← Back to sermon library

Well, there's a few men that 
cannot be with us this morning. Pastor Kirk Patrick is preaching 
in Surrey, and then Paul DeGear left last night. He's one of 
the men from Pinocchio, but all the other brothers are here. 
So first, I'm going to call up either Rod or Floyd from Regina 
to begin. Brothers and sisters, I bring 
you greetings from Regina, from Grace Reformed Baptist Church 
in Regina. Just as a report on who we are 
and what we have been involved in there, we are a church plant 
about two and a half years ago, officially began three and a 
half years ago, a work there out of a Gospel of Grace fellowship 
in Weyburn. They sent us, they called us 
as elders, and then sent us up there as a church plant. So we 
have been officially Grace Reformed Baptist Church since November 
2022. And praise God, we've preached 
through a number of the books of the Bible. I guess one thing 
that we would say is that it has been I use the analogy of 
an accordion. We have grown, and we have shrunk, 
and we have grown, and we've shrunk, and we've made the appropriate 
wheezing sounds each time. So we've had our low times and 
our high times. What I would say is that it is 
the Lord Jesus Christ who is Lord of the church. He's head 
of the church. He's growing the church and he's 
working in the church. So we have seen people come and 
go and we've grieved when they leave and we've rejoiced when 
they rejoice. And so a lot of that comes with enjoying the 
times that are good. So praise God for that. We have 
had a number of baptisms. We've had a number of new members. 
and we have learned to rejoice in those moments. And so we pray 
for all the churches that we share with, we pray for you guys, 
usually every Monday, and then we rotate through in our congregational 
prayer, and that means a lot to us, that means a lot to me, 
to be able to point my people in a town, in a city that has 
basically three Reformed-ish churches, We are the weird people 
in Regina. Our worship is weird and our 
organization is weird. Everything is weird about us. 
And so when people Think that we can point to an association 
and say this is historic. This is something that is not 
just our deal. This isn't just preference. This 
is something that is established and convictional. And so what 
we are finding now, and one of the things that we rejoice about, 
is that the members that we have, those who are in attendance, 
want what we are doing. They want to be Reformed Baptists. 
They want to be confessional. And they see the value of that. 
So praise God for that. And you help us just by being 
here, just by doing what you do, and joining with us in association. I just praise God for that. It's very dangerous having a 
number of pastors to come up and giving them five minutes. 
I was joking with the brothers, we should each come up and say, 
now open your Bibles to the book of Acts. Well, I'm from Grace Family Reformed 
Baptist Church in Medicine Hat, Alberta. I bring greetings and 
love from our congregation. Just as Rod has said, we've been 
praying for you. We pray for all of the churches 
we are associated with and those brothers who are not associated 
who are here today, like Lethbridge or Webern, we pray for you as 
well. We love you, we appreciate you, and we're glad to be associated, 
if not, formally, informally, and it's good to be here. I want 
to thank you on behalf of our church for hosting this meeting, 
for having these wonderful men come up and to teach us, and 
for providing the links that my church has appreciated through 
a live stream, even last year's conference as well. I bring not 
only my greetings and love, but gratitude as well. Every city 
has its challenges. In Madison Hat, our challenge 
is almost an apathy based upon a broad evangelical kind of religion that permeates 
our city, that it's a shallow religion that does not want to 
dig deep into the word. And when you start to press it, 
They want to run away because they don't want to hear that 
perhaps there's things they don't know or they have to change some 
things that they are doing. And that is the struggle we have 
in Medicine Hat. There has never really been a 
reformed church. So a touchstone to point back 
to where we can say this is what we have believed we are we're 
new and like Rod said we are we're very weird everything from 
the way we practice communion to the songs we sing to the way 
we order our services and I'm sure you have felt that weirdness 
here as well so you can pray for that you can pray for our 
city we've done evangelism on the street we have we've encourage 
members to do personal evangelism. We have done street preaching at 
times and passing out of tracks, and we have been involved in 
the college. It's been wonderful. We have been there for seven 
years. And again, the accordion analogy 
is very apt. We have grown and shrunk many 
times. And at this point in time, we 
have seen an influx of of migrant workers who are working at the 
local greenhouses, men from China, from India, and from the Philippines, 
which poses different challenges. We, none of us speak Mandarin 
or Indian. So that's hard to talk with those 
brothers and we don't have the resources, the confessions and 
multiple languages to give. We've not normally been a multicultural 
or multilingual city. So that is a challenge we face. 
