Tim Tang joined the pastoral staff at ETCBC in October 2001. The Pulse caught up with Tim to do an in-person interview after he spent a hectic week at the 2002 Teens Conference.

Tim originally went to University of Waterloo majoring in Kinesiology, with the goal of getting into the health care field as a physiotherapist or a chiropractor. But God was leading Tim down another path (and we are glad he followed!). In his third year of University, Tim’s grandfather passed away, and this prompted him to re-examine his own life and what he really wanted to do. He remembered his high school sweetheart had once told him that he would make a good pastor. That insightful and intuitive girl was Joanne, who is now Tim’s wife. In fact, our own Rev. Alfred Lam was the minister who married the happy couple a year and a half ago.

One of the things Tim likes the most about his job is being with people. He loves getting to know people, listening to their stories, and seeing them grow. This is one of the reasons why Tim enjoys working with youth so much, as he is able to watch them mature and change over time.

As the youngest of 3 boys, Tim grew up wanting to be different, instead of alwaysfollowing in the footsteps of his older brothers. When he was a kid himself, he never paid a lot of attention in church, and often found the sermons uninspiring. Nowadays, Tim draws on his own childhood experience, and tries to think of ways to preach thatwould captivate and engage  the audience.  Tim likes to use humour in his sermons and does not see himself as a “typical” pastor.

When Alfred first approached Tim to join ETCBC, he was unsure of what he should do.  After praying faithfully and discussing the matter with Joanne (who, ironically, has already been attending the English service at ETCBC for a while), Tim decided to accept the position. At first, he felt a little anxious as ETCBC was a “big unknown”. But Tim believes that when you are obedient to God, He will show you things that you’d never have expected.

When asked what he thought was unique about ETCBC, he replied “there is such a great distribution of age, especially between the 20 to 40 group”. His experience with other churches has been dealing with people who are either much younger or much older. He thinks there is a great opportunity for ETCBC with such a wide variety of people and resources that the church can draw from.

We are blessed to have Tim and Joanne join the ETCBC family, and look forward to getting to know them better. Welcome aboard!

TIMbits:

• The sport he loves to play and watch: "Football"
• His comfort food: "Chinese dumplings"
• Favourite cartoon character: "Homer"
• The exciting thing about being a Christian: "Being part of something greater than yourself, and knowing that God is always in control"