Missions in Cedarbrae
See what God is doing in South Calgary related to outreach and check how you can help.
Hi friends,
I would like to share how God has been revealing to us how to do His work.
The “Missions team” was created in February 2020. Mike Behrend, Jim Pritchard and myself prayed to our Lord to ask where he wanted us to focus our efforts. It became clear very quickly that He wanted us to stay local, support local ministries and go out into Cedarbrae and show love to our neighbours!
COVID obviously hampered us interacting with people if we had to be in masks and no one would probably even open their doors then! We put forward giving budgets for Narrow Road Home, Mustard Seed, Camp Caroline, ABA and NAB.
Pastor Sam asked us to prepare Mission Moments videos and prayer focus of salvation stories around the world to help us all look outside the church at what God was doing during a time when all our lives were severely downsized! This was when we really discovered our roles in the team! Mike’s passion for computers and video production, Jim’s wonderful ideas and interviews and I kept up the communication and led the meetings. This was scary for me as I haven’t had a role like this before, but I would ask God to show me what we needed to do and talk about. There was always an agenda by the evening for each meeting! I am unable to do this in the flesh and ask God each step of the way. Derik Simpson, our liaison between the Missions Committee and the board of Elders, would regularly show up to our online meetings because we got so much done and he admitted to us that God had placed Cedarbrae as a mission field on his heart for over 10 years. That was so confirming for us! Fiona Donovan came on board with great insight of current salvation story material and her own passion to help bring young people to the Lord. Then 2022 arrived. Also the reality that we could go out into Cedarbrae, to minister to people hurting from the COVID fall out. How exactly we were going to do this? It was overwhelming! We had a change of team members, Jim resigned and Stephen Blackmur came on board.
God gave us a contact to partner with! Janet Saik’s daughter had come to preschool some 20 years ago and Janet’s group were listening to God as well. They felt called to deliver Bags of Hope from their basements to every door in Calgary as soon as the pandemic hit. It was their mission to make sure every house has the gospel of John and instruction on how to submit to God’s salvation.
They had already delivered 900 bags on doorknobs in Cedarbrae last February and were now partnering with churches. They had received a donation and wanted to pass it on to us! So they are giving us 500 bags with a gospel of John, salvation pamphlet and a candy in each one. We just need to complete the route! Janet’s team are going to help us do that, we are being led by God’s hand each step of the way.
God’s prompts are timely. This week, I felt he wanted me to arrange a date to go out with Janet to see how they go about their prayerful delivery. I will join her April 10th in the community of Falconridge. This is a time when the harvest is ripe! It isn’t just a delivery of gift bags; it is about building community and discipleship. We plan to follow up with door knocking to talk to our neighbours, find out their needs and lead them to our church. This is the beginning of a journey of years of work.
Pastor Sam, Mike and the team are making a pamphlet with a more personal message and invite from our church with a QR code that leads to a welcome page on our website. We are in this together as a church. It is humbling up that we haven’t been good neighbours in the past, and that we are about to change that! We need your input, donations and time for this to happen.
Please sign up to help stuff bags on April 23rd or at seniors group April 27th.
Deliver Saturday April 30th and subsequent Sundays May 8th and 15th.
Sign up to interact as a follow up team member to engage with our neighbours as God leads. A desk will be set up after church to collect names or sign up at missions@calgary.church.
Our only hope is in the Lord! Let’s be his hands and feet together.
Sarah Blackmore and the Missions team