There is a growing sense of excitement within the Church of Western Canada. Not only are we quickly coming out of COVID, we’re also seeing new opportunities to take the Gospel into our communities and neighbourhoods. Christian Service Brigade shares this anticipation and are encouraging men, families, churches and communities to invest in purposeful ministry to those needing fellowship.
Brigade is an outreach of the men of the local church to the boys in the community, winning and training them for Christ. Our ministries are Christ-centred and action-focused. Our resources build practical skills in everyday living and evangelical Christian principles. We know boys; we know what motivates them, and how to direct them to God. We know men and how to engage them in practical service to their Lord, church, family and community. We build every generation of men by building boys. Check out CSB’s discipleship ministries at www.csbbc.org/for-boys--young-men.html
Brigade is an outreach of the men of the local church to the boys in the community, winning and training them for Christ. Our ministries are Christ-centred and action-focused. Our resources build practical skills in everyday living and evangelical Christian principles. We know boys; we know what motivates them, and how to direct them to God. We know men and how to engage them in practical service to their Lord, church, family and community. We build every generation of men by building boys. Check out CSB’s discipleship ministries at www.csbbc.org/for-boys--young-men.html
Christian Service Brigade - The LIGHT Magazine, BC & Alberta
June 2021 Editions
COVID is on the ropes. It has been beaten back, but it isn’t finished. We must push the battle through to completion… and then what? What are your goals for a Post-COVID world? What are Christ’s goals for you post-COVID?
Over the past 18 months, we have been tested. God has allowed us to see what is truly important to us as individuals, as families, and as communities. What did you discover? Where did Christ’s Great Commission end up on your to-do list? Philippians 3:13-14 include these key words, “Forgetting what is behind… I press on toward the goal…” We have all made mistakes in our reactions to COVID – those mistakes are moving behind us. Christians must press on to the goal of making disciples; of winning and training boys and young men of all communities and neighbourhoods for Christ. Check out CSB and our discipleship resources at www.csbbc.org/for-boys--young-men.html
June 2021 Editions
COVID is on the ropes. It has been beaten back, but it isn’t finished. We must push the battle through to completion… and then what? What are your goals for a Post-COVID world? What are Christ’s goals for you post-COVID?
Over the past 18 months, we have been tested. God has allowed us to see what is truly important to us as individuals, as families, and as communities. What did you discover? Where did Christ’s Great Commission end up on your to-do list? Philippians 3:13-14 include these key words, “Forgetting what is behind… I press on toward the goal…” We have all made mistakes in our reactions to COVID – those mistakes are moving behind us. Christians must press on to the goal of making disciples; of winning and training boys and young men of all communities and neighbourhoods for Christ. Check out CSB and our discipleship resources at www.csbbc.org/for-boys--young-men.html
Are you fed up with COVID and want to enjoy a weekend away from the regular routine? Are you needing a little encouragement to make it through the last few months of the pandemic? Then try CSB’s virtual Family Campout in your basement, living room, backyard, or campsite. COVID may keep you apart from friends, but you can still have fun-filled fellowship and encouragement in Christ.
Last year, COVID cancelled the “Tough Guys Father and Son Campout” for the boys and men of Christian Service Brigade, and we couldn’t see it happening again. So, we were inspired to create a virtual “Tough Guys On-Your-Own Family Campout”. The theme is Facing Your Fears and uses the desperation of World War Two to provide a context of what we are experiencing with COVID. Download nine internet broadcasts, four devotions, three Council Fires, oldtime radio shows, and an activity booklet for FREE. www.csbbc.org/tough-guys-campout-2021
Last year, COVID cancelled the “Tough Guys Father and Son Campout” for the boys and men of Christian Service Brigade, and we couldn’t see it happening again. So, we were inspired to create a virtual “Tough Guys On-Your-Own Family Campout”. The theme is Facing Your Fears and uses the desperation of World War Two to provide a context of what we are experiencing with COVID. Download nine internet broadcasts, four devotions, three Council Fires, oldtime radio shows, and an activity booklet for FREE. www.csbbc.org/tough-guys-campout-2021
CSB MEN's NETWORK - The LIGHT Magazine, BC & Alberta
April 2021 Editions
It’s been a year of COVID-19, and we trust we’re coming to an end of this pandemic. Some churches have thrived, most have survived, but some won’t be coming back. What about men? Are they coming back? Have they survived?
