Enrich

Discerning Ethics: Diverse Christian Responses to Divisive Moral Issues Foreword by Mark Labberton Edited by Hak Joon Lee and Tim Dearborn Discussions on social media have ceased being fun! Jumping in and sharing your perspective on an issue could be the fastest way to reduce the number of “friends” on your list. Voices shouting to be heard, unfriending and blocking as a tool, and the polarization that follows have become a part of our daily experience as we scroll through our favo...

Pentecostalism Eat Before You Speak

Rewind to the fall of 1993. Fresh out of high school, I’m taking a class at Eastern Pentecostal Bible College entitled, “Personal Life and Evangelism.” The syllabus required us to share our faith with someone in the city. I still remember the awkwardness and fear of that moment. My hands were clammy while my mind raced, trying to figure out the easiest way to check this assignment off my to-do list while keeping my conscience intact. Talking to strangers isn’t exactly my ...

Leadership Breaking Out of Insular Spirituality

Insular spirituality is one of the greatest threats to flourishing churches. Although many PAOC churches are prioritizing outreach, evangelism and social justice, many more are bound by insular spirituality. Churches bound by insular spirituality are hesitant to step out into their communities with the redemptive message of the gospel. Satisfied with maintaining the status quo, these churches serve their congregations but fail to share Jesus with their neighbours and meet the needs of their comm...

Pentecostalism Ordinary vs. Extraordinary

In 2015, I read a book by Michael Horton called Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World. I appreciated his overall message—while some Christians emphasize the need to live an extraordinary or radical life, he emphasized living an ordinary Christian life and the value of the ordinary aspects of ministry. He wrote, “It’s precisely the ordinary ministry, week-in and week-out, that provides sustained growth and encourages the roots to grow deep.” 1 This is a ...

Discipleship On Mission

Growing up in the church in North America (both Canada and the U.S.), my experience and understanding of what evangelism meant was shaped by the predominant idea that evangelism is something that Christians do with the goal of leading someone to conversion to Christianity. Evangelism (I was taught) was when you told people about the gospel in either an evangelistic crusade or during one-on-one witnessing. It was usually summarized as “Jesus died on the cross to forgive you of your sins so ...

Discipleship Mourning and Christmas

I have so many Christmas memories. Does anyone remember Evie singing “Come On, Ring Those Bells”? It was a contemporary Christian music Christmas hit. I also remember the poorly-shaped fir trees my dad would rescue from a tree lot seemingly every year, and that fake snow you could spray on your Christmas tree. Do you remember Bubble Lights? Christmas in the 1980s was marked by these kinds of activities for me. April 25, 2022. Sad news invades our happy family life; my 82-year-old mom...

Leadership Here to Serve

“How could they do that to you?” I asked after hearing a ministry colleague share about receiving his marching orders to move to another province. My friend was a Salvation Army officer the Lord was using to revitalize a church in the city where I ministered. The news of him being sent to another unknown church in a distant province bothered me. It seemed so arbitrary and unfair. He was serving well, and his ministry was bearing good fruit here. I was convinced the leadership brass w...

Canada Pushing Back Against MAID

The statistics are arresting. Between 2020 and 2021, there was a 32.4 per cent increase in the number of hastened deaths in Canada, a total of 10,064 in 2021.1 Of those opting for assisted suicide, 86.3 per cent said the reason for requesting death was the loss of ability to engage in meaningful activities.2 And access to hastened death is soon to expand even more. The law on Medical Assistance in Dying, or MAID (a term that is sanitized and positive – who would refuse maid service?), was ...

Leadership Divine Summons

Introduction Women who are called to ministry often talk to me about the challenges they face as female leaders. Even in churches that affirm women in leadership, they frequently encounter cultural barriers related to their roles. As Kadi Cole has recently noted, “the research reveals the problem is less about theology and more about our leadership practices and church cultures.”1 While Cole highlights some of the practical difficulties of female church leaders, in this article I wi...

Leadership An International Leadership Journey

INTERVIEW WITH DENNIS WHITE Rev. Dennis White served in full-time church ministry over a span of 64 years. While his early religious life would begin in a Pilgrim Holiness church at the age of six, Dennis would come to know Jesus as his Lord and Saviour at age 15 and would have a life-changing encounter with Jesus at age 18—an encounter that would ultimately lead to his decision to serve as a pastor and spiritual leader in full-time ministry. Dennis credits the late Rev. Robert Eames as be...

