Missions Update From Kelly Dyer
14 Feb 2012
If you want to hear more about what Kelly is a part of in Venezuela and how to pray for her, check out her blog at http://www.scribblesinthesun.blogspot.com.
Pastor Kieran
Missions Blog
What Unites Us In Discipleship?
19 Jan 2012
Last week we took a quick look at what it means to be a disciple.
In my eyes, the simplest understanding of disciple is someone who desires to become like the one that they are following.
As disciples of Jesus we want to be like Jesus. He's our mentor and our master. We should want to be like him, talk like him, love like he does, even hurt for people the way that he does.
When we look at Jesus - he cares, loves, and hurts for the whole world – this is something that we should want to emulate! John 3:16 shows just how much God cares for us and for everyone.
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."
Because Jesus did this it indicates something about his heart – that he cares for people.
As disciples we need to reflect the same heart. Also, as a church we need to reflect that heart.
I know that often we can place ourselves as disciples into categories that separate us from other disciples. But, ultimately Jesus has ONE heart…so as disciples we all pursue after His ONE heart!
If someone were to ask me, why does Grand Centre Alliance have missions moments every service and have a missions program this is what I would tell them.
- As disciples of Jesus we all need to discover, demonstrate and duplicate the missional heart of Jesus
In order to duplicate that heart in us we all need opportunities to hear and understand, and to practice missions.
- This isn't always "going" but it is "praying" and "supporting". It can even be asking God to identify people that he wants you to share the gospel with.
Over the next months I want to give you better opportunities to hear and understand, and to practice missions through our missions moments. This is a small way that we begin to duplicate God's heart in us, but as we increase this heart I believe that God will also use us differently.
Below is a quick video that illustrates how this could look.
Pastor Kieran
Why we are passionate about mission!
4 Jan 2012
First of all, happy New Year! Secondly, I want to say thanks to those that have been giving faithfully to the missions partnership. We ended December by reaching our $11,000 mark!
I wanted to take the opportunity to explain a bit about why GC Alliance is passionate about missions. Well first off, I would hope that anyone who spends time getting to know the church would realize quickly that we ARE in fact passionate about missions and reaching out to those who don't know Jesus.
Here's the reason why....
Jesus cares deeper than we can imagine for all people. He cares and loves those that are within his church as well as those who are not. One danger that we have as 'Christians' is that we get caught up in what we think a Christian is. This is largely influenced by our experience and observations of other Christians. In the bible very little is talked about becoming a Christian but a lot is talked about becoming a disciple. Often in our testimonies we may say "that's when I became a Christian". This isn't an untruthful statement at all but it can leave others with the impression that you made the decision and now you just get to sit and wait till you go to be with Jesus. The term disciple implies and ongoing work and labor that is involved in following Jesus. Following Jesus is in fact an ongoing effort of submission, humility, worship, and ultimately dying to ourselves. This is Discipleship!
What this has to do with missions....
Jesus sought you. He probably did it through one of his disciples. Maybe a parent, a friend, co-worker; maybe Jesus is seeking you still and you have yet to decide to follow him. Those that are disciples of Jesus are so because Jesus has sought them out through other disciples. As disciples then, we naturally should be reaching out to those that Jesus is seeking. Because we have entered into His Kingdom, His Church means that we have taken on the responsibility of fulfilling His great commission which is to make disciples!
What does this have to do with missions – Simply that the Love we have been shown in being sought out by God is the very love that we need to be expressing to those that do not know Jesus. We are missional as God was missional in saving us!
Pastor Kieran
Merry Christmas friends!
21 Dec 2011
I hope that the Christmas season is a time of relaxation for you all and that there is lots of time to be spent with family!
I wanted to take some time to update you on where we are with the mission's trip to Ecuador for 2012. This year we have a very exciting group. We have started our preparations for this year and are starting to gel as a team.
Of course when planning a trip like this, there are always some hiccups that happen. One of these hiccups was the need to change the dates of the trip. After having worked out dates for the trip another group purchased tickets without telling our partners in Ecuador when they were coming. This left us being double book and we thought it best to move the trip. This at first was a disappointment but we know that God is behind what we are doing and we want to give him the control. This resulted in us having to move the trip back one month into May.
On another note, we are almost ready to be purchasing plane tickets! Thanks to the faithful support of this
church we have almost met our end of December Goal of $11,000. We still have more to raise to meet our goal of
$23,000 but we are off to a great start!
Please continue to keep reading about how Grand Centre Alliance is engaging God's heart for mission!
Pastor Kieran
Walking to Jesus Boldly or Vaguely?
9 Sep 2011
Hey Folks! It's been a while since the last blog post which can only mean that September is starting out busy as usual. We have Community Groups, Ignite, Kids Worship and other stuff kicking off this month which means there is a lot of opportunity to serve as God has laid out tracks for us that we want to follow in making disciples.