Men aren’t equipped for social isolation. Men are often quieter and less interactive than women. So, when they lose their face-to-face opportunities, they lose a lot. Some lose more than others because they lack a social network. That’s where men’s ministry comes in. It’s the brotherhood that connects the man to his Lord by encouraging him to “work out his faith”. It’s the glue that holds him to his church when there is no “church”. It’s the friendly voice that reminds him that he is not alone.
As we return to regular life, let’s expand our territory to include national and regional men’s events – PK and ISI. Check out: csbbc.org/mens-network
April 2021 Editions
It’s been a year of COVID-19, and we trust we’re coming to an end of this pandemic. Some churches have thrived, most have survived, but some won’t be coming back. What about men? Are they coming back? Have they survived?
Men aren’t equipped for social isolation. Men are often quieter and less interactive than women. So, when they lose their face-to-face opportunities, they lose a lot. Some lose more than others because they lack a social network. That’s where men’s ministry comes in. It’s the brotherhood that connects the man to his Lord by encouraging him to “work out his faith”. It’s the glue that holds him to his church when there is no “church”. It’s the friendly voice that reminds him that he is not alone.
As we return to regular life, let’s expand our territory to include national and regional men’s events – PK and ISI. Check out: csbbc.org/mens-network
CAMP TEEPEE POLE - The LIGHT Magazine Alberta
March, April & June 2021 Editions
This is a camp for boys and young men. Affiliated with Christian Service Brigade, our purpose is to “win and train BOYS FOR CHRIST.” We are an OUTDOOR ADVENTURE CAMP where guys can be guys while learning about Christ, their Creator - Psalms 8:3-5.
Our activities are built for boys. Our training sharpens their skills and minds. Our staff are Christian role models who strive to be genuine friends. Our focus includes environmental conservation. And, we add a healthy dose of FUN with mountain biking, hikes, projects, tubing, white water rafting, sports, rappelling, archery, shooting, tuck, morning devotions, and evening campfires. Activities vary, as we ensure things are age and COVID appropriate.
Facilities: max 50 campers each week. There are six cabins, each with ten bunks and loft - bring your own sleeping bag and gear; hot showers; flush toilets; commercial kitchen with qualified cooks who provide Camp Teepee Pole’s great meals each day. Our camps fill quickly, so register early; refunds guaranteed.
We encourage your support, especially during these difficult days. We enlist fathers and other mature Christian volunteers, young and old, to serve as staff and cabin counsellors. God provides. Contact www.campteepeepole.org
For camps for girls, please contact www.AlbertaCampCherith.org
March, April & June 2021 Editions
This is a camp for boys and young men. Affiliated with Christian Service Brigade, our purpose is to “win and train BOYS FOR CHRIST.” We are an OUTDOOR ADVENTURE CAMP where guys can be guys while learning about Christ, their Creator - Psalms 8:3-5.
Our activities are built for boys. Our training sharpens their skills and minds. Our staff are Christian role models who strive to be genuine friends. Our focus includes environmental conservation. And, we add a healthy dose of FUN with mountain biking, hikes, projects, tubing, white water rafting, sports, rappelling, archery, shooting, tuck, morning devotions, and evening campfires. Activities vary, as we ensure things are age and COVID appropriate.
Facilities: max 50 campers each week. There are six cabins, each with ten bunks and loft - bring your own sleeping bag and gear; hot showers; flush toilets; commercial kitchen with qualified cooks who provide Camp Teepee Pole’s great meals each day. Our camps fill quickly, so register early; refunds guaranteed.
We encourage your support, especially during these difficult days. We enlist fathers and other mature Christian volunteers, young and old, to serve as staff and cabin counsellors. God provides. Contact www.campteepeepole.org
For camps for girls, please contact www.AlbertaCampCherith.org
Christian Service Brigade - The LIGHT Magazine, BC & Alberta
March 2021 Editions
“Are we there, yet?” Not long after starting we hear that familiar drone from the backseat. “No! And please stop asking.” And twelve hours later, we arrive at our destination. Well, we’re asking, Lord… Are we there yet? I wish we had a definitive answer, but COVID is unpredictable. Hebrews 10:25 says, “Let us not give up the habit of meeting together…” So, let’s make that our focus. Let’s work together to figure out what can be done in person and what must be done virtually at a distance. Building Christ-centred boys and young men isn't all that complicated even under COVID. CSB is partnering with churches and groups to develop a comprehensive list of options through which you can build the next generations for Christ. Under COVID, we are discovering better ways and new international opportunities to bring others to our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Check out: www.csbbc.org/brigade-under-covid for details.
