“C. had his first Board meeting with
the company in Central Asia, which has
now helped create 16 thousand jobs. Pray
for wisdom as C. had been asked to lead a
project examining the company's
expansion into two other Central Asia
countries. A decision should be made this
month. Pray for C&K as they work to
formalise the launch of a new BAM
company this month. Other projects are in
the pipeline to advance the Kingdom
through impacting the marketplace for and
with Jesus.”
This month at Knox we focus on Missions. Look out for missions moments most weeks to hear from our family working around the world. Oct 27 is Missions Sunday. Come join us for lunch and an afternoon program. We will be having a special panel following up on the Lausanne Congress.The 4th Lausanne Congress concluded on September 28. Many of us have been praying for this important movement with the focus “Let the church declare and display Christ together”. The goal of this congress is to create a “comprehensive, coordinated, and collaborative” global mission that will guide our work until 2050. What could be more important as a global church? There are lots of resources and interesting information on their website including the four themes and 25 global gaps in mission.Here is a small sample of observations from Craig Shugart, friend of Knox, who was part of the Canadian contingent attending Lausanne.“There was a strong focus on the need to make disciples—in the view of some, stronger even than the emphasis on evangelisation—but with a recognition that both are wrapped up in the mandate given to us by Christ."A highly notable feature of the Congress was a dedicated Workplace Track, which had more than half of the entire participation in the Congress seeking to attend, (This) must certainly reflect a measure of serious progress being made in understanding the role that 99% of the Body of Christ who are not in professional church-centred ministry have. "There was a prominent emphasis given to Gen Z and the implications for the church, evangelism and mission, as well as some important wrestling with the question of intergenerational mission, which, it was gratifying to see, was wholesome, humble, realistic and positive.”Hope you can join us to learn more from our missionaries who attended.
Being a refugee is an uncertain existence wherever you are. Recently many Afghanis arrived suddenly here on the doorsteps of many native Texans.
When rent was raised, the hunt began for affordable housing and there was a trail through a number of AirB&B. This was a family that had been my near neighbors and often visited for the past three years. Elderly parents, man, wife, year old baby boy, sister, they had been in a good three bedroom apartment in my apartment complex. A friend, of a similar age to the younger women accompanied me and we found them in an AirB&B. Sharing the evening meal as usual, we visited till midnight. And we prayed with them and for them. They were truly ‘stressed out’.
God provided them a house they could afford to rent in McKinney. We went and found them again and shared the evening meal and thanked God for His provision.
During their stressful time, my family presented me with my first great (!) grandson, Daniel Jackson Norman, 7 lb 14 oz. What a delight to hold that little bundle in my arms (and have him spit up on my shoulder). My granddaughter, Anna, and my daughter, Christina with the father, Grant, brought him for an introduction, and lots of generational pictures.
As we all sit and enjoy our Cokes or ice teas, hamburgers, pizza, guacamole, etc. a number of the Christian Lebanese with whom I worked are over their heads with the influx of refugees from the south of Lebanon, receiving two families in every household for comfort and support.
Christian villages are overwhelmed and schools and churches are seconded into shelters. Unlike Katrina, this hurricane of human disaster has no source of government help for restoration. Olive groves have been destroyed, houses razed, people lost. But God’s people are always at the ready, watching in awe for His provision. It is a joy to be on the ground and on the job.
Pray for your fellow Christians of Lebanon. Pray that the Gospel will penetrate to those who are loved and helped. May the Muslim population learn the blessing of the Love of our Lord Jesus, Who came to seek and to save those who are lost!
Praying is our best and only tool. Pray for them and pray for me, as we serve together.
PS No, I’m not in Lebanon. That is a physical impossibility. However I’m in daily and hourly communication by WhatsAp and telephone with my friends and the American Women’s Club in Beirut of which I am a member.
Thanks for join us by prayer all the time.
How important is to be together in this wonderful walking with the Lord.
for the case of the nations of the Earth.
