From Barnabas to Vancouver: The Leader’s Journey

There’s something almost unfair about Barnabas Landing on Keats Island. The light off Howe Sound. The mountains doing their thing in the background. The kind of quiet that makes you wonder why you live anywhere else.

I was there this week with a cohort of Arrow Executive leaders — the kind of gathering where the conversations matter as much as the setting. We worked hard, thought well together, and somewhere between the ocean air and the long dinners, something clarified for each of us. That’s what good cohorts do. The place held us; God did the rest.

Creation has a way of doing that. Strip away the noise and you hear something truer — about your work, your people, your calling. The mountains and the water don’t preach, but they do bear witness.

I came back to Vancouver. And honestly? I exhaled.

Within hours I was at Revolver on Hastings — espresso in hand, settled in at one of the long communal tables, shoulder to shoulder with maybe a dozen strangers who were all doing their own thing with complete focus and zero small talk. Laptops open, earbuds in, background music and the ambient hum of the city doing its thing outside.

It was, in its own way, just as alive as Barnabas.

Here’s what I’ve come to accept about myself: I’m a city guy. Always have been. I love the energy of a downtown core — the density, the diversity, the sense that a thousand interesting conversations are happening within a block of wherever you’re standing. Big cities pulse. That pulse does something for me.

I think of Jesus, who was as comfortable at a crowded table as he was alone on a hillside. He moved between both without apology. The wilderness sharpened him; the city is where he did his work.
Barnabas reminded me that I can be still. Revolver reminded me of where I come alive.

Both are gifts. But perhaps that’s the point — the time at Barnabas does something inward so you can be more fully alive outward. The island equips you for the city. Solitude before service.

The best leaders I know have learned this. Not as a productivity hack but as a way of life. They protect time away not because they’re escaping responsibility but because they understand that depth requires replenishment. What you bring to the room, the boardroom, the hard conversations — that reservoir has to be filled somewhere. For me, it gets filled on Keats Island. Then I bring it back to the city.

I’ll be back at Barnabas. But right now, the city is calling.