March 2021 Editions
“Are we there, yet?” Not long after starting we hear that familiar drone from the backseat. “No! And please stop asking.” And twelve hours later, we arrive at our destination. Well, we’re asking, Lord… Are we there yet? I wish we had a definitive answer, but COVID is unpredictable. Hebrews 10:25 says, “Let us not give up the habit of meeting together…” So, let’s make that our focus. Let’s work together to figure out what can be done in person and what must be done virtually at a distance. Building Christ-centred boys and young men isn't all that complicated even under COVID. CSB is partnering with churches and groups to develop a comprehensive list of options through which you can build the next generations for Christ. Under COVID, we are discovering better ways and new international opportunities to bring others to our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Check out: www.csbbc.org/brigade-under-covid for details.
"Ministering to Kids Beyond COVID"
Christian Service Brigade - The LIGHT Magazine, BC & Alberta
January and February 2021 Editions
COVID-19 is an inconvenience, an obstacle to be avoided. If ministry were a football game, COVID would be the opposition, but it would NOT be the focus. In Christian ministry, whether the obstacles are giants or microscopic viruses, the mission of every Christian is to take the Gospel to those who haven’t heard it and make them disciples of Christ.
That’s what was talked about at the November meeting of the CSB BC Regional Committee, and the men got excited. Now CSB is Christian Service Brigade, a men’s ministry to boys that got its BC start in 1943. For generations, “Brigade” has helped churches and their men mentor boys from kindergarten to college, giving them practical examples of Christ-centred manhood.
As those men talked about the impact of COVID on the local ministry, it was quickly learned that not all groups were dead in the water. Some were limping along, others were running, and a couple were thriving. There was even a church in Calgary that saw Brigade as their solution to reaching kids when they couldn’t have Sunday school. The conversation at the committee meeting inspired the men to do CSB in another way.
For years, CSB has encouraged men to develop their skills and hobbies, wrap them in Biblical Truth, and share them with boys. This is the essential foundation of Christian Service Brigade. Every boy wants to grow into manhood, but he can’t do it on his own. In Titus 2, God gives men, and women, the responsibility to train children toward Biblical maturity. Dr James Dobson spoke of mature Christian men being an essential part of every boy’s life. CSB recognizes this and builds healthy relationships between generations. CSB is known as “Christian boy scouts”. In today’s uncertain world, CSB knows how to develop men of God of all generations.
So, when the men heard about what Chief Ranger Jerry Forder was doing with the Tree Climbers, Stockade and GEMS Girls’ Club at Bear Creek Community Church in Surrey, and what Captain Jim Pike was doing with the teenage guys in the Battalion at Calvary Baptist Church in Coquitlam in the middle of a pandemic, they couldn’t help but get excited.
When asked about the impact of COVID on their meetings, Jerry said, “We never took a break. I don’t even think we missed a week. We just moved our meeting onto Zoom and kept going. And when we were allowed, we went back to meeting in the church. We met all through the summer. The parents loved it. In late November when we were no longer allowed to meet in person, we went right back to using Zoom.”
It was noted that girls are equally welcomed to meet with the boys. They were doing that when they met at the church – arriving together and then separating into their own groups. So, when there is only one computer in the home, or limited internet bandwidth, it made sense to include the girls. “Besides,” says the Chief Ranger, “the girls like the active stuff that the boys are doing.”
Captain Jim Pike did much the same with his group, but they moved to a different internet platform that, after the devotional, games and training, allowed the young men to separate into different rooms where they would play video games together. Jim said that, “Transitioning from in-person Battalion to online was a bit of an adjustment. There is a steep learning curve to find ways to maximize participation, create personal connections and deepen the boys' faith, but it is worth it. Joshua 1:9 and Proverbs 3:6 are two verses that continue to help me to keep leading my Battalion boys. I would encourage other boys and men to do the same. It’s worth it.”
Jim and Jerry are not alone in their creativity. Other groups are using intermittent activities to build fellowship – hikes, father-son campouts, service projects, and parking lot video games projected on an exterior church wall.
This is CSB during a pandemic and the committee recognized that it is also a future version of CSB for some families who cannot make it to a nearby weekly meeting – families in Dease Lake, Beaverdell or Indian Arm BC, Carbon, High Prairie or Wandering River AB, Whitehorse YK or Skagway AK, or the missionary family on the Mexican west coast.
