Pastor James Fam

Pastors Blog

The Benefits of Volunteering: Why Giving Back Gives So Much in Return

Volunteering is often seen as a selfless act, but what many people don't realize is that it’s also a powerful way to improve one’s own life. Whether it’s helping at a local shelter, tutoring students, or supporting church or non-profit initiatives, volunteering offers numerous benefits that can positively impact your ...
Pastors Blog

How to Become Partners in Ministry

A great example of partners in ministry that we see in Acts 18 is a husband-and-wife team named Aquila and Priscilla, who supported the work of Paul first in Corinth, and then in Syria and Ephesus. Here are 3 principles from their example that you can learn to apply immediately ...
Pastors Blog

3 Essentials in Sharing the Gospel

Everyone who comes to faith in Jesus has a different story. Your spiritual journey probably started differently than others at your church. I often think of my testimony as being quite ordinary and not as remarkable as those dramatic tales of conversion that feature supernatural healing or include miraculous signs ...
Pastors Blog

Why Does God Perform Miracles?

God is very likely to set you up in a place around people that have rejected faith in order to perform His miracle. This could be in your home, your workplace, your school, and your city. And just as Peter and John were prepared to offer hope to those that ...
Pastors Blog

How to Overcome Spiritual ‘Range Anxiety’?

The six covenants in the Bible demonstrate God's unwavering commitment to humanity. They reveal His desire for a loving relationship with His creation and His plan for redemption and salvation. Each covenant builds upon the previous ones, ultimately leading to the New Covenant in Jesus Christ, which offers the gift ...
Coastal Church - Downtown Vancouver Building
Pastors Blog

Four Things Our Church Should Still Focus On

There is the adage that “change is the only constant” and most of us would agree that the past few years have been exceptionally turbulent. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that many organizations and companies have had to shift the way they do business in order to survive the ...
Pastors Blog

Timeless Wisdom for the Church (from Titus)

As Coastal Church embraces these timeless principles and applies them to the life and ministry, we can fulfill our God-given purpose to effectively impact our city and the world for the glory of God. Let us, therefore, heed the words of Paul to Titus and strive to build and strengthen ...
Pastors Blog

How to Hear from God

God wants to speak to us, and He does so through the words of Jesus with the help of the Holy Spirit. Have you been longing to hear from God?
Pastors Blog

What Have I Learned at Vanity Fair?

Vanity Fair from "The Pilgrim's Progress" has many lessons for us today. By understanding the dangers of materialism, developing our discernment, and building a strong community, we can stay true to our spiritual journey and avoid being led astray by the distractions and temptations of the world.
Pastors Blog

Playing by the Mercy Rule

Those that have participated in youth sports like baseball and football may be familiar with the mercy rule, where a game or contest is declared over if one team is ahead by a large margin in score or points. God intended the mercy rule to be in effect in our ...
Pastors Blog

Leadership Lessons from Undercover Boss

Some of you may be familiar with the reality TV show “Undercover Boss” where each episode features a top executive of a large company posing as a trainee or recruit to experience working at the ground level. The show usually concludes with the boss having a greater appreciation for the ...
Pastors Blog

Building Correctly With God’s Instructions

God has already placed a sword and a trowel in your hand, and may He raise up in you the kind of knowledge and wisdom of God that Nehemiah had to build His Kingdom. Who knows? Some of you may start to enjoy building IKEA furniture as well.
Pastors Blog

Keys to Maintaining Christian Unity

We learn from the OT that Israel experienced 120 years of unity before splitting into the Northern and Southern kingdom under the reign of Solomon’s son, Rehoboam. King Rehoboam had the opportunity to build and strengthen the community, but he chose to exert his power instead and this ‘family feud’ ...
Leader teaching class
Pastors Blog

3 Keys to Become a Better Leader

When it comes to studying leadership from Biblical characters, Moses certainly stood out as one of the great leaders given his monumental task of leading a large group of Israelites out of Egypt. As incredible as his feat of escaping an army of Egyptian chariots was, what was even more ...
Pastors Blog

Be Kind – It’s the Doctor’s Order

We should be motivated to demonstrate loving kindness and grace to other people, including those that we may disagree with. After all, we are defined by how we treat others, but it all starts with how we treat ourselves. How can we be kind to ourselves?
Pastors Blog

The Prize In The Race Of Faith Is Not Just For You

At the end of the Day, the medals that we have hanging from our heavenly shelves will not be given according to our earthly wealth or our worldly achievements, instead we are rewarded by the influence and impact that we make in helping others know about Jesus and inspiring them ...
cross church
Pastors Blog

How Can The Church Thrive In A Pandemic?

