The Bell: Speakers at BC Leadership Prayer Breakfast all seek God’s guidance

For more than 50 years, speakers at the annual BC Leadership Prayer Breakfast have included leaders in our province from business, sports, law, non-profits, real estate, medicine, government and education.

Here are some examples: 

• An award winning CFL coach shared how his own brother gave up his chance at a college education so he could attend instead, knowing his family could afford to send only one child at a time.

• An RCMP forensic scientist was sent to Cambodia to investigate a Canadian who was exploiting children in the sex trade. He was moved to create a foundation that has helped thousands of girls and boys overseas escape this fate.

• A nurse – a future leader in Canadian medicine – shared how her life changed when she witnessed the Sisters of Providence courageously treating AIDS patients without hesitation, at a time when other hospitals were hesitant.   

•  A City of Vancouver worker with over 35 years of service focusing on the city’s homeless invited a philanthropist to walk the streets of Vancouver overnight. This philanthropist established a foundation that has built supportive housing for thousands of homeless and barely-housed people.

• A businessman born with albinism discovered that in parts of Africa, people with his condition face mutilation, violence and even death. Determined to effect change, he devoted 10 years of his life and invested millions of his own money to develop programs to remove the stigma of albinism in those countries. The United Nations went on to model this approach, implementing it throughout the world, impacting thousands of lives. 

• As a young girl, she was severely burned by napalm in the Vietnam War, surviving only because of the intervention of a photographer. Today, as a Canadian citizen, she shares with the world her journey of resilience and hope.

• A prominent university president recounted how his Christian college friends saved him from taking his own life as a young man.

• Canada’s leading polling expert and successful businessman shared from his research how prayer impacts our health and life.

• An immigrant from Hong Kong became a successful businessman and philanthropist in BC. He was the first Asian Canadian to be a Lieutenant Governor. He shared how his faith sustained him through this journey. 

These men and women come from different cultures, backgrounds, ages, languages and experiences. Yet their stories reflect a shared perspective found in the most common church prayer, the Lord’s Prayer:

          Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name

           Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

           Give us this day our daily bread

           And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us

           And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.    Matthew 6:9-13

These are people who believe in God as their Father and pray for His kingdom to come on earth. Each has learned that all humanity depends on daily bread. They have experienced the grace of their personal need of God’s forgiveness. They struggle to walk the painful yet healing path of forgiving others. They understand temptation and the need to be protected from evil.   

Praying this prayer helps put their lives in perspective and begins to transform them. They join a 2,000 year old history, walking the same path as millions before them. In embracing this prayer, they have made their lives new, becoming more loving and compassionate toward the world around them.

And isn’t it a small miracle that this same invitation, this same prayer, is offered to all of us? 

This year’s speakers continue the same perspective in describing how their faith has sustained and inspired them during life’s extreme challenges.

Tom Cooper has served as the President of City in Focus for over 30 years. He has spear-headed this chaplaincy by caring for the soul of the city though the dynamic connections with the business, political and faith communities of Vancouver.

This has included the BC Leadership Prayer Breakfast: a significant annual event in the life of our city and province with more than 1,000 leaders attending each year. 

This year (June 13), the address will be given by Anthony Robles, 2011 Winner of the NCAA Championship. On the evening before the breakfast, Sam Sullivan, former Mayor of Vancouver, will address the Provincial Leaders Dinner.

Tom Cooper has posted this comment on this site as a member of The Bell: Diverse Christian Voices in Vancouver. Go here to see earlier comments in the series.