Rob Chartrand (00:02.146)
Well, hey, we're excited to have Kyle Harnett here. He is the lead pastor of Foothills Alliance Church in Calgary, Alberta. Kyle Harnett, welcome to Church in the North.
Kyle Harnett (00:13.802)
Hey, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me.
Rob Chartrand (00:16.758)
Well, you and I go way back. We've had similar church planting types of journeys. I think even our churches in some ways were very similar in terms of their original ethos and DNA. So you, I know you primarily as a church planter, you planted capstone about a dozen years ago in Calgary, but recently you've just jumped into a new role. You have become the lead pastor of Foothills Alliance Church in Calgary. And if people don't know, Foothills is a little bit-
a much larger congregation. It's different size and scope. So the roles may be similar, different, and that's what I wanna talk about. I wanna talk about that transition. But before we do that, let's go back to capstone. Let's start back early in your church planting journey. First of all, talk to us, Kyle, what compelled you to plant a church? How did you get into that? And then maybe tell us a little bit more about capstone, what's unique about it.
Kyle Harnett (01:12.95)
Yeah, that's a great question, Rob. There's probably two prongs to that answer. The first one is really practically, which was this. I had been a youth pastor for many years, and I had this heartbeat to see my friends come to faith. Daddy grew up going to Christian school, and I, for a number of years, had walked away from the faith. And because of that, some of my nearest and dearest friendships...
or with people who have no faith background at all. And I remember being a part of churches that were wonderful churches and going, I don't know if my friends would ever fit here. Like even if they prayed to receive Christ, I don't know if the culture between where they exist and the church culture, not kingdom culture, but church culture, if they can actually bridge that gap. And this started to just create a bit of a...
a passion and desire for church planning. So that's sort of the strategic, want to reach the loss for Christ. There was a neighborhood in the city where tens of thousands of people lived. There was no church that was a Bible believing church. And because of that, we wanted to target this one area. The second part is actually just spiritual. I had this encounter with the living God. And so, with a broad view of listeners, which I know many of you come from all kinds of theological backgrounds.
One of my core convictions is this God still speaks He speaks absolutely through the scripture 100% But by his Holy Spirit, he also speaks to us personally and individually and so I had this burning bush moment When I was 20, so I'll give the quick story I had this dramatic return to Christ or somebody even say you I don't know if you were a Christian before and I go You don't know the great news is Jesus knew and Jesus is really gracious and wonderful
And I had this dramatic return to Christ, and I started reading the Bible cover to cover, and I tried to make it my ambition to read the Bible ten times cover to cover in one year. So I was reading the Bible about two and a half hours a day. I got through about six or seven times. Anyways, the one thing I noticed was this, that the Bible, in both Old and New Testament, gives witness to this fact that God speaks, that He speaks to us personally, individually, through the Scriptures, yes and amen, it's our rule of faith, it's the thing that keeps us safe.
Kyle Harnett (03:37.186)
But it also speaks to us personally. So I had a burning bush moment where God told me that I would plant a church in the city of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. And so actually from a very young age, I knew that I would do that. I didn't share that widely or broadly at all though, because there's the personal interactions we have with God. They can be, they're beautiful, they're precious, they're sacred, and they're kind of scary and a little bit odd and mine was. And so that's sort of the two reasons why I started a church.
Rob Chartrand (04:07.466)
Yeah, well, what would you say is unique about capstone? How would you describe it? Every church plant has similarities, but they also have unique differences.
Kyle Harnett (04:17.018)
When we started Capstone Church, I went through a discernment process through an organization that was called C2C. It was a church planting movement in Canada, multi-denominational. One of the tasks that they had you do is they had you pause. This is great for anyone who's listening in your current ministry or your aspirations for ministry. Here's an incredible question. They had you pause and take an hour and with loads of prayer and loads of scripture,
but also with all the faith you could muster go, God, if this really went for your glory, if this went well, what would it look like? And so my wife and I, we were praying, we were reading scripture, and here's the thought that came to mind. It would look like starting a church that would start a hundred churches.
And so, and that's wild. Like, you know, we're Canadians. So one of the things I love about our American brothers and sisters in Christ is that they just dream big. In Canada, we dream reasonable. And, and this was out of like, this was way out of the blue for me. This is so much bigger than I ever thought. And so one of the foundational ethos of capstone was this, we will be a church that will plant churches that plant churches.
Rob Chartrand (05:21.134)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Kyle Harnett (05:37.074)
Everybody says that, but by God's grace, we actually had the privilege of starting a church within three years. Which I mean, a whole bunch of the data and research will tell you if you do it within three years, it will be part of your culture. If you do it after that, it's going to be harder, much harder to do. And then and then we planted a second. Church out of it. So there's three churches that got going. Like two years later, so five years in I was the pastor capsule for eight years, Rob.
And so it's nine now. And actually, the first church we planted, a church called Horizon Church here in Calgary, they're actually setting up to plant their church, another church. So it's funny, I only got to see 3% of what I believe God might do through this. But actually, I'm watching the fourth percent unfold right now. And I know that actually, there's many more churches that God wants to start through that church. And so we had just this foundational ethic.
that it's not about us. It's about multiplying for Christ's sake and for God's mission in our world. And so it was one thing that was unique. Another thing is this, we said we want to target artists and entrepreneurs. So we had the privilege of meeting and kept on the West side, still meets in a dinner theater in Calgary. So on the walls, there's all different kinds of murals and the murals change every three months.
Rob Chartrand (06:43.959)
Yeah.
Kyle Harnett (07:03.074)
sometimes the murals will have pictures of, you know, like the rock band Kiss, because the performance that's ongoing through the week is actually not church building, it's a theater building. Sometimes it will be Greece themed. And so one of the interesting aspects of the church is this we had a high value on art, but also a high value on risk taking. And so we had people who were highly entrepreneurial, and people who were more artistic, perhaps than your average churchgoer.
