Sovereign Grace Fellowship

The 2008 Sovereign Grace Pastors’ Fellowship Conference is taking place May 12-14, 2008.  The topic of the plenary sessions is The Person & Work of the Holy Spirit, Pastor Earl Blackburn speaking.  View the complete schedule here. Directions to the conference location are available here.

To register, please contact Brad Powers.

This year the SGF Ladies’ retreat will be May 16-17, again at the YMCA Cedar Glen in Nobleton ON.  Our guest speaker will be Susan Rumford. Susan has a passion for helping women to grow in their Christian walk.  During her life experiences as a wife, mother, widow, single parent and now a pastor’s wife, Susan has tried and proven the Biblical principles that she teaches.  Susan’s topic will be Godliness with Contentment taken from 1 Timothy 6:6.

Susan has been involved in many aspects of women’s ministry:

• Conference Speaker
• Bible Teacher
• Individual mentoring and counselling for Women
• Premarital and Marriage Counselling
• Director of Women’s Ministry at Oakridge Bible Chapel
• Office and Ministry Support Facilitator at Oakridge Bible Chapel
  

Susan works alongside her husband in ministry and counselling through Gordon Rumford Ministries, a federally registered charitable organization which ministers to hurting people.

Registration brochure is forthcoming, but ladies, please set that weekend aside to attend the Retreat.  The event poster may be viewed here, and a mail in flyer here..  Email Heidi Peterson or contact her at 905-936-9800 for more details.

Online registration now available.

The 2008 College and Careers Winter Retreat is taking place at Grace Bible Church ( click for location ) on February 2, 2008.  Jonathan Wellum, CEO of AIC Ltd, and David Robinson, pastor of Grace Bible Church, will be giving four sessions on Beyond Private Faith: Living for Christ in All Areas of Life.  Afternoon activities are planned as well. 

Please register by January 28th by calling Janice at 519-837-0532 or emailing her at janicevaneck@rogers.com.  Drinks, snacks and dinner are included in the entry fee of $10.

Poster with full details available here.

At our 2007 SGF Assembly we remembered with thankfulness the service of Roger and Pamela Fellows.  Roger has served for the past 6 and half years as the SGF Coordinator and has been instrumental in laying a solid foundation for the association.  On Friday night they were presented with a gift of appreciation and we remembered from Philippians 3 their steadfastness in serving and loving the churches.  We would again like to express our appreciation to them and our thankfulness to the Lord for their service.

We are also thankful for the nomination and the acceptance of Mark Hudson as the new SGF Coordinator.  We have included a brief biography that will allow you to learn more about Mark.  We are looking forward to how God will move among us in the future and trust that He will provide opportunities and strength so that the Word of God may spread throughout Canada.  Mark may be contacted using the "Contact" tab at the top of this page.

Biographical background for Mark Hudson

I grew up in the Kingston area on an army base with my parents and 5 sisters.  I sporadically attended an Anglican church that was determined to see me ‘confirmed’ at age 12.  I didn’t understand the significance of this process at the time and so it had no real spiritual or moral impact on my life.  I was first introduced to the Doctrines of Grace at Fundamental Baptist Church (now Bath Road Baptist) under the preaching of Pastor Sam Dempster.  I was 15 at the time, but was not truly saved until I was 22.
Merry-Lynn and I were married in the fall of 1976 and moved to Hamilton in the summer of 1977 to take up a teaching position at Hillfield Strathallan College (HSC).  We started attending Trinity Baptist Church in October of that year.  We returned to Kingston for a Thanksgiving Conference and, by God’s grace, both Merry-Lynn and I were arrested by one particular aspect of a message preached by Pastor Les Clemens:  “You can fool others into thinking you are a Christian, yourself included, but you can’t fool God!”  The following day, in the living room of Pastor Dempster, Merry-Lynn and I were convicted by the Holy Spirit, moved by Him to confess and repent of our sin before God and believe on His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, for our salvation.  Returning to Trinity we requested baptism and joined the church.  We have now been in attendance at Trinity for 30 years.  We thank God for the godly preaching, teaching and leadership we have been blessed with under the shepherding of both Pastor Payne and Pastor Muller.

In those years there have been opportunities to serve in a variety of capacities including youth leader, Sunday school teacher, Kid’s Club leader, deacon and elder.  At present, I am an elder and I teach the College and Careers Sunday school class.  Over the years the Lord has opened doors for preaching opportunities in a variety of churches, both inside and outside the SGF.  There has also been opportunity to work with the Carey Conference in the finance and registration areas.

I have taught at HSC for 30 years, holding a variety of administrative positions, including School Head for 7 years.  I now teach high school mathematics  and chair of the math department.  Merry-Lynn and I have two daughters, Leslie, married to Karl Stahl and living in Burlington, and Laurie, married to Joel Thibault, with children Hudson, Ethan and Riley and living in Grimsby.

Over the last few years we have sought the Lord’s guidance by asking Him, according to His will, to direct us to any area of service He wanted us to pursue outside our usual church parameters.  There is much good that has been accomplished through the SGF over the years and we see potential for expanded work and service in the future.  The position of Administrative Coordinator has come available and I am thankful to serve in that position.  We are very interested in this work and eagerly look forward to serving the Lord and His church in this capacity.

The latest SGF update and news from member churches is available here.

The 2007 SGF General Assembly will be hosted by Faith Baptist Church on Nov 16-17.  Pastor Fred Leuck will be speaking on Godly Goals for the Church during the plenary sessions.  In addition, Tony Costa will hold two seminars: Islam and Witnessing to Muslims.  Registration begins at 1:00 on Friday, sessions at 2:00 and supper at 6:00.  Saturday sessions take place from 9:00 - 3:30.  Full details available here.

Online registration now available.  A poster suitable for displaying in your church may be downloaded here.

The latest Sovereign Grace Fellowship Pastoral Studies ( formerly known as FRPS ) schedule is available here ( modified 2007-09-13 ).

The 29th Canadian Carey Family Conference is now history.  This was our second year at the Braeside Pentecostal Camp near Paris Ontario.  The staff at Braeside went out of their way to accommodate us and things went very smoothly.  The weather was quite good, although there was light rain on two or three occasions and a storm one night.

The ministry was excellent.  The main speaker was Jim Elliff from Christian Communicators Worldwide in Kansas City Missouri.  He also pastors a church in that city.  Our brother spoke on The Centrality of Christ in Christianity and his messages were Christ glorifying.  Several evening messages were strongly evangelistic and very heart-searching.  Our own men took seven of the twelve sessions and we were much blessed by all who spoke.  All these messages are available for download from the CCFC website.

While attendance numbers were down slightly from last year, we hope that a little more vigorous publicity will rectify that next year.
   
Next year’s speaker (God willing) will be Bill Bygroves, pastor of Bridge Chapel in Liverpool in the UK. Dates will be August 16-22, 2008.  Why not reserve the dates on your calendar and plan to attend?

The latest SGF update and news from member churches is available here.

SGF Canada was contacted several weeks ago by the Evangelical Reformed Baptist Churches of Italy who are seeking to extend their fellowship to evangelical reformed churches abroad.  We were invited to send greetings to be read at ERBCI’s 2nd General Assembly and we happily did so.

In response, we received a number of pictures and an encouraging report from their general assembly. 

Please remember our Italian brothers and sisters in your prayers, thanking the Lord for them and their zeal for Christ and His kingdom.