Leadership Valuing the Past, Anticipating the Future

Craig Burton, general secretary treasurer of PAOC, was elected at General Conference 2022 in Winnipeg, Man., after serving for 17 years as the Eastern Ontario and Nunavut district superintendent. Get to know him, his family, and his perspective on his ministry transition in a recent interview with Ron Davis, who served as interim general secretary treasurer. Ron Davis (RD): Craig, I think a lot of people know you as district superintendent or even as pastor in your previous ministry opportunit...

Leadership Women in Leadership

In 2018, the PAOC approved a new Statement of Affirmation on the Equality of Women and Men in Leadership.1This statement intrigued me, not only because of my own journey of navigating leadership as a woman in ministry, but also because I was curious as to how there is such a large discrepancy between the policy of gender equality in leadership within the PAOC and what we are seeing in practice. Many churches and organizations have a stated goal of developing and releasing more leaders. Yet, desp...

Leadership The Blessing in the Wrestling

Every email I’ve sent or received in the past two years started the same way, and I’m guessing yours have been the same: “I hope this email finds you well.” Do you know why we all write this? It’s because, after what we’ve all endured over the past few years, we no longer assume people are doing well. I like to think I’m characterized by words like “dependable,” “consistent,” “healthy,” “balanced” and &ldq...

Doctrine The Church

I am so encouraged by this refreshed statement on the church—especially how the missional nature of the church in God’s redemptive plan has been expanded and enriched. To refresh your memory, let’s review the refreshed statement on the church in its entirety: 5.6 THE CHURCH Jesus Christ is the head of the church. All who are united with Christ are joined by the Spirit to his body. Each local church is an expression of the universal church whose role is to participate in the mis...

Doctrine The Bible

“All Scripture …” “… the sixty-six books of the Bible, thirty-nine written before Christ came and twenty-seven after, are together the record, interpretation, expression, and embodiment of his self-disclosure. God and godliness are the Bible’s uniting themes.” 1 —J. I. Packer One of the dynamics of being in the field of biblical higher education is developing the ability to summarize and synthesize the subject matter that is being taught into man...

Pentecostalism Event Planning

To revive the significance among us of baptism in the Holy Spirit is a primary objective of the project to refresh our Statement of Essential Truths (SOET). By drawing on emphases from the proposed SOET, this article will consider how we might prepare for a Spirit baptism service, doing so with water baptism in mind. Both events require planning, but of different types: water temperature, proper clothing, exit strategy, and other logistical details rise to the top of the list for a water baptis...

Leadership Keys to Resilience

An Interview with Ken Gaetz We recently said goodbye to 2020 and hello to 2021. But for the foreseeable future, it appears that we will be working in a world where we have to live with uncertainty, fulfil extra roles or take on new tasks, and cope with a measure of continued isolation. And that’s good news for those buying stock in resilience. Resilience is the ability to withstand, adapt and grow in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy and stress. It’s the ability to transcend d...

Faith God’s Quest

Our world is packed full of religion. The Guardian recently reported that “[f]aith is on the rise and 84% of the global population identifies with a religious group.”1 This might surprise Canadians because our society feels increasingly secular—and the evidence bears this out. For the past 30 to 40 years, adults in Canada have become increasingly less religious, and the trend shows no sign of slowing despite the influence of Pentecostalism.2 However, from a global perspective, ...

Leadership Living and Leading in Mounting Chaos

A little over a year ago, I entered a year-long existential crisis. It began before COVID-19 and the George Floyd protests, but working through it has given me a perspective and tools for living and leading today. My crisis had been building for some time. Leading up to it, it seemed every book, blog, podcast, and newsfeed that came my way relayed the message that the world is out of control and is increasingly hostile to my brand of Christianity. Fear, anger and hate dominated the discourse, o...

Leadership Acts and COVID-19

My journey with Jesus started at the age of 15 in a little Pentecostal church in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, about 15 miles away from northern Rwanda. Two years later, I enrolled in a four-year diploma program in a Pentecostal Bible college run by Swedish missionaries. In 1985, I graduated and began the ministry with great excitement, not knowing what was awaiting me ahead. I was only 21 years old. Later, I understood the real challenges of serving God—in the DR Congo first, and ...