Rob Chartrand (00:02.498)
Well, we are so excited to have here on Church in the North, Shayla Visser. She is the National Director of Alpha Canada and the Global Senior Vice President for Alpha International. Shayla, welcome to Church in the North.
Shaila Visser (00:15.109)
Thanks, Rob, it's so good to be with you again.
Rob Chartrand (00:18.286)
So normally on the podcast for our listeners who are regulars, I spent some time getting into the backstories of our guests and how they ended up in ministry. But I'm going to go a different route with you Shayla because there are so many great podcasts out there that have already done this. And our listeners, listen, Google it. There's this thing called Google. It's easy to get a hold of. And it'll help you find those podcasts. And you can hear that part of Shayla's story as well. It's also on her personal website. I'm not going to go there. I'm going to start today with another question, Shayla.
And it's simply this, when you started in your role with Alpha, did you ever think that God would grow it to become to what it is today?
Shaila Visser (00:58.545)
think anyone thought Alpha would be what it is today. If you ask Nicky Gumbel and his predecessor, Bishop Sandy Miller, if they thought Alpha would be what it is today, they say, no way. They designed it for a local church in central London in the UK, hoping it would impact their city. And they're as surprised as anyone that it has done what it's done globally with 30 million, over 30 million participants have taken Alpha.
Rob Chartrand (01:01.646)
you
Shaila Visser (01:25.159)
We're well on our way this year to 2 million people taking alpha all over the world in up to 100 different languages. So it's really exciting. And when I look at Canada in particular, I think I cannot believe we get to do this work. That the little alpha youth film series that we did in 2013, redid again in 2017 has become over 30 % of our work globally. The team that I've been able to work with over these years have been extraordinary. I think...
I just can't keep, I can't believe it keeps getting better and more enjoyable every year that we get to serve the church in Canada.
Rob Chartrand (02:04.43)
Yeah. Yeah. And I think for those of us who are a little long in the tooth in ministry, you can remember the different iterations of Alpha through the ages. You know, I think every ministry, every church I've been in, we've used every version of Alpha along the way, even up to today. It's just been amazing to see its reach and its improvement. I don't know if you, I told you this Shayla, but my daughter did Alpha in her high school in Edmonton. This is a school of like 2000.
people and whatnot. And so she did the Alpha Youth Series and there were like over a hundred kids that would come and she was at Beulah Alliance and of course partnered with them and the youth guy would bring pizza in and they would have Alpha in their high school. I mean it was such an amazing part of her life. It's a significant role for her.
Shaila Visser (02:48.335)
Yeah.
That's so, so wonderful to hear because that's what's happening right across the country is kids in high school are saying, I can do this for my friends. And some of them are even believing that they could invite their whole high school to try alpha. And it's just remarkable, right? I was not that kid in high school. If you would have asked me to share my faith, I'd be like, you've got to be kidding me. I feel so insecure. I don't know who I am barely. And now you want me to share my faith, but there's a whole resilient generation.
Rob Chartrand (03:05.998)
That's a lot of pizza. Right.
Shaila Visser (03:20.505)
of Gen Z and now Gen Alpha coming up that are so extraordinary and really committed to sharing their faith. So I love watching them and learning from them and encouraging them and doing what I can to help them see the opportunities before them because sometimes they just need someone else to just lend them a little bit of their faith and courage that they can do it. But it has been an extraordinary journey and I rejoice that the church is growing because
We've been able to serve them and love them. They grow for a lot of reasons, but one of them is when they run alpha. It's just one small part of the story. And one of the reasons I think it's continued to be fruitful globally is because we've always kept our eye on what we're trying to accomplish. And that is we want more people to meet Jesus.
Rob Chartrand (03:54.136)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rob Chartrand (04:05.432)
Yeah. Amen. Amen. So is it not true you guys just released or are releasing I think on November 4th a new youth alpha series? 14th. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Shaila Visser (04:15.215)
Yeah, November 14th, the new Alpha Youth series is out. We are so excited. Rob, like, it's like, how do we get here? It's so remarkable. Dan Blythe, our global youth director, executive produced it along with Steve Chow, who is a Canadian, but based out of Malaysia now, used to work for CTV and Al Jazeera. mean, just this remarkable filmmaker, documentary filmmaker who is quite well known.
Rob Chartrand (04:36.525)
wow, okay.
Shaila Visser (04:41.071)
In fact, when I was in Vancouver recently with him and he lives in Malaysia, he has not done Al Jazeera in five years. Someone stopped him in the coffee shop and said, you Steve Chow? And so he's really well known in the circles that he runs in for journalism and documentaries. And he did this Alpha U series so well. And he goes to a church, HTBB in Malaysia that is Holy Trinity Brompton's one church plant outside of the UK.
Rob Chartrand (05:08.667)
really? Okay.
Shaila Visser (05:09.113)
And so he knew Alpha on the inside. Like, it's not like he came and was like, here, I'll put in a proposal and do it, but he is just, he's in with us. He feels like one of us and producing it was remarkable. It's turned out so well. And in some ways I think this is a little too fast paced for me because it isn't designed for me. It's designed for Jen Alpha. It's designed for kids that are in grade nine and 10. And, and it's just so fun to watch.
Rob Chartrand (05:36.876)
Yeah.
Shaila Visser (05:36.889)
It take off, it's being launched and people are seeing the first episodes and the teasers and they're just like, I cannot wait. But the most important is when we hear from kids in high school who said, you made this for me. You made it for me.
Rob Chartrand (05:48.194)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, the old series was amazing. I remember when it first came out, thought, because I remember the quest before that, my youth ministry had used the quest and then this, you know, and I've seen that, you know, this and then the other one is amazing. Like it was, and it's still like top drawer quality even today. But it's, I mean, it's dated clothing styles and all that are a little bit different. But this new one is like, yeah, I just encourage our listeners to get on and watch the trailer for because it's just
unbelievable. Like there's CGI and then just the camera angles and then it's just so much so much going on. Like it's just so good.
Shaila Visser (06:17.265)
Yeah.
Shaila Visser (06:24.135)
Yeah, yeah. And we've shortened the weeks, shortened the episodes, shortened the weeks so that people can run it in a school term. It's 10 episodes run over eight weeks. And the most exciting part is it's Gen Z International hosts and they helped create it. they wrote scripts, we had Gen Z write music. So a lot of the creative is designed by Gen Z. So in that way, it just feels like it's a generation creating it for themselves.
Rob Chartrand (06:29.699)
Mm-hmm.
Rob Chartrand (06:39.778)
Yes.
Shaila Visser (06:53.817)
versus us creating it. Of course the theology has stayed the same and the episodes look fairly similar in terms of theology, but we're inviting a whole generation to join the conversation about faith and we're excited for that.
Rob Chartrand (07:06.648)
Wow. Is there a like a midterm break like a Holy Spirit weekend semi version in there?
Shaila Visser (07:11.015)
Yeah, three quarters of way through, whether it's an Alpha Day or an Alpha Weekend, people can do that with their friends. They can do it in a home. They can do it in a church, wherever they want. what we're really trying to say is use this to reach your friends. And so if you're a youth worker or you're a pastor and you're thinking about what can we do with this new Alpha Youth Series, I'd say give your kids a vision that they can reach their friends using this product. And with your encouragement and support,
we can see a whole generation reached in our country.
Rob Chartrand (07:43.918)
So with shortening the videos like this, it's probably much more accessible to use like say over a lunch hour in a high school as well. Yeah. Yeah, that's smart. Yeah.
Shaila Visser (07:49.295)
Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah, we just wanted we we really took two years to listen to young Gen Z and say what would you want this to be like and what changes do we need to make so it's very informed by what they wanted.