You can pray for that. And also thank God that God is 
bringing them in and they are staying and hearing and seeking 
membership. And that is pretty much it. Again, 
we thank you as a church for partnering with us. And again, 
I share my love for my congregation. We have been a church for seven 
years, and as Rod had said, it's a strange thing. And it's wonderful 
to know that there are many more churches. It's an encouraging 
thing to lift our hearts to know that not only are there churches 
that we know that are kind of on the right track in our area, 
but there are churches who believe what we believe, confess what 
we confess, and are joining with us in prayer and in ministry, 
even though we're so far away, and I thank you. Brian Malforce from Orange County. Good morning, everyone. Most 
of you are probably a lot more familiar with me and my church 
because we are a church plant of this Free Grace Baptist Church 
here. So greetings from Trinity Reformed 
Baptist Church in Armstrong. We're coming up on three years 
now that we've been formally constituted as a church. Hard 
to believe just about three years ago that I was kneeling here. ordained by Pastor Butler and 
Mike from Surrey. And yeah, time really does fly. 
The Lord has been very gracious to us as a church. We have a 
lot of, we're mainly a lot of younger families, lots of kids, 
lots of life. I'm thankful every day for the 
unity that we have and the love that we share as a church, as 
a church family, really truly do function as a family. It's 
a real blessing. that way. It's a blessing as 
a pastor to shepherd this flock that is just to see faithful 
husbands, faithful wives, faithful fathers, faithful mothers teaching 
their children. The Lord is working among the 
children. It's truly a joy to witness that as well. I often 
use, you know, think of Ezekiel in the Valley of Dry Bones proclaiming 
a message saying, saying, live you bones, live, hear this word 
of the Lord. And, you know, just that proclamation alone was not, 
you know, the Lord didn't work then. It wasn't until, there 
was a rattling, we know, but it wasn't until the Spirit came 
and breathed life into those bones. And we really see that 
in our church among the young people, the youth growing in 
their sanctification, their knowledge of the things of God, the children. You know, learning the gospel, 
hearing the gospel, seeing God work, it's a real blessing that 
way. God has been pleased to bless 
our church with with officers as well. About a year and a half 
ago, we installed Brahm, who's here today actually as a deacon. 
And then last October, we installed Hans Kroll. Most of you probably 
know him as well as an elder in the church to serve alongside 
me. That's been a real blessing as well to have him. He's preaching 
this morning. For me, he preaches about once 
a month. So it's very nice to have that and have him there 
serving alongside me. We're very thankful to be part 
of the association. Two, of course, you know, knowing, 
being more connected with Free Grace and with Surrey has been 
good, but now to just grow that connection with, you know, the 
brothers from the prairies and meeting some more here at the 
conference, you know, expressing interest in joining and those, 
you know, those coming together, it's been a real joy. Absolutely 
can say that. So, but yeah, praise the Lord 
with us. for his goodness to our church. 
We're truly, it's truly a blessing to see his work there and to 
serve as a pastor there. So thank you. So those are the 
association guys, as I said. Patrick is at his church in Surrey. Paul, Emil, and Herman in Minoka. The three men that are, I don't 
know what we call them, the grand mubas of the first line, I'm 
sorry. Are they the coordinating coordinators 
or moderators for the association? So those are the men that are 
doing the heavy lifting behind the scenes. We do get an email 
update, usually is that once a week? Two weeks. Two weeks. So the association 
churches send their requests to Ryan, and then we make sure 
that all the association churches get those. So it's a blessing. 
And as the men have expressed, I feel good that I'm not the 
only weird one in the world. And so now we're going to step 
outside the association proper and other men that are like-minded 
with us in terms of confessionalism. So first is Kevin Armstrong. 
from Weber. I almost said Kevin Weber from 
Armstrong. Well, it is good to be here. And every time I hear Armstrong, 
my head pops up. So the confusion's all around, 
but, um, yeah, my name is Kevin Armstrong. I've been pastoring 
in Weyburn now in my current role for eight and a half years. 
