Register General Assembly here
Transcript:
Rev. Darren Herbold:
Hi everyone! This update is a little bit different as we're here in Western Ukraine early Sunday morning. Actually. In fact, in a little over an hour we'll be walking up this road over here attending church and participating with our partners here on the ground. Just over a week ago began an incredible journey. As we landed in Warsaw, Poland. We entered Western Ukraine and we made our way through over various stops all the way. Basically right to the front lines. And it is a journey that has left me speechless more times than I can remember. We were able to, and in fact still are, participating in a relief convoy that supplies churches as they support those in their communities. The need here, both material and spiritual, is immense, and the work and ministry that is happening here is equally impressive and is happening in part because of your and our financial partnership through our Global Emergency Response Fund. Thank you. While it is clearly and understandably very difficult here, there's also a reason for great hope as God is moving here in significant ways. His people, empowered by the spirit, are moving and seeing incredible fruit. Just over 36 hours ago, we were within a few kilometers from the front lines, handing out supplies while bombs or missiles. I'm not really sure what they were. They landed around us only a few kilometers away. And yet here we stood, the team handing out supplies and in this specific moment, listening to our partner share the gospel plainly and clearly. It was all really calm, but he was sharing clearly because as he shared with us, he said, every time we come, there are less people alive. And today is likely the last day for some of these people to hear. And so again, I stand there speechless, listening, watching and experiencing the peace of Christ in a place that should be anything but.
As an important update, you'll hear more of these stories from Ukrainian pastors at Assembly in Toronto this July. You won't want to miss it. And so if you haven't signed up yet, today is a good day to do so. Again, I'm so very thankful how the Lord is using the Alliance in Canada in such significant ways internationally, but also in our home country. And so with that in mind, we go back to Canada and listen to a testimony from Pastor Scott Phinnemore, the senior pastor at Bramalea Alliance Church in Brampton. Let's watch this together.
Rev. Scott Phinnemore:
I think God was really challenging us. Who do you believe it? Are you going to trust my economy? Hi. My name is, Scott Phinnemore and on the lead pastor at Bramalea Alliance Church in Brampton, Ontario. And I have been here 17 years. Over the years that I've been here, God has been incredibly faithful. His faithfulness showed up, in the finances.
I never realized when I became the senior pastor how much you have to carry the weight. what's happening financially in your church? And, we had gone through some difficulties, and, I remember at a board meeting, we were discussing what we were going to do with the finances, and I've never seen a board split right down the middle. Half the board said, nope, we need to cut, half the board said, no, we need to increase. And we couldn't decide. All the guys went away for another week to pray about it. And I think God was really challenging us. Who do you believe in? Are you going to trust my economy? And so when we came back together, we were unified. We need to increase. After we made that choice, it went up okay. No one knew. The board had said, yes, we need to increase the budget except us. And yet all of a sudden the finances started going up. The part of me with that board that year, they didn't realize God knew. He saw our faith and he was honoring it.
I'm not the leader in this church. Yes, he's the head. We're the body. So let's listen to him and let's do what he says. Even when he tells you do some stuff that seems pretty crazy. Have it, you know, test the spirit, make sure it's where he's guiding you. But do it. When God led us to give away an offering that's crazy, especially when things are tight. But he's trustworthy. God's economy is bulletproof.
He says, "this day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you. I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life so that you and your children may live, and that you may love the Lord your God. Listen to his voice. Hold fast to him, for the Lord is your life." Everything comes from our relationship with God.
You want to be good dad? Be tight with Jesus. You want to be a great employee where you work? Be tight with Jesus. I mean, if you want to be a good pastor, a minister, someone who volunteers at a ministry, stay tight with the Lord. If it was a job, when things got hard, you quit. You'd move on. When you know God's called you to it, it just. It changes everything. Both my wife and I knew God had called us here. The first year and a half was incredibly difficult. Well, that calling helped us stick it out. If God's called me here that he's called me here.
Rev. Darren Herbold:
I'm really struck by Pastor Scott sharing when he says God challenged them and asked them, who do you believe in. Friends, we believe in a God who can make all things new. Not only can, but he does. And sometimes when we're in places of challenge, be that financial or in places like here in Ukraine, it's almost as if God ask me this same simple question.
Darren, whose economy do you believe in? Or perhaps to us as a denomination, to the Christian Missionary Alliance of Canada, whose economy do you believe in? And so I'm praying today, thinking today and asking Jesus where are you asking me to step out boldly in faith, where perhaps it doesn't make human sense? I think that's important question for all of us, isn't it?
I'll speak more to that at Assembly. But today is perhaps a day to ask him that same question and see what he might say. May you hear Jesus's invitation clearly in my prayers, that he would fill you with a greater measure of faith as you step out boldly for his name and his fame, would we become less so that he would become more?
That is my prayer, Lord, let it be so. I'm so looking forward to seeing many of you at Assembly. I love our Alliance family. Praying for you today.