Charles Price, the senior pastor at The Peoples Church in Toronto, addressed a full Hildebrand Chapel this morning about faith.

In typical Price style, complete with British accent and dry humour that drew frequent laughter, he began with a story about a man who was trying to be something he couldn’t.

“I told this story for three reasons,” he said. “One, because I thought it was funny. Two, because some people believe that being a Christian is like that—pretending and hypocrisy. Three, a lot of folks are genuine Christians, but their experience has become like this …an uphill struggle.”

He likened the story to Hebrews 4:2: “For we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard did not combine it with faith.”

“The truth in itself did them no good,” said Price. “It had to be combined with faith.”

Price went on to discuss the nature of faith in the Christian life, saying it was both incredibly important and hugely misunderstood.

“Faith has to be in something,” he said. “The most important part of faith is the object.”

He called it an attitude of dependence on an object that allows the object to work on our behalf, stressing that it’s the object, not our faith in it, that helps us.

For us, he said, this means that it’s Christ, not our faith in him, that allows us to live the Christian life—Christ doesn’t give us strength; he is our strength.

“This is biblical Christianity,” said Price.

Price is one of the keynote speakers at this weekend’s 2819 conference. He’s scheduled to speak Friday at 10 a.m. and 7 p.m., and Saturday at 10 a.m.

Charles Price has been the senior pastor at The Peoples Church since September 2001. The church has a congregation of more than 4,000 people, and it is located in Toronto, Ont., Canada. His weekly hour-long television program, Living Truth, is broadcast in Canada, the U.S.A, the United Kingdom, Europe, India, Australia, New Zealand, Guyana, South Korea, and Japan. He also has a daily radio program that is broadcast in the U.S.A. and Canada.