Hello from our New Lead Pastor

Hello Cochrane Alliance Church Family,

Laurie, Ryan, Ava, Connor and myself are now residents of Cochrane! We arrived on January 18 and feel incredibly blessed to be settling into a new house and to be getting into the routines and rhythms of normal life. However, we have been missing the fellowship of church family life and we are excited to be joining you all this Sunday, February 6. 

God has been so good to us in this season of transition. We have seen God’s provision and direction so clearly in this move that we frequently find ourselves talking about how lovingly our Heavenly Father has cared and provided for us. We thank you all for your prayers during this time and for the encouragement and offers of help. We already feel warmly welcomed by the church family here and can’t wait to begin seeing more of you in person.

Ryan (8) and Ava (5) have both begun school already and seem to be making friends and figuring things out. They are looking forward to meeting some more kids in the church, though. Our youngest, Connor (3 and a half) , was used to going to a dayhome back in Drumheller where he knew everybody and he has been frequently saying he needs to make some friends here and so our whole family is eager to make connections within the church. 

Laurie has been teaching High School and Junior High Math online for Bearspaw Christian School which is a job she got before we ever thought moving to Cochrane was a real possibility. It’s a part time position, meaning Laurie has time to spend with the kids while I start my new role. It is one more area where we can so clearly see God’s provision and foreknowledge. We remain in awe of God’s timing and planning. 

I'm excited to be getting involved in the life and ministry of the CAC family. Yet I acknowledge that it is a very strange season to be stepping into a leadership role as two years of Covid has shaken all of us and, I imagine, many of us are feeling fatigued and battered. Perhaps even a bit disheartened and discouraged. 

I often find myself feeling these ways when my eyes drift from Jesus to the chaos of the world around me. I regain my spiritual balance when I remember the God of all creation is my Father, that I am adopted into the family of God through Jesus. If I belong to mighty God and if His Holy Spirit dwells within me, then I can rely on His mighty power to sustain me. These thoughts have encouraged me in this season of transition and Covid restrictions. I invite you to be encouraged with Isaiah 40:28-31 - a passage that came to my mind on my first day of work:

Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the whole earth. He never becomes faint or weary; there is no limit to his understanding. He gives strength to the faint and strengthens the powerless. Youths may become faint and weary, and young men stumble and fall, but those who trust in the Lord will renew their strength; they will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not become weary, they will walk and not faint.

I pray as we begin to enter the last months of Winter and turn the corner to Spring that our strength and our faith would be renewed. I pray that God-given dreams and gifts that may have been dormant in us would now bloom into life. My prayer for you is the prayer that the Apostle Paul prayed over the believers at the church in Ephesus: 

I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:14-21)

I look forward to connecting with our new church family in the coming weeks. Please feel free to contact me.