23 Dec Welcome Ian!
We are immensely thankful to God for His provision of a new addition to our pastoral team, Ian Havercroft, as an Associate Pastor! Ian will be joining our team effective February 1st, 2021. It may take a number of weeks for he and his family to complete the move, as they need to sell their home in Hamilton, and purchase a new home in London.
Ian and Amy were married in 2006 and have three children: Aila (age 10), Luke (age 8), and Travis (age 5). They both grew up in the Toronto area and have been blessed with believing parents who have modeled Christ in their lives and service to the church.
Ian is a graduate of Heritage College (2004), with a Bachelor of Religious Studies, where he was presented with the outstanding student award. He also graduated from Heritage Seminary in 2011 with a Master of Divinity degree (he was presented again with the outstanding student award). In addition, he completed the Graduate Certificate in Biblical Preaching at Heritage in 2017.
From 2004-2007, Ian served as a pastoral intern at Hughson Street Baptist Church in Hamilton, under the leadership of Senior Pastor Dwayne Cline. In 2007, Hughson Street took the step of planting a church called Lightway Church in East Hamilton, with Ian as the Senior/Planting Pastor. Ian led that church plant, which was focused on reaching new immigrants to Canada, until January 2020, when the decision was made to merge the congregation back into Hughson Street. This decision was the result of a number of core/key families moving out of the area due to job opportunities or house purchases, and the school rental refusing to rent any longer to a church at a reasonable cost.
Ian and Amy love God’s Word and God’s people, and have a heart for the Great Commission. They are excited to join the team at Redemption and give themselves in serving and leading as part of our team. Ian has strong shepherding and discipleship gifts as well as gifts in leadership and preaching/teaching. He will take over leadership of the Redemption small groups as well as our new Discipleship groups. In addition, he will carry numerous general pastoral responsibilities, and will have the opportunity to
preach, as scheduling and experience allows.
This new hire will allow us to finally adjust Jason Johnston’s role, which we’ve been wanting to do for a number of years, to allow him to focus more on marriage ministries. Jason and Twyla have hearts for helping people to have marriages that honour and glorify Christ. He will be looking to create a quality pre-marital ministry, marriage discipleship small groups, as well as couple-to-couple marriage discipleship ministries. In addition, we will be improving our Biblical counselling in the area of marriage, and helping to train up our small group leaders in Biblical counselling skills to help those in their groups.
Jason will continue with other pastoral responsibilities, including leading our Men’s ministry, as he has over these past years. Please join us in thanking God for His provision of this new pastoral hire. We could not understand why, for several years, we just could not get traction in hiring for this role, but now our faith is made sight, and we see that God was slowing us down, waiting for this exceptional fit for our pastoral team. Please join with us in praying for Ian and Amy’s move to London as well as welcoming them to our church family!
