Pastor Bob Cui and Vida Song are the church planter at Surrey PGMC. They both went to seminary in Hong Kong.  Upon returning to Vancouver in the summer of 2009, they quickly discovered the needs of the many Mandarin speakers in Surrey.  Surrey is the biggest municipality in Metro Vancouver.  It is also a culturally diverse city. With the rapid development and relatively affordable housing, many Chinese immigrants have moved into Surrey.  Hence, Surrey is a vast mission field and PGMC is grateful to be able to partner with Church Planting BC in starting a new church here.

Please continue to pray for the followings:

1.  Pray for Bob and Vida and their family so they will have a smooth transition to this new commitment and ask the Lord to be with them during their service to the Lord.

2.  Pray for the few active members of the Church. Ask the Lord to guide them and let them establish their spiritual devotion to Christ alone. Let them serve as good examples in Christ during the meetings and services.

3.  Pray to the Lord to help us prepare people who offer their services to the Lord and ask the Lord to bless their families and works.

Over 350 guests joined us at Willingdon Church in Burnaby on Friday, September 25, 2009 to Celebrate what God is doing in British Columbia. Testimonies were shared, a terrific meal was enjoyed, and many church planters were introduced to the audience.

Pastor Norm Funk from Westside Church gave the message, and an offering for Church Planting BC was taken. We praise God that $50,000 was raised at this event!

It is finally here! Sunday, September 27th we will be celebrating the official public launch of The Rock Church in Squamish, BC.

The journey that began over two and half years ago is now about to enter into a new and very exciting phase. The Lord has been directing every step along the way and we are excited to see what He will do next.

If you’re skeptical about organized religion—good! You’ll be among friends at The Rock. If you’ve been hurt by, or lost faith in, the ‘church’ or ‘christians,’ well, you’re not alone.

If you’re searching for truth, meaning and community, then welcome to the journey.

If you’ve experimented with spirituality but know there’s something more, well, there is. We invite you to explore the life and teachings of Jesus and find, in Him—the Way, the Truth and the Life. Jesus is our mission, He’s our example, He’s our leader and He changes everything.

Hope to see you there!

Glenn Davies
Lead Pastor

Artisan’s Sunday evening worship gatherings will begin monthly in the Alice MacKay Room on the lower level of Vancouver Public Library’s Central Branch in Downtown Vancouver. Here’s the schedule. All gatherings begin at 6:30pm.

About a year and a half ago they began a second Sunday morning gathering which allowed the church to open up seats to accommodate those who were coming and joining.

Late last spring however it became apparent that as attendance continued to increase at the rate it was they would have a space problem even with two the gatherings and they would need to consider adding an evening gathering to the mix.

This past Sunday, January 11th, Westside opened the doors of their new venue just a few blocks from the 5th Avenue Cinemas at the Revue Theatre on Granville Island. What a tremendous evening of blessing it was. Lead Pastor and church planter Norm Funk had said earlier in the week that he didn’t honestly know what to expect, “I mean we could get 50 people, I just cannot say,” were his famous words.

Well, the Revue holds approximately 200 and, despite the fact that there were a few well-wishers there to support the evening, there was a standing room only crowd. It was a tremendous thing to see this venue and Granville Island inhabited by a group of very eager worshipers of Jesus Christ. Norm preached from Eccelsiastes 7:1-14 on Chasing the Wind and he held nothing back. The gathering was complete with some great worship led by Ben Gadd and team, as well as communion to close off the evening.

If you are in the downtown Vancouver area on Sunday nights and looking for an opportunity to worship the Lord in a fresh, relevant and enthusiastic way, check out Westside @ The Revue Theatre on Granville Island at 6:00 PM.

Friday, May 22, 2009

at

Ross Road Community Church

Abbotsford

(watch our website for more details)

The first annual Church Planting BC Celebration Banquet was a tremendous evening and a blessing to our guests, the BCMB Conference and all of our church planters! The evening began sharply at 6:00 pm in the foyer of North Langley Community Church, with tasty Hors d’oeuvres and the sounds of the Nelson Boschman Jazz Trio.

Our delicious buffet was served shortly after that to a crowd of over 300 guests. After dinner and during dessert, Gord Fleming, the Executive Director for Church Planting in BC, began our program by providing an outline of the vision that the Board of Church Extension (BOCE) has for church planting in BC. Gord followed that up with a trip down memory lane as he introduced the men who have preceded him and blazed the trail for church planting in BC.

He introduced Nick Dyck (1973-1987), Jake Balzer (1987-1995), James Nickkel (1995-2002) and Geoff Neufled (2002-2006). Three of these men were present and gave a short testimony of the work God has done through their time in ministry.

Next up was a time of worship led again by Nelson Boschman (planting a church in Vancouver) on piano and a number of other church planters including, Andrew Stanley on guitar, Paul Wicki on violin, Bindu Sidhu on electric guitar, Terri Boschman on vocals, Nikki Bonney on bass and Glenn Davies on drums.

Gord then introduced four current church planters that demonstrated the various stages of planting that our planters are at. Bindu Sidhu from Life Centre in Abbotsford provided an update on the church plant that they have established a few years ago. His brother Kal also provided a personal testimony. Andrew and Rebecca Stanley were up next and they introduced their church plant in the Dunbar area of Vancouver. Urban Journey is just underway and in the pre-launch stage. They were followed by newly assessed and excited to be just starting, James Bonney who shared on how God calls. Glenn Davies who, along with his family are preparing to move to Squamish and planting a new church in an area that he described as spiritually dark and difficult to reach, was last up to share with our guests.

Finally we watched our new church planting video and an offering was taken to support the work of this ministry in BC. We want to thank all of those who worked so hard and sacrificially to prepare and serve at this banquet. To our guests and those who provided financially to support the work of our church planters, we thank you so much for standing with us in this ministry.

Check our gallery of photos from the Celebration Banquet 2008!

The new site is packed with new features and includes a private section for our planters to share and support one another. In addition, we will shortly provide a separate blog for our biggest supporters, our incredible wives who purposed while San Diego to connect and share with one another as we labour together.

So, check out the site and be sure and post your comments (you will need to register) and enjoy church planting together.