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Storyline Fall 2020

A quarterly magazine published by First Alliance Church (Calgary, Alberta) in this issue we highlight FAC people telling their stories.

A quarterly magazine published by First Alliance Church (Calgary, Alberta) in this issue we highlight FAC people telling their stories.

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people and their Saviour. We must think of<br />

them when we think of and thank Ray for his<br />

great care and commitment to the people of<br />

FAC and Calgary.<br />

As I have worked<br />

alongside him,<br />

watched him<br />

love people, and<br />

have myself been<br />

ministered to so<br />

often, I find myself<br />

wanting to imitate<br />

Ray. Like the Apostle<br />

Paul who says, “follow<br />

me as I follow Jesus”<br />

(1 Corinthians 11:1),<br />

Ray has given me a<br />

practical example<br />

of what it means to<br />

follow Jesus in life<br />

and in ministry. He is<br />

a pastor to pastors,<br />

and a pastor to all.<br />

tension with an articulate faith in God’s<br />

real presence. They have to say no to every<br />

form of fatalism, defeatism, accidentalism,<br />

or incidentalism that makes people believe<br />

that statistics are telling us the truth. They<br />

have to say no to every form of despair in<br />

which human life is seen in a pure matter<br />

of good or bad luck. They have to say no to<br />

the sentimental attempts to make people<br />

develop a spirit of resignation or stoic<br />

indifference in the face of the unavoidability<br />

of pain, suffering, and death. In short, they<br />

have to say no to the secular world and<br />

proclaim in unambiguous terms that the<br />

incarnation of God’s Word, through whom all<br />

A Life Well Spent<br />

Henri Nouwen, author, theologian, and<br />

minister of the gospel, writes: “The task of<br />

the Christian leader is not to make a little<br />

contribution to the solution of the pains and<br />

tribulations of their time, but to identify and<br />

announce the ways in which Jesus is leading<br />

God’s people out of slavery, through the<br />

desert to a new land of freedom. Christian<br />

leaders have the arduous task of responding<br />

to personal struggles, family conflicts,<br />

national calamities, and international<br />

things came into being, has made even the<br />

smallest event of human history into Kairos,<br />

that is, an opportunity to be led deeper into<br />

the heart of Christ.”<br />

34

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