And we have the great privilege of seeing like over the years, like 60 people come to faith in Christ, baptize them. And I know even this past year, they baptized a ton of adults. And so we just had some beautiful pieces there. So multiplication, artists and entrepreneurs, high value on risk taking, and then loving the city. So we moved into what I call a semi-urban or urban neighborhood. So
you know, you have all kinds of diversity when it comes to economics, socio demographics, age stage belief, and a high propensity for density. And so tens of thousands of people, loads of new Canadians, immigrants, refugees, and a lot of upwardly mobile people as well. So sort of that urban flavor as well.
Rob Chartrand (08:25.002)
Yeah, yeah. So yeah, you weren't more so a regional drive-in church, but you were much more local because you were locked in to a specific, well, specific neighborhood or specific region and area, but people weren't coming from all over the city necessarily to be part of your church. You were trying to reach a specific target geographical area. Is that correct?
Kyle Harnett (08:37.697)
Okay.
Kyle Harnett (08:46.282)
Yeah, 100%. We, again, like I said earlier, we targeted this region on the map. But but honestly, it was like a handful of neighborhoods in a high density area. So you basically you're targeting one large neighborhood. There's no church here. There's no as far as we can tell gospel witness, as reaching people for Christ in this neighborhood. And so we want to reach and we had five, five communities that were all small and lumped together to make a larger hole in the city. So yeah, we and we started
Rob Chartrand (08:57.37)
Yes.
Kyle Harnett (09:15.338)
in a basement with 20 of us, and we grew that sucker to 16. We grew that thing down in a couple of months. And so we actually, you know, some church plant models have, you get sent out with a great core team with a great supporting church. And we were not sent out with a core team at all. We, these were people who we invited to pray, discern, fast, ask Jesus, hey, are you in? And so we started with a very small group.
But we did have great financial partners and they were incredible and helpful.
Rob Chartrand (09:46.655)
Yeah.
that? Well, the value of those starting is with the smaller core is you can inculcate that DNA into a group of people. That's going to extend over a long period of time. And so, you know, the fact that you guys are missional and that you are multiplying as church plants, I mean, that's not easy to do. I mean, on the one hand, every time people move on, there's a bit of a dying that takes place in order that new life might happen. Right. And also you you.
Kyle Harnett (10:12.335)
Oh
Rob Chartrand (10:18.846)
your main campus that's sending loses some good leaders, loses some good artists, right? And then, so you have to continue to build capacity at your local while you're sending out. So I mean, it's not easy to multiply churches. It takes a lot of energy and a lot of continuous growing leaders, developing disciples if you're gonna keep it going.
Kyle Harnett (10:39.894)
Yeah, you know, some people say it's like I've had the privilege of watching my three sons be born. And you go I watched my wife labor. And they go there is in some ways, you know, this is painful and joyful. And so any leader listening out there that goes, Hey, I want to be a part of planting and starting new churches for the sake of King Jesus. No, this, there's nothing like it in the world.
Rob Chartrand (10:55.851)
Yeah.
Kyle Harnett (11:07.898)
It is one of God's great privileges to be called to start a gospel witness in an area, whether that's right in your local community or across the world. It's also painful. There's some labor to that. And you do, you send away your best leaders and the best people go. And then you go, all right, it's time to begin again.
Rob Chartrand (11:31.818)
Yeah, I was gonna say it's, um, people need to know that listeners like capstone, you weren't a church of a thousand that was multiplying. You were, you were, you're a bit smaller. Like you were around the 200 barrier. Is that right? So when you, when you planted, right? And so that's a threshold that a lot of churches want to break through, but you're getting to the 200 barrier. And you're like, no, instead of breaking through and continuing to grow and multiply, we're going to send people up. Um, and so that's, that takes a lot of
Kyle Harnett (11:43.196)
Yeah, yeah.
Rob Chartrand (12:00.071)
and courage to make that type of a sacrifice.
Kyle Harnett (12:02.15)
And absolute ego death. Like, I'm not gonna lie to you, Rob. There was times where I'm like, you know, if we didn't start these churches, we'd be beyond 200. And like, if you, you know, many of your listeners will be familiar with the literature that if once you break 200, there's sort of a sociological straight highway to 350. And then 350 to 800, this is what the literature says. Obviously, God's gotta bring the growth and the fruit. But from the human side, what we can control, you're in...
Rob Chartrand (12:07.443)
Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (12:24.599)
Yeah.
Kyle Harnett (12:31.002)
And so we would bump up to 200 and then we started a new church. And then we'd start getting momentum and start bumping up to her and then we'd start another church. And then, I mean, obviously the pandemic threw a wrinkle in there as well, but it was, it was incredible for ego death. Because in the end, you'll, you'll learn it by living it that it's not about us. It's not about us. We make faith way too much about us. And so it was tremendous. It was wonderful.
Rob Chartrand (12:48.513)
Yeah.
Kyle Harnett (13:00.778)
One other fun fact that we did when we started with our core team, we were a core team of 20, and then we grew down to 16, and what we said from the very beginning is we are not inviting other Christians. This is our team. We have started. You cannot invite your friends. So we had an anti-church growth movement strategy. I'm not sure it was the best strategy, but we said this. Here's what you can bring. You can bring anyone who comes to faith in Christ, and they can become of our perch planting mission.
because we're on a mission to see people one back to their Lord and Savior, to be reconciled to God. And so actually our first joiner was a young man who was an atheist who gave his life to Jesus, got baptized and went overseas and started actually doing mission work. And so that was our very first church grow, was actually somebody coming to faith in Christ.
Rob Chartrand (13:57.678)
That's great. Well, now, of course, recently, you have been invited to prayerfully consider whether or not you would become the lead pastor of Foothills Alliance Church, and you have since accepted that, and you've been over a year into your journey there now. But Foothills is a very different church than Capstone. At least it was, it might, you know, and I just thought, I wanna get you on and talk about that, because, I mean, it's a different animal, and...
I wanna know about that transition a little bit more. So let's start, first of all, how did you come to the decision to take on the role of Foothills?
Kyle Harnett (14:33.502)
Yeah, so the backstory is this. I had committed to Jesus that I, and I've done this my whole adult life, I said, Jesus, I'm going to do what you tell me and I won't change unless you give me stunningly clear direction. Otherwise, I'm just going to do what you tell me to do. I'm going to read your word and then I'm going to be faithful and I'm going to stay where I am. And for me, that was that's important for me.
