New Pastor forLisburn Baptist

Pastor William Colville has been a member of the church for many years. So the membership was delighted to hear at their Annual Members Meeting last month that he had accepted their call to the pastorate.

Pastor Colville’s background is in the Civil Service. He subsequently served for a total of 12 years in Baptist churches in Dundonald and then in Stonepark, Co Fermanagh.

More recently he worked for 22 years in a pastoral and administrative capacity as Director of the Association of Baptist Churches at their Centre in Moira.

At the Welcome Service last Sunday the church choir, which Sharon Baird trained for the purpose, sang an appropriate new hymn, ‘Christ we proclaim, The Name above every name’. Pastor Colville himself chose the closing hymn, “Give me the faith which can remove and sink the mountain to a plain.”

The special speaker at the afternoon service was Dr Hamilton Moore, a former lecturer at the Baptist College and now lecturing with Emanuel University in Romania.

His theme was ‘When God sent revival in the days of Hezekiah’, based on the record in 2nd Chronicles chapters 29 and 30 in the Bible. “Revival can come to a church”, he concluded, and wished that God would “do it again.”

Mr John Woolsey, a former elder and now in retirement, asked God’s blessing in prayer at the induction for Pastor Colville. He responded by quoting the motto of Lisburn Baptist Church which is from Philippians 2 verse 16: Holding forth the Word of Life.

Pastor Colville commences his public ministry in the church next Sunday, February 26, when he will be speaking at both morning and evening services as advertised.