Uh, gospel of grace fellowship is our, our church's name. And, 
uh, last year when I was here as kind of gave a history of 
how we came to adopt the confession, a brief history of our church. 
Um, and, uh, In terms of updates, not everything that goes on makes 
for a real thrilling update, but it's a lot of ordinary ministry 
and life of the church, which is good. I can happily say that 
we are doing well. I think the Lord has blessed 
us through the life of our church with some calm and peace and 
unity. At the same time, we have had 
a lot of people come over the last couple of years and start 
attending and many join in membership who come from all kinds of different 
backgrounds. And so it's a bit daunting at 
times. We have people coming out of cults to old colony Mennonites 
to you know, out there charismaticism to you name it all come within 
the span of a few weeks sometimes and so it can be a bit dizzying. Um, so just, just, uh, you know, 
we're working to try to bring everybody in, uh, together, build 
one another up into the, in the unity of the faith. And, uh, 
you know, the word weird has been thrown around a lot. Um, 
And, you know, that's something we have certainly experienced 
as well. It's not just, you know, we laugh at that, but it comes 
with a certain amount of, you know, it can be hard, too, suffering, 
feeling like you're on an island, and people can be dismissive 
just because you do things odd, you know. It seems weird to me, 
so I'm out and dismissive and even worse than that, of course. 
So we are grateful to be here. I'm grateful to be here. We're 
grateful to hear these reports of different churches and to 
meet brothers and sisters from different churches and here. 
Thank you to Free Grace for your hospitality again this year to 
us. And yeah, we just appreciate 
your prayers as we just continue in the ordinary ministry of the 
church. On Wednesday nights, we've been working through the 
Baptist Catechism, which has been a great tool for trying 
to bring us together, not only for the doctrine it contains, 
but also some of the hermeneutical questions that arise when people 
are saying, how do they get there from some of those texts, maybe, 
which has been great to go through that. And yet this summer we're 
going to press pause there and take some time to teach on, again, 
return to missions and evangelism and church planting. these kinds 
of things to just, again, try to stir that in our people. We've 
had the privilege of being part of helping with two church plants 
in our region, kind of an hour each side of us. And that's been 
a great help to us. Again, even as Rod was saying, 
this is not just us in our own unique weirdness. This goes back 
a long ways. And there are others that are 
weird with us. So it's not just that. Kevin has unique ideas 
or whatever. Someone the other day said they've 
been praying for our church, and I'm very thankful for that. 
And if the Lord puts us on your heart, please do pray for us. 
Just pray for faithfulness, pray for unity in the church, pray 
that more would come to be saved. through the ministry of the church 
and the people there. And we are grateful. We have 
seen that since I was here last year. We baptized this couple 
that came out of a cult and are very sound already, just eating 
up everything that's taught and reading everything they can. 
and they're trying to bring everybody with them from that group, and 
we have more coming to our church from there, and they seem to 
be tracking, and we would hope they too will come to faith in 
Christ. And so, yeah, we just do want 
to see the Lord build his church and save souls and plant and 
establish churches. It's a wasteland where we are. And so we just really desire 
to see more churches established and to see the healthy churches 
established and done well. So we just appreciate your prayers 
for these things. And pretty well, anything else 
you can think of that we probably need prayer for that. So just, 
yeah. So thank you. And then medicine hat, 70,000 
Armstrong. 5,000 in the town, but we serve 
it. the broader area. And my burn? 10,000. Okay. All right, so for 
the next brothers that come up, let us know that. Not everybody's 
a native Canadian, so it's good to get kind of an idea of the 
size, population basis. Ryan Case from Lethbridge, Alberta. Good morning, greetings from 
Lethbridge. Population about 105,000. We're about an hour 
north of the Montana border. And Brother Dozal, Dr. Dozal, was actually my predecessor. 
I've been there since 2007, with many ups and downs. I think we 
could say the church is in a good season, and that's all by God's 
grace. I brought my fellow elder, Pastor Matt, we brought him on 
last September, Pastor Nathan, Coppert is still at home. We've 
lost two elders, one stepped down, one was disqualified, but 
by God's grace there's two other men we're investing into working 
through the 1689 with them. And so hoping if it would be 
the Lord's kind will that soon we'd be able to add to our eldership. 