Rob Chartrand (08:04.418)
Yeah, so good. Well, I mean, you are listening to the next generation of youth. I I got to hang out with you at our National Assembly for our denomination and hear the research that Alpha is doing. And recently you did some collaborative research with Barna on emerging generations. Why don't you talk to us a little bit about that? What are some of the key findings in that research and what should ministry leaders be paying attention to?
Shaila Visser (08:22.203)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Shaila Visser (08:32.443)
Well, I think Rob that in my 20 year, 28 years of vocational ministry, I have never seen a moment like we're living in right now with young people that are so interested in faith. So before I share the data, I'll just tell you about my own experience at church that about a year and a half ago I was in church and I like to usher about once a month. And it's a great job to have if you want to meet new people. And I love meeting new people.
Rob Chartrand (08:53.87)
I just can't see you getting out of a single conversation. You'd just be boom right there locked in. Yeah, okay. Yeah.
Shaila Visser (08:59.629)
It's so fun though and you're welcoming everyone, the little ones, the older ones. Anyways, this one Sunday, a young man walks in. He's from a different country. You can tell by the way he looks. And I welcomed him to church and he said, this is my first Sunday in church ever. I said, well, welcome. Let me introduce you to some people so they can help you know what's happening during the service. And we got to talking and his...
He's from India and my family's from India. We happen to be from the same hometowns, which was like, absolutely crazy. And then I said to him, why are you, what did, what made you decide to come to church today? He said, well, I'm really curious about who Jesus is. And he said, I thought this is a place you come and learn. And I said, well, how long have you been in Canada? He said, I landed last night at midnight and it's 10 AM. And so just the spiritual hunger. So that's a newcomer to Canada.
Rob Chartrand (09:30.798)
Come on.
Rob Chartrand (09:49.698)
Wow. Okay.
Shaila Visser (09:55.173)
Then the other story from about a year and a half ago is, again, I was ushering. That's how you get all the best stories you usher. And he was, my pastor came up and sat beside me he said, see that young man over there, Caucasian, 30 years old probably. He said, you're never gonna believe the story he just told me. He said, what is it? He said, two weeks ago, he woke up in the middle of the night, cause he had a dream about Jesus. And Jesus was so real to him in that dream that he decided he better Google, how do you learn about Jesus?
So then he knew he could buy a Bible. That's where you learn about Jesus. So he went to Indigo chapters and bought a Bible and he started reading at page one, which is where most people start reading a book. And he's like, I can't find Jesus here. And so then he Googles, where is Jesus in the Bible? And it says book of Matthew. So he turns to the book of Matthew and he starts reading and he can't really follow it. He's like, I'm not sure I understand this. Where do I go to learn about Jesus from the Bible? And Google once again tells him church.
Rob Chartrand (10:24.686)
Wow.
Shaila Visser (10:53.465)
and he finds my church and he comes on a Sunday. Two weeks later, he's got his hands raised worshiping Jesus. Six months later, he's baptized. And it's just remarkable to watch someone like him who had no church background whatsoever, grew up in Canada, no spiritual life, Jesus appears to him in a dream. First story, of course, someone's new to Canada, Jesus has been working on his heart. He shows up, he's from a different religion.
Rob Chartrand (10:59.182)
Wow.
Shaila Visser (11:21.701)
comes to church, barely been in the country, but feels the freedom to explore here. And so there is this temperature check that I'm really encouraging church leaders to do right across the country that is both subjective and objective. So we have objective data from our open generation research, which I'll talk about in a minute. And we have subjective research. We are hearing from church leaders across the country saying, we can't believe what God's doing. And so in 20 years of vocational ministry, the most exciting.
Like honestly, I'm so glad I'm living in this day. So many people will say, yeah, but look at geopolitics, look at the economy. I mean, we could all go on and on with all the issues that we're facing in the world today. And yet when the world gets darker, Jesus shines brighter. People are asking spiritual questions and they don't know where to go to have a safe conversation. Where can they go that I'm welcome with my doubts? I'm welcome with disbelief, not belief.
And so we're just excited about this season in our nation. So I'll give you some of the data points that I thought were really interesting. And this is Gen Z, high schoolers in particular were interviewed. And 53 % of them said they have unanswered questions about faith. Now, in case your listeners don't know, there's 4.4 million teenagers in Canada. 53 % of them have unanswered questions about faith. And the question to me then is,
Where is the church in that? Where is the church? I know that most church leaders would say, well, our doors are open to anyone to come in, but the problem is they're not coming in. It doesn't seem like a safe place. It doesn't seem like a place where they can have a dialogue and hear varying viewpoints, which is what they wanna do. So 53%. The other data point that is really interesting for me is 49 % of non-churchgoers in Canada,
Rob Chartrand (12:56.27)
Hmm. Yeah.
Shaila Visser (13:15.783)
want to know if Jesus is good. Only 24 % want to know is Jesus true. Now that's not to say we don't care about truth. We of course care about truth. But what it really says to me is that there's something happening that people are captivated by the goodness of Jesus and then truth follows along. And so the apologetic of our day is how are we as Christians living a life that shows Jesus is good? How are we speaking?
Rob Chartrand (13:39.235)
Right.
Shaila Visser (13:44.249)
about Jesus and then for Alpha we really think about what does it mean to tell the good news in a good way. And that's really important to us. And so those are two really helpful data points. But the third one is the one I'm most excited about, which is 45 % of people who had no faith said that they have neither positive or negative view of Jesus. Neither positive or negative, which means they're blank slate. They're just like,
Rob Chartrand (14:08.162)
Hmm, interesting.
Shaila Visser (14:12.977)
I don't know what I believe. And when you talk to elementary school teachers and high school teachers about the conversations in their classroom around spirituality, they're just wild, just wild. Because it feels like a blank slate. One friend of mine who teaches, think it's like grade six and seven said, one kid in class said, Jesus is king. And the other person said, of which country? Because they just didn't know, right?
Rob Chartrand (14:37.464)
Yeah.
Shaila Visser (14:40.571)
They just didn't know. And so the reality is that there is an wide open door. And if anyone's been on TikTok recently and looked at what young people are looking at in regards to spirituality, Ouija boards are back in, crystals are big, a palm reading is big, talking to the dead is big. Like it's unbelievable that there are number of data points that really show us and reveal to us.
The spiritual temperature is only going up even though secularization is increasing.
Rob Chartrand (15:10.818)
Yeah. Yeah. And I wonder how much of that is the effect of postmodernism. And now that we're in a post Christendom age, I think the generation before like millennials were maybe a little bit more antagonistic to faith. But the emerging generation like Gen Z and younger are almost like pre Christendom in the sense that there there's a complete openness to anything because there is no animosity to something they don't know about. It's just like, I don't know anything like just
Shaila Visser (15:30.374)
Yeah, that's right.
Rob Chartrand (15:39.682)
I'm spiritual. I'm open. Just tell me. Yeah.
Shaila Visser (15:41.349)
Yeah. And they also feel comfortable. Gen Z feel comfortable sharing their faith because the reason is they think that in sharing their faith, they're just being themselves. So it's okay to be you. It's okay to be me. This is what I believe. Exactly. And so it really helps for sharing your faith, right? And storytelling then becomes so important. How has Jesus changed your life? How has he changed my life? And not in the sort of quintessential
Rob Chartrand (15:56.748)
my own authentic self. Yeah. With my
Rob Chartrand (16:04.664)
Mm-hmm.
Shaila Visser (16:10.875)
boomer, Gen Xer, here's my testimony, but actually in the everyday living, how is Jesus changing your life?
