It feels very odd to start speaking in English when everything's been in

France so far, but they tell me 80% of you understand me and the 20% have

headsets and my new friend Nick is helping you out with the headsets so I'm

gonna proceed by faith and I was very excited to begin this first session

tonight by talking about Tom Carson and one of the only things I understood from

Francois Daniel there was the name Tom Carson as I got ready to travel here

to Montreal I picked up my copy of memoirs of an ordinary pastor and as I flip

through I saw at the beginning that Tom Carson died in October of 1992

October 26th 1992 30 years ago this month this month that ordinary pastor he

grew up in Ottawa a century ago he attended seminary in Toronto he did

evangelism in Montreal in the 1930s 1940s then from 1948 to 1963 about 15

years he was a paid pastor in Drummondville which they tell me is about 70

minutes from here in 1963 at the age of 52 he left pastoral ministry in

Drummondville and returned to Ottawa to work for the government I know many of

you know this better than I do as a translator for the Canadian government and

he began serving as an unpaid pastor so I hope his life can knit together here

in this room those who are paid pastors and those who are lay pastors in the

churches here in Quebec and he died quietly as Don has memorialized so well at

the end of the book in October of 1992 quietly and without fanfare he was not

well-known or celebrated in his day he was an ordinary pastor and an ordinary

elder and he would probably be shocked that here we are 30 years later talking

about him and so because of Don we know his name he was an ordinary pastor as

...