President Herbold July 2023 Update

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00:00:14:22 – 00:00:35:19
Darren Herbold
Hi Alliance Canada, summer is finally here. The weather is warm and I’m ready, as I’m sure you are, to get outside and enjoy the beautiful outdoors. Summer is such an amazing time of the year. It can be a chance to vacation with family and friends or just get some much needed rest. The longer days give us extra time for our favourite summer activities and to celebrate God’s creation.

00:00:35:20 – 00:00:55:05
Darren Herbold
We live in such a beautiful country. As we look forward to the season ahead. I wanted to give you a quick update on some exciting things that are happening in The Alliance Canada. The district conference is held in each of our six districts have finished. We elected two new district superintendents, Shane Gould in the Central Canadian District and Matt Boda in the Western Canadian District.

00:00:55:07 – 00:01:23:06
Darren Herbold
Curtis and Bernie were re-elected to their second terms in the Eastern, Canadian Midwest districts, with even greater support than their initial terms. And Mark and Kenzo continue to faithfully serve us in the St. Lawrence and Pacific districts. And a special thanks needs to go to Brant Trask for 12 years of faithful service as DS in the Western Canadian District, and Ian Trigg, who stepped in as DS in the Central Canadian district in 2021 and has served faithfully since that time.

00:01:23:08 – 00:01:52:08
Darren Herbold
Our deep gratitude to both leaders as they set an example of what it means to serve and to end well. Another exciting area of growth for The Alliance Canada is new ventures. New ventures is a beautiful approach to church multiplication as it provides a process for discernment through intentional community and relationship. It is also an opportunity to try new approaches, adjust and grow, resulting in not only new churches but new ministries and Christ-honoring initiatives.

00:01:52:10 – 00:02:15:08
Darren Herbold
Additionally, I don’t want us to miss the important leader Development opportunity New Ventures provides as leaders are given support, opportunity, and coaching as they seek to honour Jesus and make him more famous with their lives. Did you know that over the past five years, 95 new ventures have been started? Even in the midst of the pandemic, new ventures continued to flourish.

00:02:15:10 – 00:02:51:21
Darren Herbold
Of these, 40% have now become new churches. This includes two new churches in 2023, one in Warman, Saskatchewan, and a Spanish church in Newmarket, Ontario. And 20% have become new congregations or ministries. There are currently 48 active new ventures across the country that continue to develop. Our new venture stories are incredible stories of God’s faithfulness, and they abound. From a new community in Renfrew, Ontario, and a new venture started in Dundas, Ontario to a new venture in Maple Ridge.

00:02:51:22 – 00:03:35:05
Darren Herbold
Now let’s take a moment to hear more about how God is using new ventures in Maple Ridge, British Columbia.

Paul Chiu
Coquitlam is a city culturally quite diverse, particularly in the last couple of years, and I would say the last decade or so, 40 to 50% of the population in Coquitlam are ethnic minorities. It’s a booming city. When we started in responding to the migration of people, actually even within our church, we’ve been seeing people moving to Maple Ridge eastward of Coquitlam.

00:03:35:05 – 00:04:06:05
Paul Chiu
About two years ago, The Canadian government, given the Hong Kong people so called Hong Kong pathway, as long as you have a Hong Kong identity, they can come to you live in Canada and then afterwards they can apply for permanent residence. And these Hong Kong pathways. So strategic in terms of, you know, attracting all these Hong Kong, Cantonese-speaking people.

Wai Fong Chow
In the last few years, we experienced the influx of the Hong Kong immigrants.

00:04:06:08 – 00:04:36:21
Wai Fong Chow
So probably we should have some solution to resolving all these different good problems because are getting more and more people coming to the church.

Paul Chiu
Our church has been receiving more than 500 newcomers from Hong Kong, so you can imagine just one local church like us. So that’s why we are seeing the need of planting a church, a congregation, that reach out to the Cantonese-speaking people here.

00:04:36:23 – 00:05:10:21
Wai Fong Chow
So right after the Thanksgiving in 2021, a group of about 20 brothers and sister, we start praying on online with Zoom. I think that’s the beginning of their new church planning projects. Yeah. For the first few months, nothing happens.

Dr. Tom Blackaby
I’ve been praying for some time about our church actually having more inroads into our community. We are mostly white, Caucasian, middle class, kind of a church, but we have so much going on around us that we are just not connected to.

00:05:10:21 – 00:05:39:11
Dr. Tom Blackaby
And there’s no way we could have reached our Cantonese neighbors on our own. We just had no possibility of that happening.

Wai Fong Chow
We form Cantonese Bible Study group, one of the mother living in neighbourhood join us. We share the Gospel to her and then she received Christ as her personal saviour. So it’s a good sign to our prayer group that okay.

