Global Gathering
The Jaffray Offering
Transcript:
Rev. Darren Herbold:
Hi. Alliance Canada. October’s here, leaves are changing colour. There’s a bit of chill in the air, but it’s still beautiful outside. And we’re right in the middle of our missions month, which means October is all about missions. And I have two opportunities of how we can participate together over the next month or so.
As you may already know, we are again raising $500,000 for church planting. But first, let's watch this video with Damien Lee, our International Vice President.
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Imagine walking down a busy street on your lunch break. You see 100 people on your way to the restaurant, and you know, that statistically, there’s probably just one other Christian on that street with you. In fact, most of the people on that street don’t even personally know a single Christian.
This is the reality in South Asia where less than 2% of the population are believers. There are 1.8 billion people spread across nearly 4,000 people groups, who haven’t encountered the Gospel, heard of Jesus, or even met a Christian.
In North Africa and the Middle East the numbers are equally staggering. 280 million people are unreached. Only five in every 100 know Jesus. And the context is punishing. Even if someone manages to hear the gospel, becoming a believer is full of risk. They risk persecution from within their own families. Conversations are about when they will go to jail for their faith, not if.
Places like this are starved for hope. And yet, believers persevere. They can’t keep quiet about Jesus because Jesus has changed everything for them and they cant help but share His good news in spite of the risk… And we are partnering with them.
When you give to The Jaffray Offering, every $3,000 will train and equip one pastor for one year. They already know the languages, the cultures, and the customs. They’re eager to be empowered and sent. They just need a partner.
We want to raise $500,000, to equip over 130 church-planting pastors, give . We’re partnering with local believers and organizations in South Asia and the Middle East, who are training church planters in some of the most difficult contexts in the world. Both of the countries we’re working in are among the top 15 most persecuted places, according to the world watch list.
And yet, people are coming to faith. The church is growing. There is much hope!
Please join us again in this important work. Here is your opportunity. Visit the link below and get more information and to The Jaffray Offering today.
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The need in South Asia, and the Arabian Peninsula is massive. There are so many people who don’t know Jesus. I don’t want these math exercises to feel overwhelming, but it is so hard for me to wrap my mind around two billion. And so I try to find ways to have it make sense for me. Maybe it helps you too. So in one sense, you could think about this as if you told one person about Jesus every second. It would take 11 days to share the Gospel with a million people. Two billion people would take over 63 years.
That’s incomprehensible to me. And yet we know that God can do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine. And thankfully, fruitfulness is his responsibility while ours is being faithful.
We aren’t in this alone as we share in this mission with the global church. And so we have partners who are on track to plant 100,000 churches in South Asia. We’ve already supported 330 pastors who are planting churches and sharing the Gospel. In the Arabian Peninsula, we have over 75 pastors who want to be trained and equipped. And so I’m trusting and praying that we collectively, The Christian Missionary Alliance of Canada, we’ll be able to help multiply churches, and his name in these regions.
Individually, would you consider giving? As a pastor in your church, would you invite your congregation to participate as part of our shared efforts?
Now, your generosity reminds me of the Early Church when Paul writes in Corinthians about the believers in Macedonia giving to meet the needs of the churches. Many of you have already made many sacrifices, so the mission can move forward. And I’m so encouraged by your generosity, and your commitment to make Jesus known. So a very big thank you.
Secondly, registration is open for The Global Gathering. You won’t want to miss out on this. This capital “M” mission conference being held in Chiang Mai, Thailand this upcoming March. All of our international workers will gather together, along with Canadian churches and pastors for collaborative conversations of our shared global mission, and the importance of reaching the next generation as we faithfully serve Jesus and trust his faithfulness to double our reach.
This is about God’s Mission in Canada, and around the world. And it’s an incredible opportunity, a unique opportunity that has never, ever happened before for us as a family of churches, as we gather together, yes, to hear about our global engagement, but even more so to lean in together in this unique and shared mission the Lord has for The Alliance Canada. We also have opportunities for you to attend trips to the mission field, and spend time with our international workers before or after the conference, so you can see and experience our work first hand.
Again, this conference isn’t just about our international workers, though we will celebrate our international workers. We’re going to have leaders from Alpha talking about reaching the next generation.
Dr. Stanley John is going to be talking to about a Missiology, our Theology of Mission.
Darrick Tam will lead us in worship. You might remember him from Assembly. And we want to talk about how to keep momentum going, and continue to provide opportunities and spaces to have conversations together as we faithfully respond to Jesus’ call for us to be on mission.
And so, my prayer is that we would lean even deeper into mission together, whether it’s partnering with the Jaffray Offering, participating in The Global Gathering if you can, or your church’s local initiatives that are so vital to us, let us respond to the Spirit.
Let’s be faithful to the invitations Jesus is putting before us.