God is faithful! We took time to celebrate God’s faithfulness through his Church in the fall at our 50/20 Celebration. We looked back at what God had done through Greenfield Baptist Church and Renaissance Community Church and also looked forward to where God will lead us in the years ahead.

At our June 2018 congregational meeting we approved our revised mission statement, “Christ followers joining God on mission and growing in our love for God, neighbours, and one another.” I feel that we are moving into a period of fruitfulness as we seek to live out the implications of that mission as individuals and as a congregation.

Connected to this, the Leadership Team spent much of this last ministry year on revising and updating our church covenant so that it reflects our mission statement and is an accurate reflection of who we are — and who we want to be — as a church. We hope to affirm the new covenant at our Spring Congregational meeting on May 26. The leadership team has also been spending time learning about discernment: how we make decisions in a way that invites God into the process. This has included discussing Ruth Barton’s Pursuing God’s Will Together: A Discernment Practice for Leadership Groups as well as a retreat with Kent Carlson, the VP of Leadership Formation for the North American Baptists. The desire to explore discernment practices arose from our work on our mission statement and church covenant.

Our primary teaching this last ministry year was the book of Hebrews. Its emphasis on Jesus as our high priest is a good reminder that we as God’s people “may approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Heb 4:16). Accordingly, we have introduced a time after our services where people may come up for prayer. Our celebration of God’s great faithfulness at Easter, as well as our Good Friday Tenebrae service, were fitting conclusions to our Lent sermon series on the book of Lamentations. We need to continue to create space for people to be honest with God, whether in praise or lament. As we head into summer, we will be exploring the relationship between work and faith in the sermon series, “The Other Six Days,” while for the summer we are going to look at the prayers found in the Apostle Paul’s letters. As per my job description, I did about three quarters of the preaching over the year. The rest of the preaching team was made up of pastoral staff and a number of guest preachers (notably Lori Schmidt).

I helped coordinate a number of “Bros, Brews, and Bibles” events in the fall and winter where we got together and talked about marijuana, mental health, among other things. He also had a good work day at the Neighbour Centre. Some of our men went to the ABA Men’s retreat, while a good number will be participating in our own retreat (organized by David Graham and Tim Hait) at Frontier Lodge at the beginning of June. In regards to group ministry, we had a number of new Life Groups start in the last year. I am thankful for the many individuals who are faithfully serving and using their gifts so that all might come “to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ” (Eph 4:13). Pastor Stephanie and I are both excited for new group initiatives for the upcoming ministry year.

I have the privileged to supervise an amazing staff at Greenfield. As I have said before, our team has a great sense of unity and works very well together. Pastors Les & Cheryl and Pastor Chris have continued to do great jobs. While Pastor Stephanie was on maternity leave for much of this last year, Rodney Hennessey joined us as interim Pastor of Worship Arts and Discipleship. He served us well over his eight months with us in that role. We have enjoyed great stability on our pastoral staff over the last six years. It was with sadness that I accepted Pastor Michelle’s resignation in April 2019 so that she can spend more time with her family. She has done an amazing job with the Children’s Ministry and the pastoral team will certainly miss her practical wisdom and enthusiastic involvement. I am happy, however, that she and her family will continue to be part of our community. Joella Schmidt, our Children’s assistant, will cover for Sunday school over the summer, while Elisha Brooks, our Summer Ministry Worker (partially funded by a provincial STEP grant), will organize our summer kid’s camp. Kristen Gitzel continues to serve faithfully coordinating our hospitality, while Nona Hait and Teresa Weaver ensure the administrative side of church life runs smoothly.

Finally, one of the joys of my position is hearing people’s God stories and walking alongside them as we follow Christ together. This includes journeying with people in times of illness and grief, relationship problems and crisis, as well as times of joy and celebration. Over the last year I have been involved in some funerals, pre-marital counselling, among other things. I have also met with a number of people for pastoral care, leadership development, mentoring, as well as intentional discipleship and accountability.

Let us continue to spur one another on towards greater love for God, love for one another, and love for our neighbours as we follow Christ together at Greenfield.

— Tyler Williams

[You can read the full 2019 Annual Report in the Member’s Section of this website]