TGC Canada’s Executive Director, Dwayne Cline, recently reached out to David and asked him a few questions about his life and ministry.
David Short served on the council of TGC (US) for many years and continues to serve on the council of TGC Canada.
David, now retired, served as the Senior Minister of St. John’s Anglican Church in Vancouver, British Columbia from 1993 to 2025. Born in Africa, raised in Australia, he is a recognized Bible teacher, expository preacher, and trainer. He helped create and establish a number of training initiatives, and is a trustee of an Anglican seminary in Canada. He is a senior teaching fellow with the Timothy Trust, which exists to equip expository Bible teachers for the revitalization of the Canadian church. He has been deeply engaged in the global Anglican Communion, particularly the Anglican Diocese of Canada, a new ecclesial body upholding the orthodox, historic, biblical faith in the face of the theological innovations of the Anglican Church of Canada. David is married to Bronwyn and has two great sons and four perfect grandchildren.
David, as you look back on your years of full-time ministry experience, what stands out to you most?
I think it’s the sheer privilege of being a “messenger, watchman and steward of the Lord” as the old Anglican Prayer Book says in the ordination service. To speak the words of God to the people of God for the glory of God; to keep watch over the souls of others and to pass on the treasures of the gospel to others—I find it hard to think of a higher privilege.
At the same time, suffering with Christ is an integral part of ministry. It is a slow work and often hidden. Suffering in ministry comes in many forms: ungodly expectations (particularly my own), getting over oneself, desertion and abandonment by those you have invested in, the unique temptations of ministry, and the ongoing criticisms and conflicts of pastoral life.
Above all, what stands out for me is God’s faithfulness. Over the years, so many of the things we’ve tried have flopped. But from time to time, something which has begun in a very small way has grown to bear remarkable fruit.
Looking back over your years of ministry, what have been your greatest joys?
Seeing people come to faith in Christ still takes my breath away. Watching the Lord move people from the kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of his beloved Son is remarkable (see Col. 1:13). Sometimes it happens slowly and sometimes surprisingly quickly. To see it is always wonderful.
For me it continues to be a great joy to work deeply in preparing God’s Word week by week. I am grateful to God for great models of expository preaching. I learned early that we speak God’s Word by listening carefully to his Word. Yet even when I feel as though I have nothing to say, still God speaks his living Word to his people through preaching. It does not matter whether things seem to be going well, or whether I feel as though I am pushing everything uphill; the work of preparing week in and week out has been so important for me and one of the great joys of ministry.
And I stumbled across training others as a key part of ministry. Early on in my time in Canada, evangelical Anglican churches were facing a cliff: the clergy were aging, and there were very few young men coming up to replace them. So, we created a training program at St. John’s, based on one in the UK and one in Australia. Our program has now been going for 25 years and has led to over 150 young people going into the ministry. Now that I am retired, it is a joy to continue being involved in this training.
What have been the greatest challenges you have faced in ministry, and what has the Lord taught you through them?
The main challenge in ministry is unbelief, mine and others’. The great temptation is to not believe the gospel, or to believe that the gospel does not work, or is not relevant, or is not worth suffering for. Satan’s temptations of Jesus were not just to get him to fall into sin, but to divert him from the gospel path of being the suffering Messiah. So, Satan keeps working to undermine the gospel faith and ministry of the pastor.
Many will know the crisis in the Anglican Church that began in Vancouver in the early 2000s. Eighty years of liberal theology instilled through Anglican seminaries in the West created an untenable situation in our denomination: two religions in one church. These two religions represented two radically different views of God, of revelation, of the means of salvation, of ministry, and of the Christian life. We walked out of Synod in 2002, and that put us on a course which meant we lost our church properties and faced almost a decade of bullying and conflict from the denomination.
Part of the challenge was not to become overly focused on this “crisis” but to keep the main thing the main thing. It meant constant communication within the congregation and seeking a way forward that was Christ-honouring.
Three things kept me going during those years: the prayers of many from around the world, the close spiritual friendship and strength of those around me, and the weekly preparation in God’s Word.