I wanted to share a short thought about making disciples that I have been thinking about lately and pose some questions for us as we contemplate this concept.
This is what Josh Etter wrote after traveling with John Piper in Australia.
"It is not enough to vaguely do things for the glory of God. Matthew 6:9 gives the clear guideline that the hallowing of God's name should be the ultimate, conscious end for which we do everything in life. There are other biblical aims in the Christian life—love for God, love for people, personal holiness, missions—but they are all leading to one ultimate aim: the glory of God. And if that is in God's mind, then it should be in ours as well."
When I read this I thought, what does "vaguely" refer to? When we read the Gospel, God's commands are often direct, clear, concise pieces of truth. I think that we often are vague in our walk. Perhaps it is that we think of our walk more like a stroll where it is okay to get distracted by things that are off the direct line that leads to God. Maybe it is through saying or thinking things like "I'll serve more in the church once life isn't so busy", "I'll tell people about Jesus when I get the chance", ect. Often the time may never be "right" or "perfect". You may never get less busy. What I am becoming increasingly convinced of is that God's command is direct in how we do community, mission, worship, and it is all to give Him Glory.
Ask these questions...
- How motivated am I to Praise God?
- How eager or diligent am I in praying for God to show me who to reach out to?
- Is community something I do or is it an integral part of my walk with God?
- How far off the path do I stray and am I quick to set my sight back on the Father?
These are questions that I know I can lie to myself when answering. These questions are ones that we should bring before God and ask for his thoughts...and if we wait on Him and are in a posture to listen then He will answer!
Pastor Kieran
What Is the Philosophy of Worship that Unites Us?
18 Aug 2011
I wanted to share with you this awesome article, written by John Piper, that I was reading on worship. There are a lot of good things to consider as he takes a look as what unites us as beings of worship!
Pastor Kieran
En Route
30 Jun 2011
Pastor Kieran
Helps That Hinder
14 Jun 2011
Howdy Friends,
This week I wanted to show you a video of a remarkable man who has been truly inspirational to kingdom leaders around the world. Dr. Arnold Cook holds a Master of Divinity degree in Missions from Canadian Theological Seminary and a Doctor of Missiology degree from Fuller Theological Seminary, School of World Mission. Dr. Cook wrote Historical Drift, a guide to restoring spiritual passion in the Church.
What he explains in this video is the complexity of helping people across cultural boundaries. Often things that we think help can often hinder and we speak louder through our actions as we ever could with our words.
If you would like to read more about this topic, visit the Brown Blog to read more.
Pastor Kieran
Pray, Pray, Pray!!!
9 Jun 2011
Hey Folks! This week I have a short video on prayer that really gives us a great picture of what prayer CAN be. You may be thinking, prayer doesn't have any more to do with missions than reading your bible does. You would be right; BUT, prayer is so vitally important to affecting the Kingdom of God. In the same way that God invites us into his plan of revealing his love to the world through PHYSICAL ACTION, he invites us to the same mission through PRAYER ACTION! What this means is that, although we have a hard time seeing the "product" of our prayers, prayer brings change in the world!
Ephesians 6:12 says "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." We need to remember and put into action PRAYER! Prayer for – Missionaries, Prayer for – Lost people, Prayer for Pastors, Elders, Leaders..ect.
My appeal: Would you be in prayer for our missions team as we are less than four weeks from our departure; and in prayer for our missionary and team leader Mark Shafer. He has been in the hospital with viral and bacterial pneumonia from last Friday till Tuesday. God is at work through our church and our enemy is at work against us as well.
Pastor Kieran
Ecuador Team Update
25 May 2011
Thanks for coming to check out the missions Blog! This week I wanted to update us all as to the happenings of the team headed to Ecuador. I also would like to share some prayer requests that we need to be lifting up as well.
First off, on the 15th of May we took a special offering for the trip. That morning we were at approximately $13,000 of the $20,000 that we needed to go on the trip. This is obviously really encouraging as to how God has provided as well as how our church family has been generous. This is why it blew us all away when we ended up taking in $7,800 that morning to put us beyond what our goal was!!! I was quite speechless to see how much GCAC is invested and involved in what God is and going to be doing through our missions team this year and following years. In the event that you would still like to give to the missions partnership with Ecuador, money taken in beyond what is needed will carry over to the next year!
Secondly, our team has been quite busy leading into this last month before leaving learning Spanish and making last minute preparations to go. Please be in pray for them as learning another language is kind of like throwing wet spaghetti against a wall, you get a lot thrown at you and hopefully it sticks.