And I don't want to disparage anybody who goes, hey, this is my calling and my career. I just know for me, it is so easy to turn career into an idol. So I just, early on, I just made a commitment. God, I won't go anywhere unless you tell me. And so I had to practice this idea of going, geez, you can have my career. Because actually I have an inheritance waiting in heaven for me. That's given by you. And so I actually believed in my heart, Rob, that I would never leave capstone.
Rob Chartrand (15:14.764)
Yeah.
Kyle Harnett (15:32.246)
When we started, I thought I'd be there for the rest of my life. I was planning on it. We moved a one minute away from the church. We sold our nice suburban home. We actually, we actually moved into a nice duplex. Um, but I raised my kids without a backyard. Well, it is a backyard. It's, it's big enough to have a dog run. Like it's, it's the size of a bathroom for. Yeah, exactly. And, and it was lovely. And we thought we'd be there for our whole lives. And so.
Rob Chartrand (15:54.73)
Yeah. It's a positive stamp. Yeah.
Kyle Harnett (16:01.162)
What had happened was I had finished up my doctoral degree and had sort of asked this question, Lord, what's next? And actually in my prayer and reflection, there was no great sense of leading to a new task, new calling at all. And so I just said, I guess like what's next is another year at the church I love. And so we staffed for growth. The church was as big as it had ever been. Budget was better than it had ever been.
And then what happened was I was approached by a man who I respect immensely. He's mentored many people. And he said, you should apply for the lead pastor role at Foothills. And I said, that's a great idea for someone else and kind of blew it off. And we had a great lunch after that. Now, then I met another person who said the same thing, not connected to the first, in the end, about four or five different people.
said, Kyle, you should consider applying for the lead pastor role at Foothills. And my answer was the same every time. But because I have discernment, after about five people say the same thing, who I trust, who have wisdom, who love the Lord, read the Bible and have lived godly, holy lives, I go, maybe I should pray about that. And so in my prayer journal, I remember journaling out questions like this. Jesus, do you want me to apply? And here's what I heard back, Rob.
Nothing, nothing, crickets. I was reading the word, I'm like, maybe there's some insight in here about this. Nothing, silence. Now here's the fascinating part. In various other areas of my life, I sensed the spirits leading, the scriptures were giving me great insight on direction, wisdom, planning, strategy, insight. So I was hearing from the Lord regularly. It was like there was a clear antenna, but on this one issue, I could hear nothing.
Rob Chartrand (17:33.069)
silent.
Kyle Harnett (17:59.73)
Now some people will say, maybe God had nothing to say. Here's my interpretation of it. I was not able to hear in this area because I had already made a commitment in my heart. In some odd ways, I turned God's call on my life to start Capstone Church into an idol because I love the people, I love the mission. And because of that, I believe God probably was willing to speak to me about it. I don't know if I was willing to hear.
I am that I expanded the circle. I went to a handful of other people who gave me great insight and you might even say words from the Lord for me. One of them said Kyle was processing with them. They were part of the church and I said, you know, I'm scared that if I leave, what was started will die. Like God's great plan for this church will die. And here's what my friend said to me, he said,
Kyle Harnett (18:59.79)
And then he paused and he said, now we know we don't build the church, Christ builds the church, but he's like, just go with me. If the strength of what you build rests on you staying here forever, then it's not resting on Christ at all.
And then he said, if you leave, then what you have built with God's help and what Christ has really built through you, if you leave and it survives, then God gets the credit. Otherwise you're staying in the way and you're taking all the glory for yourself. And that helped this lodge. Some of this idolatry in my heart, this center of gravity that was the church.
Rob Chartrand (19:14.73)
Yeah.
Kyle Harnett (19:39.642)
My wife was tremendously helpful. There was a bunch of people. They all said the same thing. You should apply and see what happens. So on my birthday, my wife and I processed it. I actually spent the dinner with tears in my eyes, which was quite embarrassing. I'm trying to eat a tenderloin steak and instead I just tried to hold back tears. And that night we sensed, yeah, you know what? I'm gonna put my name in, because I can't hear God, but I can hear his people right now.
they're all saying the same thing. And I would be foolish to discard the wisdom of the community of God. And so I applied and that, the process was hilarious because in the process, after I applied, I talked with their, the chair of their nominating committee and I told her like, hey, look, I don't want this job. I don't want this job. I am applying out of obedience to Christ. Like I have.
very little interest in this job except for, I love this church, I love Foothills, but I'm trying to figure out if God's doing something here and I would be thrilled to serve you if that's God's will, but I love where I'm at. And they were so gracious. They let me process and just be honest like that. And so ended up going through the interview process, I interviewed and then my wife and I were heading off on a, I think it was our.
14th anniversary, and they're 14th, 13th anniversary. And we were heading to Vancouver, British Columbia. God bless Vancouver. And I told the nominating committee, I said, hey, look, I would just love clarity one way or another because I need to care for the church that I'm a part of if there's a transition coming, or if there's a candidating process. Candidating, if that's not part of your theological tradition is basically it's the final step.
of the discernment process, you're sort of 95% of the way they're on both the church's side and your side. And I just said to them, I need to know. And if you're, if you're done with me, great, because I can go back to my regular life. And so they still call you early in the week, maybe even as early as Sunday. So then I did Friday float to Vancouver on Saturday, Sunday, we're in Vancouver, I go, they're not gonna call. That's way too quick. But then they didn't. Then Monday came by, I'm like, maybe they'll call today. No call.
Kyle Harnett (22:01.854)
And my heart was still pretty peaceful. It was still, I was enjoying the peace of Christ. And then Tuesday, my heart was starting to just, it's just getting agitated, wondering, curious. And I remember actually starting to feel a sense of relief because I thought, wow, it's Tuesday. They haven't called yet. They said early in the week. Probably means it's not me. So that Tuesday night, my wife and I were watching.