There is a place for online CSB units in each time zone around the world in multiple languages. And the first intentional ones are in the Lower Mainland of BC. For now, one happens Wednesday evenings from 6:30 to 8:15pm for boys and their sisters ages 4 to 12. For young men ages 12 and up, it’s on Friday evening 7 to 9pm. Contact Howard Pike, CSB BC, at [email protected], to learn how you can get involved.
Christian Service Brigade - The LIGHT Magazine, BC & Alberta
January and February 2021 Editions
COVID-19 is an inconvenience, an obstacle to be avoided. If ministry were a football game, COVID would be the opposition, but it would NOT be the focus. In Christian ministry, whether the obstacles are giants or microscopic viruses, the mission of every Christian is to take the Gospel to those who haven’t heard it and make them disciples of Christ.
That’s what was talked about at the November meeting of the CSB BC Regional Committee, and the men got excited. Now CSB is Christian Service Brigade, a men’s ministry to boys that got its BC start in 1943. For generations, “Brigade” has helped churches and their men mentor boys from kindergarten to college, giving them practical examples of Christ-centred manhood.
As those men talked about the impact of COVID on the local ministry, it was quickly learned that not all groups were dead in the water. Some were limping along, others were running, and a couple were thriving. There was even a church in Calgary that saw Brigade as their solution to reaching kids when they couldn’t have Sunday school. The conversation at the committee meeting inspired the men to do CSB in another way.
For years, CSB has encouraged men to develop their skills and hobbies, wrap them in Biblical Truth, and share them with boys. This is the essential foundation of Christian Service Brigade. Every boy wants to grow into manhood, but he can’t do it on his own. In Titus 2, God gives men, and women, the responsibility to train children toward Biblical maturity. Dr James Dobson spoke of mature Christian men being an essential part of every boy’s life. CSB recognizes this and builds healthy relationships between generations. CSB is known as “Christian boy scouts”. In today’s uncertain world, CSB knows how to develop men of God of all generations.
So, when the men heard about what Chief Ranger Jerry Forder was doing with the Tree Climbers, Stockade and GEMS Girls’ Club at Bear Creek Community Church in Surrey, and what Captain Jim Pike was doing with the teenage guys in the Battalion at Calvary Baptist Church in Coquitlam in the middle of a pandemic, they couldn’t help but get excited.
When asked about the impact of COVID on their meetings, Jerry said, “We never took a break. I don’t even think we missed a week. We just moved our meeting onto Zoom and kept going. And when we were allowed, we went back to meeting in the church. We met all through the summer. The parents loved it. In late November when we were no longer allowed to meet in person, we went right back to using Zoom.”
It was noted that girls are equally welcomed to meet with the boys. They were doing that when they met at the church – arriving together and then separating into their own groups. So, when there is only one computer in the home, or limited internet bandwidth, it made sense to include the girls. “Besides,” says the Chief Ranger, “the girls like the active stuff that the boys are doing.”
Captain Jim Pike did much the same with his group, but they moved to a different internet platform that, after the devotional, games and training, allowed the young men to separate into different rooms where they would play video games together. Jim said that, “Transitioning from in-person Battalion to online was a bit of an adjustment. There is a steep learning curve to find ways to maximize participation, create personal connections and deepen the boys' faith, but it is worth it. Joshua 1:9 and Proverbs 3:6 are two verses that continue to help me to keep leading my Battalion boys. I would encourage other boys and men to do the same. It’s worth it.”
Jim and Jerry are not alone in their creativity. Other groups are using intermittent activities to build fellowship – hikes, father-son campouts, service projects, and parking lot video games projected on an exterior church wall.
This is CSB during a pandemic and the committee recognized that it is also a future version of CSB for some families who cannot make it to a nearby weekly meeting – families in Dease Lake, Beaverdell or Indian Arm BC, Carbon, High Prairie or Wandering River AB, Whitehorse YK or Skagway AK, or the missionary family on the Mexican west coast.
There is a place for online CSB units in each time zone around the world in multiple languages. And the first intentional ones are in the Lower Mainland of BC. For now, one happens Wednesday evenings from 6:30 to 8:15pm for boys and their sisters ages 4 to 12. For young men ages 12 and up, it’s on Friday evening 7 to 9pm. Contact Howard Pike, CSB BC, at [email protected], to learn how you can get involved.