We were able, again by God's grace, to plant Reform Baptist 
Church. They're actually a 1689 church 
40 minutes east of us in a small town of Tabor, about 7,500 people. HeartCry actually helped us with 
that. And now we're hoping to plant a church half an hour west 
of us in a town called Fort McLeod, population probably about 7,500 
as well. We are weird, but in the trajectory 
we're a little less weird than some of the other brothers. In our progressive weirdification, 
we're hoping to catch up, and that's mostly due to my own theological 
reorientation. You know, came out of seminary 
as a progressive covenantalist, and then it was about three years 
ago, Peter Van Wurthuysen, he gave me a wonderful book by Dr. 
Barcelos, Getting the Garden Right, and it kind of made sense 
to me. You know, I'd read a lot of progressive 
stuff, covenantalism, not progressive, other stuff. And so the church 
is sort of like a ship that's turning. And so we're not able 
to just, you know, drop the 1689 hammer. But the elders are all 
on board. The new guys that are coming 
on, we're working through that. And by God's grace, we're going 
to slowly try to introduce those things, you know, things like 
regulative principle. I was a little bit awkward. When you're talking 
about accordions, I'm like, does that fit in the regulative? The hand-waving 
makes a Baptist awkward, so I was like, you know, but do pray for 
us. I don't think there's opposition 
to it, but it could be new to a lot of people, you know, sort 
of people coming in because they love the Calvinism. They think 
Reformed equals Calvinistic, but now we're sort of referring 
more to Covenantal. We're starting to refer to confessions 
and stuff, and some people are a little uncomfortable, but we 
want to show that these things are healthy, as Dr. Ren has said, 
safeguards. And we want to show them that 
these are good. And we're not new and novel, but we have a 
rich, historical, biblical tradition that we're trying to tie into. 
So just pray. You know, I wish I could say this is exactly where 
we are, but this is our aspirations, our hope. I think we're on the 
right trajectory. And so lastly, I just want to give thanks to 
the hospitality last year and then this year. out of this world. And so, just real grateful. This has been a real blessing 
to my soul, even just getting to talk to the various men. So, 
thank you. You looked at me when you mentioned 
hospitality, but it is important in our church to really step 
up in all those ways, and they are to be very much appreciated 
and very thankful for that service. The next is Peter from Moose 
Mountain. I heard Ryan pronounce your last 
name, but I'll let him do it. Yeah, so my name is Peter 
Van Worthuizen. So first of all, just a huge 
thank you for everyone who organized and hosted this conference. What 
a blessing it's been, and just such a joy to be here with you 
all. But yeah, so I'm a pastor for Moose Mountain Reformed Baptist 
Church. A huge thanks, of course, to Pastor Ryan. I was part of 
his church for, I forget how many years, about eight years, 
where I was discipled by Pastor Ryan. We always had a few, we 
weren't quite on the same page always, but I was kinda dirty 
and I snuck him Richard Purcell's book just before I moved to Saskatchewan 
to start the church there. And then I was very happy to 
hear that he actually read it. It started, yeah, Richard Barcella 
started the trend in Lethbridge here, which is just amazing. And of course, Pastor Kevin Armstrong, 
they planted us in Kisbe Arcoa. We're a very small region. It's the Moose Mountain region, 
which is why we call our church Moose Mountain Reformed Baptist 
Church. Of course, our mountains are nothing like your mountains 
here. But because Saskatchewan is mostly flat, even when there's 
a few hills in the ground, they're called mountains. But yeah, our 
church has, yeah, God has really been blessing us. Just this winter, 
our church actually started supporting me full-time. When we started 
out, both myself and my fellow elder, Kevin St. John, we were 
both working full-time while we started this church plant, 
and now this winter, we've been able to support me full-time, 
which has been a huge blessing for our church and for myself, 
of course, as well. It's allowed us to do some more 
outreach opportunities, too. Actually, Dr. Sam's book, The 
Mystery of Christ, I organized a study from it where we took 
people just from the Bible through the covenants, from Genesis to 
the New Covenant, of course, to the end. And it was a huge 
blessing in our church. And we recently had some people 
coming from a town about an hour further from us called Wabota. 
And we had some people coming from there, the church there 
is falling apart like so many are, especially in our region. 
