Chapter 37: Bethany

I was ready for a new adventure. I’d been at Greenfield for eleven years. My kids were beginning school and I felt I should make a decision as to whether I should stay at Greenfield for another dozen years or if it was time for a change. If possible, I wanted to avoid making a move once my kids got settled into a school and so the decision was becoming imminent.

Things were great at Greenfield. My wife and I had plenty of friends. People were becoming followers of Jesus. Our church had a surplus of money every year to the extent that we started giving money away to other ministries in need. We successful survived a building expansion and were running two services with an attendance of around 350. I was heavily involved in the elementary school across the street from the church and had just won a “contagious character” award from them. I was teaching at our local seminary and leading mission teams to Cameroon. Why, in the midst of all this, did I feel like I was in need of a change? That was a question Nancy asked a lot. Why couldn’t I be content and “bloom where I was planted”?  

It takes my wife a lot longer to process change than me and so I started sharing my thoughts with her about a year before any change took place. I knew this would be important for her. I also talked things through with trusted friends and mentors as well as my church staff and leadership board. It was important for me to hear from them to see if my thinking found any confirmation with others. Although no one wanted to see me go, the consistent affirmation and blessing I received helped me embrace my decision to make a move.

I was open to going anywhere in North America, but preferred to stay in Canada. So I started looking and praying for a church with problems. It’s funny, the kind of church I hear many pastors wanting to go to are churches that are so perfect that their arrival would only mess things up! I enjoy the challenge of going into established churches that have gotten off track and trying to help bring them back to God’s mission. Greenfield was like this at the beginning and the church I ended up going to was like Greenfield at the beginning, only on steroids.

When I started to hear about Bethany Baptist I was given several warnings not to go to this church. They had a reputation of being hard on their pastors and they were still fighting the “worship wars” that most churches had finished battling a decade ago. Without making a judgement as to who was right, a quick synopsis of Bethany’s history before I arrived goes something like this: 

After 60 years of being in Vancouver, Bethany sold off its property and built a large and beautiful building in Richmond. Shortly after their new building went up their senior pastor left. A new pastor was brought in who tried to modernize things and all hell broke loose. He was gone three years later. A blunt transition pastor then served the church for two years. “Either change or die” was his message. During this transition many congregants left and, ironically, went to more modern churches than Bethany. This dropped the annual giving by around $300,000. It was during this transition that Bethany crafted a new vision for herself to attempt to live out her desire to “reach out cross-culturally, winning, equipping, and empowering people for ministry.” Out of this I was hired to help rebuild the church.

The weekend I candidated was confirmation for me and the church. I was clear about where I stood and I had a pretty good idea of where the church was at. I let them know that if they called me I would come. The church voted 200 to 1 to call me as the senior pastor and I’m told everyone broke out into song.

The next day Nancy and I bought a house in Delta and when we put up our house in Edmonton it sold in a day. Things were moving very fast. This was unsettling for Nancy. Perfect for me!

Several people interpreted the quick finding of a house and sale of our other house as “proof” that we were in God’s will. I’m leery about making claims and reading into events like this. I see “being in God’s will” to be more about attitude, character and faithfulness than about things like location. Plus, I know friends who are going to be missionaries in Indonesia who are struggling to get a work visa there. Should they give up and interpret this as being “out of God’s will”? It is poor theology that thinks that if everything goes well it is from God and every time there is a struggle it is not from God. That would have put the apostle Paul out of God’s will a lot. Many times “open doors” are temptations for selfishness and “closed doors” are opportunities for Christians to do some kicking and lock picking. So I just thanked God for our smooth transition and avoided trying to read my “Christian” horoscope through how easy or difficult the door hinges moved.  

I began a new ministry at Bethany on Aug. 1, 2011. I preached my first sermon as their senior pastor on Aug. 7 on the Lost Sheep in Luke 15. My first months at Bethany were filled with annoying politicking. Everyone felt they had to tell me the “true” story of what “really” happened before I arrived. I had people warning me about who I shouldn’t trust and who I should hire and fire. In the same afternoon I’d have someone take me out for coffee and warn me, only to later in the day have another person warn me about the person I just had coffee with. Once a guy told me all the things he thought needed changing at the church, but when I got back to my office I found a message on my answering machine from his wife telling me that she disagreed with everything her husband told me. There was also a leftover $4500 platform extension project that the previous pastor had initiated. This really was a needed change as the way the stage was designed put the pulpit a long way off from the first pew. People however, made this into a spiritual issue and became so divided over it that some even stopped tithing when things didn’t go their way.

Conventional wisdom when starting at a new church is to change nothing for a year and just get to know the lay of the land. That was not possible at Bethany. We couldn’t afford a year of coasting. Things were going downhill and the politicking forced me to take a stand. So I decided to take a stand by refusing to take sides on the past. I wanted to allow everyone to have a fresh start. I would decide on my own who I could trust. We moved ahead with the stage extension and demons didn’t come out of the floor. We modernized the foyer and other sections of the church. The Sunday evening service and the German service were wrapped up and the German pastor retired. We also went through eleven staff changes and restructured our staff and deacon board. Besides preaching, I began teaching adult Sunday school as well as Friday night classes on theology, Bible reading, world religions and the New Testament. One of my big highlights since starting at Bethany was the team I took to Cameroon in 2014.