TV just winding down before we went to bed in our the room we were staying in And she was really into the show and I was off in prayer in my mind like I'm watching TV I'm really just praying and I just say Lord. I just need to know one way or another and then Remarkable God encounter happened for me. Here's what happened as I'm lying on the bed next to my wife Pretending to watch TV, but really deep in my thoughts doing in them. I felt
million, it felt like a million raindrops. I have no other way to describe it. I know it sounds odd. A million raindrops that felt heavenly, like just all up and down my body. And then as sure as we're talking, Rob, here's what I heard in my head and heart. It's yours. They'll call tomorrow.
And in that moment, I knew that actually I had to go to Foothills, because I had no clarity otherwise. I was just going through this process, trying to be obedient, trying to listen to the wisdom and community of God. And then this moment where Jesus said, you have to go. So it was wonderful and kind of heartbreaking because I had to leave the people I love most. So fast forward the next day, Wednesday.
We woke up after my prayer mom and I told my wife, I said, they're going to call today. We got to go. It's for us. Lord spoke to me, which is always kind of a little scary to say because they hadn't called yet. And so we went, we were down in Granville Island, a real hip tourist area of Vancouver. And we're just having a beautiful day. I'm like, they're going to call. One o'clock comes by, no call, two, no call, three, no call, four, no call. It was five o'clock.
Kyle Harnett (24:18.818)
Calgary time, supper time. I take a nap and I wake up and it's 5.30. It's right smack in the middle of supper time, 6.30 Calgary time, 5.30 Vancouver time. And I woke up and I prayed the simple prayer, Lord, I know I heard you. Like I've heard you a handful of times, really clear. This is one of them. If they don't call soon, I have no idea what to do with this. And then three minutes later, they called and they said, we wanna invite you to come candidate.
And actually at that point I knew the candidate was a formality and that God had asked me to change churches, which was beautiful and wonderful and terrifying.
Rob Chartrand (25:02.538)
Yeah. Wow. That's a... I love how everyone's discernment process is different. I love how God speaks in different ways to different people through so many different means. And I'd appreciate you sharing that because I think some people might say, oh, well, Kyle was just moving up. He was leaving behind this smaller church that was doing well and all that, but Foothills is a
Kyle Harnett (25:11.426)
Mm-hmm.
Rob Chartrand (25:31.318)
You know, he's ladder climbing and all of that. But I wanted you to share that story because I think it's important for people to hear that discernment process. And that in some ways you're almost a reluctant prophet. It's like, nah, I don't know if I really wanna go here. But at the end of the day, I just wanna do what God wants me to do. One of the things I wanna talk about is kind of the transition of leading at Foothills. How has it been leading at Foothills this year compared to say how you would have led at Capstone?
Kyle Harnett (25:58.925)
Yeah.
So a little bit of background, just for the listeners. So Foothills is a big church by Canadian standards and was doing really well. And my predecessor, the pastor before me served for 20 years, phenomenal leader. He probably is one of the best pastoral leaders I've ever met. Like he just oozes shepherd. You just poke him and it's compassion. It just comes right out of him. He's just amazing leader.
Rob Chartrand (26:01.974)
How has it changed? How is it similar?
Rob Chartrand (26:31.414)
Yeah.
Kyle Harnett (26:31.718)
And interestingly, though, I took over post pandemic and post the transition of a 20 year leader who had a really great run. And so he had actually been off staff for a year. We had some of our internal staff, the interim lead pastor for a year. And so when I arrived, the church was sort of in this stage of waiting and like winnowing. The church had shrunk.
significantly. It was half the size that it was prior to the lead pastor's departure prior to COVID. And so, coming in to the church, one of the things that I sought to do immediately was this, was to restore the faith of the community of God. What do I mean by that? Well, this church has people who've attended it longer than I've been alive.
Rob Chartrand (27:12.874)
Yeah, yeah.
Kyle Harnett (27:30.818)
That's an interesting dynamic. There are dozens and dozens and dozens of people who have been at this church for 50 plus years. And I go, that's longer than I've been alive by a fair margin. But what I had noticed and observed as I was trying to strategize, God, what do you want me to do? And try to use my human brain to go, how do I contribute to this? I was just watching sermons, I was watching their YouTube videos, I was listening to people, interviews, just trying to get a lay of the land, is this.
Rob Chartrand (27:34.374)
Right. Yeah.
Kyle Harnett (28:00.382)
It seemed like the people had lost hope that God might do something remarkable with this community of faith. And I just wanna say this to those of you who are listening, those of you who listen, you know, maybe even years down the road, it is possible that you right now are in a season where you've lost faith that God might do something remarkable through the mission or ministry that you lead. And I need you to know now in Jesus' name.
that God is not finished with you yet. Otherwise, he would have told you it's time to move on. And God is not done with what he started. And there's all these beautiful promises in Scripture that the promises he gave, he will always fulfill. Sometimes it's confusing. Sometimes we don't see it. Moses doesn't see the promised land. I have not yet seen the capstone network of churches plant 100 churches. And so, Foothills, it had seemed observationally,
that there was just sort of, there was faithful, beautiful, amazing people who were disheartened. And so one of the immediate culture shifts I wanted to bring about was simply this. Create a culture of expectancy that God's going to move, that people are going to meet Christ, that Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And that means we can expect him to do remarkable good through us. If we listen, trust, obey, kind of the classic doctrines.
But functionally, Rob, you asked about strategically what changed. There are cliches. So I like to be a contrarian. So here are some cliches you hear about big churches versus small churches. You hear big churches like a cruise ship, small churches like a sea-doo. On a sea-doo, you can turn left real quick. On a cruise ship, it takes forever to have change.
Rob Chartrand (29:41.185)
Yeah.
Kyle Harnett (29:49.707)
I don't believe that.
I think there is some wisdom to that statement. I just think it's overplayed. I think that leading in a larger organization, sometimes it takes courage, and sometimes it takes a unique, you gotta collate people's opinions. You gotta win some people on board, including your key staff, key leaders, people who've been there for decades. But actually, I believe this, that Jesus doesn't want our large churches, large organizations to become calcified and boring.
and useless for his cause. I actually think Jesus goes, there's times where I want to move a large church quickly. And when you're leading at a larger scale, the pace can be different simply because you actually have to disperse power. So in a church plant, in a church of 150, 200,
Rob Chartrand (30:28.116)
Yeah.
