The buttons above will stream and/or download the long version of the update.
The above update was recorded in English and dubbed into other languages using
AI.
Links for Darren's short intro + story (3m 43s). These have the original
audio with subtitles other languages:
Links for the short story without Darren (3m 13s). These have the original
audio with subtitles other languages:
Links for the fulllstory (5m 19s). These have the original audio with
subtitles other languages::
Data-wise framework PDF with special thanks to
Steven Hewko
Transcript
Hi, Alliance family.
A very brief announcement for you. Okay. That was clearly a joke. Inside joke.
General assembly.
I do have a few quick announcements for you, and a story for you, but please
be aware that below this video on the page is a shorter version that your
church can show on a Sunday morning as part of perhaps a monthly update.
And I want to pause and not miss this, because I think this is very important
that we take time to celebrate, to explain how we are part of a family of
churches that are together on mission in Canada and around the world.
And so I hope these shorter videos will not only be helpful to you, but I
believe that because they are shorter, that you will be able to utilize them
in your church family context, because sharing about the Lord’s momentum in
our churches across Canada will only help to build momentum and excitement in
your local context as well.
Pastors, church members, one of the things that we presented at Assembly is
that we have been working with Wycliffe to develop research for your church,
because we want to be spirit lead and have godly wisdom about data and
information across our country.
Now, I recognize that sometimes when I, or perhaps you or others talk about
data and research, it can sometimes become distracting because it’s easy to be
data-driven and completely lack prayer and discernment.
And so with this in mind, I want to sketch a brief framework about how my
friend Stephen Hewko has developed an idea around this, how I think about
this, because it’s important for us to be wise as we move into these days
ahead, as we seek to see, Lord willing, more churches, even more healthier
churches, and more leaders trained. And I haven’t done this on one of our
monthly videos before. So if this works or is terrible either way, please let
me know.
Here is a simple two by two framework. On one side you have a continuum and
access. That’s data and research. On this other continuum, you have
discernment. And so on the lowest bottom of lack low data and low discernment.
There is no evidence of discernment or data research of any kind. It is almost
exclusively, again, in its purest sense, completely reactive. Mission drifts
with whatever happens in the moment. And so this quadrant is something we call
data adrift.
Now, over here on the right, you have more research and more information, but
you still have low spiritual discernment. And so this is a quadrant where you
do whatever the numbers say. And often people in this quadrant with this
thinking, they optimize only what is measured, things that aren’t measured.
Intuition, discernment isn’t taken into consideration. So, this is not driven
by any spiritual reflection at all. Again, in its purest sense, for the sake
of this illustration. So here this is completely being data driven.
Now on the top left you have high discernment, but perhaps low data and
research. So in this quadrant, in its purest form, there is deep conviction
and spiritual sensitivity. Decisions, again for the sake of illustration,
rests almost solely on intuition and spiritual discernment alone. Now, of
course, the Bible is full of these stories, isn’t it?
And to be clear, as the Spirit and Jesus leads us, we say yes to him every
time, even when it doesn’t make logical sense. We always submit ourselves to
that. But for the sake of this illustration, this quadrant right here is
independent of understanding where the needs and opportunities are. And so in
this quadrant, we call this being data independent.
Now over here, hopefully we are driving more and more to submit fully to
Jesus. But with as we also consider information and research, what we have
here is where spiritual discernment and good information come together. It is
the combination of discernment and evidence that reinforces this trajectory
that God is leading us on.
Again, we submit fully to the Spirit’s clear leading to us. But outside of the
miraculous divine affirmation, we bring these two things together. And
ultimately, we’re pursuing God’s wisdom for every decision that we make as a
family of churches. And so here, we have a quadrant that is called data wise.
And so I want to give some of that context as I provide some more updates to
you here. We have a few tools available right now on the My Alliance portal.
In fact, we have mapped every Alliance Church.
Now, if you can’t find your church on this portal on the map, please email me.
Because actually, we’ve mapped every church in Canada overlaid census data to
show an interactive map that displays four simple things for us.
Number one, the engagement of Christians in an area nominal Christians in an
area, religious nones, those that don’t even know the name of Jesus, and of
course, other faiths.
Now when you log in, you can see some definitions of these categories and how
we come to those. But I think you’ll find those incredibly helpful as you
consider what the Lord is calling to you, calling you towards.
Secondly, launching by the end of the month are data wise, community profiles
for each Alliance church and the surrounding community.
Now, it’s truly amazing, because this is top-of-the-line research that large
organizations use, and the Lord has opened doors so that we, as the Alliance
Canada, can learn and then pray into the details of who lives within five,
ten, 15 minutes or more commute from your church, and to then be able to
discern with even greater clarity who the spirit is placing on the heart of
your church and our churches.
Now remember, we want to be. I desperately want to be fully spirit-led,
submitted to Jesus in the spirit, in all things. But I also want us to be
data-wise to pursue wisdom in all things. So grab the report. Read it. Digest
it. Pray about it. I’m already praying the spirit will give you even greater
creativity and expectation for more fruitfulness in your local contexts for
his name and fame.
Now, it’s important to highlight that this is currently available to all
licensed workers through the My Alliance portal. However, this is important
data wisdom that can be used as a discussion for anyone in our churches. If
you are a church member and you would like to follow up with your church on
this, please follow up with your pastors, your boards as they can share this
information with you. Elders, this is such a great tool, perhaps even for your
next board meeting.
