Jennifer McWilliams

A few weeks ago I was having coffee with one of the kids coordinators at my church (this is happening a lot lately as I am super new!). She asked me how the move from Moncton NB to Toronto has been. I did the usual spiel… it’s a lot bigger, a lot busier, there’s so many apartments and very little sprawling green land. There’s a lot more people around, but I am liking the change to a faster pace. She chuckled. A few years ago she moved to Toronto as well… from Hong Kong. Her experience? She can’t believe how much smaller/less busy it is, how big the lots of land are and how much green space there is! She is loving the slower pace. Funny, right? We both moved to the same region, yet our perspective on what it is like is exactly opposite. It got me thinking how the same thing can so easily happen to us in work, in ministry. Do you have days (or seasons) where you can’t believe how horrible things are? Maybe you feel disrespected. Or maybe you feel like you are the only Pastor in

As a Kids Pastor, one of my deep passions is the discipleship of the next generation. I grew up going to church every single Sunday, as did many of my friends. What’s wild is that now at 31 years old, many of my peers who were with me at church and Youth Group are no longer attending church. I wonder if they were ever truly following Jesus to begin with. Why? Was my church that bad at discipleship? Not at all. I learned a lot at Sunday services, Friday night Youth Group and Thursday night Youth Bible Study. My friends did too. But what we did not have in common were the other 163 hours of our weeks. You see, I was blessed to grow up in a Christian family. A real one. Church wasn’t just something I attended and then forgot about. My relationship with Jesus was talked about at dinner, on family vacations, while going for walks and mowing the lawn, while shopping for back-to-school supplies and while opening Christmas presents. Church helped me along in my faith, but it really took root

Pokemon Go has finally come to Canada! After a week and a half of it being the biggest craze to hit the USA in 2016, Canadians finally have a turn. This video shows how much of a hit it has been in NYC (from my favorite vlogger). What is it? Pokemon Go is an alternate-reality (AR) game where you walk around a cartoon-version of your GPS map looking for Pokemon (the map matches the street you are on!). When a Pokemon appears, your phone’s camera turns on, and the Pokemon shows up in your real-life surroundings. You throw a poke ball at it on the screen, (hopefully) catch it, and you win! You caught the Pokemon! The more Pokemon you catch, the higher your score/level. I am only a level 3, but once you get to level 5 you get to play at gyms (public places where people congregate to practice) and you get to pick what team you want to be on (each team has different strengths and weaknesses). There are also poke stops where people gather to buy items (and maybe trade? or find more pokem

Children’s ministry volunteers. We all need them, we never seem to have enough, and sometimes good ones we have leave. In follow up conversations I have discovered one of the reasons we’ve lost good volunteers is over discipline in the classroom. “The kids won’t listen.” “They’re out of control.” “There’s one that always distracts/picks on others and I don’t know what to do about it.” There’s no standard. There’s no line to draw. I think this is a huge oversight. Kids crave boundaries. They won’t behave within a boundary that they don’t know exists. Discipline is not a bad thing! The word comes from the word “disciple”, and it means training that molds character, behaviour, and values. Hebrews 12 outlines Christian discipline; verse 11 says that “no discipline seems pleasant at the time… Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” So how do we do this well in ministry? A few years ago I had some school teachers help me

Man, there’s been a lot going on in my life these past few weeks. Hopefully by now you know that I am finishing up my time at The Journey Church in 3 more weeks, and beginning a new role at The Meeting House. It’s a BIG CHANGE, one Jordan and I did not consider lightly, but we both feel this is God’s plan and timing for us. This past weekend at TJC is one I will remember. Dave and I met with our children’s coordinators and new interim director to talk about the fall in transition time. It is so inspiring to hear how Journey Kids is going, and dreaming of the ways God is going to continue to develop leaders and raise of followers of Christ. Saturday night I played bass at church, which I don’t think I’ve done for months. Still remembered where all the notes were. Had a blast. On Sunday I got to baptize 5 kids! Kids I have known for most of the 5 years I’ve been here, whose faith I’ve seen go from knowing about God to choosing to follow God. The celebration with families is heartwarm

I am very grateful that Crandall University has begun offering free public lectures this year. In January I attended “5 reasons why youth leave the church”, and this month I attended “why women don’t lead” presented by Dr. John Stackhouse. Given that I am a woman who leads, and it’s women’s history month, I figured I’d offer some reflections of my own. I am a woman, and an ordained Pastor in the Convention of Atlantic Baptist Churches . I am not getting in to the theology debate here. There is plenty of that already written . I grew up in a church where equality in leadership was normal. I also grew up in a home where leadership was based on the giftings of my parents, which I am so incredibly grateful for. Because of this, I didn’t even know it was an issue in the church until I went to seminary. I think my upbringing gave me the ability to work through the “discussion” as I completed my studies, and became the first female at my SFE placement to get a church license to minister.