Despite the struggles at the beginning, things have been settling down. In 2013/14 we saw several people become Christians, paid off our building and watched our annual giving increase by over $110,000. Nancy and I have connected with a lot of people and enjoy Bethan y immensely. I’ve never second guessed coming here, which doesn’t serve a purpose anyway. I love the staff I work with and consider them all friends. I have a great respect for the elders even when they don’t agree with me and I get out voted. We’ve been able to work through many things and even disagree with each other respectfully and without arguing.  

One thing I wasn’t expecting when I started at Bethany was for my panic attacks to hit me again. The first one happened in the middle of a sermon. My body started tingling and I thought I was going to be paralyzed. Then they started happening all the time. Even in the checkout line at Walmart. I got so freaked out I thought I was going to have to quit. How could I do this to Bethany after everything they’d gone through? Now they get a new pastor and he has to resign after three months.

I then had my satanic night, probably the scariest night of my life so far. As I was lying in bed I thought I was going crazy. My body wanted to tear the room apart and hurt someone. I was doing everything I could to mentally fight these impulses. My mind started having dark thoughts and I felt like all the happiness was being sucked out of me from the Dementors in Harry Potter. I was about to check myself into the hospital when Nancy leaned over and laid her hands on me and started to pray. That calmed me down, but I knew something had to be done to fight these demons. My approach has always been to hit them with everything and so I got a doctor, got back on my medication, got connected with a good counselor, told my elders about the situation and got people to pray. I also found my reading of Martin Luther and his battles with the devil to be of great help.   

To help my doctor and counsellor my psychiatrist from Edmonton sent along the following letter, which gives a good summary of my medical history:

Thank-you for seeing Stefano Piva. Stefano is a 37 year old married man who recently moved to Vancouver as a senior pastor of a Protestant church. He is a very pleasant, articulate and well-educated man with a Doctorate of Ministry.

I started treating Pastor Stefano in June of 2007 for Panic Disorder and an episode of Major Depression. At that time, he suffered a likely viral flu with vomiting and had a likely flu induced “dizzy spell” while preaching. Unfortunately, this has subsequently conditioned into a full blown Panic Disorder – with pre-existing vulnerability that includes background perfectionism and mild obsessive worry. The Panic Disorder became very debilitating and stressful for pastor Stefano, particularly during sermons and with frequent spontaneous panic attacks. Consequently, Pastor Stefano also developed a major depression episode complicated with severe insomnia and activation of obsessive generalized worry. A sleep study later confirmed that pastor Stefano suffers as well from restless leg syndrome.

Fortunately, Pastor Stefano responded well at that time to treatment which initially included venlafaxine 150 mg po qam, clonazepam 0.5 qd prn, and zopiclone 7.5 mg qd prn. In addition, he is very psychologically minded and was able to participate in cognitive-behaviour therapy techniques and deep breathing relaxation to help with panic symptoms. His mood became euthymic and he has not suffered a depressive episode since 2007. He has the occasional re-emergence of panic symptoms, and one might expect his transition to a new vocation may be stressful.

As this time, pastor Stefano continues to do very well and his current medications are now only: Clonazepam 0.25 mg po qd, which he uses approximately two times a week, before events such as Sunday preaching. I would provide a prescription of Clonazepam 0.25 mg po qd with 30 tablets, with a refill in 60 days – this would last a long time.

He has no known allergies.

Past Medical history has included some gastric esophageal reflux. He has had surgeries for a hernia, wisdom teeth and nasal surgery. There is no history of metabolic syndrome. He is a non-smoker and does not drink caffeinated beverages regularly. There is no history of substance or alcohol dependence. There is no history of hospital admissions.

Thank-you for taking the time to care for a very pleasant man. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Kind regards, Daniel Li, BMedSc, MD, MSc, FRCPC 

When I started looking for a psychologist in the lower mainland I found out that Mark Davies, who taught some of my counselling courses when I was in seminary, had a practice in Surrey. Mark’s been a good counsellor for me. He is not the passive type who sits back and listens. He has no problem calling me a narcissist and not being overly impressed with me, as so many others are. He’s there to help me and a lot of this has to do with stripping me of my ego. He’s taken me through workbooks on anxiety and given me homework assignments to induce the feelings of a panic attack to then practice riding them through. The goal is not fighting panic, which only causes more of it, but learning to cope in the midst of it.

I’m currently on a daily dose of venlafaxine (75 mg) and I take 0.25 mg of clonazepam whenever needed (about once a week). I’ve tried to come off the venlafaxine on four different occasions and every time I do I crash within a couple of months. Because of all these crashes my wife has asked me to stay on it for five years before I try coming off it again.   

  

After so many years of preaching it is humbling to have this “thorn in the flesh”, but it’s comforting to know that God is the one who jabbed the thorn in. Understanding that it is from God and that he has a purpose for it makes it much more endurable. 

Question: What are one or two things you love about Bethany Baptist Church?