Rob Chartrand (16:15.992)
Hmm. Yeah. Well, and I think, you you speak about that new apologetic, wanting to know Jesus is good rather than Jesus is true. mean, Jesus is true is more enlightenment thinking. And that's the classic apologetics of, you know, demonstrating that. But now in an age of postmodern thought, critical race, critical theory, all of that, you know, and seeing maybe some of the deleterious
Shaila Visser (16:29.126)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Rob Chartrand (16:45.888)
activities of the church of the past, people are wondering, like, is Jesus good? Show me that Jesus is good, because, you know, I'm kind of curious about the followers of Jesus and whether they're good and how that reflects on Jesus. And so that is the bigger question. And good in a, not just in a moral sense, but even in a sense of being beautiful, like in an aesthetic sense of the good. And so we need.
Shaila Visser (16:50.726)
Mm-hmm.
Shaila Visser (17:07.972)
Yeah, that's right. I think we're going to see a rise in the arts. Music, literature, poetry, all the forms of the arts are going to increase as people are looking for beauty and expressions of hope and expressions of truth. And so I celebrate Christian artists that are out there that have not been well.
Rob Chartrand (17:29.55)
Hmm.
Shaila Visser (17:33.849)
I don't know, celebrated, loved, encouraged in their gifts, and yet we need them to be storytellers through the art. It's really important.
Rob Chartrand (17:41.314)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we need to tell a better story than the other narratives out there and live a better story than the narratives that are out there.
Shaila Visser (17:51.643)
And that's why we say, let's tell the good news in a good way.
Rob Chartrand (17:55.17)
Hmm. Hmm. Yeah, so good. Anything else that you're looking at the data? Maybe anything that concerns you about the next generation?
Shaila Visser (18:04.827)
Well, I think what was concerning is this open generation report was done commissioned by Alpha Canada or sorry, Alpha International, World Vision and Biblika. And it was over 25 different countries, over 26,000 interviews done. And in that, when we compare ourselves to certainly the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, our youth come in at a far lesser degree of discipleship.
and awareness and conviction over some of the basics of the Christian faith. So around the resurrection of Jesus, we are far lower with committed Christian teens than any of our Western counterparts. So there's something that it says to what we've done with discipleship in the church in Canada around teenagers that has left them lacking in biblical understanding and even some core.
Rob Chartrand (18:33.198)
Hmm.
Shaila Visser (19:00.151)
of the Christian faith. And so I think we do have to look and ask ourselves, what have we done in our youth work in Canada? And what needs to change? And are we entertaining kids? Are we keeping the parents happy? Is the church leader happy? If the parents are happy? Like, what is the system that we've bought into that isn't healthy? Where do we need to make it more robust for discipleship? And
Rob Chartrand (19:07.192)
Hmm. Hmm.
Shaila Visser (19:27.567)
I don't know what you're seeing Rob right now, but the disciples that I'm seeing that are Gen Z that are sold out for Jesus, I'm just like, who are these people? They are amazing. They love the word of God. They love worship. They love prayer. They're sold out in a way that I haven't seen in a very long time.
Rob Chartrand (19:44.92)
Yeah, yeah, I know. We're seeing that here in our students, especially the first years that have come in. mean, certainly the upperclassmen are extraordinary, but just, yeah, there's this whole new group that is coming up through, it's like the rabbit in the anaconda just kind of coming up and it suddenly appears like, where'd you come from? This is amazing. I'm so impressed by this next generation that are coming into our schools.
Shaila Visser (20:08.741)
Yeah. And you know what I think is really sad and hard right now is that most Christians don't know. Because I travel from east to west so much, I am with church leaders and business people and other ministry leaders and they often lament the state of the church or the state of young people and I start to tell stories. And they're like, I didn't know that. I didn't know that. And I'm like,
Rob Chartrand (20:18.594)
Hmm.
Shaila Visser (20:38.421)
my word, you have to hear what God's doing in our country. It is like little green shoots of hope everywhere. It's not one particular part of the church or one tradition. It's everywhere. It's neither just the big church, it's small, medium, large. It's rural, suburban, or urban. And I think we just need to really have eyes to see and ears to hear what the Spirit is doing in our nation at this time.
Rob Chartrand (21:03.032)
Yeah, I mean, youth ministries, I know here out in the West, I mean, they're blowing up. It's unbelievable what is happening within these young people. And in terms of spiritual passion, but even just a desire to be on mission seems to be a singular effect as well that's happening in our ministries, yeah.
Shaila Visser (21:23.163)
Well, just before we started this podcast, I was talking to a young woman, I think she's 23, and she was telling me about the ministry she started in high school that's still going now. And she was talking about what they're doing in the US and what they're doing in Kenya. And I was like, what? She's like, yeah, we started in high school. And so I just think if you're over the age of 40 and you're looking for hope, just go spend some time with some of these resilient disciples and you will realize they're not waiting for us.
Rob Chartrand (21:39.224)
Hmm. Wow.
Shaila Visser (21:53.063)
They're not even waiting for permission. They're just going for it. And we're hearing these crazy stories of young people coming to faith on TikTok. And now they're starting prayer groups and they're reading the Bible with their friends. And it's just what the Holy Spirit's doing right now.
Rob Chartrand (22:07.042)
Yeah. And that's, I mean, that's amazing. But yet the data says that there are overall a general malaise of discipleship that's occurring in this generation. Is that correct? Like generally speaking?
Shaila Visser (22:21.829)
Yeah, that is correct. But I think it is, I think what we're having the malaise in is the young people that have just been raised in very traditional Christian ways that haven't been given a vision of the kingdom that is bigger than them and bigger than their church. And when they are given that vision, then they become resilient disciples. And I think we have to remember that Gen Z and Gen Alpha right behind them are more up agers.
Rob Chartrand (22:34.19)
Hmm.
Rob Chartrand (22:39.022)
Yeah.
Shaila Visser (22:51.429)
which means the types of shows they watch, the kind of things they read, the exposure, whether it's mental health or anything else, is so much more advanced than we would have ever seen at our age. And so they're up-agers and part of that being up-agers is requiring us to treat them differently and disciple them differently and not disciple them like they're eight years old, but disciple them like they're young adults about to enter into
Rob Chartrand (23:03.596)
Right.
Rob Chartrand (23:17.027)
Yeah.
Shaila Visser (23:19.107)
the crazy world we inhabit without routines of school, but we have routines of work and a lot more choice and they're about to inhabit those places, but we've not discipled them well to be in those spaces.
Rob Chartrand (23:32.824)
That's interesting. So I spoke this summer for, I'll just call it a camp, but it was more than that. It was a group of churches that had come together and converged on a small city in Saskatchewan, and they came from all over the country. And during the day, all the students there served in the community, like they'd act of service. And then in the evening they had a camp service altogether. And I was like the keynote speaker.
I haven't spoken to high school students, Shayla, in like 15 years. I mean, a lot of my students in my classes are 18, 19 years old. So I'm wondering to myself, man, is there going to be a disconnect here? Like, am I going to be able to communicate to them anymore? And so I was just my own authentic self and my own goofball self. But I mean, I'm an expository preacher, bringing them through the word, teaching the word of God to them.
Shaila Visser (24:04.652)
Mm-hmm.
Rob Chartrand (24:24.27)
inviting them to surrender their lives to Jesus who is, you know, who is our King, our resurrected King and the Son of God and explaining the gospel to them thoroughly. And students coming up to me afterwards, and it's like you said, they're up agers. They're like, they're in, you know, grade 10, 11, or 12, and they're like, thank you for speaking to me like an adult. And thank you for like challenging my thinking and causing me to think more critically about my faith. That was so impactful to me. And I said, okay.
I'm glad I didn't dumb it down. Like I'm glad I didn't, you know, go into the great seven mode and, you know, red rubber balls and fart jokes or whatever you thrusters are into.
