May 6       Creation

May 13     Sin & Salvation

May 20    Amazing Grace

June 3     Why believe the Bible?

June 10   Who was Jesus, really?

June 17   Do we need the church?

June 24   The purpose of life

July 1       God

July 8      Why do we believe in the “Trinity”?

July 15     Where is history going?  What does the future hold?

July 22     God’s final judgment

On May 27 Ruth will be speaking to us from the biblical book of Ruth on the theme “God’s plan to show His kindness in the midst of a broken world.”

If any of these questions are important to you or to those you know, please get the most out of them by being in the service, participating in the discussion (most weeks) and wrestling with the issues and with their application to our lives.

Our testimony concerning what we have experienced of the presence and power of God in our lives can also have a powerful influence. There is a unique authenticity in having a person say, “This is what I have experienced – I know that God has been good to me.”

Others may try to explain it away as a coincidence or as emotionalism or as delusion. This might be possible when dealing with one person, or with a small and isolated group, but it is very difficult to deny the experiences of millions of believers around the world who, in different cultures and circumstances have found God to be faithful. When we offer our testimony, we add to the testimonies of hundreds of millions of people around the world and strengthen the voice of those who know and love God.

In the Old Testament, the people of Israel were called upon to “tell the nations what the LORD has done!” (e.g. Isaiah 12:4) In the New Testament, Jesus called those who had been with Him “My witnesses” and told them to tell the world what they had seen and heard. In the book of Acts, Peter repeatedly describes himself and the other disciples as witnesses of the resurrection of Jesus. His story was the story of things that he had seen and heard, especially concerning Jesus’ resurrection, but also of the complete ministry of Jesus in Galilee and Judea (Acts 10:38,39). What was true in that time is true today – God calls on those who know Him to be His witnesses, to tell others of the great things He has done for us.

And in our day, there is an easy way to tell our story of God’s goodness. We can write a testimony, put it on a website, and allow people all over the world to receive the hope and encouragement that comes from hearing that there is a good God who cares about us and who will be involved in our lives in wonderful ways if we only ask Him. I would like to encourage the people from Silver Valley Community Church to tell their stories through our website. Your story will be unique because your experience of God will be unique. Your story will be a strength to others because we can all relate to the need for a friend, someone who sees our need and comes to our aid. As Jesus has done that for us, we can encourage others by telling how we have found encouragement in our relationship with Jesus.

Paul Lehmann has shared his testimony with me and you will find it inspiring, I’m sure.  To read Paul’s story, click here.

I notice that Jesus quite often spoke those words to His disciples: “Don’t be afraid!” Usually it happened when they were in situations where they had every right to be terrified, such as in the storm on the Sea of Galilee or witnessing the transfiguration of Jesus. But there are some other examples which speak to the fears of falling outside of God’s care.

But our doctrines are defended more from the letters of the key leaders of the early church than from our study of the gospels. It is in these letters that we learn what Jesus taught His disciples, the truths that He instilled in them and the collective understanding with which the early church moved forward.

John was dealing with opponents to the gospel within the church, some who claimed to be “perfected” but who didn’t demonstrate love for others, others who claimed that Jesus hadn’t come in a physical body. John affirms again and again in his letters that the true believers are those who believe that Jesus came in the flesh and who take seriously His command that we love one another. Although John calls for obedience as a sign of true conversion, he doesn’t expect perfection, recognizing both the need for confession (or agreement with God about our sin) and the presence of our advocate in heaven – Jesus Christ.

Now, let’s look at a length passage from Paul’s letter to the Galatian Christians:

Paul clearly doesn’t expect believers to gain their salvation through their faith in the sacrifice of Jesus and then maintain their salvation by becoming excellent in keeping the law. We are not to switch from the joy that faith and forgiveness bring, to the heartache and frustration that trying to be “good enough” consistently produces in our lives. Rather, we are to maintain our faith by valuing and nurturing our life in the Spirit. It is this dynamic relationship with the Holy Spirit that keeps us moving in the direction of conformity to the image of Christ. If we turn our focus away from things like prayer and worship and faith, towards things like frustration with ourselves or embracing a shame-based relationship with our Saviour, the progress towards being conformed to be like Jesus is derailed.