It was well over a year ago (around March of 2020) when church leaders began to ponder the question, “What are we going to do if we can’t meet as a church on Sundays?” Fast forward to the late spring in 2021 as churches in our Province are allowed to ...
Pastors Blog

Helping Your Children and Teens Deal With Anxiety

Parenting during “normal” times can be daunting enough as is, but when moms and dads take on the additional role of homeschooling, while bringing work from the office at the same time, the toll that this take on families and marriages has been evident.
Candle by the window
Pastors Blog

Biblical Hope: Better Than Wishing Upon a Star

Many cultures have the tradition of making birthday wishes before blowing out candles on the cake. It is also not unusual to find coins of every currency at the bottom of water fountains, thrown in with the hope of better fortune. From wishing wells to genies in a lamp, tales ...
Person Waiting in Church
Pastors Blog

Do Good Things Really Come to Those Who Wait?

Instant gratification has robbed everyone of patience and the advancement of technology has been a big culprit. Think about it, most innovations are developed to save us time, but we still seem to have less and less of it now than ever before. Why is that?
woman pondering
Pastors Blog

Discerning the Voice of God

There is no escaping the culture of cause-driven protests that have been permeating in cities all over the world. Many of them involving young people that have often been mis-labelled as being apathetic or entitled. While there are differing opinions, often leading to heated debates, on the issues/cause, there is ...
Breakthrough Movie
Pastors Blog

Believing for Breakthrough

In January 2015, 14-year-old John Smith fell through the frozen surface of a lake in St. Charles, Mo., and remained submerged for 15 minutes. He had no pulse when emergency workers pulled him from the freezing water, it was reportedly only after audible prayers by his mother, Joyce, that his ...
Man looking at himself in the mirror
Pastors Blog

Learning to Love Yourself

When the “teachers of the law” pressed Jesus to make his top picks among the commandments, he replied that the greatest act is to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength, followed secondly ...
Pastors Blog

Hearing God’s Whispers

"If it's from God, it will only get stronger." And with those words we ended our conversation in a coffee shop in the late Fall of 2007. Within a few weeks, I tendered my resignation from an engineering profession that I have enjoyed and excelled in for the past eight ...
Listen
Pastors Blog

Improve Your Spiritual Ears

Jesus reminded the disciples, “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” (John 14:26 NIV) It is part of the Holy Spirit’s role to teach and, to bring ...
Pastors Blog

What Does Honour Look Like?

Most of us have probably been taught at a young age to show respect to our parents. The late Aretha Franklin is well-remembered for a popular tuneasking for some R-E-S-P-E-C-T. I would suggest that more than giving respect, what we need more of in our culture today is HONOUR. 
Pastors Blog

God Answered All My Prayers… And I’m Still Miserable

In the movie Bruce Almighty, Jim Carrey’s character was given almighty powers by a fictitious God (played by Morgan Freeman) to teach him how difficult it is to run the world. While the movie does not focus on providing sound theology, there are many spiritual aspects in the story that ...
Pastors Blog

Spiritual Counterfeits

Have you ever owned a counterfeit? A fake designer watch, imitation brand name handbag, replica headphones, or maybe even a pair of knockoff sneakers that were way too cheap to be true. Whether by mistake or by choice, the satisfaction that a counterfeit brings is usually short-lived, and disappointment ensues ...
Pastors Blog

Finding Your Passion

I enjoy animated movies and a recent 3D film that intrigued me is The Emoji Movie.  Go back a decade and emoji would not ring a bell in most people’s minds, but the widespread adoption of text and picture messaging led Oxford Dictionaries to make “emoji” the 2015 Word of ...