Shaila Visser (25:02.343)
Yeah, like I really think you're on to something, right? Is that we have got to be treating them like young adults coming of age who want to be discipled, who want to know that. Now that's not for everyone, but they want to be taken seriously and we should take them seriously.
Rob Chartrand (25:19.8)
Yeah, and they did. I mean, they responded so well. mean, the kids wanted to get baptized, kids surrendered their lives more fully and deeply to Christ. yeah. Do you think part of it, like I teach an evangelism discipleship course here at Briar Crest, and we do a deep dive on what is the gospel, right? And sometimes our understanding of the gospel has been more of a salvific plan, a truncated gospel, right? The four spiritual laws. And it's really more of a
Shaila Visser (25:24.559)
Mm-hmm.
Rob Chartrand (25:49.742)
a decision-based gospel as opposed to understanding and unpacking, say, as Paul would say in 1 Corinthians 15, you know, Jesus's incarnation, his crucifixion, his resurrection, he's the Lord of all, he's coming back, like the big meta-narrative picture of the gospel. And I think a lot of young people might get heavy on the decision-based gospel. You gotta make a decision, right? So there's almost decision-itis coming along, but they don't fully understand the big gospel story.
And then if you don't understand it, you don't understand the implications for your life. Like so when Tim Keller says, if Jesus is in fact the resurrected Lord of all, we should fall upon our knees and say, command me, I'll give you my all, right? But if we water it down or we kind of make this a bridged version, the implications of that are not far reaching. Like it's more like a a la peanut butter sandwiches prayer to get me into heaven versus, you know, the other. And I just wonder like,
Shaila Visser (26:18.843)
Mm-hmm.
Shaila Visser (26:39.11)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Rob Chartrand (26:47.756)
It's not just that we haven't taught a better story, we haven't taught the whole story. Like we've missed the gospel and the centrality it plays in our lives of faith for young people. What do you think?
Shaila Visser (26:59.001)
I think that's absolutely right on. I would say that the vast majority of young people that I speak to who have either grown up in Christian homes or not grown up in Christian homes are spiritually hungry, but they're asking meta narrative questions. And the simple answer is of, you know, we need to get you into the kingdom of saved, which is a portion of what the good gospel is about.
Rob Chartrand (27:15.246)
Hmm, yeah.
Shaila Visser (27:28.121)
is not enough to satisfy them. And so that's why I think it's so important to help them understand the kingdom. I think if we were able to teach on the kingdom a lot more, and who is the king, and what is the kingdom like, and who is this king that will follow in this kingdom, I think that's so much grander a story for them to be part of. It's like being part of...
a story in Narnia or it's like Lord of the Rings. It's like, I'm part of this epic adventure under the lordship of Jesus. And I often say to my staff, can you believe we get to do what we get to do? And I just think there's a whole generation that's missed out on the beauty of what it means to be an apprentice to Jesus, what it means to surrender to him for all areas. And then to believe it impacts how we
how we take care of the environment. It impacts how we treat one another. It impacts how I'm a boss. It impacts how you teach. It impacts what kind of spouse we are. it just, the ripple effects are everywhere. It's a holistic gospel for people that want wholeness.
Rob Chartrand (28:35.192)
Yeah, yeah, that those full implications. Yeah.
Yeah. Good. Yeah.
Wow, okay, so much to talk about. Let's talk about generation alpha. I mean, we're having a lot of cultural conversations about this. many sociologists, a question I had for you, because I come up against this all the time, is a lot of sociologists and demographers are saying it's a little bit too early to characterize gen alpha because they're still emerging, right? So they're only born between like 2010 and 2024, right? So.
Shaila Visser (28:49.703)
Okay.
Shaila Visser (29:04.518)
Mm-hmm.
Rob Chartrand (29:11.704)
But there's got to be some glimpses of what we're already starting to see, of what they're like. Any ideas? How are they going to be different than Gen Z? Any early indicators on that?
Shaila Visser (29:24.177)
Well, can I just first of all address the fact that GenAlpha, who is in grade nine in our country this fall, they're the very first of their generation to come through. So we do have some research data on them. I want to tell you that the marketing companies of the world are not wondering if there's enough sociological data to really go after them. So I do think we have some limited information, but what information we have is really important. So GenAlpha, they're
Rob Chartrand (29:42.318)
It was a yeah.
Shaila Visser (29:52.945)
By the end of this year, there's 2.2 billion of them. 2.2, that is not small. And they have grown up digitally savvy. They've been gaming since an early age. They're called, in some ways they're called generation glass because they're used to looking at screens. A difference between them and Gen Z is Gen Z heard about brands via social media and Gen Alpha hear about brands via video.
Rob Chartrand (29:57.25)
Wow. Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (30:06.894)
Mm-hmm.
Rob Chartrand (30:22.434)
Hmm.
Shaila Visser (30:23.367)
Gen Alpha seemingly have even a greater sense of needing purpose in this life, even more than Gen Z. They're more shaped by global culture. They are even more economically conservative than Gen Z, who are more economically conservative than millennials because of the volatility that they've been raised in. And so they're growing up in the digital age. They will grow up
Rob Chartrand (30:42.702)
That's interesting.
Shaila Visser (30:49.487)
with artificial intelligence being a natural part of their daily rhythm. They won't even wonder about artificial intelligence, it will just be normative to them. And then I can't remember which leading researcher said this about Gen Alpha, but they said two thirds of them will work in jobs that don't currently exist. I mean, can you imagine? So many of the traditional jobs won't be needed. And then of course there'll be lots of traditional jobs, whether you're a...
Rob Chartrand (31:08.174)
Fascinating. Yeah. Yeah.
Shaila Visser (31:18.265)
in construction or you're a firefighter or a police officer that will be desperately in need of. But there will be lots that will change. So there's quite a bit and the younger Gen Z and the oldest Gen Alpha are gonna look like any generations. They're gonna look a little bit closer together. But what we are seeing of Gen Alpha is very interesting and we're really excited.
Rob Chartrand (31:39.106)
Yeah, yeah. Wow. So, so the I mean, first of all, to comment, I mean, the people who came up with the term Gen Alpha is an advertising marketing agency in Australia. I mean, they were first to yeah, yeah, they were the first ones who coined the phrase. So yes, they are paying attention for sure. Second, my question is, Shayla, are you using AI at all in any of your work? Yes.
Shaila Visser (31:51.119)
Yeah, McCrindle,
Shaila Visser (32:03.825)
We use it everywhere. How can you not? How can you not? Like it just comes up everywhere. I will say I'm not very proficient in chat GPT, but artificial intelligence is working behind most of the things we use today. I think we just aren't aware of it.
Rob Chartrand (32:09.752)
Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (32:17.006)
Totally. It's being used in this podcast software right now. Yeah, it's making it that much clearer and that much better sound, et cetera. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. And we do use it a little bit. My wife Karen and I especially, we use it in our composition and stuff. Nothing academic, so I'm not breaking any academic rules. Academics, don't like AI. We want people to do their own work.
Shaila Visser (32:21.051)
Exactly.
Shaila Visser (32:26.343)
I'm grateful. I'm very grateful.
Shaila Visser (32:42.491)
Yeah, you gotta be really careful there.
Rob Chartrand (32:44.75)
But sometimes if I want to create a rubric or something like that, I bust out chat GBT and say, do some work for me. It's free. Yeah. Whereas that's going to be normative. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. But that'll be normative. Like, and then all the questions, I mean, that they have to that those who are in the previous system have to figure out to navigate into the new system that's coming.
Shaila Visser (32:51.077)
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. We need some help, don't we? It makes our research a little bit easier. Not academic research, just everyday questions.
Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (33:14.903)
That's already here.