In this long waiting time in our home country, was necessary to have time to
reconnect with the people of God; understand HE is in control of every situation.
The people who we are praying for long time, still in our hearts. Just asking the LORD what's is next step to do, where, when, and how?
Last February when we travel to Spain, and we talk to others in the same situation, we understand the world is changing, and we need new strategy to move.
Brenda and I wrote to you last month explaining that we have been given the opportunity of a matching grant of up to $5,000 to go toward our ministry. This means that every dollar donated, over and above the normal monthly donations we receive, by the end of September will be matched, doubling the impact of your gift!! We are so thankful for the response thus far and we only have one week left in order to meet our goal: September 30th.
If you have been considering giving toward this project, The Great Commission Foundation has provided the Link below as the way to give online - there is a dropdown menu where you can select “Gord & Brenda Nickerson” to ensure that it is designated appropriately.
Last week, our full mission attended a meeting in Mbale. We recommended two pastoral candidates for service in Mbale. The committee on foreign missions of the OPC are meeting in Philly this week and we expect them to approve these candidates. Please pray as we review our five-year plan as a mission. A new one is due to be written by the end of this year, but because the only mission pastor on the field is leaving in December and we're not sure when the new ones will move to Mbale, there has been reluctance to even review the plan. Already a lot of excuses have been mentioned as to why we won't be ready to discuss at our October meeting. I feel like I'm floundering without a plan. I will review it on my own anyways even if the higher ups don't want to commit to a plan right now. I'm trying not to count down the days until the Verdicks return to Uganda next month. I'm also trying not to be tempted to just dump all the work in their laps the minute they get back. I'm so weary. Please pray that I can take one day at a time and not worry about mission business. I'm grateful for Aleper's partnership at the clinic. He has been building his new house and so taking time off for that. He will likely take another week off in early October. Payroll at least has been going well. Thank you for all your prayers! How can I pray for you?
1. Brenda and I will be doing a 10 day ministry trip between Dallas and Chicago in mid-October. This will include visits with some of our Josiah Venture Alumni along the way. Pray that we will be able to bring encouragement from Christ into the lives of those we visit and be able to continue to strengthen our relationships with them.
2. We will also be representing Josiah Venture at an AYME Conference (Association of Youth Ministry Educators) in Charlotte NC. I have been asked to be a member of the AYME Board and this will be my introductory meeting. Pray that God will use me as I seek to speak into this organization with wisdom and discernment.
3. Finally, Brenda and I have been given a $5,000 matching grant....the opportunity to give toward our ministry with the Josiah Venture Leadership Lab (walking closely, mentoring, and coaching North American Youth Pastors) ends at the end of September. Pray that God will lead many to partner with us in this way.
Greetings from humid SE Asia! I’ve been in Boracay, Philippines for the past 2 weeks, working with my Indigitous colleagues in person. Our global, Christian hackathon is happening mid-October to mid-November and there’s a lot to prep!
It has been wonderful to work in person.
hack.indigtous.org
I leave tomorrow for Korea, to prepare and run the upcoming Lausanne Movement global congress. 5000 people from about 190 countries. Dave Benson and I are running the collaboration process each afternoon for a total of 8 hours. We’re gathering around 25 issues we face in the world and in our churches. We have 25 leadership teams in these rooms, so pray that we all work really well together. The goal is to foster relationships and allow the Holy Spirit to inspire ideas on how to collaborate and bring resolution to these issues by the year 2050.
We’re also working with the team to host these sessions virtually to another 5000 people joining from home.
I’ve been working non-stop for months now and unfortunately, my laptop died 2 days ago!
A friend is bringing me a new one from Singapore on the 19th, but that is 5 precious days away and 3 days before the congress begins.
Please pray as I try to figure out how to do my work from my phone and other people’s laptops until then.
Good grief. The church here completely eliminated me from their missionary staff and cancelled my support. That sent me back to work on the stock market, and God has provided as He always does. Just in time!
