Happy New Year! Welcoming 2019

I want to wish you a Happy New Year as we enter into 2019.

What an exciting year for us as we celebrate our centenary and we’re looking forward to a full year of very important events coming up.

First, we will be celebrating our 100th birthday on Pentecost Sunday in June. We’ll have special videos and other items for your church to join in with us.

Then please plan to be with us in Calgary, from August 27 to 30, for the 100th anniversary celebration at the Pentecostal World Conference.

We’re launching into a year where we feel very strongly that we have to go back to the call of our mission.

Part of our mission statement says that we want to glorify God by making disciples.

Through Every Day Faith, we have emphasized the fact that disciples—disciplined followers of Jesus—are to demonstrate their love for God and love for others. That means we Read Every Day by engaging the Scriptures. We also Pray Every Day by being intimate with the Lord and hearing His voice.

We Give Every Day by being generous people and giving of everything that God has bestowed on us: our time, our energy, our money. We’re generous.

And we Share Every Day. We have a living faith, a gospel, that we absolutely believe that all seven billion plus people on the planet should receive.

And so, to be quite honest, I and many of our leaders have been carrying a heavy burden about our effectiveness. Not at running good churches and other things that we do. But going right to the core of our effectiveness of making disciples.

And so, throughout 2019, as part of our centenary, we want to bring it right back to the fact that we make disciples.

And to do that, we want to start off with our Every Day Faith emphasis in January: that I personally will choose to follow Jesus.

That comes right back to you and I.

I know for a fact that, at any given time, even within our leadership and those who serve in the life of our churches, that there is an ongoing battle to keep leaning into Jesus. To keep intimate with Him.

And so, right from the beginning of this year, I call you, along with myself, to choose to follow Jesus.

If there’s any drift in our lives, to do a 180. To return to Him and restore first love.

As we continue on through the year, through our various publications and especially through the Every Day Faith emphasis, we will continue to emphasize what it means to choose to follow Jesus. To be disciples.

I invite you to go on this journey with us and bring along your congregational members. Other people within the life of your ministry. Your family. Let’s choose together to follow Jesus. To make disciples and bring glory to God.

Again, Happy New Year and we look forward to what the Lord has in mind for all of us in 2019.

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To view a video version of this message, click here.
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In 2019 we will be emphasizing our resolve to fulfil our mission given by Jesus to be a disciple and to make disciples. These “I will” statements will express that commitment and be presented throughout 2019 in testimony/Enrich, our Every Day Faith emphasis, and other communications. They reflect our Christian resolve to live out our lives in faith and with kingdom purpose.

To receive updates on the monthly Every Day Faith focus and on the “I will” statements, visit www.everydayfaith.ca, where you may also sign up for email communications.