Shaila Visser (33:15.111)
And one of the things they're gonna be most challenged with is access to knowledge does not equal wisdom. And that's gonna be the biggest challenge is you can know things at your fingertips. You can even have a big brain and have a lot of knowledge, but wisdom is the application of that knowledge in a good way.
Rob Chartrand (33:21.186)
Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (33:32.792)
Yeah. And to understand the constraints as a human being, you are finite. Even though you know all this information, I mean, at the end of the day, is it really good that you know everything? Like, there's a crushing weight to knowing what's happening in the world sometimes when it's at your fingertips. Yes, that's right. Have you been paying attention to the work of Jonathan Haidt in his book, Anxious Generation?
Shaila Visser (33:50.167)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, ignorance is bliss.
Ha
Shaila Visser (34:00.611)
Yes. Well, first of all, I follow him on social media as well, because I just think his commentary is so helpful. And he has posted lots of interesting new tidbits since he released his book about research that's coming out and about the whole growing trend of, you know, no screens in schools or at least no cell phones in schools. Many famous people are coming out and saying they don't give their kids
Rob Chartrand (34:02.327)
Any thoughts on that?
Rob Chartrand (34:09.676)
Yeah, yeah, me too.
Rob Chartrand (34:24.216)
Yeah. Yeah.
Shaila Visser (34:30.139)
phones and they're not giving their kids phones until they're like 14, 15 or even 16 where I know there's pressure on people to give their kids phones from like grade six on. And so it's just a whole directional shift that I think he and many others like him have brought to the forefront. And he is saying things that I wish the church was also saying in such a winsome and concerning way, like able to really
Rob Chartrand (34:31.224)
Yeah, isn't that fascinating?
Shaila Visser (34:59.643)
call out what it means to be human and the desire for kids to be free and grow up in freedom and love and creativity rather than being cookie-cuttered by artificial intelligence or some big company wanting their eyeballs on their screens for their purposes and not for the well-being of a student or even someone who's three or four years old who's watching shows already.
Rob Chartrand (35:26.466)
Yeah, yeah. I mean, the and it's the the deleterious effect, the negative effect of social media, particularly on young women, but on young people cannot be denied now. mean, the evidence is just so overwhelming from I mean, his evidence as well as Jean Twain B, her work as well. Yeah, like suicidal ideation and anxiety, all of that.
Shaila Visser (35:38.437)
It's overwhelming.
Shaila Visser (35:43.469)
yeah.
Shaila Visser (35:50.425)
It's really concerning and yet I don't know how we as a society can fight the billions of dollars that are spent just to get our eyeballs onto a screen.
Rob Chartrand (36:02.146)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do appreciate like there have been a number of church leader podcasts that have had him on like he's not a Christian. He's a he's he's very clear when he's on there. Hey, I am an agnostic, you know, but but he does see the positive effects actually of faith communities in the lives of young people and that conservative faith communities actually play a positive effect in young people's emotional health like it's he's actually an advocate for it.
Shaila Visser (36:08.71)
Mm-hmm.
Shaila Visser (36:29.945)
Yeah, and I don't know if it was him or someone else said that, I think it was someone else that said one of the courses that the church is going to need to teach, and it was not tongue in cheek, is how to talk with others. Because there's a whole generation that's really socially anxious because they've done so much socializing on their phone, their devices, or through gaming that they don't know how to actually interact with others their age very well. And so how are we going to teach people just to socialize?
Rob Chartrand (36:42.679)
Right, yeah.
Rob Chartrand (36:59.49)
Yeah. Well, maybe that is a great gift we can give to the world or an apologetic even that we can provide to the world. What's the term he uses? Go ahead.
Shaila Visser (37:04.973)
Mm Yeah. and I do think that the reality of the Gospels is Jesus asked what over 300 questions and barely answered eight directly. And I think the church, at least the church I grew up in, unlikely you grew up in Rob, because we're similar ages, is that it was all about having the right answer. And I think this generation is all about staying curious.
Rob Chartrand (37:25.166)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yeah.
Shaila Visser (37:29.327)
And so if we know how to help them be curious and stay curious, you're going to get their eyes off of their devices.
Rob Chartrand (37:35.79)
Hmm. Yeah. What's the term he uses? The meat world. He calls it the meat world. As opposed to the screen world. Yeah, such a good book. And I recommend it to our listeners if you haven't and follow him on so I follow him on socials as well. I think he's just always got something really positive to say. Or constructive to say that's really helpful. So
Shaila Visser (37:43.409)
Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (38:02.24)
I'm thrilled to see this growing conversation that's happening about the rising pastor shortage in Canada. I'm not pleased about the rising pastor shortage. And this has been a decades old problem, but I mean, it's finally kind of come into a, I think a turning point. And so there's this Muskoka Wood symposium that's happening in November where a number of leaders of academic schools and denominational leaders and people in different organizations are gonna be.
Shaila Visser (38:07.719)
Mm-hmm.
Rob Chartrand (38:31.05)
in the room together just saying, what do we do? Like, how do we do this? And more importantly, how do we do this together? Like, let's rally together around that. And so I just, I'm so thankful for that. Why do you think young people are no longer pursuing ministry or less and less than before?
Shaila Visser (38:51.201)
I have lots of thoughts about it, about why they are. You know, well, no, I think it's really interesting is, first of all, we have not shown them how exciting and wonderful it is to be in Christian leadership and what a great gift it is. And and I think there is a reality that perhaps we've not always treated our church leaders well.
Rob Chartrand (38:53.836)
Awesome. All right. Open up both barrels. Here we go.
Rob Chartrand (39:19.118)
Hmm.
Shaila Visser (39:20.161)
And in congregations, I can't imagine what it's like to have a congregation every Sunday judging me on my public speaking. I can't imagine to be a public speaker with 52 events a year, one right after another, an event comes up every seven days, whether you've got 100 people, 1,000 people, or 10,000 people, that you mainly work with volunteers, not staff.
So to keep, you know, it doesn't look like the most glamorous job. And so it's a grind. And so we have to remind people why the call is so great and the honor is so great to serve Jesus and to shepherd his flock and to build his church under his leadership. I think we have to give young people an imaginative, a creativity and an imagination for how great it is to be a church leader.
Rob Chartrand (39:48.386)
Mm hmm. Yeah, it's a grind. It's a grind. Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (39:57.24)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (40:16.942)
Hmm.
Shaila Visser (40:17.455)
and not just the hardship of it, but the beauty of it. And I think we have to also stop selling it as Enneagram threes who are gonna write books and be on big stages are the kind of people that should be pastors. I can't tell you how many young leaders I talk to that feel they don't fit a particular mold, male and female. I'm not this. And they typically describe,
Rob Chartrand (40:20.056)
Yeah. Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (40:27.541)
you
Rob Chartrand (40:37.23)
Mm-hmm.
Shaila Visser (40:42.585)
an entrepreneurial, enterprising, driven, impact-oriented leader who is supposed to be a shepherd pastor as well. And I think we've lost the ability to see the full gifts used for the full body for the glory of Jesus. And once we recapture that, I think we'll see a whole generation realize, have gifts to bring to the table in the church. You do not have to fit this profile to be that. And I reminded some young church leaders yesterday,
Rob Chartrand (40:51.779)
Right.
Shaila Visser (41:13.035)
that no one will remember my name 30 years from now, but they will remember Eugene Peterson and he never built a big church. And he would in fact admit to he didn't know how. And yet his name will be remembered because he was such a beautiful pastor, a real human if you've read his biography, it's amazing. And then of course he wrote the message, the paraphrase of the Bible.
people will be forever grateful that he was not an enterprising big church leader. And there's nothing wrong with bringing those gifts to the church. They're needed, we love them, we're so grateful for them. But we also have to recognize that not every church needs that. And so there's a multitude of ways of loving and pastoring a church and we just have to continually remind the next generation. It's an honorable profession and we need them. We need them to answer the call of God to come in.