Kyle Harnett (30:51.79)
100, depending if we just plant that a church. In some regards, you can get consensus. You can build consensus in an afternoon with 10 phone calls. You talk to all the key stakeholders. In a larger church, you can't call 100 stakeholders in one afternoon. In fact, you don't even know who the 100 stakeholders are. And because of that, what you need to do is you need to disperse power to influential people within your staff.
And within the congregation to go, I need you to go out and get data. I need you to be a council of wisdom, but also consensus building. And so one of the ironies of leading the larger church is this, you actually have way less power than you used to in a small church. And that is a dynamic that I never anticipated. Here you go. There's a handful of things I really, really can influence. And the rest, there's a committee, there's a team, there's people.
Rob Chartrand (31:34.945)
Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (31:46.37)
Right. Yeah.
Kyle Harnett (31:50.818)
bigger, brighter, smarter, wiser than I am. We're making decisions about finance, policy. So the complexity means this, you have to disperse power.
Rob Chartrand (32:02.166)
Yeah. And so you can move a large organization that has complexity, but you have to manage the complexity to move it. Right. So it's not that you can't shift it. It's just you need that coalition of leaders. You need a concentric circles of dialogue plan. And, you know, this kind of rebound effect that information goes out, information comes back, you're listening as a leader, and then you can shift it. But
it does take, yeah, you can't do it in an afternoon with a bunch of phone calls. It does take, yeah, some planning and some, you know, but if you just did it like you do with the small church plant, well, that thing would blow up, right? Because people got plans, they got budgets, they've got volunteers in place and whatnot, and different ministries intersecting. Like, yeah, so it is a different animal to lead for sure. Like, but what you're saying is, it can change and it can move.
Kyle Harnett (32:49.094)
Mm-hmm.
Rob Chartrand (32:56.995)
So, I mean, what are some of the things that you were seeking to change in the first year?
Kyle Harnett (32:59.086)
So one of the things my predecessor, who's a dear friend that he did really well, he was so wonderful at teaching topically. He was so great at that. And one of the things I noticed as I just chatted with people is they're like, you know, it'd be great to just work through a book of the Bible. You go, what's strategic about that? You know, well, a number of things. So we've started into the Gospel of Matthew. We've been in it now for...
14 months, which has been as long as my tenure.
Rob Chartrand (33:32.574)
Hey, how far have you gotten after 14 months?
Kyle Harnett (33:32.638)
We are in chapter 8. So we got 20 more to go.
Rob Chartrand (33:40.213)
So I'll come back to you in four years and see how if he got through.
Kyle Harnett (33:40.97)
Yeah, yeah, and honestly that's been one of my philosophy of ministries. And I just want to say this, I think that you can preach topically and biblically and that's amazing. I think you can preach verse by verse, that's amazing. I'm not here to beat anybody up, but this is just one of the philosophies I had and part of the reason for that was this. Foothills, and I've told them this, one of the kindest churches, it's the kindest church I've ever been a part of. Authentic, godly kindness.
And that comes from all of the discipling and all the work of all the leaders who've come before me. And I just honor that. And one of the shadow sides of kindness is niceness. And niceness means we don't talk about difficult issues. So strategically, part of what I sense this church might need and heard just from dozens of people was simply this. Let's just dig into God's Word.
And God's words gonna touch on subjects that we don't like to talk about, like divorce, like hell, like human sexuality, like mission, like giving. And because of that, like you run through the Sermon on the Mount, you're like, oh man, there was like a handful of weeks where we're talking about like rage and anger and murder. And then the very next week, it's like lust, adultery and divorce. And you go, Merry Christmas. Like these are not Christmas card verses, but it did cause us to confront.
Rob Chartrand (34:52.566)
I'm going to say.
Kyle Harnett (35:05.622)
them of our deep desire and need for courage. See, Jesus is the most kind human being. And obviously, he's more than a human being, he's the Son of God. But he's the most kind human who's ever lived. He's also the most courageous. And so part of what we as a church are leaning into and growing is courage. And I believe that courage is absolutely essential for the days ahead for the Church of Jesus Christ, especially in Western culture. We need more courage than we've had.
And I believe that will be necessary for the days ahead. So that was one strategic change. A couple other strategic changes. We multiplied services, so the church had shrunk quite a bit. And it had rebounded by a few hundred people when I arrived. And then we had hundreds of new people who've come now. So we're back to two services. But we did end our Saturday evening service. And so.
That was a choice that was made in the pandemic. But for now, we've chosen not to bring that back. And if we do bring that back, here's a strategic change. I know most of the listeners are leaders on this podcast. So people have asked Kyle, when will we bring back or will we bring back an evening service? And the team and I, we've chatted about it. And it is likely that if we do, we will do so on a Sunday evening. And the rationale is simply this. I've got three kids.
Rob Chartrand (36:06.496)
Okay.
Kyle Harnett (36:34.066)
And Saturday services, I know lots of you do them, or Friday evening services, and God bless you. That's wonderful. But I go, I'm the type of personality and many on my team are the type of personality you go, you tell me I got to work in five hours, you might as well have told me I had to work now. That's just how my mind works. So it's hard to just go home and be dad. It's hard to go home and be a great husband, knowing that I'm going to work in a handful hours and speak to hundreds of people in one service.
Rob Chartrand (36:36.491)
Right.
Kyle Harnett (37:03.654)
and to not start drifting towards there. And so that is the tip of an iceberg of work we've been doing here to go. We actually need to make decisions that for our leadership team, including volunteers, lay ministry leaders, that they go, I feel really healthy. Really healthy.
Rob Chartrand (37:26.25)
Yeah, yeah, I mean, and that Saturday night service is a challenge for churches that do it for the volunteers trying to, especially if you have bands that are going to play all services, right? So they're basically putting in a 14 hour work week on the weekend to make that happen. And that's difficult to do for a lot of them. I guess you I mean, if you do a Sunday evening service, they're still going to be there for that. But at least it's they have that extra day. Right. And now that I'm not pastoring.
Kyle Harnett (37:49.147)
One day, yeah.
