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Battle Lake Church Welcomes New Pastor

Pipestone Flyer

A Commissioning Service planned for October 25 marks the first six months of the Buchholz’ pastoral ministry at Battle Lake Community Baptist Church. This is a momentous event for the congregation as it marks the end of a lengthy period without a pastor located in the geographical area.

The commissioning service is open to the public, and will be held at Battle Lake Community Baptist Church at 2 p.m.

Erwin and Coral Buchholz landed in the rural hinterland of Central Alberta in May and have made their home in Westerose just south of Highway 13. The Buchholz’s hail from Creston, B.C., a farming community and fruit belt of the Kootenays.

“The scenery here is familiar other than we have more cattle and grain fields here, and rolling hills instead of mountains,” said Buchholz.

First on their ministry agenda was to connect with people in this part of Rural Alberta. “We wanted to hear everyone’s stories and find out what are the hopes and dreams in the people who live in this neck of the woods.”

Besides regular worship, Bible study and fellowship, music plays an important part in their lives. Buchholz says, “Singing our story has been a Christian heritage since the days of Christ and the Apostles, not to mention the Old Testament, and we need to reclaim that.” The psalms are poems set to music that speak of God’s majesty, goodness, providence and forgiveness.

Pilgrims to Jerusalem sang these poems as they journeyed to their place of worship and celebration. In the same way, Christian people need to ‘sing of the mercies of the Lord’ everywhere we go.

Buchholz highlighted the need for fellowship in Christian life. “Fellowship is not ‘coffee and doughnuts’ after Morning Worship: it is sharing our lives together as a redeemed people of God.” Fellowship naturally includes coffee and doughnuts, but the focus is Jesus Christ. This brings a spiritual dimension to the saying, “Wherever Christians meet, Christians eat.”

Battle Lake Baptist Church hopes to bring this ethos to the extended community. “We have experienced God’s love and forgiveness and want others to know they can have that same experience as well,” said Buchholz.