Now, a second update. Our Jaffrey offering. While the above was about our
shared national vision, we are also a missions movement and one of our yearly
focuses is the Jaffrey Offering, which is our shared annual missions focus.
Now, if your church doesn’t already have a missions focus, this is a yearly
missions campaign that we run each year to raise money and awareness for
missions to bring “The whole gospel to the whole world”. So more information
will be coming very soon, but we continue to keep these things simple and
focused. And so we’re again trusting God to raise $500,000 for our partners in
South Asia and the Middle East to train and equip church planting pastors.
If you were at General Assembly, you would have heard our partners speak and
share their stories. But what God is doing in the majority world? I found it
humbling and encouraging. And I think you would agree if you heard those
stories. Incredibly powerful. people are hungry for the gospel, and we have a
unique opportunity to mobilize local believers to be trained and share the
gospel in some of the hardest and darkest, most persecuted places on the
entire Earth. So stay tuned for more information about that into the days
ahead.
Now, back to Canada. I want to provide you with a story about a church in
Revelstoke – again, there’s a shorter version below on the website for you to
use on a weekend at your church to invite your church into this grand
narrative the Lord is writing within the Alliance Canada, but I want to share
the longer form with you here. Have a great end of your summer, and I’m
praying for you as you launch this fall.
Would Christ be glorified in all that we do. There’s always been a ski hill
here with ski chairs, a chairlift. But in about 2007, 2008, the developers
moved in from Vancouver and from Whistler and built one of the biggest ski
resorts in North America. And how did that impact the community? Oh, it
completely changed it. The house prices quadrupled in a very short space of
time. The town got a lot younger because it was young people coming here to
ski. It got a lot more affluent. There was a lot more, wealthy people moving
into town. And then every winter, the town doubled in size. I wouldn’t say
it’s necessarily a resort town, although it’s becoming more and more a resort
town.
We’re seeing it being more and more a destination. It’s like one of those
undiscovered gems that’s slowly, slowly starting to be discovered. They’re
coming from the bigger centres and they’re coming here and they’re bringing
that type of thought process and that type of energy with them. And, and so it
is changing how we minister here and who we minister to. And just the spirit
of the town, I guess.
As far as the ski hill goes, it’s one of the top four largest ski hills in
Canada, great terrain, lots of lifts. It can be a super busy day. And it’s
like you’re the only one on the hill, so. And the community of Sun Peaks, and
through the valley, there is zero church representation. We were up at some
peaks. And we were having lunch, I think, at one point, and we looked around
and just it came up, and we said, wouldn’t it be amazing to have a church up
here? Just west of Calgary are some of the most iconic resort towns in Canada.
There’s Canmore, there’s Banff, there’s Lake Louise, there’s Kananaskis. All
such a short drive away. Every weekend, tens of thousands of people pour into
them to visit, to ski, to bike, to hike, there are so many unreached, those
kinds of towns just west of us, of some of the most underserved towns in all
of Canada. What would it mean for God to do a brand new thing there? Come
September, we see who is moved into town. Who’s going to be part of the
church. And then we design our ministry for the next six months, because we’re
meeting the needs of who’s going to be part of our town.
So we have to have a super low barrier of entry to participate in ministry.
But, at the end of the season, a lot of the staff or people who have been
attending will go back home. And it’s often in another country they are from.
Right? A lot of Australians and Europeans, so we get them for a short period
of time, develop a relationship, and they have a place to plug in and then
they have to go. Like, it’s kingdom building. It’s not congregation building.
So we’ve had a lot of people in our church in ten years, but our congregation
is not very big. We do have our core group, a core worship team or lead team,
you know, that will be around consecutive seasons. You never know how many
people you get in a Sunday morning. You still frustrate the life out of me
because I found myself standing up there preaching to the people who weren’t
there. And so it’s hard not to take that personally.
So I stopped attendance about six years ago. And so now I just preach to the
people that are there. We tried to be involved in the community as much as
possible coming alongside the local people as far as, doing sports with them,
playing hockey, playing golf, just making our faces known to build that trust
up before they even knew about us or came in through the door. Every Sunday in
January and February. So for eight Sundays, we, invite the entire town down
for a community breakfast.
A lot of people come down because they’re hurting financially, and a lot of
people come down because they’re really disconnected and lonely. And we get
about 100 people every Sunday for that, coming down for breakfast.
There wasn’t a big Christian presence here, but there was a big spiritual
presence. And it was a lot of that New age spirituality, a lot of occult. A
lot of, you know, dark things, a lot of people who would be spiritual without
religious. It looks idyllic, but spiritually, it’s very dark.
People come to Revelstoke chasing an adrenaline high. And when you don’t find
that, or when you find that the skiing and snowboarding doesn’t meet their
needs, then, there’s a lot of depression as a lot of suicide in all of the
mountain towns have a high drug use.
There’s a huge disparity in incomes here between the ultra rich and the entry
level jobs. Sun Peaks is a very spiritual community, Just a lot of
spiritualism. They, in some way, are welcoming to another spiritual group
coming in. But we’ve also felt the heaviness of the spiritualism that’s
already there.
There’s a lot of people who are spiritually seeking, spiritually, you know,
looking for things, and yet not spiritually fulfilled. They are open to the
spirit.
right? Or to a spirit. And, we’re trying to introduce them to the spirit. And
so my passion is to really to, you know, to turn their eyes towards Christ
and, and really, like, you know, what you’re looking for is Jesus.