Pricing:
Registration Deadline: May 15th, 2025
Assembly is an annual gathering of CBOQ’s family of churches. Part annual general meeting, part conference, and part family reunion, Assembly aims to provide a nurturing environment that fosters spiritual growth, encourages dynamic collaboration, and celebrates the unity that binds our family of churches.
Assembly is a dynamic and evolving event that adapts to the changing needs of our attendees while remaining grounded in the core principles of faith, community, and service. During Assembly, we gather, worship together, pray for one another, make decisions together, and grow as a family of churches. We hear from engaging speakers, thoughtful and talented worship leaders, and delegates from our churches.
Our theme for Assembly 2025 is “Sharpen Your Pencils.” In a world where, like Habakkuk, we may look around us and feel the pressures of the culture that surrounds us, we are called to sharpen our focus, prepare our hearts, and eagerly receive the direction and vision that God has for us, both as individuals and as a Baptist family. Just as a pencil must be sharpened, we, too, are invited to pause, reflect, and ready ourselves to listen closely to God’s calling. This theme aligns perfectly with our Assembly’s location at Brock University in St. Catharines, a place of growth, learning, and renewal. Brock’s vibrant, tranquil campus is in the heart of the Niagara region and its beautiful campus provides the ideal place for us to gather, recharge, reflect, and deepen our connection to the work God is doing in CBOQ. As we gather here, we are reminded to sharpen our spiritual focus, listen for God’s vision, and steps forward together with excitement and anticipation. Join us at Brock University as we prepare to “sharpen our pencils” and respond to God’s calling!
Reconnect with your fellow pastors. The opening session for Pastors Day will take place in one of Brock University’s lecture halls, where we’ll begin our journey of learning and reflection with the chance for our pastors to have a session geared to them led by Dr. Reimer, that will include teaching, discussion and reflection.
For our opening plenary session, we will join in worship and praise as a family, as we listen to stories of God at work in our CBOQ churches. Sam Reimer will serve as guest speaker to point to the realities of changing spirituality in the Canadian culture; to help us consider the ways we will need to “sharpen” our ministries as we look to the future.
After learning about the challenges facing us as the Church, we need to answer: “What next?” We will come together in worship and joy as we celebrate the hope we have that God is continuing to lead in CBOQ, hearing from a variety of CBOQ leaders about where God is leading us and how our pencils are “sharp and ready” to swim in the current together!
We will complete our business items together, and continue to learn about plans for ministry into the future of CBOQ. Our session will end with the confirmation of our new Board and committee members, and the commissioning of our new President who will share his New President’s Address with us, before we are commissioned to head out in ministry ourselves.
Author, “Caught in the Current: British and Canadian Evangelicals in an Age of Self-Spirituality”; Professor of Sociology, Crandall University
Sam Reimer
To help us “sharpen our pencils” we have invited Sam Reimer, author of “Caught in the Current: British and Canadian Evangelicals in an Age of Self-Spirituality” to share with us on pastor’s day, through workshops and in our Thursday plenary session. A fellow Canadian Baptist, Sam teaches at Crandall University in New Brunswick. His expertise in sociology, combined with his engaging speaking style, will provide valuable perspectives on the current “cultural current” as we come together to discern God’s vision for us at this year’s Assembly. We look forward to hearing Sam’s thought-provoking insights and how they will challenge and inspire us in our journey of faith.
Worship Leader, Highland Baptist Church, Kitchener, South Central Association
Sam Reimer
Having been blessed by his leadership at last year’s Assembly, we are thrilled to welcome Mike and his family back to lead us in worship throughout Assembly this year. Once a K-Pop Star in Korea, Mike and his wife, Sunny, followed a call to ministry as missionaries in Afghanistan. After settling in Canada, they began an online ministry to the middle east which welcomes millions of viewers each week. Mike and his family are gifted musicians who serve out of Highland Baptist Church, Kitchener, South Central Association. You will appreciate their sensitivity to the Spirit and their gift for bringing everyone into a place of worship.
1812 Sir Isaac Brock Way, St. Catharines, ON L2S 3A1