Rob Chartrand (41:51.448)
Yeah, for sure.
Shaila Visser (42:11.183)
Serve in churches.
Rob Chartrand (42:12.62)
Wow, so good. And coming from a very loud Enneagram 3-liter, I think you're spot on.
Shaila Visser (42:21.415)
Well, I mean, I really have empathy for those who are trying to lead in the church who don't fit into this very public profile kind of pastor. It's hard.
Rob Chartrand (42:32.236)
Yeah, yeah. Well, and there's such a diversity of churches out there that require different leadership gifts and qualities. So yeah, if it's
Shaila Visser (42:37.639)
Mm-hmm.
Shaila Visser (42:42.491)
You know, where I grew up was a rural Anglican church in southwestern Ontario. And my youth group had four consistent people. The youth leaders who were my parents' closest friends, their daughter, their special needs son, and my siblings and I. So five of us. The four of us who can make sort of adult decisions about following Jesus. You know, we're still walking with Jesus. We're serving in our churches. We're...
Rob Chartrand (42:47.352)
Mm-hmm.
Shaila Visser (43:11.661)
Raising kids to love Jesus. We are active participants in community and I just think we were a rural church that had nothing fancy 80 people when it was full and yet this church knew how to raise young disciples and So so it wasn't cool. It wasn't hip. I didn't even know there was anything like an evangelical Youth group where there's more than like 10 kids. I didn't know that existed until I was 18
Rob Chartrand (43:26.808)
Wow. Yeah.
Shaila Visser (43:42.095)
And so to be raised in this very faithful farming community of grandparents and parents that love you and call it the best, it gives you a different idea of what church leadership can be in those communities to love and change a generation. It's possible to change a generation in a church of 80 people. My sister, my brother and I, and our very dear friend Annie, we all come out of that church and we're all making an impact.
Rob Chartrand (44:08.898)
Yeah. So, you know, the summit's coming up, but we it's always good to talk about it beforehand. Give me your insider information. How how how might our churches and ministry organizations work together to fan and to flame this calling across the country?
Shaila Visser (44:27.077)
Well, I got to tell you what God's put on my heart anyways, Rob. I don't know, I don't know who else needs to hear this, but we're trying to tell as many people that Jesus has said this to us. As Jesus has his eyes on the 4.4 million teenagers in Canada. And he has said to us at Alpha, what will you do about it? And the Lord gave me four questions about two years ago that have resonated in my heart and mind. the first one is what if the future leaders of the church
are not in the church today. Second question, what if the future leaders of the church aren't even Christians today? Third question, what if the harvest is plentiful all around you and you don't have eyes to see? And if these three things are true, what should you do differently? And we at Alpha for the last two years have wrestled with, if that's true, what should we be doing differently? And so we've decided and we're trying to encourage
other leaders to notice that there is a group of young people in our nation who are spiritually curious and have unanswered questions about faith and what are we going to do about it? Well, I know that biblically the first thing that we have to do about any problem that we face or opportunity is to pray. And so I think there is somewhere between four and five thousand high schools or secondary schools across our country and we're going to partner with 24-7 prayer.
to collaborate on building a platform that allows churches to see what schools need prayer. And what does it mean for us as the church to say we care so much about the church for 30 years from now, that we will now put seeds in the ground of faithful prayer for a generation? And what does it mean if we can have between 4 5,000
schools in Canada prayed for from September through to the end of June every year. Rob, if we don't do anything else, if that's what the church in Canada does to reach a generation outside of like the regular grind, as you call it, Sunday services, but if we commit to saying, God, we will surrender to your will and your ways by praying for our schools across Canada, we'll see a nation changed. So that is the sort of the first step in this
Shaila Visser (46:45.227)
in our multi-step approach to how can we serve the church to see a generation and to reach a generation? And what would it mean for every high school student in Canada to have a chance to respond to the gospel in one of their years in school? We don't know all the answers to that, but we know it starts with prayer. So the Lord is calling us to that. And so what we're saying to the church is, well, first of all, before we even said this on places like podcasts and other places, we've been talking to denominational leaders.
Rob Chartrand (46:58.904)
That's good. Yeah.
Shaila Visser (47:13.477)
and pastors and funders and said, does this resonate? What would you say? And honestly, pastors are saying to us, okay, we'll do it. Tell us which schools. I'm like, we haven't built the map yet. So we can map out all the schools in Canada to see how can we get thousands of them prayed for every school year. And then behind that, there'll be other things that we'll wanna do together with the church and do in service to the local church so they can reach those kids in the high school.
Rob Chartrand (47:21.518)
Mm-hmm.
Shaila Visser (47:41.915)
But for now, we're saying, let's place seeds of hope and faith through prayer in high schools right across the country and then see what the Lord does with it. It will be extraordinary.
Rob Chartrand (47:52.184)
Wow. I got to say, I mean, that just resonates with my heart. mean, because Sheila, the truth is 30 years ago, I was that kid. 17 years old, I did not know the Lord. I was not from a faith background. It was the impact of the Lord in a very miraculous way through the prayer of his people who caused the Lord to find his way into my heart. And I'm here today and I'm in ministry leadership. But I was one of those lost kids far from God.
And so when you say the future, what if, what if the future leaders aren't yet in the church? mean, yeah, absolutely. mean, so yeah, totally, totally. Yeah.
Shaila Visser (48:30.095)
You're that you're that person, Rob. You're that person. It's it's so encouraging to hear that story today, because there are thousands and thousands more. And I believe God's God's calling to a generation, he's asking the church to participate in it.
Rob Chartrand (48:40.461)
Mm-hmm.
Rob Chartrand (48:46.094)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, my wife, Karen and I are really committed to praying for this next generation. Every night we pray Lord of the harvest, would you send out workers into the harvest field? Would you and it's only a work that he can do in his own mysterious, miraculous way. I mean, he's the one who transforms hearts. We plant others water, but only the Lord makes it grow. And so we need to partner with him in prayer first and foremost. So what would that look like then? Will you guys create a giant digital map and
Shaila Visser (48:55.607)
Mm-hmm. Exactly.
Shaila Visser (49:02.575)
Mm-hmm.
Rob Chartrand (49:15.214)
collaborate or where you just give them names and some schools and assign them to churches or.
Shaila Visser (49:20.455)
Yeah, no, we're just going to well in in collaboration with 24 seven prayer, we're going to build out the back end to have all of the like sort of like a Google map, but it's got all the schools and churches just can go on there and say, we're going to pray for those two near us or gosh, all the the the schools in our small town are being prayed for. but an hour north of us, no one's praying for that school. Let's pray for that. And I want to encourage you if you're a grandparent out there and you're listening to this.
Rob Chartrand (49:31.81)
Yeah. Okay.
Rob Chartrand (49:44.195)
Hmm.
Shaila Visser (49:49.689)
you know, maybe the school that your grandkids are going to needs prayer and they're like across the country. Like don't miss out on the opportunity and also don't miss out on the intergenerational work this will be. It'll be intergenerational work and I think that's what we need to push for in the churches. No, we used to have all these affinity groups and there's nothing wrong with affinity groups. We need affinity groups, but not if it gets in the way of intergenerational work, intergenerational friendship.
Rob Chartrand (49:55.938)
Wow. Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (50:01.922)
Hmm. Wow.
Shaila Visser (50:18.585)
and intergenerational discipleship in ministry.
Rob Chartrand (50:23.214)
So you're doing something else though. You are doing something else very strategic. Can we talk a bit about Student Leadership Collective?
