Sunday Oct. 4, 2009 10:45 am
Bayview Evangelical Free Church, South Colonization Road at Colville Rd. Sound Beach, Gimli MB
Guest Pastor Mark Westman
So for a second time this year the Outtatown program led us to a church for the Sunday service. Gimli is about an hour outside of my home city of Winnipeg; we’ve been staying at a place called Camp Arnes about twenty minutes from there. Bayview is a little church, fairly out of the way, and when we trouped in about 30 strong we just about doubled the congregation.
There was a worship band playing when we walked in and despite our overwhelming numbers we were greeted warmly. The congregation was mostly middle-aged with a smattering of young adults and youth, the building small with stacking chairs set out around a pulpit, with a stage off to the side for the band. When everyone was settled there were a few announcements and then the congregation stood and joined the band in singing three songs.
The offertory was then taken. After that the floor was opened up for prayer and praise requests and that actually took quite a while; lots of people in that little church know folks experiencing some pretty hard times. The story of a twenty year old with terminal cancer messed me up. The speaker prayed at length for everyone involved before introducing his son, Mark Westman, to do the sermon.
On first impression Mark didn’t seem to be much of a speaker. He had a nasal voice and tended to read from his notes too much rather than speak. But he infused a good amount of humour into his sermon, actually a really excellent one about concepts of unity within a church community. He talked about overcoming small differences and loving and caring for everyone.
The service ended with prayer, communion and a blessing. It ended up being a really long service, not necessarily a bad thing, just saying. Just as we’d been welcomed earlier people were very friendly to our large group after the service. I found it to be a really enjoyable service in a nice little Gimli church
http://bayviewchurch.com/
Thursday, October 15, 2009
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