Pastor Gary Forsyth is the new religious leader at 100 Mile House Bethel Pentecostal Community Church.
Gary was born in the small community of Lesser Slave Lake, Alberta, but grew up in the Calgary area where he was surrounded by one million people.
Gary says he has been happily married to Marna for 26 years and together they have a daughter, Alana, who is 15 years old, and five-year-old son, Aiden.
He started his ministry 12 years ago, after working for Palliser Furniture as an upholsterer for 18 years.
“It was a very stable, good-paying job and I could have retired there, but I got the calling and it was something I couldn’t deny.
“So, I left something that was very secure to go into something that seemed, at the time, to be something incredibly unsecured. As you’re doing it, you feel this incredible peace inside of you and the feeling it is actually the most secure thing I could do.”
Interestingly, the plant he was working at shut down two years later.
In 2001, he became a student at Van-guard Bible College in Edmonton, at age 36. Noting he had a young daughter at the time, Gary says he received a lot of support from his wife, as they made the transition.
He went to Vanguard for five years, including two-and-a-half years full time.
As soon as he went to college, Gary started pastoring at Living Springs – the church his family attended in Airdrie, Alberta. He became a full-time associate pastor immediately, which meant he couldn’t attend Vanguard on a regular basis.
He stayed on as a full-time associate pastor at Living Springs for nine years before packing up his family and moving to Creston to serve as the pastor for Glad Tidings for the past three years.
He says Bethel Pentecostal called him in Creston and asked him to bring his family to 100 Mile House and serve as a pastor here.
“We now live in 108 Mile Ranch and are enjoying the sunshine we see almost every day.”
Gary says he has a vision of where he wants to see the church go.
“I want a church where people experience Jesus and not so much that they experience church.”
People can see what’s going on at the 100 Mile House Bethel Pentecostal Community Church by going to www.100mile bethel.ca, or contact Gary at twitter.com/PastorGForsyth.