Shaila Visser (50:30.599)
Yeah, well, this has been an idea again that the Holy Spirit put on our heart at Alpha Canada that we wanted to do a student leadership collective for our grade 10 students. And we sense that particularly coming out of COVID that this would be a service ministry to the local church. And we want to equip grade 10 students, personal growth plans, mentorship, extended community that's both national and provincial and local.
We want them to increase in biblical knowledge. We want to help them find direction and understanding what it means to be reliant on the Holy Spirit, what it means to share faith in their school, what it means to increase in prayer, basically living out a discipleship life by being a disciple who makes disciples and giving them a vision that actually you're not too young to change the world, that you can make a positive impact in the world while you're in high school.
And so we're inviting kids to apply to this in grade 10 and we're saying two per high school with a youth sponsor. So that can be a parent, it could be a grandparent, a godparent, it can be your youth pastor, a youth volunteer who would come and do that with you because we really think the two by two Jesus model was very good and that we should all be doing that. And that in a school, if there's two of you praying about what difference you can make in your school,
is much easier than if you're a solo person. And so we're saying, please come be part of this. It's our second pilot. We'll be starting it in January. We'll have a hundred kids in it from across the country. And there is a small fee for it, but if you can't afford it or you know someone who couldn't afford it, we will make it free for them, including all the transportation because we don't want anyone to miss. And many of us on our staff, Rob, grew up in small communities. And
Rob Chartrand (51:58.128)
for sure.
Shaila Visser (52:24.249)
And we didn't know that there could be these sorts of opportunities for us as young people to get discipled. And so we want to reach into rural churches, northern churches, and find those kids that are like me, that are like my youth group was tiny. But the Lord discipled me in that youth group and in that wonderful church of farmers. And it was amazing.
Rob Chartrand (52:35.138)
Great.
Rob Chartrand (52:46.242)
Yeah. So is it going to be cohort based or is it, you going to rely heavily on the local leader to care for the youth or?
Shaila Visser (52:53.005)
No, it's cohort based. And the interesting thing is, it's not only the grade 10 students that are going to go through cohort, we're going to also take the sponsors through a cohort of their own so that they're learning from each other as they come alongside the grade 10 student to encourage them and love them and pray for them.
Rob Chartrand (53:00.576)
Awesome.
Rob Chartrand (53:09.89)
Yeah, that's brilliant. So why grade 10? Why not grade 9? Why not grade 11? Why grade 10?
Shaila Visser (53:14.427)
Well, you know, the funny thing is, okay, this is gonna sound weirdly spiritual and then it's gonna end up practical. But I felt the Lord say to me, grade 10. Now, Rob, I don't have children. I don't even know how old grade 10 students are. But I felt like the Lord said grade 10. So I said to a couple of our staff, how old are grade 10 kids? And then I said, what's so special about them? So we went and talked to some PhD educators and they said, grade 10 is the perfect year.
because it's the first year that both boys and girls have both the intellectual and emotional capacity of each other and are ready to learn at the same pace. So I said, well, isn't the Holy Spirit, yeah, the voice have gone up. I wasn't gonna say that, but the amazing thing is the Holy Spirit had said it to us. So we always say it off of Canada, we're data informed and we're spirit led. And in this case, the spirit led and then we found the data and we said, okay, spirit knows best. And so we're going for grade 10 students.
Rob Chartrand (53:52.43)
Yeah, boys have caught up.
Rob Chartrand (54:10.956)
Yeah, so good. Well, let me shift a little bit. by the way, if people want to get involved in the Student Leadership Collective, what should they do? How do they get?
Shaila Visser (54:15.655)
Mm-hmm.
Shaila Visser (54:20.495)
Yeah, they just have to come to our Alpha Canada website and they will be able to find the student leadership collective on there. And we are at alphacanada.org and it'll be really easy to find. They can get all sorts of information and they can easily apply and we'd love to have them.
Rob Chartrand (54:38.862)
Okay, great. Well, I mean, we've learned so much about the next generation for me, but I want to talk leadership with you for a bit. You are a strong leader. You're a great leader, Shayla, as far as I'm concerned. You lead a fantastic organization. Leaders in large ministries, it's sometimes easy or at least possible to become disconnected from real people in real life because you float at a higher level in an institution. And they say sometimes,
Leaders in large institutions need to leave their ivory towers and just come out and touch grass once in a while. So I know this about you, but what do you do to stay grounded? How do you touch grass?
Shaila Visser (55:20.823)
Well, first of all, I married Rob and I'm married to a police officer and yeah.
Rob Chartrand (55:22.51)
Yeah, yeah, you get the real world. Yeah, by the way, it's all him. He got like an award or something in the news or something like that. He was I don't know what he was. Was it OK? Well, it came up on my Instagram feed. I don't know what it was or he was with some kids. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Shaila Visser (55:31.494)
that was a few years ago. Yeah, he did.
Yeah, he's amazing. He is very good at his job and he loves mentoring young police officers as a sergeant. So that's his favorite thing. And so I would say being married to someone who actually sees the brokenness of the world every single day, keeps my feet on the ground. I'd say secondly, I love to spend time with my godchildren, my nieces and nephews. I think they also help me keep it real.
Rob Chartrand (55:45.484)
Nice.
Shaila Visser (56:05.087)
and helped me see the world through very different eyes because not all of them grew up in Christian homes. And so I just get to love on them and learn from them and encourage them and listen to them. But I also think it's knowing our neighbors. It's going to my local church and I go to a church where maybe a few people know what I do for a living, but not everybody. And so I'm just Shayla and Ryan at my local church.
And so I think there's lots of ways to stay grounded. I don't feel like I'm in very much of an ivory tower, in fact. And then we have the most fabulous staff at every level of the organization. I love them and my door is open to them. And so I get to hear from them a lot.
Rob Chartrand (56:47.362)
You must go grocery shopping too and get your hair done and go and go to the gym or all the regular stuff.
Shaila Visser (56:51.203)
I do all those regular things. yeah, I go to the gym. There's a lot of people that help me survive my life and my trainer is one of them.
Rob Chartrand (56:58.542)
Yeah, yeah, real life, real people. Yeah.
Shaila Visser (57:04.027)
Yeah, that's right. And I do think because I live for people coming to know Jesus, only being with Christians all the time would get a little bit boring for me. Not because Christians are boring, they're wonderful people. But I wanna be where people don't know Jesus and have those conversations.
Rob Chartrand (57:10.68)
Mm-hmm.
Rob Chartrand (57:17.506)
Yes. Yeah.
Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (57:24.908)
Yeah, my listeners might be familiar with this, but my wife, Karen and I, we've moved here and we're teaching at Briar Crest and it's in Caramport, but most of the people in the town of Caramport are Christians because they work at the school. So we chose not to live in Caramport because I'm a church planter and I'm an armchair missiologist and I want to be in a neighborhood where people don't know Jesus, right? So we intentionally lived in the city of Moose Jaw because we want to be with people that we can share our faith with and share our lives with as well. Yeah.
Shaila Visser (57:45.957)
Yeah, exactly.
Shaila Visser (57:52.103)
That's right. That's right. when I like in my residence here in Vancouver, one side of me is a Cantonese family beside them is a Mandarin speaking family. So all Chinese, this side is a Bangladeshi family, a family across the street is from Vietnam and another one is from Hong Kong. And so you just get the world, right? In Canada, we get the world coming to us. And so keeping grounded is not so difficult.
Rob Chartrand (58:13.922)
Yeah. Yeah, it's amazing.
Rob Chartrand (58:20.354)
Yeah. So if there's one word I would use to describe you Shayla, knowing you and watching your public ministry, you are very hopeful. You're a bright light. Other words might include visionary, positive, uplifting, you know, in your preaching style and all that. But every leader knows that nobody can be that hopeful all the time, right? And yet sometimes, you know, when we're in public, we have to be on at points and sometimes, you know, but we want to be real.
