McGillivray continues his fight

By Bill Doucet
Times Staff

(Sep 29, 2005)

Neil McGillivray has spent his lifetime fighting.

As a youngster, he feverishly battled physical and spiritual demons, surviving an abusive stepfather while trying to pave a path of Christianity within a non-religious family.

Sure, McGillivray's mother took him to church, which led the precocious 12-year-old to dedicate his life to God and ingrain his desire to become a pastor. And she had the family sit through his preachings from his makeshift pulpit on the hearth of their fireplace, but he never knew if they took him seriously.

"I'm not sure if they were just humouring me, but they'd listen," McGillivray said.

In the meantime, his stepfather hit him until he was 18 and able to move out on his own. One of the only things that made him feel whole was going to church, and he was told not to.

"I went to church by myself. My stepdad basically forbid us to go to church because it interfered with his Sunday routine. But I didn't listen, I would get on my bike and go to church on my own," he said.

When he left home, one of the first things he did was enrol in a self-defence course.

"I said to myself that no one was going to hit me again."

McGillivray learned the art of Chinese kenpo karate from former Green Beret Mike Donovan. The special forces soldier was skilled in the art of hand-to-hand combat, but never involved the eastern mysticism that usually drives martial arts. That was what basically drew McGillivray to him.

"He didn't offer the meditation, he didn't care about any of that," said McGillivray, who is now not only fluent in Chinese kenpo karate, but in Filipino stick fighting too.

"For him it was life or death. So he put a program together. I was grounded enough in my faith that if I went to a club that did offer (eastern religion), I would have been OK with that though."

In the meantime, McGillivray received a business and economics degree from the University of Western Ontario and was working for Emco Supply, but he still felt unfulfilled. The church was calling him. So he went back to school, first attending London Baptist Bible College and then Tindale Seminary. Now a full-fledged pastor, he was hired at Metropolitan United Church in his hometown of London.

McGillivray and his wife Jeannette ñ whom he met in a church youth group when he was 16 and she was 18 ñ moved to Cambridge and he preached at Forward Baptist Church, Central Presbyterian Church and Country Hills Missionary Church. In the midst of all that, he was a part-time teacher at Emmanuel Bible College in Kitchener.

While still keeping his roots firmly planted in his faith, McGillivray decided to end his job as pastor and became the eastern Canada regional sales manager for National Fire Equipment. From there he was recruited by Starpipe Canada Inc., based out of Houston, and is their current Canadian division manager.

Never one to totally break away from the church, McGillivray became a member of Cedar Creek Community Church in Ayr and worked there as a volunteer. That's where he developed the innovative Karate for Christ program.

"The way it got started was that I was sitting with pastor Ian Elliott at a men's breakfast and I had to apologize because I had to get up early and leave to judge a karate tournament in London. And he said, 'oh, you do karate?' And I said, 'yeah, I've been doing it for 20 years. I started in 1983 in London.' Then he said, 'maybe you should come and do a demonstration sometime for the kids in Sunday School'.

"While I was driving to London, I was thinking, 'if he's open to that, then maybe he'd be open to me doing something bigger than that'. So I started thinking that if I could share my love of Christ with my love for karate, and present the gospel through it, then maybe I could go to the ministry with a proposal. So I came to them with a 12-page document two weeks later and presented it to the board, saying, 'this is what I want to do' and answered all the questions I thought they might have around something like this. And they gave the thumbs up and we got started."

That was four years ago. Karate for Christ has blossomed to between 150 to 200 students and continues to grow.

But what is Karate for Christ? Simply enough, it's a martial arts class that is topped off with 15 minutes of Bible study. Students are asked to memorize scriptures and recite them, as well as hearing God's word through McGillivray.

And don't think the term Karate for Christ hasn't sent McGillivray back into battle, but to a lesser extent.

"I get opposition about having karate and Christ in the same sentence by non-believers, one being my younger sister. She can't reconcile the two things, saying, 'well, how can you do that? My understanding of Christianity is to turn the other cheek'. Then you get the extreme fundamentalists

saying, 'you can't dabble in a martial art because it has an eastern religion element to it. How do you account for that and deal with the meditation and the bowing?'

"How we address the non-believer is, if you are being attacked for your faith and you're taking a stand spiritually, yes, turn the other cheek. But there's no reason why if someone is raping a women in front of you, that you would just stand back and turn the other cheek. You have to stop them.

"On the other end (extreme fundamentalist), we do a bow to start our program, but we're very clear that you're not bowing to me because of any skill that I have...they're bowing to me out of respect and I bow back at them out of respect. You won't see anyone bowing at any pictures of past masters either, like in other clubs. We only have one master and that's Jesus Christ."

McGillivray admits that the religious aspect of his club may scare some people away, but really he's just taking martial arts back to its roots, when it was used for exercise.

"The misconception is that you have to have the eastern mystic element, and you don't. (Martial arts) didn't become identified with the Shaolin monks until the fellow who designed these movements realized that the monks were getting really fat sitting around meditating all day. So he developed a routine that would include the movements. From there, they realized the movements could be used in a martial way, so it became a form of defence and it just kind of evolved.

"Instead of clearing our minds, as a lot of the eastern religions do, we meditate on the word of Christ."

McGillivray said that even though some people back away from the club because they feel it's a form of church recruiting, most are surprised when they come out and join a class.

"My son (Keegan) is one of our instructors and he'll talk to his friends about it and tell them he's doing karate. They'll say, 'well, I'm interested in karate, but I'm not so interested in that church stuff'. But they'll come out and check it out, and find out that we are OK and not some crazy radical Christians. They have fun, learn martial arts and learn about their faith. The desire to do martial arts and learn self defence often outweighs their reluctance to get involved in any church stuff."

McGillivray added that if the point was to browbeat people into listening to sermons, he wouldn't have called it Karate for Christ.

"When we first set this up, we thought of calling it Karate Kicks for Kids or something like that, just to get people in and then present the gospel. Well, I didn't want to do that. We wanted it to be up front, that we're Christian first and secondly martial arts.

"The black belt is not the goal here. The real black belt is to see people come to salvation through the gospel and if you get a black belt along the way, great. Martial arts is our vehicle."

McGillivray admits that he can't believe he has woven his club into one of the biggest in the region. The original concept of the club was to cater to youth from the age of six to 18. But there was such a positive response, that he had to start a men's class, and a new women's class is filling up quickly. He also added a Little Ninjas division ñ age three to five ñ after watching his three-year-old son Brian follow all the moves at the back of his regular classes.

He also teaches self-defence at high schools, but doesn't bring religion into those classes. He does explain who he is and if people want to come and see what the classes are about, they're welcome to.

"It is an outreach. We have seen a number of families become involved with the ministry because they've been doing it and want to take their faith to the next step. But it's not entrapment. That's why we put the name out there. We're not doing the Billy Graham Crusade thing, it's not that at all. We're not having friends invite friends out to get them converted."

With the success of his club, other churches have decided to come on board and start their own Karate for Christ groups. Pastors in Scarborough and Guelph have inquired about how to start a club at his parish, while Highview Community Church in Waterloo is on tap to begin classes next September.

McGillivray noted that the club is basically a place for people to feel like they belong. That's why the classes are free, with the only cost coming from a yearly registration fee of $20 and a uniform fee of $35.

"I've had a number people who've said that Karate for Christ is their church. Here, you get it all. You get the discipline side where you can come and stay in shape, you get the fellowship with great friends here, we've got the mental side because it is very mentally challenging to try and remember all the moves, and you have the faith aspect, where you come here and pray with fellow Christians. It's like one-stop shopping."