least doubled in value since we purchased them.

Prior to purchasing the property, I felt like we turned a corner in the expansion of our church vision. We moved from a “let’s grow strong and care for ourselves” attitude; to a vision that says, “God has placed us in these two locations (Port Coquitlam and Coquitlam) for a purpose.” So, we began to care for both neighbourhoods – specifically the poor and addicted of Poco (Pastor Carol Smith and others were the driving force of our vision to assist lower income families and those in recovery) and the ethnic community of Coquitlam (Doris Wong and Sam and Lily Ong have been effective leaders in this multicultural outreach). The Coquitlam campus, which sits predominantly on a hill (Westwood Plateau), consists of a 75% ethnic population, mostly Asian.

After beginning the growing process of reaching out to our community, we lifted our eyes to the world around us. In 1993, we began to see missionary outreach as one of our priorities. Evangelist Don Schellenberg, Karsten and Sulma Hoeg, and Randy Stark were all catalysts for us to seriously consider how we, as a church, could impact our world. In addition to International Foursqure Missions and Canadian Foursquare Missions, we began to send teams to Nicaragua, Costa Rica, India, Philippines, Thailand and many other nations. Soon small groups in the church began to knit afghans, put together Christmas boxes, give to world churches and Bible schools and sponsor orphans.

This last season of 10 years has been like a health tonic for the heart of our church. The more we’ve given of our money and ourselves, the stronger, more mature and prosperous we have become.

We press on, following the example of William Colgate who began his business with only a recipe for soap and a determination to always give God 10% of his profits – and continue on until he was giving 90% and using only 10% for himself.

In 2005, I’ve felt God’s hand pressing us to continue blessing our community and the world, but also seriously begin to consider the difference we can make in our nation of Canada.

It was significant to me that we held our first Canadian Foursquare Pastor’s Conference in the Atlantic provinces in 2005. The convention in Dartmouth in October was pivotal.

For me, to travel to Lethbridge and do my first television interview on Lifeline with Dick and Joan Dewert was a major step outside of my comfort zone. Following that show, I travelled to Winnipeg three times (as recently as last week, January 11) to tape 9 different interviews. I’ve talked about Life Journey, Life Purpose, The Red Thread and The Secret of Happiness with Willard Theissen of It’s a New Day.

The television interviews have not only stretched me far beyond where I am comfortable (God always does this very well to ensure that we don’t settle into complacency), but He’s also widened my circle of influence by about 1,000 km. I’ve been consistently surprised by the number of calls, e-mails and letters I have received from people from Vancouver Island to Halifax.

At the same time, Gary Reamer of Reimer Advertising has been encouraging me to begin a radio broad across our nation. Gary and I talked at Starbucks while I was in Winnipeg last week. I told him that I would begin to Podcast my new program, Life Pathways, in February from my website (www.barrybuzza.com). Thanks to Jessica Cornell, my co-host and David Dombrowski my engineer for their expertise and willingness to work alongside this radio novice. I hope you’ll drop by for a listen next month.

I still have more to share, so I guess there will be a Part Three. Hope you’re still with me.

Barry