So my question for you is, this is the real Shayla Visser here. I'm asking this question here. Not that the other one isn't real, but I mean, leader to leader, what makes you unhopeful? I mean, is there anything that discourages you?
Shaila Visser (58:55.31)
Okay.
Shaila Visser (59:08.753)
Well, I know it's gonna sound like a weird answer, but leading myself is very discouraging. And the reason I say that is because I am a glass half full person. I'm one of those like growth mindset people. I'm very intentional. But the world can start to get dark at times where you just feel like, come on Lord, or how could that happen? And why did that person have to get kicked while they're down?
Rob Chartrand (59:15.374)
Okay.
Rob Chartrand (59:20.824)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (59:29.389)
Mm-hmm.
Shaila Visser (59:35.751)
Those realities, like my best friend died of cancer when she was 37, leaving her five year old and her seven year old. I've had my own life threatening illness. There is no doubt that I have experienced suffering and pain like most people have, not maybe to the extent that some people have. And I will tell you, you can't see it on our screens that we're on today and listeners certainly won't be able to see it, but behind me I have a pink chair and I love my pink chair.
Rob Chartrand (59:51.234)
Yeah. Yeah.
Shaila Visser (01:00:04.997)
And every morning I go sit there and I meet with Jesus. And the reason I have to do that is because my hope is not in leading a great organization or having a great marriage or having enough money to have a holiday or reading a great book. My hope and joy is found in Jesus. And if I don't meet with him every morning through scripture and through prayer, then my hope diminishes quite quickly.
So I know, like this morning, I was with my trainer at 6 a.m. downtown Vancouver. And I know if I don't get up by about 430, 440, I'm just gonna be walking the dog, going to the gym and into my day. And Jesus is more important. If my hope tank needs to stay up, it's not because of circumstances, it's because of a person. And so that's how I stay grounded to the reality of hope and joy and peace every day.
Rob Chartrand (01:01:00.27)
Hmm. And so it's it's not even the the reparative work repairing work afterwards, but it's the preemptive work beforehand that that is so much more important for you.
Shaila Visser (01:01:07.994)
yeah.
yeah, I remember it was only seriously like three months ago that I was standing just outside this office on my way downstairs into the kitchen, ready to go to work. Like literally ready to walk out the door and the Holy Spirit said to me, are you sure you want to leave without spending time with me today? And I ignored that voice. And I was like, I don't have time. And I just left.
And do you know at four o'clock that afternoon, I got a phone call that set me off. And it was just like out of the blue. was like, you know, that kind of swing at you that you just don't expect it and connect. then it hurts 10 times worse than you ever thought it would. And I remember thinking I was not spiritually prepared for my day. And the Holy Spirit.
reminded me, was so kind to remind me and I ignored him, which is really an embarrassing confession. But it's real. And that's why ever since then, and before then I had great rhythms, but ever since then I'm like, no, I cannot start my day because I don't know what's coming in my day. And I need to be spiritually grounded and rooted before I can get out into it.
Rob Chartrand (01:02:26.734)
Yeah, so good. We talk to our students here about training versus trying, right? And that's a John Ortberg term, so I'll give him credit for it. But I mean, so many Christians get into the day and they white-knuckle it and they just try. Where what God invites us to do is to train before we get into the rink or into the arena, which is that disciplined time of worship and prayer and studying his word and listening posture. Yeah.
Shaila Visser (01:02:32.577)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Shaila Visser (01:02:51.515)
Well, he's forming me. He's forming me to be the leader he wants me to be. He's forming me to be the daughter he wants me to be. He's forming me to be exactly who he's called me to be with all my gifts and talents and skills and idiosyncrasies. But he wants me free to be who he's created me to be to serve him and love him. And so every day I think about that. So for me, the understanding of being rooted in Christ, abiding in Christ,
Rob Chartrand (01:02:55.863)
Mm-hmm.
Shaila Visser (01:03:19.803)
becomes more real every day. And that's, I think, how leaders stay grounded, but it's also how we stay hopeful, regardless of the circumstances.
Rob Chartrand (01:03:30.286)
You think that's more real to you now than say 30 years ago in your life?
Shaila Visser (01:03:34.267)
yeah, absolutely. I think I know just enough to know how little I know and to be reminded that sure I have a lot of experience leading, I have lots of knowledge that I've gained, but there's so much I don't know and so much I need to learn and the best advisor I've ever had is the Holy Spirit and learning to be attuned to him and understand his voice.
has been a critical learning over these decades of leadership so that I can lead much more like Jesus. And I've been challenged with the verse that Jesus says, I only do what I see my father doing. And I'm like, Lord, I don't even know what that means. I don't even know what that looks like, but I'm going to submit to you and say, please teach me to be that kind of a follower.
Rob Chartrand (01:04:19.576)
Hmm. Hmm.
Rob Chartrand (01:04:26.872)
Yeah, it's good.
So is there anything on the horizon for Alpha that you're excited to share with us? I mean, obviously, Student Leadership Collective, the launch of the new things, but anything one year, two year, five year, 20 years down the road that...
Shaila Visser (01:04:42.747)
Yeah, I think this prayer initiative is the thing I'm most excited about because I think we have to, as leaders in Christian circles, think beyond our own tenure as the leader. And I think we have to dream about generations and not just about one generation or my generation. And so I am continually praying and asking the Lord, may I be fruitful?
in my ministry life for things that matter 30 years from now. And so I make different decisions now. I make different decisions about where to spend my time and put my effort in because I'm really betting on having an influence that I'm planting seeds that will become trees that will be fruitful in 30 years from now.
Rob Chartrand (01:05:32.088)
Well, and imagine if we all were more prayerful and were more in tune with what God's up to, how much more creative and fruitful we would be in our ministries. And if we can encourage that in churches all across the country and in the next generation, I think that's a win for all of us. I know it's a win for all of us, absolutely.
Shaila Visser (01:05:43.463)
Mm-hmm.
Shaila Visser (01:05:53.711)
It's a win for all of us and it's a way to play our part in the kingdom.
Rob Chartrand (01:05:57.89)
Yeah, yeah. Well, I wonder if we could finish with you giving a final word of encouragement to our listeners. We've got people tuning in from all across the country in various different walks of life and different age groups and have a real heart for the Lord's work. Why don't you finish this off with a final word?
Shaila Visser (01:06:05.745)
Mm-hmm.
Shaila Visser (01:06:18.107)
Yeah, I think I just want to remind you that God calls us in Psalm 1 to be like trees planted by streams of living water that yield its fruit in season, whose leaves do not wither. And I just think about the state of the church and leaders, regardless of if you are a church leader or you're in the corporate world or you're in medical or health. We need to be like trees planted by streams of living water.
Rob Chartrand (01:06:27.875)
Thank
Shaila Visser (01:06:47.911)
And so the question I just want to ask you is, do you feel like you're planted beside streams of living water? And where is that for you? We know who it is, but where is it? Where do you go? How do you get there? Are you spending enough time there? I think the busyness of life is getting in the way of leading an abiding life. And I am the worst at living a very busy life.
Rob Chartrand (01:06:56.654)
Hmm.
Shaila Visser (01:07:17.529)
So abide more, root yourself more, and let him grow the fruit.
Rob Chartrand (01:07:24.376)
Good word. Shayla Rister, thank you for joining us on Church in the North.
Shaila Visser (01:07:29.561)
Rob, it's great to be with you and we love serving the church and if there's anything I can do and Alpha can do, we just want to serve and help.
Rob Chartrand (01:07:39.308)
Well, we'll see you soon.
Shaila Visser (01:07:40.689)
Thanks Rob.