Kyle Harnett (37:55.02)
I'm sorry.
Rob Chartrand (37:55.638)
And now that I'm working Monday to Friday, full days, and sometimes evenings, and then I'm volunteering in my local church, I realize that one day off is pretty important. It's pretty precious, right? So, you know, I'm on the other side of it and thinking, yeah, Saturday night services are, they're a big ask of your pastors, but also of your volunteers.
Kyle Harnett (38:04.118)
Yeah.
Kyle Harnett (38:18.358)
One other strategy, I mean, there's loads, I could talk lots, I could talk about team culture dynamics. One of the strategies that has shifted or that we've begun implementing is actually just rebuilding what I'll call missional capacity within the church. Use simpler terms. How do we start creating a culture where we actually see ourselves as ambassadors for Christ, gospel witnesses?
Rob Chartrand (38:24.927)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kyle Harnett (38:45.95)
How do we do the work of sharing the greatest news about the greatest person in history to a world that is dying in stress and anxiety and materialism and consumerism and deconstruction? How do we do that? And how do you do it with a thousand plus people? And so I've got a bit of a roadmap and Rob, I know we'll transition whenever you're ready, but this is sort of what I did my doctoral work on.
Rob Chartrand (39:12.97)
transitioning now brother go for it
Kyle Harnett (39:16.278)
Uh is this the first thing and it goes all the way back to that concept of faith Which simply this we said our church needs to become attractive again Here's what I mean by that When people walk into Your large group gathering this is this is baby step one Do they really encounter the lord? Do they experience the living god? Is it the expectation of
your church, your ministry. So even if you lead, you know, Rob, even in your area, in the academy, there's two approaches to how you might teach a class. There's the approach where you go, we have content that we need you to learn, to digest and inculcate and then use in your everyday life. Wonderful. And then there's a second approach or maybe just the icing on the cake and the sprinkles where you go, what if they get all that and then encounter the living God?
And so part of what we have done, so there's four phases I believe in a church, transitioning to become a church that is actually bearing much fruit and lots of gospel witness. We're on like baby step one and two. But the first one is simply this, do people encounter the living God? Now, how do you do that? That is a great question. How do you take your Sunday gatherings and you go, we sing songs, we preach from the Bible.
We pray, we prayed beforehand, we got great service, all that fun stuff, all the technical details. How do you help them encounter Jesus?
And one of the learnings I've had over the years leading capstone, starting a church, for lots of people were skeptical and outside of faith, seeing many come to faith was simply this. Now you create opportunities, you create opportunities for them who invite God to speak or move or change or identify. Let me give you a really simple example from my life. The other day I was sitting with a friend of mine.
Kyle Harnett (41:26.074)
just come to faith, just come to faith. But here's what I said, I said talk to him about different forms of prayer. I'll make up a name for him, I'll call him Rick. I said Rick, a couple of different forms of prayer. Here's one. There's a type of prayer called contemplative prayer. Now lots of people freak out when we talk about contemplative prayer, so I want to put it in a really biblical framework. Here's what, here's the best biblical framework for contemplative prayer. Contemplative prayer is doing 1 John 3.
verse on three one, dear children, how beautiful is it we called children of God? And that is what we are. John, lots of commentators will go, John's like exploding, it seems, with like joy and hope because he's just dwelling on this truth. So they just said, here's what we're going to do, we're going to take 60 seconds. I invite you, if you're listening, listening along, 60 seconds. And if you're here and you've given your life to Christ, here's what you need to know.
Kyle Harnett (42:24.994)
perfect love, that the Creator loves you perfectly. And all I want you to do right now is sit in that love as deeply as you know how. Open your heart up, none of us know how to do this perfectly, and just go, He loves me. He loves me with a perfect, undying, unending love. And so we sat there with my friend Rick for 60 seconds.
And then his eyes teared up and he, I mean, he's, he's got all kinds of fun tattoos. He has no church background. And he goes, that is remarkable. And then I said, now think about our friends. We've got a friend, a color Vicky lagged by anxiety. And I said to my friend, Rick, I said, Rick, imagine if Vicky knew Christ and then sat in the love of God for her through Jesus for five minutes a day.
What do you think would happen to her anxiety? He went, she would be such a different person, like such a different person. And I go, that's what we do. That's what we try to help people encounter, the living God. Not simply the God of the Bible, yes and amen, the God of the Bible, but the living God of the Bible. We want them to encounter. So in our gatherings as a church, we go, if we do our job right,
Rob Chartrand (43:32.95)
Right. Yeah.
Kyle Harnett (43:51.178)
We preach the gospel, we preach the text, we preach replication, and then we preach with an invitation to encounter the living God. No, I just wanna clarify though, it's not just, yeah, there is a response. Yeah, yeah, but right now, right where you are.
Rob Chartrand (44:02.67)
Okay, so response. Yeah, yeah.
Rob Chartrand (44:08.478)
Not an altar call, not a, yeah, not a, yeah. But.
That's right. Yeah. But an application that is actually responsive in that moment. Yeah.
Kyle Harnett (44:16.958)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that that's step one. And so, you know, a lot has been said on the Attractional Church, you know, where you do a great big carnival, and you'd invite the whole neighborhood. And, you know, one of the one of the findings, at least for people who have no faith background, that generally isn't working to reach people who are outside of faith. It's not working. They go, thanks for the carnival. Thanks for the hot dog. I'm leaving. No.
I don't want to disparage it totally because some people are still finding fruit. And and look, the best that you know, you know, it's a good missionary strategy, the one that leads people to Jesus in healthy, godly, biblical ways. But this one, you know, it's lacking efficacy. But but here's what's interesting. When when people start encountering the living God through what you do, that becomes unbelievably attractive. And it's actually the ministry prototype of Jesus. Jesus began.
by having people encounter him full blast. John One, Nathaniel experiences him full blast, Andrew, Philip, they all go and they go, we gotta invite people to this. Yeah. So.
Rob Chartrand (45:28.304)
Yeah.