The writer to the Hebrews also encourages us to stand firm in God’s grace:

Which of us has no need of the grace of the Lord to help us in our time of need? We recognize, as God does, that we are weak and subject to temptation, but we also confess our faith in Christ and our strong desire to live in a way that brings honour to Him. Rather than go into ourselves and wrestle with guilt and shame at our failures, we should confess them quickly and then heed the advice of this verse: “Let us cling to Him and never stop trusting Him.”

Peter also affirms that it is our faith that brings salvation:

Trusting in Jesus through the trials of life includes the willingness to trust Him when we are assaulted with doubts about our salvation or fears about our future. If we can learn to trust His grace, His mercy, in the midst of the enemy’s attack on our mind or on our heart, we will be rewarded eternally.

In the book of Romans Paul explains the purpose of the law (to keep people from having excuses and to bring the entire world into judgment – 3:19), the principle of being justified with God by faith rather than works, and how God’s grace breaks both the power of the sin and bondage to the law. In chapter 8, Paul then describes the confidence of people who have come to faith and who have received the gift of God’s Holy Spirit:

In behind all of these texts is the knowledge that we can choose to reject God’s grace and live for ourselves. But it will not be an accident, or a poor decision on a bad day, or a struggle with an addiction or a failure to do all we feel we should be doing for others. God’s love is powerful and His desire to see every person come to faith and to know His love is the greatest hope for our world. He’s not seeking high and low to save the lost and then kicking us out the back door when He finds out we’re not worthy of His love. No, it’s God Himself who is glorious and who is worthy of the praise of the nations. “Let us cling to Him and never stop trusting Him.”

Dave King is the founding Pastor of Silver Valley Community Church. Dave studied at Regent College in Vancouver and completed a Master of Divinity degree in 1989. He has pastored in the Lower Mainland for nearly 30 years and started Silver Valley Community Church with a group of friends in 2003. Read more

They read convicting verses of Scripture and believe that they have somehow separated themselves from God’s mercy and grace and that they no longer have standing as sons and daughters of God. This is a very painful place to be and causes an intense fear and a deep grief at what they feel they might have lost. The answers to such doubts have nothing to do with trying harder or even feeling better. The answers have to come from taking a stand of faith on the character and the promises of God revealed in Scripture.

There are two questions we must answer:

This is the character of God. He is a God of great mercy and deep love. He is always on the lookout for the lost to return to Him and He has great understanding of us in our weakness. He knows us . . . and still He loves us. Way back in the days of Noah, we’re told that God, who created everything good, looked on the earth and saw what had happened to the human race, that every inclination of people’s hearts was only evil all the time, and it broke his heart. God’s broken heart is behind the great effort of redemption and reclamation that has been going on for thousands of years, starting with the call of Abram and continuing today in the mission of His church to the world. His broken heart also tells us that He is willing to show mercy to us, today, that His desire is for all who are humble to admit our failings and to receive His forgiveness.

Dave King is the founding Pastor of Silver Valley Community Church. Dave studied at Regent College in Vancouver and completed a Master of Divinity degree in 1989. He has pastored in the Lower Mainland for nearly 30 years and started Silver Valley Community Church with a group of friends in 2003. Read more

That was a trendy slogan a few years back, but it has very little in common with the true feelings of North Americans today. Fear is everywhere in our world, and includes fear of economic collapse, fear of terrorism, fear of insignificance or powerlessness and the many fears promoted daily on television news.

I think it’s important for us to discern the movements of our culture, because they often show us what spiritual forces are “having their way” in our times. One of the easiest ways to discern which spiritual forces are advancing is to ask some basic questions about what’s going on in the world around us. One question I think is especially important for our times is this: “Is our culture becoming more or less afraid?”

Economic hardships are a primary source of fear as people wonder how they are going to adjust to life without an income or without the same level of income as they once enjoyed. In the U.S., approximately 14 million more people have had to turn to food stamps just in the three years Barack Obama has been president. The national debt is about 50% higher and new home sales have just set a record low. In Canada, the employment situation is better, but certain industries have been hit hard (such as lumber, which sells mainly into the American market) and others will be impacted if there is a further downturn to the south. How will we cope with the challenges of living in this expensive part of the world if our income is reduced while costs such as food and gasoline continue to rise?