God is working overtime everywhere, here there is a group of 25 to 30 year olds that go out to the malls on the Saturdays to share the Gospel with anyone.
During the week, they meet regularly to share personal concerns, study the Word and Pray together. Some of them
have set themselves to memorizing whole books, like the book of Romans.
It's an unusual group, not part of my church.
How are we to understand our times? Perhaps you’ve become aware of the terrible stabbings and shootings in Germany, even in Munich, of the last couple of weeks? August 23rd in Solingen, at the city’s 650th founding anniversary, eleven were stabbed, three fatally, by a fighter for the “Islamic State”. The theme of the celebration was “Festival of Diversity”. Ironically, Solingen is well-known as “the City of Blades” for the manufacture of swords and knives. The state’s Minister of the Interior commented: “From out of nowhere someone randomly stabbed people”. A week later in a chartered flight, 28 Afghans with serious criminal records were deported to Kabul, each with 1000€ for humanitarian reasons to restart their lives —the first deportation since the Taliban took power. September 5th, another young, radicalized Islamist, began shooting a rifle affixed with a bayonet, near the Israeli Consulate outside Munich’s NS (Nazi) Documentation Center. His fire, quickly returned by the police, fatally shot him. That day marked the anniversary of the deaths of eleven Israeli athletes taken hostage and killed at the 1972 Olympics. The Oktoberfest begins in two weeks, September 21st. What awaits us? Are we ready?
Early this month elections were held in two states in the eastern part of Germany, in which the current federal coalition parties (social democrats/ greens/ liberals) lost significant support to the conservative Christian Democrats and right-wing Alternative for Germany. The latter, though receiving approx. one third of votes, are deemed “undemocratic” by all other parties, who refuse to collaborate with them. The differences on immigration, crime, economic stability and foreign policy are significant. Political consensus is difficult here too!
More personally, while entering a grocery store in a suburb recently, a man behind me came in cursing. Allowing him to pass, I was dismayed to read the back of his t-shirt: Teach children to worship Satan! Sadly, after stashing my cell, I couldn’t find him to ask about it. Black metal from Sweden is in Bavaria too. Near my apartment is also a Reiki “healing center”, and a little further up the street there’s a mosque—the confident presence of Muslims is growing. Spiritual darkness is increasing…
In our pluralized and polarized climate, it’s ever more apparent that we are in a post- Christian climate. Although the number of professing Christians in Germany is under 2%, the values and ordinances undergirding the culture for centuries since the Reformation (despite liberal perversions!) have held in Germany until recently.
Nevertheless, faith in God through His Word to give the knowledge of the truth, defeating lies, leading to godliness, is also advancing! It’s been a busy summer—and we continue to see more of the Lord’s work among us to expand His Kingdom!
- In July we “opened up shop” in Munich’s downtown shopping district! Tenants are changing and the owner offered us the space for evangelism until new tenants are found! 8000 Bibles and tracts are being offered, along with a cup of coffee and the opportunity to ask questions from the new pastoral trainee heading the “One Book Shop”, as well as others from the church. Check out the photos here: one book shop kaufingerstraße - Google Search From
September 9th-13th, at 6pm, our Christianity Explored, now One Book Explored, will be offered there to all and sundry! Prayers are so appreciated!
- A team of 15-20 volunteers from our church are downtown monthly on a Saturday but also for a week annually. August 26-31 the book table was held near the One Book Shop offering Bibles in 55 languages, as well as many tracts, while questions are asked and answered. Bibles were often requested even as volunteers were packing up! This year German teens expressed more interest—seeking what their parents do not know and cannot give? During a special Saturday training for this in July, a young Muslim woman attended—and she has since then committed her life to the Lord! During the Oktoberfest hundreds of people will pass by the church and our book table! May angels have cause to rejoice as locals and international visitors find much, much more than they expected!
- The new church plant just south of Munich started well after Easter with approx. 60 attendees, including children. Several non-Christian visitors have attended, a few come regularly! Two Bible studies, a prayer meeting and Sunday school class have also started. The other two church plants (east and west) are also thriving and growing. We’re praising God!