Come and see. Come and see, yeah, for sure. You know, I, and I think large churches can fall into the trap or the experience of being an attraction. You know, bring a friend on your arm, bring the church. We'll do a great sermon series that's going to be very practical and applicable to their lives and whatnot. And, and, and I think that is a strategy that has worked in the past.
it's maybe a more challenging strategy now. And partly is because our culture is changing and the demographics of the average person in your neighborhood is different. I know you and I have talked about this and this is gonna lead us towards your dissertation project. But I mean, the reality is that there are a number of people, if I can oversimplify it, and I will oversimplify it for purposes of explanation, but.
There are a number of people who would be unchurched versus de-churched, right? So the de-churched would be those who have a Christian memory or a church experience in the background or they're a C&E Christian, you know, Christmas and Easter Christian or whatnot. And so the starting point in conversation with them might be different because they do have some common language and nomenclature and there might be an openness to the gospel unless they got burned, then I mean, then running away from the gospel. But that group...
might fit better with an attraction or strategy. This is at least how the, you know, how we commonly understand it. And then the unchurched are those who have no Christian memory, no Christian background. They don't know Moses from Judah. And what they might know are just some of our cultural understandings of Christianity, which is what they might see in popular media or whatnot. Or...
Rob Chartrand (47:24.174)
And for them, the church is largely irrelevant. So if you invite me, why would I come? And secondarily, they might even have a negative understanding of the church, right? So the idea of being a mission of church is to, instead of inviting people to church, attracting them to the church, it's instead to extract the people of God out of the church on mission in the world, right? So to reach those people who would never come to church if you invite them, instead go out as the church.
and figure out ways to develop, you know, mission communities or mission enterprise or whatnot to reach those folks. So a lot of the our historic attractional approach has really targeted a very specific portion of the population and done it effectively, who have maybe more of a churched memory or background. So is that first of all, has that been the history of maybe of foothills? And that's not a bad thing. I mean,
Jesus uses it, right? And secondarily, yeah, I mean, what's your thinking on that now, especially in light of your dissertation project? Ha ha ha.
Kyle Harnett (48:30.162)
So I would say, yeah, foothills did a great job of being like a really healthy Bible teaching, invitational, attraction, old church, historically, and I go, that's great. And if you lead one of those ministries, seriously, God bless you, make sure people are encountering the living God. Okay, so here's my here's my one exhortation. If you're here and you like, if you've never asked your people, do you actually encounter God when we gather?
And if you've never asked them, ask them. And you might be unbelievably encouraged. And then you'd be inspired to go invite people, teach your people to invite people, okay? Like this is a tractional, invitational, step one, step two, but actually attractive, because if people are encountering God, that is the best, and then they should invite, because God's doing something in your body. Okay, so.
Rob Chartrand (49:24.15)
Yeah, let's differentiate that from the other attraction, which is we have great coffee, we have a smoke machine, we have good lighting, a solid band, and they're just gonna have a really good, warm, welcoming experience. You're saying it's gotta step up beyond that to an encounter with the living God.
Kyle Harnett (49:25.707)
Yeah.
Kyle Harnett (49:39.026)
And so, so here's the exhortation. If you pull your people, or if you just know it in yourself and you go, nah, nobody's encountering God here. We're just going through the motions. Please, please, for the purposes and cause of Christ in our day, stop telling your people to invite people to church. If they are not experiencing God and you know, we just have this flat line, boring, it's not changing our lives, it's not compelling, don't invite people to that. Jesus is the most compelling.
Rob Chartrand (49:59.767)
Okay.
Kyle Harnett (50:08.054)
person who's ever lived, the Son of God, he's alive, he's living, he's amazing, and go, I we have to figure out what we're doing that is actually not facilitating an encounter with him. Pick that first, then invite people. Okay, so now let's talk about why we why we got to move beyond that to missional and multiplicative. So this actually the research that I had began from capsules. So we had people encountering Christ.
in really profound ways at Capstone and now at Foothills. And one of the things I had presumed was this, that when people encounter Jesus in powerful, profound ways, when they feel really, really released from all the dumb decisions they've ever made, when I'm talking about forgiveness, when people really feel that, I assume they would go tell others. When somebody experiences Christ-healing anxiety,
or even lifting depression. Now I know there's medical stuff I don't want, like all the caveats that you know and assume I believe to. But when they experience a touch from heaven, you go, they're gotta go tell people. And here's what we found at Capstone. People had all kinds of remarkable Jesus encounters. And then they didn't know how to talk about Jesus even after experiencing him. Like,
Rob Chartrand (51:35.27)
Right. Yeah. So how do they translate that experience into spiritual conversations and witnessing?
Kyle Harnett (51:38.038)
Yeah, yeah, and the denomination I'm a part of, we have this heritage that we just we just presumed you stuffed more at Jesus more experience of Christ into people a deeper, better for better, more beautiful experience, then they'd go out naturally on mission and share the good news and invite other people to experience that right there in their own home in their own community. It wasn't happening. And actually, I pulled dozens of churches who were going through the exact same phenomena where
They were really, really experiencing the presence of Christ in the everyday lives of their people, and no one else was coming to faith in Christ. So we're having healthier, happier Christians, praise God. And people who are stumbling around in the dark, we're still stumbling around in the dark. And Jesus didn't come for the righteous, but for sinners. So I started studying it, and here was
I wonder if a deeper experience of Jesus combined with training will actually enliven the people of God. So here's what's interesting.
Missional training. So, so, so missional training had five vectors that we observe. So we talked about indirect witness. So this is just about building relationships with people outside of faith so they might sustain the weight of a gospel conversation. There was direct witness, talking about both your testimony, what you've experienced in Christ, and who Jesus is, there was social concern, where our gospel has all kinds of societal concern, the ones to measure.
Rob Chartrand (52:51.738)
And by training, you mean evangelistic training. Mission training, yeah.
Kyle Harnett (53:19.87)
would people be involved more locally? Would they be better neighbors, better citizens? Would they pray for their nation, pray for their city, pray for their neighborhood more? Then we also studied missional prayer as another aspect. And then finally, the fifth one we studied, and there's no study like this that I could find on the planet, where it studied the attitudinal position of believers towards sharing their faith. We studied boldness. That was the category we took.
