Eulogy for Bob Cottrill

I’m putting up a text version of the eulogy from my Dad’s funeral, just as a matter of public record. The first part (the “biography”) was written by my Mom and myself, and read by my cousin Trish Hall. I wrote the second part (the “tribute”). Of course you can watch the funeral on video here to get the same material.

Bob Cottrill Biography

Robert Edward William Cottrill was born to Ted and Isbell Cottrill on Saturday, the 18^th of January 1941, in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Born in Tiger-Cat territory, he naturally became an avid football fan (eventually even cheering for the Roughriders, but we won’t discuss whether he loved the Ti-Cats or Roughriders more).

Bob grew up in the Hamilton area, eventually working as a commercial photographer. He retained an interest in photography for the rest of his life.

He attended and graduated from Ontario Bible College (now Tyndale University College & Seminary). The year before graduation, on the 1^st of June 1968, he married Beth Carscadden, a recent graduate.

Bob went on to graduate with a B.A. from the University of Windsor, having studied history, English, and psychology.

After graduating, he began his first pastorate in the village of Coe Hill in southern Ontario, at Coe Hill Gospel Church. During this time their son Jim was born.

The family later moved to Dunnville, also in southern Ontario, where Bob pastored at Dunnville Gospel Church. He also worked with children in the Awana club program, both in Dunnville and in his next area of ministry, Newmarket Ontario.

After Dunnville, Bob spent several years on the staff of Grace Church in Newmarket. He became the Director of Christian Education at the church (which also had a day care and a Christian elementary school). He developed a Bible Institute which had courses broadcast on local television.

Moving out west, he continued his studies at Briercrest Seminary. He later did a teaching internship at Briercrest Bible College, and oversaw and co-hosted the final year of the radio broadcast, the Briercrest Bible Hour with Jeannie Hildebrand.

He continued teaching at Millar College of the Bible in Pambrun, Saskatchewan. Some of his courses included the Gospel of John, Pentateuch, Music in the Church, and Music in the Christian Life. Bob had a lifelong love of music, and often sang or led music.

After Millar, Bob and Beth moved to Turtleford, Saskatchewan, where Bob pastored at Turtleford Baptist Church. After this, the couple moved to Lashburn, Saskatchewan.

While in Lashburn, Bob took on an interim pastorate in Provost, at Provost Associated Gospel Church (now called New Hope Community Church), and later at Maidstone Baptist Church (now Maidstone Grace Community Church).

Throughout these years and up until the end of his life, he continued to lead Bible studies, accept preaching engagements, and write.

In 2009, he published “Discovering the Songs of Christmas”, a devotional book about the stories behind Christmas carols. He was working on several other books.

He also had two websites, one focused on a study of the Bible and the other on hymn stories. He was an expert on the history and content of hymns, spending many years doing his own research.

In 1965, Bob started a system for recording his insights on Bible passages on 3×5 cards, a habit he kept up for the rest of his life. He eventually hoped to publish a Bible commentary. By the time he passed away, he had twelve or thirteen thousand cards of quotes, insights, and facts about every chapter in the Bible.

Bob always prayed for his family and many others, and was an encouragement and wise mentor to his family. He is survived by his wife Beth, his son Jim, Jim’s wife Shari, and his two grandchildren Hannah and Nathanael. He will be greatly missed.

Bob Cottrill Tribute

In June 1921, Victor Hall sold his bicycle.

Now, bear with me. I realize that this was 20 years before my Dad was born. It will all make sense in a moment.

Victor Hall sold his bicycle so that he would have enough money to purchase a Bible for his friend Ted. Ted was my Father’s Father. And Ted had a vision to share God’s Word in Western Canada. So Victor sacrificed something of great value to him so that he could buy my Grandfather a Bible.

My Grandfather never did go to minister full time in Western Canada, but how interesting that his son ended up moving from Ontario to Saskatchewan, in many ways living out the vision of his father. Well, my Dad thought that was interesting. But his ministry in both the east and the west were important to him.

My Dad was always interested in historical details, whether about the family or the history of past centuries. He was always very curious, and loved to solve mysteries, whether real-life or in an Agatha Christie novel. And that included science as well as history. How do things work? What really happened?

And of course this curiosity, or you could say, search for truth, spilled out into his ministry. Historical details about the days of Jesus, what science can tell us about God’s glory.

When he was in the hospital, he texted me about a nurse who was trying to make certain he had a sure-fire way to remember him. So the nurse said, “You’re the one who reads books, aren’t you?”

My Dad thought it was pretty funny that it was as if he was the one person in the world who read books. So I texted him back. “Those are those things with a bunch of papers stuck together, with words on, right?”

And he texted back, “Nope. Mine just have pitchers in ‘em.” Lollipop emoji.

I actually have an odd memory about something I didn’t do with my Dad. When I was in elementary school, there was an eclipse of the sun. My Dad thought that they might cancel school for the day, and he had planned that we could watch the eclipse together. But the silly school didn’t cancel. And I was so disappointed. I’m still disappointed, frankly, that I didn’t have that day with my Dad. Dumb school.

But thankfully, this isn’t a story about how I never got to spend time with my Dad. I had many great days with him, and for that, I’m very thankful.

He always gave wise advice, and was always telling a funny story, sometimes punctuating the story with a quote from a movie. Or TV show. Or old radio show. Or song. But I won’t bore you with inside jokes.

But I do want to share one thing I appreciated about my Dad. Maybe it was partly by nature and partly learning along the way, but he had a remarkable ability to talk to you with respect, and explain concepts in a way that was easy to understand. Often he would talk to a child with the same respect as as to adult. Never condescending.

I guess it was partly the teacher in him. An attention to detail and being precise, and yet being able to bring truths down to earth. And I bet he taught something to many of you at one time or another.

And he also had this maybe unusual mix of making me feel free to make my own decisions, discover the truth on my own – and yet he had convictions, and wasn’t afraid to share them. He was passionate once he was convinced of something important.

And when he complimented you, you knew that he really meant it. Because he wouldn’t make something up just to please someone.

But the most important thing for my Dad was his relationship with the Lord Jesus. And when God is on your side, you can be pretty bold. As the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 8,

Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:34-39

Maybe the older we get, the more we realize that we’re all kids at heart. As you know, my Dad loved hymns. But his favourite was not really even a hymn, but a gospel song. In fact, a children’s song, written by Philip Bliss. Bliss had been at a meeting where they were singing Oh How I Love Jesus – and the chorus repeats that phrase over and over – Oh, How I Love Jesus. And he later said: “Have I not been singing enough about my poor love for Jesus, and shall I not rather sing of his great love for me?”

So he wrote the words to this song. And I’ll close with this, because it describes my Dad’s heart so well.

I am so glad that our Father in Heav’n
Tells of His love in the Book He has giv’n;
Wonderful things in the Bible I see,
This is the dearest, that Jesus loves me.

I am so glad that Jesus loves me,
Jesus loves me, Jesus loves me.
I am so glad that Jesus loves me,
Jesus loves even me.

Though I forget Him, and wander away,
Still He doth love me wherever I stray;
Back to His dear loving arms I do flee,
When I remember that Jesus loves me.

Oh, if there’s only one song I can sing,
When in His beauty I see the great King,
This shall my song through eternity be,
“Oh, what a wonder that Jesus loves me!”

Philip P. Bliss