My Journey to Faith

May 24, 2016 | by Mike Ryder

I accepted Christ as my saviour when I was just going into grade seven at a bible summer camp called the Ark at Willow Park Church. It must have been God who influenced me to go to the camp because I had never been to a camp before and also I dislike the water and any risk-taking kind of things like the activities of water skiing, tubing, and paintball that were listed on the brochure but as soon as one of my soccer teammates handed out brochures I wanted to go. My family, who had no ties to a church, at least since I was born, allowed me to go and so off I went.

                As a child I was terrified of death. When I asked my mom when I was eight years old what happened when we died she told me that it was like being asleep forever and that terrified me. I did not want an eternity of darkness. When I came to camp and heard the message of Christ, how he had died for my sins so that I may have eternal life, I was overjoyed. Death did not have to be infinite blackness but more life and I was grateful that Jesus would die for me to enjoy this gift even before I was alive.

                The fear of death prompted me to accept Jesus as my savior but was not enough to get me to be a disciple of his. Throughout middle school I would rarely attend my youth group and would instead opt to go to soccer practices. It was not until high school that after a year of fully attending youth and then going back out to the camp where I first accepted Jesus that I actually decided to follow Jesus and not just believe in him. It was here where I first realized that Jesus did not just die so that we could go to heaven but died so we could have a relationship with him and that he desired this for all people. He died for us to follow him so that all may know the good news that the Almighty God wants to have a personal relationship with every single person. I decided I wanted to serve him and the only ways I knew how to do that was to be a youth leader and to go on missions trips.

                About the time I was in the process of becoming a youth leader at my church I had a feeling that perhaps church ministry was the career I wished to go into. I do not quite know the reasoning I felt led to ministry but just this little prompting to look into it. I decided that since I liked attending youth that youth ministry was the area I wished to go into so I tried my hand at being a youth leader. A few months into my first year as a youth leader I decided that I did not want to do youth ministry. It exhausted me and I could not get the kids to settle down enough to really chat with them. I felt like a supervisor making sure they were not wrecking anything more than a mentor leading them to Jesus. Despite this feeling I made a dedication to the kids and stuck with it for the next three years until they had graduated from our junior youth program and still bump into them from time to time and chat with them.

I did a few introductory missions trips but the one that was the most important in my development was a trip to Watson Lake, Yukon to be a camp councillor. I went on this trip four times and it really helped me form what my calling was. The first year occurred during my first year of youth leading and went pretty much the same as the youth leading. I had the youngest cabin and spent my days making sure they were not breaking things or other people around the camp. The last night of camp we had a breakthrough with a few of the kids in our cabin which gave me the motivation to attend the trip again. The second trip I had the older cabin and developed amazing relationships in it which encouraged me that I had a better connection with older kids. The third trip I was given a chance to speak at one of the chapels where I preached about John the Baptist and how even he doubted at times but still led many into the Kingdom. I loved preaching and began looking for every chance I could to speak. The final trip I attended I got the chance to lead the expedition. I took charge of making sure the schedule ran smoothly and organized the chapel preaching and testimonies. My friend preached the morning chapels and I preached the evening chapels. We were just a couple of twenty year olds who had only ever been left in charge of organizing a two hour small group time with about ten kids let alone a whole week with sixty kids. That trip we prayed constantly that the Spirit would guide us and be the one to organize the camp and he truly did. At the end of the camp the kitchen staff said it was the most powerful week of camp they had ever experienced and it was because we left it to the Holy Spirit and that showed me that the most effective ministry is when we are just vessels for the Spirit and not trying to do it on our own.

                After the third time I had gone up to Watson and had my first chance to speak at chapel I reflected upon how I loved speaking to that audience of grade eleven and twelves and thought that perhaps that was the audience I wanted to aim for. Our church had not had a strong young adults program for a few years and I came up with an idea for one. I approached the church and was placed in charge of organizing the group of six or seven people that were still meeting under the name Alive, our old young adults program’s name. The group grew up to twenty people but soon shrunk down to about nine. I was attending college at this time and could not put in the energy it needed to be sustained. I had decided to take the summer off to rethink about what we were going to do with the group. During this time Phil Collins became our pastor and wanted to create a young adults group. I was put in touch with him and soon began interning as the young adults intern.

                I had finished my two years at college and began interning with Phil at Willow Park Church. Now that I was at the church four days a week I was able to invest more energy into the young adults program. Phil became the senior leader for all campuses of Willow Park and was too busy to be able to help with the young adults program leaving it to me and another intern. We organized small groups and teachings for the evening sessions and successfully lead a group of sixty young adults. This helped me see how to successfully organize a group by giving me the firsthand experience of doing it. It also gave me confidence that even though I was at the younger end of the young adult age range God could still use me to impact people’s lives.

                I interned for two years with the young adults program when it was eventually replaced by the current program which is run by our youth pastor bringing in about a hundred and sixty people every Sunday evening. I began working full time at Sportchek and got married to my beautiful wife. After a few more years of working full time and helping organize small groups for the new young adult ministry, in 2015 we moved down to the Lower Mainland and began working with Youth at Jericho Ridge while finishing my degree at Columbia Bible College.  It's been a sweet journey but not one without it's ups and downs.