President Herbold June 2023 Update

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Transcript:

00:00:15:00 – 00:00:36:05
Darren Herbold
Hi Alliance Canada. I don’t know about you, but I am ready for summer. There’s just something in the air. People are excited. They’re happy. They’re lighter. It’s just an incredible time of year. Not only am I in a good mood because summer is steadily approaching, but I’m also pleased to announce that we have posted a summary of your responses to the Circles of Dialogue.

00:00:36:07 – 00:01:00:14
This is available on myAlliance right now. You can go read the feedback your peers have provided in response to the four questions asked. A big thank you to all who participated. From the report you will see that as a denomination, we agree by and large on what we think are the things the Alliance Canada is doing well, not so well, things that could be adjusted, and where we sense God is moving us next.

00:01:00:16 – 00:01:25:00
Darren Herbold
This feedback is incredibly valuable as I work on presenting a strategic roadmap to the Board of directors later this fall, and also for their consideration. Could I ask that you would be praying for me, the board, and our broader family as this work happens over the coming months? I’d be incredibly grateful to you for that. In case you missed it, I recently sent out a promotional video for the Jaffray offering.

00:01:25:02 – 00:01:47:10
Darren Herbold
It’s coming together again this fall, and I want to thank everyone who’s participated in it so far. You might not know this, but we’ve raised over 2.7 million over the previous years that we’ve done the Jaffray offering. That’s not a small number, and I’m so thankful for everything you and your churches have done and how much you’ve sacrificed to spread the Kingdom of God to the Jaffray offering.

00:01:47:12 – 00:02:10:09
Darren Herbold
With our focus on South Asia and through our partnerships, the Gospel is being preached in some of the most challenging contexts globally. We also have a report coming on what the Jaffray offering was able to accomplish last year. So be on the lookout for that and other Jaffray resources coming later this year. I so appreciate and enjoy the privilege of hearing from our workers.

00:02:10:11 – 00:02:40:12
How about how God is already at work and where they, and thus us corporately, are joining him to spread his kingdom. I want you to watch this video about God and work through a church partnership in London, Ontario.

Daniel Kwong
This building. At that time they call the RCC that we move in 30 years ago and at that time that we just have Cantonese service and English service.

00:02:40:14 – 00:03:16:09
They’d call the Chinese Canadian born Chinese: CBC. And we from Asia to Hong Kong or China or some of the Taiwan, some of that actually the culture is quite different from the CBC is very hard for us to serve the next generation. That’s why I thinking about to have that partnership worked at the reality.

Jude St. John
Pastor Daniel He approached us and he was interested in the possibility of partnering with West London Alliance Church, really based on two things.

00:03:16:11 – 00:03:40:21
Jude St. John
He was concerned about shepherding his own people because the the second generation Chinese, you know, Canadian born, those kids would go to church somewhere else. Their parents would follow them. The other concern he had was was evangelism, a majority of the Chinese population in London is on the west side of the city,

00:03:40:21 – 00:04:01:15
Daniel Kwong
I think at least very good location. If we start the Chinese ministry over there, easy for us to reach the people and easy for people to go to the church to know the Lord.

Jude St. John
And so we began talking about it. I’ll be honest, the fact that they had a building wasn’t lost on me. We brought the district in as part of that conversation and said, We want a church plant.

00:04:01:16 – 00:04:39:12
Jude St. John
It’s hard to get buildings. And here’s one that we would like to see, maybe ideally, you know, house another church. And that seemed agreeable to the district. We found out by reading through old annual general meeting reports that 60 years ago the congregation had a desire to plant a church in London. So after we got in the process, actually, after the process had started, we found out that the Elders and Congregation of West London Alliance Church wanted to do exactly what we did.

00:04:39:14 – 00:05:06:08
Rhys Plant
My family landed at West London in a period of transition. I was leaving staff in a church. We were in the support raising and prep process of going overseas to plant a church in Scotland, and then COVID hit and everything kind of came to a stop.

00:05:06:10 – 00:05:28:18
Jude St. John
Now, I’m not the sharpest pastor out there, but as we were looking for a church planter and there was one who was in our congregation and his last name was Plant.
I somehow managed to figure out that this is something we should look at.

Rhys Plant
I called them up one day. I said, Listen, brother, I want to be honest with you. I still want to go overseas, but I’m really feeling this burden to stay. And that began the conversation as we prayed and considered and were through it. It became pretty clear that that, you know, it seemed right to the Holy Spirit and good to us to stay and play the church.

00:05:28:20 – 00:05:49:03
Jude St. John
A lot of the conversations, the reason I had were around this idea that he had a clean slate. So, you know, he could he could start and do things the way he thought they should be done. And a lot of those things I would agree on. And he could do it right from the start. And so they very much done that.

00:05:49:05 – 00:06:17:21
Jude St. John
They have Sunday morning services. They have a Sunday evening service. They also do Sunday school before Sunday morning service. We’d love to be able to do that. We have multiple services now, so it’s very difficult. So he’s able to do things that I’m actually envious of.

Rhys Plant
Wednesday evenings we have a Bible study. There’s a ministry called Safe Families who uses our building on Wednesdays, and we’re just looking for other ways to kind of to get involved in different things, to care for each other and care for the community.

00:06:17:23 – 00:06:38:09
Jude St. John
I’m born and raised in London, lived here my whole life, and it’s a great city, but it’s a it’s a difficult city in interesting ways. There’s a certain sort of apathy here where a lot of the people are content just to go along with life.

00:06:38:10 – 00:07:01:12
Rhys Plant
There are people from all around the world in London who have never heard the Gospel before.
There are there are men and women in London who have been born and raised here, who’ve never heard the gospel. And that is just that is there’s an astonishing amount of need. And so we need as many faithful churches in the city as we can get.

Daniel Kwong
The Lord Jesus Christ coming back very soon. People who really need God, need salvation.

00:07:01:14 – 00:07:17:00
Jude St. John
You know, I would love to see in London, you know, God do a work here. I’d love to see the fruit of the evangelism, not just from our two churches. There are many churches in London.

00:07:17:03 – 00:07:21:22
Rhys Plant
If you’re at a church is maybe struggling and you’re wondering what to do with your building, or if you’re looking to plant a church, if you’re if you’re wondering what to do with your building, don’t sell it. I promise you, there is a church planter out there somewhere who wants it and who would put it to good use.

00:07:21:23 – 00:07:44:21
Darren Herbold
Isn’t that encouraging? Isn’t it just amazing how our God moves people and plans and shifts our imaginations? What’s happening in London is amazing, but the great thing is that I know that for every story like this, there are dozens of others across the country and internationally. God is doing amazing things and we are blessed that we are able to join him in his mission.

00:07:44:23 – 00:08:07:06
Darren Herbold
One of the reasons I share various stories of God’s faithfulness is that I hope they encourage your hearts and inspire hope within you. However, even more so, I hope that you will consider highlighting these stories from your sister churches with your church and local congregation. It’s a privilege and blessing to be part of The Alliance family across Canada.

00:08:07:08 – 00:08:30:11
Darren Herbold
And my hope is that these stories will remind us of the broader work God is doing amongst us individually, our churches, and also the bigger story that He has us part of through the Alliance Canada and our part in his global Church. So I trust that you will have a great summer. I still love our Alliance fam and I trust that your heart is encouraged today.

00:08:30:13 – 00:08:33:20
Darren Herbold
I continue to pray for you daily. Have a great summer, everybody.