Most of them have completely gone the way of the world, they're 
gone woke, you know, they don't even have pastors anymore or 
anybody, but there just seems to be a solid remnant in those 
churches. So he organized a study, I went 
there, so this whole winter we've gone through the mystery of Christ, 
we've traced the mystery of Christ, going from Genesis right to the 
New. And we've had like 12 to 15 people come out, and they 
stuck with it the whole time, actually to the point where they're 
asking for readings for the next study. We did it on Monday nights 
and they wanted texts to read so they could prepare for the 
next study. So that was a huge blessing. So we're seeing even, 
we might start like a preaching station where we start an evening 
service over there. That's all up in the air. We've 
actually just recently had a couple come from another place about 
an hour away called Kipling, exactly the same story. It was 
just an amazing thing where he actually found us, because he 
was looking for a Reformed Baptist church of all things. He just 
got saved two years ago and found some things online, which is 
so cool. There's just so much more of 
an online presence now for Reformed Baptists. And he was looking 
up a 1689 church, and he was in utter shock to find one only 
an hour away from him. So they started coming. But the 
same thing, he wants to see a new work. done there too, so we've 
been looking at that. But yeah, God has been really 
blessing us. We've had some, we're having 
some baptism at the end of May here. We're brand new Christians, 
and my fellow elder Kevin, he got the opportunity to share 
the gospel with a couple just three weeks ago now, who were 
actually drug dealers of all things in our town. They actually 
came to church a couple weeks ago, and they're wanting to change 
their lives, and it seems like God might be at work in them, 
so they said they're coming back, so hopefully they're there again 
this morning. So there's been lots of exciting 
little things happening in our region, and we appreciate all 
your prayers. We're definitely more and more 
interested in joining an association as well. We've been talking about 
that as a church, so we're, yeah, just excited to see all that's 
going on here, We're thankful for all God's blessings for us 
as well. Our church is trying to help a group of people in 
Brighton, northern Ontario. Many of the people in our church 
know that our oldest son moved there several years ago. We refer 
to him as the traitor. So he met a fellow named Dan 
Morley right about the time of COVID at a church that he'd been 
at. And so for the last while, Dan 
and Josh had been meeting with some other people that had come 
along. And as I said, we're trying to give them some support, some 
aid, and some assistance. So I've asked Dan to come up 
and share. Good morning. So, yeah, my family 
and I have come from Dryden, Ontario, and we came on a Boeing 
747. And I'm quite relieved to announce 
that all the parts remained as a whole during our flight, and 
so we got here safely. But I'll give you the Boeing 
747 high-level overview update of who we are and where we're 
at. So where we are is if you jump 
on the Trans-Canada Highway and drive across Canada, when you 
get into Ontario, about two hours past the Manitoba border, you'll 
know you're in Dryden because your senses will tell you we're 
a mill town with a pulp or a fiber mill. And it's about, I think 
about 8,000 as a population. And our nearest centers would 
be Thunder Bay, four hours to the east, and Winnipeg, four 
hours to the west. These aren't Wikipedia official 
stats, but approximate thereabouts. And the whole area, but Dryden 
as well as the whole area, is predominantly influenced by a 
Mennonite background or Anabaptist, so very Arminian and an aversion 
towards, well, really Calvinistic soteriology. There wouldn't be a Reformed 
presence. So it's not like there's been 
a lot who love the doctrines of the sovereignty of God or 
election, that we're just waiting for the church to come together. 
We were able to lasso enough people who were willing to tolerate 
Calvinistic soteriology in preaching and teaching. We're small in 
numbers, but we have quite a few things which are in place that 
are very encouraging to have in place. So for example, Josh Butler and I are very like 
minded. And of course, we're in the same 
direction of where we would like to see things go. So that in 
itself is is very encouraging. We We have a small gathering. We're not constituted yet, but 
we have formally agreed upon the Second Lenten Baptist Confession 
as our standard of doctrine and practice. We have formal affiliation 
with Free Grace as our sending or supporting church. And we 
have a name, Trinity Reform Baptist Church in Dryden, Ontario. And 
we have now a website and a Facebook presence to hopefully get more 
attention and people know that we are here. And if Reform people 
do move to Dryden, which despite the smell, I do recommend it 
if anybody's looking to move and join a church plant. So we're trying to get more known. 
