The Elders met each one with more threats and increasing hostility. Just days after this letter was handed to each elder prior to the 19th October 2004 meeting the Elders excommunicated the Pendergasts a second time.

Where is the proof of the elders claims they tried every course to deal fairly with the Pendergasts?

Barry & Jennifer Pendergast
9203-29th Street SW., Calgary, Alberta T2V 4V1

19th October 2004

Dear Elders,
We appreciate you taking the initiative to contact us to further the path of reconciliation between us and others in the congregation. We understand and appreciate the challenges that elders face in dealing with situations that arise in church life. The expectations and biblical criteria for an elder position place a tremendous responsibility that has to be shouldered as a volunteer. Responsibility that involves making difficult and fair decisions in matters of discipline, providing sound spiritual direction for the church, settling difficult disputes and not least of all the countless hours in elders meetings of one kind or another. We understand and appreciate the strain this places on elder’s families.

We have prayed for everyone who is an elder and ministry leader as they carry out their roles to the best of their God given abilities and gifts. We recognize that we all have different personalities and temperaments; different strengths and weaknesses, but we hope we can all value those qualities in each other that make us uniquely different.

Unfortunately conflict in a church is inevitable. We believe it to be healthy as long as it is dealt with in an open, loving and God honoring way. Everyone must be able to honestly and lovingly raise issues where they sincerely believe scriptural and biblical principles are not being followed in the life and the body of the church.To be able to do this without fear or reproach is essential to a healthy church.

In scripture there is a method of dealing with individual grievances, face to face namely Matthew 18:15. We have attempted to follow this requirement in the past year and trust others will direct their grievances directly to us rather than through others.

We suggest we all need to gain a different perspective regarding this crisis. We do not want to pursue righteous victory at the expense of anyone else. We hope you all feel the same way.

We have all entered into a line of disagreement that cannot bring glory to God or His church. Over the past year we have suffered more than the loss of our dear son in 1991. Suffered spiritually, emotionally, physically and financially. We know you have all suffered greatly too.

We earnestly and sincerely ask what would Jesus would do with our grief over our disagreements with you, pastoral staff and ministry leaders? What would Paul say? If either of us attempt to lay blame for prior events this will not lead to reconciliation rather we suggest all have to take a proactive approach to heal the wounds of all those directly involved. We gladly offered our unique God given gifts passionately to this church for nine years. We trust our long term commitment to this church is without question.

Cannot we jointly find a path that will allow us to do that again. If there are barriers to that let all of us work diligently together to remove them in love. We liken this situation to a marriage when conflict divides the husband and wife. No amount of blame, however well founded can lead to reconciliation or the repair in the breakdown of the relationship and the marriage.

We believe that all concerned, in this situation want to reconcile and we hope you agree that that can only happen when we jointly lay down our ‘arms’ and look to scripture in order to make sure that our minds and hearts are right before God. It is unlikely this can be done in a one time meeting or in several. Time may be the only way for all to pray and meditate on the best avenues required before we can move forward.

In some churches, people in our situation are provided a trusted and wise advocate to help solve these kind of problems of communication. Perhaps another avenue is one in which we work with several elders who have the gift of compassion and reconciliation to quietly move forward and gain some trust on both sides.

We are anxious to pursue our reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18,19) with you and others, in a spirit of willingness, openness, love and mutual respect We genuinely offer these thoughts as a way to resolve our differences. We hope you will carefully pray on your next steps towards us.

Respectively Submitted,
Your brother and sister in Christ



Barry and Jennifer Pendergast