Gordon Smith on How Individuals, Churches, and Pastors Can Discover Their Calling & Find Hope in Exile
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Gordon Smith, President of Ambrose University, joined Jason in this week’s episode. In their conversation, Gordon starts by sharing about his upbringing as a missionary child in Ecuador, his journey through seminary, pastoring in Ontario, and then finding himself in the Philippians to church plant. While there, he soon realized his passion wasn’t to plant, but instead to step into the academic world, to help train and educate pastors and Christian leaders. Since then, he has served at numerous schools, including Regent College in Vancouver and Ambrose in Calgary.
Over the years, Gordon has written a number of books on the topic of calling, exploring it both from the perspective of everyday followers of Jesus, and specifically for pastors in vocational ministry. Jason and him unpack thoughts around what it means to understand your calling as a church community, as a leader, and then also how to equip and teach in such a way that helps others discover theirs. Gordon shares how challenging it often is for pastors to know how to equip their people to see their everyday work, as teachers and electricians, engineers and parents, as part of their vocational calling to bring God’s Kingdom into this world.
This is particularly needed as Canada becomes increasingly secular. Gordon has also written on themes of cultural shifts taking place in our nation and what it means to be the Church in this shifting context. How do we engage faithfully and practically? Understanding what the Church is and our ecclesiology is more important than ever argues Gordon, so we have to get back to the basics to ensure we know why we do what we do as we enter the next season.
We hope this episode encourages you in your ministry and leadership!
Gordon T. Smith
Gordon T. Smith (PhD, Loyola School of Theology, Ateneo de Manila University) is the president of Ambrose University and Seminary in Calgary, Alberta, where he also serves as professor of systematic and spiritual theology. He is an ordained minister with the Christian and Missionary Alliance and a teaching fellow at Regent College, Vancouver, British Columbia. He is the author of many books, including Institutional Intelligence, Courage and Calling, Called to Be Saints, and Evangelical, Sacramental, and Pentecostal.