00:05:39:13 – 00:06:02:22
Wai Fong Chow
It’s some sort of confirmation that, you know, that probably that’s the right way. We continue to pray and see how God works.

Paul Chiu
Even though Coquitlam and Maple Ridge is not that far away. We are talking about only less than half hour’s drive away.

Wai Fong Chow
The first thing in my mind to, you know, to work with a local church that shares in our Alliance family.

00:06:03:00 – 00:06:31:02
Paul Chiu
The first meeting was the senior pastor here, Tom Blackaby. So we met in his office. He’s so welcoming.

Wai Fong Chow
He’s a very nice guy, easy to work with.

Paul Chiu
And we started praying about it. And the next meeting actually he organized was to meet with his elders.

Andy Lambkin
My connection with this was entirely at the invitation of Pastor Paul and Pastor Tom.

00:06:31:03 – 00:06:55:13
Andy Lambkin
The churches begin to work together. And then through that, I was invited in to help, you know, build out the partnership to build the agreement.

Dr. Tom Blackaby
I was very excited because I know the history of this church is that they have not ever had a church planned or hosted even another congregation. I saw it as a part of God’s activity that we should really join him and just open the doors.

00:06:55:14 – 00:07:33:04
Paul Chiu
Last summer, we started a trial run of our congregation. We started of worship, Cantonese worship, and then in September of last year, 2022, we launched the first official Cantonese worship in this Alliance church here.

Dr. Tom Blackaby
At Easter time, as last year, had both congregations come, had a translator to translate the message Wai Fong, spoke the scriptures for us. We had our worship songs in both Cantonese and English, and their congregation blew our congregation away by the power and the spirit in which they sang.

00:07:33:06 – 00:08:01:07
Dr. Tom Blackaby
After the service, some of the older people and younger people in my congregation, they were in tears because they felt probably for the first time in many, many years, the spirit of God with the multi-cultural congregations together, worshiping the Lord together. And some people said, this is what heaven has to be like.

Paul Chiu
The intercultural component of a church is probably very much the future of the Chinese or ethnic churches in Canada together.

00:08:01:09 – 00:08:31:02
Paul Chiu
We are not building Chinese church. We are not building white church. We are not doing black churches. We are building God’s churches together.

Andy Lambkin
I think that this is the future of the church in Canada. There’s incredible openness to the Gospel in new Canadians.

Wai Fong Chow
Those are new immigrants, new newcomers, they may face a lot of difficulties, challenges. Our lord is still one of the greatest help us and this is also a good news to them that

00:08:31:06 – 00:09:05:21
Wai Fong Chow
if you know Christ, you would be part of our families facing the challenges and problem, all together.

Darren Herbold
I love the quote from Pastor Tom and Pastor Paul regarding the multicultural component of worship and how they say that this is a part of what heaven feels like. That’s powerful. New Ventures is a demonstration of how partnership, multiplication and discernment, working together, can maximize our ability to multiply churches and make disciples everywhere.

00:09:05:23 – 00:09:31:04
Unknown
We are thankful for the primary role that the districts play in establishing new ventures across Canada. Through the Global Advance Fund. We support this structure and partner in key strategic areas. This is another example of how the Global Advance Fund contributes to multiple paying disciples everywhere, internationally, but also importantly here in Canada. I encourage you with two new next steps.

00:09:31:06 – 00:10:06:23
Unknown
One. Visit our website to learn more about how God is using new ventures in The Alliance Canada and hear more stories of what God is doing across the country. Secondly, would you consider sharing this story with your church family as an encouragement to them? And I’ll actually add a third one. Thirdly, to be sensitive to how the Spirit might be leading you personally and perhaps more broadly within your circle of influence, and consider who the Lord might be asking you to tap on the shoulder to make an introduction to the New Ventures team as they might consider their calling.

00:10:07:01 – 00:10:31:07
Darren Herbold
This is perhaps one of the greatest gifts we can give each other to see and to affirm the great potential of others and how the Lord might be asking them to consider next steps. As I close, one of my favourite summer activities is watching the sunset. Actually, it’s my daughter’s favourite thing. She takes pictures all the time, and I’m always awestruck by its beauty.

00:10:31:09 – 00:10:55:12
Darren Herbold
As I watch the sun slowly descend in a blaze of glorious colour. I can’t help but reflect on the glory of God. And so, as we head into the summer this year, as we share an amazing opportunity, what we may have once taken for granted now stands before us as an open door—a summer to spend time together with family, friends, neighbours.

00:10:55:14 – 00:11:17:00
Darren Herbold
God is challenging us to be intentional, to make every moment count, to treat every moment like he treats a sunset as an opportunity to point people to the beauty of Jesus and the glory of God. Have a great summer, everyone. Let’s continue to make Jesus famous everywhere as we go. I so love our church family.