- By God’s grace our church is growing steadily so that we have about 450 members—in a space that only holds 300. September 29th we are baptizing a few more! Adding a third service was considered, but it’s already tight as the English-speaking church is also expanding! It seems that the Lord is leading us to a new building—and a move—as a few sponsors are indicating their desire to support us. Praise and prayers are much appreciated!
- Personally, August was busier than expected as I taught the new pastoral trainees the Discovering Change course over five Tuesday afternoons, revising it again. Seeking to be a “compelling community” of people who wouldn’t normally unite easily—or at all, this is only truly achieved as we “love one another deeply, from the heart” (1 Pet 1:22). This we do by loving God more, ourselves less, and living for God—compelling lives of love in a crooked and perverse generation, willfully abandoning the knowledge of God.
- Recently two non-Christians came for counseling. One understood that “Jesus gives more than He demands” (when asked about Mt 11:28-30)! The other discovered that: “the Bible is like your own murder mystery—you are the detective of your own crimes!” The Spirit must be at work—though the pull of the world is strong, and they have yet to return…
It is the greatest privilege to see the Lord at work among us in so many ways! We’re so grateful for the team of pastors and elders who faithfully, clearly and boldly present the Gospel, besides facilitating the 50 diaconal teams for members to use their gifts to support new and long-standing believers. Many newcomers to the faith are also coming with burdens that need to be addressed more specifically—even before they become members. Counseling, mentoring and training continues…!
There are several crucial items I would have you pray for—my schedule this Fall is extremely full and the blessings of the challenges beyond my wisdom, ability and strength!
- September 20-21: The Network of Biblical Counseling (Netzwerk Biblische Seelsorge) is holding a seminar weekend in another city with Ed Welch on the topic of “Made for Intimacy”. Several mentees and church members are attending—may it be edifying! We were made for intimacy with God!
- Beginning September 28th, I’ll continue mentoring and training our group of 18 mentees on various Saturday mornings. We’re focusing on the problem of suffering, how to understand it, and work through aspects of it in counseling. We’ll continue watching and discussing video-taped counseling sessions.
- Beginning October 15th, over the course of five Tuesday evenings, I’ll be offering the Discovering Change course in our church again. Prayer that the Spirit would work deeply in all of us is much appreciated! This course is designed to strengthen each believer in his/her own sanctification—specifics that I have found myself teaching in almost every counseling situation. May each person attending realize how the Spirit is advancing their life in Christ!
- Our discussions with Biblical Counseling UK are advancing, and we are hopeful that we can benefit from their tremendous program to effectively train lay counsellors over the last decade. This would be such a needed support for the training here! Please pray that the Lord will make a way.
- Requests for Counseling and mentoring within the church are increasing, as biblical counseling becomes more appreciated even beyond our church, and as the issues facing counselees become more complex and weightier in our cultural climate. We are so encouraged by the Lord’s work in individual hearts—to strengthen in particular ways, going from confused slavery and agony to greater victory in depth of knowledge, faith, intimate worship and a changed life—though circumstances remain difficult and even the sufferings of Christ also flow over into our lives. Please pray for wisdom and strength!
Your support in prayer and financially over the decades has been used by the Lord to send me out and to continue to sustain me. I’m truly grateful! I have rarely needed to request funding, as I have simply sought to “seek first His Kingdom” (Mt 6:33) trusting Him to provide. However, over the last two years, two churches have had to decrease or withdraw significant support, so that I am short $750/mon. from each. My Canadian and American mission agencies have notified that now both accounts are drained, and they can no longer send all my monthly support. The church here is challenged to make up the difference. I would be most grateful if you would pray with me about this, that the Lord would provide again, that I may contribute here in strength where this great door of effective work has opened for us.
Do you have a memory of some special time associated with Knox Spadina? Author Ian McKechnie, is compiling a number of articles to include in a PCC book. You can contact Ian below.