I recently received an email from the man I consider 'my pastor'. Phil, was not my first pastor, but shortly after I came to know the Lord, Pastor Stairs was called as the Senior Pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Chatham, Ontario. I grew under his teaching ministry and as we served in the church and I began to sense a calling toward church ministry, Pastor Stairs encouraged me to pursue this calling and to receive theological training. After going to school and graduating from Central Baptist Bible College in 1988, we began ministry at Centennial Baptist Church in Markham, never returning to our home town. But over the years, we have kept in touch with Pastor Stairs; in his recent email he was updating us on his battle with cancer.
Nice to hear from you. Thanks for your concern and prayers. I am receiving treatment for a blood cancer called Multiple Myeloma. Each Friday I have a chemo shot and it seems to be working as the cancer markers have dropped considerably. Multiple Myeloma is treatable but not curable. Life expectancy is two to five years, but some last ten years. At 76, that is more than I want.
All in all, I am doing okay. I believe that our lives are in God's hands. I have told medical people who have asked me about anxiety that I actually believe what I have been preaching for 50 plus years, so I am fine.
I believe what I've been preaching; all who have the privilege of standing in the pulpit as various points in our journey are challenged, 'do I really believe what I've been preaching, do I practice what I preach'?
For those of us who have been serving our Lord / serving His church for many years, the call to stay faithful, to continue to serve and give and bless others sometimes become a bit of grind. As we have been focusing on the words of Hebrews 12:1-2, I have had to challenge myself to practice what you preach.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let...let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.
Pastor Stairs reminded me, ministry is not for the fainthearted, but God is faithful.
Indeed, our God is faithful and we are called simply to walk in faith, to trust and obey. As I often say, you can make this journey of faith more complicated than that but it really does boil down to trusting the one who is faithful; it boils down to a choice to fix our eyes on Jesus or to risk losing sight of Him as the storm rages around us.
We all receive encouragement from the great cloud of witnesses that surround us. Pastor Stairs has been for me a source of encouragement and for that I am grateful. May we, encourage and support and bless one another as we share this season of the journey together at Valley!
Nice to hear from you. Thanks for your concern and prayers. I am receiving treatment for a blood cancer called Multiple Myeloma. Each Friday I have a chemo shot and it seems to be working as the cancer markers have dropped considerably. Multiple Myeloma is treatable but not curable. Life expectancy is two to five years, but some last ten years. At 76, that is more than I want.
All in all, I am doing okay. I believe that our lives are in God's hands. I have told medical people who have asked me about anxiety that I actually believe what I have been preaching for 50 plus years, so I am fine.
I believe what I've been preaching; all who have the privilege of standing in the pulpit as various points in our journey are challenged, 'do I really believe what I've been preaching, do I practice what I preach'?
For those of us who have been serving our Lord / serving His church for many years, the call to stay faithful, to continue to serve and give and bless others sometimes become a bit of grind. As we have been focusing on the words of Hebrews 12:1-2, I have had to challenge myself to practice what you preach.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let...let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.
Pastor Stairs reminded me, ministry is not for the fainthearted, but God is faithful.
Indeed, our God is faithful and we are called simply to walk in faith, to trust and obey. As I often say, you can make this journey of faith more complicated than that but it really does boil down to trusting the one who is faithful; it boils down to a choice to fix our eyes on Jesus or to risk losing sight of Him as the storm rages around us.
We all receive encouragement from the great cloud of witnesses that surround us. Pastor Stairs has been for me a source of encouragement and for that I am grateful. May we, encourage and support and bless one another as we share this season of the journey together at Valley!
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