140th Anniversary Service: God Goes Before Us - Joshua 3:1-17 (Rev. Nelson Chang)

  To see the full message, scroll to the bottom. 

Welcome to Calvary Baptist Church Cobourg.

Welcome to 7,280 Sundays of responding to God’s call:

Enter his gates with thanksgiving;  go into his courts with praise. 

Give thanks to him and praise his name. 

For the LORD is good. His unfailing love continues forever, and his faithfulness continues to each generation.  Psalm 100:4-5 

Welcome to Calvary Baptist Church Cobourg.

 

Welcome to 1,680 monthly board meetings. Welcome to sharing wisdom, and growing in experience. To mowing the lawn, and fixing the dishwasher (again!). To writing poems, and painting murals. To vacuuming the carpet and washing the windows if it’s what needs doing. 

 

Welcome to Calvary Baptist Church Cobourg.

 

Welcome to 14 decades of adaptation through change, whether of our own making, or relentless and irresistible. Whether sudden or slow. Whether in transportation, communication, medicine, or worldview. Adapting while, all the while, holding true to what will never change.  

For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, in all, and living through all. Ephesians 4:4-6 

Welcome to Calvary Baptist Church Cobourg.

 

Welcome to generations of doing our best, in our time, to walk with Jesus in faith, hope, and love. Generations of feeding people when they're hungry. Embracing people when they're  

lonely. Knowing their names. Telling them that Jesus sees them, too. 

 

Welcome to Calvary Baptist Church Cobourg.

 

Welcome to bearing witness in 3 different centuries, to recessions and a Great Depression. To two global pandemics, two world wars, and one lightning strike. Welcome to grieving our losses, fighting “over there” and on the home front. Welcome to going without, sharing what we have. To praying and praying and praying. To rejoicing when right wins out. 

 

Welcome to Calvary Baptist Church Cobourg.

 

Welcome to a family of uncountable numbers of babies, grandparents, deacons, pastors, Sunday School teachers, choir conductors, musicians and singers, and volunteers of every stripe.  

 

A family that has, for 140 years (as Simon Peter commands us), made every effort to point people toward God. To give them reason to think that maybe He is there after all. And maybe He is good after all. And maybe Jesus is worth following. 

__________________ 

 

Because this is who we are. This is who we will, until Jesus comes again, continue to be. 

 

Welcome to Calvary Baptist Church Cobourg. 

 

Happy anniversary!  

  




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