Our location, which worked quite well to our advantage previously, 
is actually quite out of town, which now is working to our disadvantage 
because people just don't really see that we're there. So a brief update is, to be brief 
about it, I can fill you in on more details afterwards. But 
from the Boeing 747 perspective, there's a high likelihood that 
we have a location in town that we'll be relocating to shortly, 
which will make a scene known. People can walk there. It's right 
on the main road as you come into Dryden, and likelihood of 
having a sign up and become more known. So if you haven't checked 
out our website or our Facebook page, I invite you to do so. by the grace of God, just pressing 
on and trying to remain faithful and hopefully have an influence 
of a high view of God and high view of scripture within our 
community and see God's kingdom advanced. I should mention Dan and Brian 
are students at IRBS as well. They're taking courses. And both 
of these men are their professors. shape or another. Any other Canadian 
men that are pastors that I just overlooked? Because if not, yeah. 
Jim and Bob. We'll have to come down to Jim 
and give a report. But I wanted to ask an American 
friend, John Tobler. As far as I know, he's driven 
the Ferguson from Iowa to get here. $28. $28, yes. My car may well, it's a rental 
car. So I got I got a 2025 Buick. Oh, I can't even think of the 
name, not infinity, but something like that. So it's pretty fancy. 
So yeah, greetings from the Reformed Baptist Church of Tama, Iowa. 
I'm a pastoral intern there and elder candidate as of the last 
year. And the goal is for me to move into full-time ministry 
over the course of the next three or four years. So yeah, we moved 
there in September. Been in the role since June, 
and we're really enjoying it. It's a small town, about 6,000 
to 7,000. And membership is about, I would 
say, 20,000 to 30,000. So small church, regular Sunday 
probably looks like about 40,000 to 50,000 in attendance. That's 
where we're at and You know praise Praises going on in the church. 
There would be that we're a unified body And we're growing we just 
added a family Within the last I would say two to three weeks 
and it's looking like there's another young family. That's 
wanting to join as well so before we had come we had I think four 
children in the church, and with us and this new family and potentially 
the other family, we jumped from four to about 22 kids. So that's 
an encouragement. And we're dealing with that problem 
right now of what to do with all this, what to do with our 
children's Sunday school class, all that. So those are good problems 
to have. As for prayer requests. maintain unity with all this. You know, we've got one of the 
families that's joining is coming from another church. They've 
sort of outgrown it. So obviously that's exciting, 
but you know the challenges that can come with that. Maintaining 
unity, growth in our love and use of the confession would be 
another request. Just similar along the lines 
of what we heard from Dr. Renahan in his first session 
there. That's what I want to communicate to our people. I 
start in two weeks teaching in our adult Sunday school, chapter 
one, paragraph one of the confession. And I've done two intros, and 
really my goal is to get them to love it, to use it, to begin 
to more speak the language of the confession, the language 
of the creeds. That would be my goal there as 
a young intern. So pray the Lord's blessing upon 
that. Pray His blessing upon the ministry of the Word. We've 
got an abundance of it, which is good. I'm preaching from John 
in the morning, Philippians in the evening. Pastor Paul Rendall 
is preaching from the Psalms in the evening and from Ephesians. 
in the morning, and then we have a midweek study where we also 
do teaching there, too, similar to what you guys do. Ministry in the community, we 
have a nursing home ministry once a month that we go to. And 
then we have a children's Bible club on Tuesday nights that we 
do. And those have been going on for a while. And if you remember, 
pray for fruit to come from those interaction in the community. 
We're weird, like all you guys are too in our community. So 
pray that that strangeness would be an attractive strangeness 
to those that are in the community. And that we get new converts, 
but also maybe more Christians that are coming and looking for 
some more meat. We're trying to pull people away 
from churches. That would be it. Thank you guys 
for having me. And I've been blessed not only by the wonderful 
teaching throughout my time here, but seeing what the Lord is doing 
in bringing you all together in unity, individually, and collectively 
as these bodies here in Western Canada. So, thank you. I was going to say the same. Well, I just like to say it's 
been it's been great to to be part of an association that you 
know just started but prior to that to also have the Like-mindedness 
the the community the fellowship in the gospel. It's really encouraging 
to you know to have sort of a The the formalized signing ceremony 
that we had that we had yesterday. What an encouragement encouragement 
it is to to to look back to, you know, Jim's been here since 
96, 97, I came in 2005, and there was really a dearth, at least 
what we thought, of Reformed Baptist churches at that time. 