Another cause of fear that especially effects our southern neighbours is any threat (or perceived threat) to national security. Examine the reaction to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. I’ve read that there have been at least 10-15 new counter-terrorist organizations that have begun in the United States every year for the past 10 years! And, of course, each year each one of these organizations becomes larger, requiring more funding and being given more powers. Expensive and extensive wars have been fought in Afghanistan and Iraq, but do people feel less afraid of terrorism because of them? Airport security has been expanded and ever more invasive searches are carried out by ever-increasing numbers of federal agents, but does it make flying any safer? These searches have been expanded to train stations, to highways and to social networks on the internet, but have they unearthed genuine threats to people’s well-being in North America? The wars in the Middle East are not making friends for America among the Arab nations and it is at least possible that acts that are seen as repressive and heavy-handed against America’s own citizens will eventually spark an angry response. How will that affect us?

Then there are the common fears we all face related to aging. How will we cope with reduced mobility or with chronic pain or with the side effects of prescription drugs? How will we prepare ourselves and our families for the reduced role we will play in their lives? There are many uncertainties in life and the future remains veiled – no matter what our expectations are, we’re sure to be surprised along the way. So what do we do with fear when it stalks us? How do we know what an appropriate response is, both in our own lives and to the fear in society at large?

Two seeming contradictions come to mind. One is that fear is a God-given response to danger that stirs us to action. Fear can motivate us to flee to safety, to act courageously or to rethink a decision and choose more wisely. How many times have you witnessed a toddler chasing an animal or a vehicle and wished that he or she had more fear?

The other kind of fear tends to paralyze us, to keep us from moving forward. That doesn’t strike me as a healthy or godly kind of fear. Fear that keeps us anxious, that keeps us brooding over several possibilities, that may lead us into depression or passivity is not helpful. Many of the fears that loom over us are of this nature: we are sure something bad is going to happen, but we don’t know what, or when, or how it will affect us. This is the fear that is growing in the world around us, that is fostered by so much of the television news industry and that is so unhelpful.

The most oft-repeated command in Scripture is, “Fear not!”

The first response for the believer then is to ask ourselves if we are being overcome by the fear that is in the world. To what degree are we “hooked” into the fears that are being stirred by the evil one and which he is playing to his advantage? The second response is to revisit the Scriptures, remembering what they teach us about God’s care for us, and learning from them the importance of walking by faith rather than by fear. Faith offers us hope in all circumstances – both in giving us courage in times of distress and confidence in facing the uncertainties that lie ahead. It seems that these days provide an amazing backdrop for learning to walk the walk of faith.

Dave King is the founding Pastor of Silver Valley Community Church. Dave studied at Regent College in Vancouver and completed a Master of Divinity degree in 1989. He has pastored in the Lower Mainland for nearly 30 years and started Silver Valley Community Church with a group of friends in 2003. Read more

My purpose in writing is to raise issues I think are important to an audience that is mostly made up of people I know. If I don’t know you and you come across this blog, we can at least interact through “comments” and we can gain the level of awareness of each other that words allow.

So, what’s important? Is it important to a Canadian what laws and limits the U.S. Government imposes on its citizens?  Is it important what happens to unborn babies?  Is it important how you relate with your children and what options you choose for their education?  Is it important what happens to European Union nations and the banks who invest in their sovereign debt?  Is it important what’s happening to the church in Egypt or Ethiopia or Iraq during times of domestic turmoil in those nations?  You could make a very, very long list of things that are important, things that affect the way we live or will live in the future.

How do we know that what we have to say on any given subject is important?  That’s a more difficult question to answer because it’s so subjective.  One person might find your comments helpful and enlightening, while another rants that you’re an idiot for holding your views.  I find this disparity often as I’m surfing the internet, looking for helpful information on any given topic.  There are many ranters and, fortunately, there are also some very insightful and interesting perspectives offered by people who have done some homework on the issue being discussed.

If you have questions or ideas of topics you’d like me to write about, then feel free to register with this site and offer your ideas — or your response to the blog content.  Hoping this becomes a lively forum for people from Silver Valley Community Church (and others) to interact with, I’ll write again soon.

Cheers, Dave

Dave King is the Pastor of Silver Valley Community Church. Dave studied at Regent College in Vancouver and completed a Master of Divinity degree in 1989 while working as an Assoc. Pastor at New Life Community Church in Burnaby. Read more