Dear team,
I cannot wait any longer before giving you some really great news!
God has answered prayer by providing our team with some urgent help, and in areas where our team has been weak and limping along for way too long. It’s official, Jason and Erin Baan have joined the Establish Team. God has already blessed them with a house in Warman, so they are moving here this summer to begin ministering with us in September. In their short visit with us over the May long weekend, it became very clear that they have gifts and strengths that will greatly enrich what God has called us to. This is very much God’s continued favour! Thank you for praying!
Please pray for all the team formation that is to be done in the weeks and years ahead. Please also pray as they have much to get up to speed on in this ministry – especially as we’re about to release Establish version 2 in the next couple of months.
TWO INTENSIVES BACK-TO-BACK…
These are truly days of God’s favour! On top of the good news of new coworkers, God also continues to open doors to bless the church – this time from a denomination that shouldn’t be interested because of our different traditions. But they are seeing the need to disciple their people and the need to reach the aboriginal in Canada. Others are calling telling us how they are promoting Establish to many different people and ministries. Often we’re left to ask, what is God up to now?
In addition, the equipping that we are planning for this fall – the 10 Month Intensive – has so much initial interest that we’ve been asked to conduct two equipping sessions back to back for two groups of leaders. By an intensive, we mean a concentrated, intentional, focused period of equipping to empower leaders to begin discipling immediately. It will have one on-site the first weekend of each month beginning in October as well as a couple of zoom calls each month for ten months. The first intensive will have their on-site on the Friday night and Saturday morning and the second one will be the Saturday night and Sunday morning! Think about it - we have the opportunity to multiply ourselves within the lives of up to 12 leaders per intensive. On top of this, God is bringing along those that we discipled earlier to help me with this new equipping. Please pray for God to bring those that He wants – from the aboriginal church, wider church, male or female. (If you know of a Christian leader who might be blessed by this equipping, please let them know. There is a booklet that lays out the intensive along with its 20 hour commitment each month.)
NEW INFORMATIONAL GATHERINGS…
Please mark two dates on your calendar to pray as we promote Establish with two new groups of church leaders – both of them in Meadow Lake, SK. The one will be tomorrow (June 17) from 1 – 3 PM and the other will be the evening of June 24th. Word has gone out to key aboriginal believers from communities where there is no organized church. All they know is a camp meeting that comes every 9 weeks or so. Would you pray that God would bring those who He wants and that God would give us a hearing where we can paint a picture of how these resources could richly bless them and their communities?
Please also be praying for us as a team as we finalize the final resource of our first set of resources. This will be an equipping resource that will explain the CALL, the GOAL, the METHOD, and the CHARACTER of disciple-making. It will explain our foundational approach to disciple making to those that purchase our resources outright and give them the tools to equip their next generation to also make disciples. God is leading us to write some very challenging lessons that will be very practical. Please pray for stamina and wisdom to complete these resources as soon as possible.
Thank you to each of you for standing with us. You are also God’s favour in this story.
Blessings,
Dave & Judy