Lastly, I want to share an email that I received from Mark in Ecuador…
Please be in prayer as I made a handshake deal for the purchase of 2 and half acres to build the Huaticocha church and the mission school. Now I need the folks who said they wanted to help me purchase it come through. It costs $9,000. I have six months to come up with the money. We will have plenty to do when you are there installing the septic system and digging trenches for the water and sewer lines along with clearing for the dorms, etc. We have been under attack here nonstop. Everything we set out to do, we run into obstacles. For example we tried to get a phone line but they said none are available may be up to a year before we can get one. I had to go to the bus terminal 30 minutes away to pick up some papers and it took me four hours. Road blocked by mud slide, road construction, funeral, one thing after another. We would appreciate your prayers.
It is often hard to understand how Spiritual warfare affects the things we do. But, often when we are making most of our impact in the Kingdom of God is when Spiritual attack is greatest. In light of this let's be in prayer for Mark and Cheryl!
Pastor Kieran
Asian Spice Field update
12 May 2011
Hey friends, this video is a snapshot and update on the Asian Spice region of the Alliance. If this interests you I would encourage you to watch the video!
Pastor Kieran
A.B. Simpson: From the Pulpit to the Piers
3 May 2011
Hey Friends! This week I wanted to share a video clip on the life of the our denomination's founder A.B. Simpson. This video gives a good snapshot into the heart behind the Alliance family of churches and really shows how Jesus' heart for the lost was the starting point!
Pastor Kieran
Easter and Its Importance
26 Apr 2011
I hope you all had a fantastic Easter weekend! Easter is truly the pinnacle of the Christian calendar. Here's why…
Christ lived and died! This is about as true as a fact could ever get. The fact that is easiest to get hung up on is whether he lived again. Calling this a fact I am sure would rustle a few feathers with those that don't follow Christ, but I choose to call it a fact none the less. At the very least, it is a credible claim and not at all my goal to convince anyone of that right now. The question I want to ask is what is so significant about the resurrection of Jesus?
Here's the skinny: Christianity is a resurrection religion. God is in the business of bringing to life what is dead, period. This doesn't happen out of obligation, or apart from love and grace. Why? Because God is Just. What is dead is dead because sin is deserving of death. Because God loves he wants to see those things come alive again despite the death in which they deserve. If we deserve death and get life, then we have been given what we do not deserve (Grace). In order for justice to be served, Christ had to become obedient to death and die; atoning for our missteps against God. In Jesus' death our debt to death has been erased. In his resurrection, Jesus has conquered death. We share in the death and resurrection of Christ in that we were dead to sin and are made alive when we choose Jesus.
This is central to the Christian belief. We have been made alive in Christ, but the bible talks about God's desire to make alive everything that sin has destroyed. This means all of creation! God does not only love and care for you and me but for all that do not know him. We are also invited into the story of bringing the good news of LIFE though Jesus to the rest of the world.
This is the heart of God's heart which is missions. My challenge to us is to get away from thinking of missions as geographical but to connect it intrinsically to the heart beat of God. God's mission is to make alive what is dead because of the choice to sin PERIOD! This mission and heart of God needs to be engaged in Cold Lake, Alberta, Canada, and Everywhere else on this world. We are all called to be missionaries, either here or elsewhere!
Questions to ponder: How does God want you to aid in the resurrection of others? How can you engage the missions heart of God to care about the resurrection of others?
Pastor Kieran
Greetings Reader!
19 Apr 2011
Thanks for coming to check out this new part of our website. Some may be thinking "blogs are sooo 2007". You may be right but in this blog I am going to do two things. One – Let you know why we are starting a mission's blog. Two – Show you why we are starting a missions blog. Here we go!
Ultimately, we are a church that cares about the world and those that don't know Jesus. As a local church we have sent missions ourselves along with hundreds of missionaries that have been sent by the family of Alliance churches in Canada. Each one of these missionaries has to give up a great amount in order to serve in other countries. Though we can't always be with them and support them in the ways that we would like to, the greatest need that we can fulfill is that they and their ministry be prayed for. From time to time as we get updates from missionaries we will make these prayer needs known.
Not only will this be a venue for our local church to know how to pray for missionaries, but it will also be a way to hear about what God is doing in other countries through our missionaries and others that are tied to us!
One more thing that these postings will do is seek to make us aware of common questions that we have about Alliance Missions. What is a cluster missionary? Where do we serve? How does the money we give go to support missionaries? These types of questions will be answered on a ongoing basis as well as highlighting the history of what God already done through faithful men and women who have served in His Kingdom.
So, this is the part where I show you…I have posted nothing more than a video below of a missionary that we had the privilege of hearing from last summer. The edited version of this video was played in our Sunday morning service but here is the full unedited version for us to enjoy.