Gary Nelson assumed the role of General Secretary of Canadian Baptist Ministries after serving in pastoral and teaching roles for over 20 years. CBM resources conventions, unions and local churches to find their missional voice both locally and globally . The challenge is to revision what mission looks like in the 21st Century. He also currently serves as a Vice President of the Baptist World Alliance.
He has served in a number of congregations both in staff and lead roles. Most recently he was the Senior Pastor of First Baptist Church, Edmonton. During that time, they witnessed a significant work of God in revitalizing and renewing this historic downtown congregation into a creative and dynamic contemporary congregation. Before his time in Edmonton he was the founding director of an urban leadership training initiative in the late 80’s called BUILD (Baptist Involvement in Leadership Development) in the city of Toronto.
Gary finds passion around creating ways in which local churches can impact their local communities and the global world. He is the co-author of a book with Don Posterski entitled Future Faith Churches published by Woodlake Books. His most recent book was written to introduce the challenge of missional living for the church at the congregational level. Published by Chalice Press, it will be out in December 2008 and is entitled, Borderland Churches: A Congregation’s Introduction to Missional Living
Borderland Churches is a call to embrace the pluralistic, post Christian and postmodern culture with a ssense of opportunity and hope. Gary uses the image of the church crossing over into an “in between time”- a place where faith is lived outside the walls of the church engaging the community in ways that are incarnational and effective. To live in that “precarious but exhilarating place where faith, unfaith and other faiths” intersect.
Gary continues to teach at the seminary level, serving as Adjunct Professor at Tyndale Seminary in Toronto and Carey Theological College in Vancouver. Speaking and teaching has taken him throughout Canada, the United States and Overseas around the topics of urban ministry, evangelism and church renewal.
Gary is married to Carla, a former public school teacher who now serves as a Professor and Director of the Bachelor of Education program at Tyndale University College in Toronto.
Here is what some people are saying about the book…
Gary Nelson’s book should be on the must read list of every pastor and church leader. In the radical shifts of postmodern culture, church communities must change their understanding of their place in society. Nelson provides both wise theological grounding and superb practical suggestions for that urgently needed transformation of congregational life. This book is critical for our times! Marva Dawn Author/Theologian
Gary writes, not for some elite priestly guild, but for the priesthood of all believers. He’s writing for those men and women who make up our churches – who sit on its committees, pay its bills, teach its children, paint its clapboard - and who daily seek practical, biblical ways to be faithful to her deepest, truest, holiest purposes. This is simply the book to put in their hands. And lucky you: now it’s in yours. Prepare to cross over. Mark Buchanan Pastor & Author
At last! A book about being missional that doesn’t beat up on the church! A ‘must read’ for pastors and church leaders taking seriously the mission of Jesus. But don’t expect a superficial read. Gary Nelson disturbs complacent Christians into a journey in the borderlands of faith where genuine follower of Jesus learn to hang out with the kinds of people Jesus counted as friends. The church may never be the same…Dr. Brian Winslade, National Ministries Director Baptist Union of Australia
I am thrilled to commend Gary Nelson’s book. During my years in Canada as a chaplain, pastor, and professor, I have longed for someone to write an indigenous, missional theology for Canada. Nelson has fulfilled that longing with clarity and insight. His knowledge of the Canadian context and of missional thinking informs every page. This is pastoral wisdom at its best. Jonathan R. Wilson, Carey Theological College, Vancouver