So to be here now, where we've planted churches, and where we've 
entered into communion with other churches who have also planted 
churches, what an encouragement it is, and we praise God for 
that. You know, for those not, maybe not from our church, just 
to, you know, some things in the way of updates, you know, 
looking back to perhaps the year 2008-ish when the pews, the pews 
also had, you know, some of the pews had tumbleweeds blowing 
through them. There weren't as many people as there are now. And I'll just, I'll flip that 
around. What a joy it is to have such a great congregation that 
we have now. The pews are filled. Praise God 
for that. Our morning services, we'll probably 
see it today, we might have to pull some chairs from up in the 
fellowship hall to put on the sides because we have just a 
wonderful congregation of believers that come each and every Lord's 
Day. coming for the truth, coming 
for the preaching of the word, coming for the simplicity and 
the glory of biblical worship, and it's just very encouraging, 
Lord's day in and Lord's day out. Pastor Butler's been preaching 
through the Gospel of John in the mornings and Philippians 
in the evenings, and that's been rich with biblical theology, 
with biblical Christology, It's just been a delight to sit under 
that preaching. Pastor Butler does a Wednesday 
night Bible study, working now through the book of Deuteronomy. 
We do, each and every Lord's Day, we either do a prayer meeting 
before the morning service or a confession study. So we work 
progressively through the confession of faith. Jim and I trade off 
on that, depending on who's available and ready to go. And I think, 
I mean, we'd have to do the count, maybe Wim can look that up or 
investigate it or somebody, but we gotta be going through, is 
it our seventh time or? eighth-ish time through the confession 
of faith. And it's just an encouragement 
to see people coming, wanting to learn what we hold, just those sound words that we 
grip onto as Christians. And so it's just a delight to 
be a part of this church. We have presently two elders 
and two deacons. And we're in a season where we 
have enjoyed, by God's grace, peace, we've enjoyed unity, we've 
enjoyed just a warm fellowship in the gospel from each and every 
member and those who attend. Very recently we had a ministerial 
aspirant meeting where a number of young men looking to get into 
the ministry which is so encouraging. I mean, for a while, we had been 
praying that God would raise up men from our midst who would 
seek the ministry and be faithful in seeking that. And we have 
that now, and it's such an encouragement. What a delight it is to have 
the prayers of fellow churches. We thank you for your prayers. 
We thank you for coming to this conference to engage in a like-minded 
celebration of the truth that we hold together. It's been great 
to have both Drs. Renahan and Dulzell here with 
us. to bring to us that truth, and we're praying for growth 
in the association, growth in our churches and churches to 
be planted, and ultimately just that the gospel of the Lord Jesus 
Christ would prevail. in this country, that by God's 
grace, through the faithful proclamation of the word of God, we would 
see many come from darkness to light to name the name of Christ 
as their Lord and Savior. So yeah, for all of us, let's 
just continue in prayer, continue in faithfulness, and God will 
bless his churches. I want to mention as well, with 
reference to the association, Sheldon Andres is here. Where's 
Sheldon? Yes, just want to say thank you, 
brother. I think you and I kind of found 
each other. I think we knew each other before 
that, but through various iterations of chat groups. you and I kind 
of linked on who was really confessional and who wasn't. And initially, 
Sheldon did a lot of the legwork. And I say this in the best possible 
way. I know this word does not connote 
the good intention that I'm gonna spin it with, but politically, 
just the way that you dealt with the various men involved in all 
of that, you had a gift that I didn't have. So I just wanna 
recognize Sheldon and thankful that you're here with us, brother. 
I'm very, very thankful. Well, let's close. Well, how 
about a couple of men pray? Cam, can you pray? And then Ryan, 
can you pray? And then we'll sing a song. What's 
that? I'm looking at you, Ryan. Sorry. 
Yeah. The Ryan. So Cam and then Ryan 
Maljars, and then I'll pray and then we'll sing a hymn to close.