And so we looked at behavior and attitude towards missional behavior. And here it was the fascinating result. When you train people to live on mission, the amazing part is this. For those who are Christians, the spirit of God has already been stirring them to go out to be witnesses, to be ambassadors. Not everyone's an evangelist, but everyone can be a witness. And we saw so we did a study with a focus group of five different churches in five different contexts. So
Big churches, small churches, urban, rural, suburban, small town, large city. And we took 40 people through this mission training program and we had them have some deep encounters with Jesus in prayer. And what we found was this, we saw a 15% growth in missional behavior in your average participant. Now, for those of you who are listening, you know, 15%, that's not that much. Here's what I need you to understand. A 15% change.
Rob Chartrand (54:43.638)
Bye.
Kyle Harnett (54:48.934)
is unbelievable. Imagine this, imagine you lost 15% body fat. Imagine if your body, you might look amazing. I'm hoping for that. I'm praying for that. Give me 15% change. 15% if you look at a day represents a few hours a day of change. In the life of a believer, 15% change was significant. I'll give you some fun data points.
One of the biggest changes was a question. So we took a survey of this focus group before we had done anything. Then we ran them through four months of mission and spiritual renewal training to experience more of Jesus and be trained up for mission. And then we took 12 weeks off where we didn't have a single conversation with the focus group. So that all of the excitement would just go away. You know, if you've ever been to a conference, you go, the next day you're ready to take on the world. We didn't want that.
attitude. We wanted to see what had changed over the long haul. So three months of no communication at all, then we invited them to take this exact same survey about missional behavior again. And that's when we found the 15% change. And here was one of the funnest ones. There was a question on there that said this. In the past two years, I've led somebody to faith in Christ.
Kyle Harnett (56:13.99)
And at the beginning of our survey, that score was quite low. By the end, it had increased 25%.
Kyle Harnett (56:22.954)
And so, you know, I had this one beautiful email from a lady named Belinda. He lived in a rural Alberta town. And she said, if you email me, it was the cutest email, it's the best email I think I've ever received. And it said this, Hey Kyle, not sure if you remember me. I got it six months after we had wrapped up the project. All the, all the interviews are done. And she said, it's Belinda part of the mission training program. I just wanted to let you know, I know who my mission field is.
Rob Chartrand (56:24.979)
Wow, yeah.
Kyle Harnett (56:51.83)
It's a lady named Nancy. Well, you need to know is, Belinda was in her seventies when she took part in this. And so she's been walking with Jesus for a long time. And as far as I'm aware, never led anybody to faith in Christ. She said, Nancy's my mission field. We have her health link button. She's my neighbor. We help her, she's in her eighties. And then she said, something happened with Nancy. I got my friends and we started praying because that's one of the tools we learned to pray. Just pray that people would come to Christ. She was praying with her friends.
She had a little triad of people that they were working together in community on mission together. They started praying for Nancy. And then Belinda said, then one day Nancy invited me over and we started talking about church. And Nancy told me she was done with all of that. And then Belinda said, couple of weeks later though, we were really praying for Nancy and Nancy had to go into the hospital and came home for palliative care. She invited me over.
See, when we serve and love people, we get access in Jesus' name. So Nancy said, I went over and we talked about Jesus. He wanted to hear all about him. And Nancy gave her life to Christ. Over the next few weeks, Belinda wrote, I met with Nancy several times. We read the Bible together, we prayed together, we talked all about heaven. And then on the final day of Nancy's life, I got invited over to say,
Last prayers. We sang Psalm 23 together. And then she died. Melinda then said, so Kyle, I just want to thank you for training me. I want to thank you for training me. Here's the amazing part. Nancy, her friend Nancy, when she closed her eyes and took her final breath, when she opened him, she met Jesus.
Kyle Harnett (58:46.69)
What was motivating me was this, we had all these people, myself included, who experienced the goodness of Christ. And so many people, including myself, we had no tools on how to share faith, on how to live life on mission. And we put people in this really unenviable position as church leaders and ministry leaders and leaders in the kingdom when we go, you've gotta be sharing your faith, but don't equip them, because here's what we're doing.
One of people's most treasured possessions is their relationships, their friendships, their family. And we ask them to go do something that we've never trained them to do.
in hopes that it might work. So in some ways I use this silly analogy. I go, you ever unicycle, Rob? I've never unicycled in my life and I don't plan to. No, but I also wouldn't try because I'd have no idea how to do it. And so I would certainly never do it in public. In some ways, what we ask our people to do is we say, hey, why don't you go unicycle in front of your friends and family for the very first time? No training, no experience, just go do it. You've experienced Jesus, right?
Rob Chartrand (59:37.41)
We'll be there and try it, you know.
Kyle Harnett (59:54.454)
But what we found was this, when you train people on how to share their faith in Christ, they do it. And we saw out of that group, I think we saw something like eight or nine people come to faith in Christ in just a short little window. I have no idea what the long-term ramifications will be. So that was the dissertation project. And
Rob Chartrand (01:00:19.278)
Yeah, yeah, that's great. You know, and you're not the only one who's saying this. I mean, like others have said, I mean, there is a strong correlation, undeniable correlation between training people for evangelism and people actually doing evangelism. It's, you're exactly right. I mean, like training creates competency, competency creates confidence, and confidence leads to actually doing it, you know? So,
I mean, it's so important. I was reading a book by Steve Addison. I don't know if you've read any of Steve Addison's works, you know, in pioneering movements and whatnot. And his results are exactly the same, is that if we're gonna get people to be on mission and to go out, they actually have to be trained. You can't avoid that. So here's the challenge. So a lot of pastors don't feel equipped to do evangelism.
Kyle Harnett (01:00:46.85)
Yep.
Rob Chartrand (01:01:13.366)
And how then can they train their congregations to be missional? Any suggestions?
Kyle Harnett (01:01:17.622)
Yeah, I'll try to give a few tools. This is normally like where you plug a book or a conference or something and you're like, hey, pay me some money and I could help you. I just wanna help you. So here's a few ones. I'm gonna give you some really, really simple tools that are super transferable. They're so transferable that now people are teaching me my tools again, which is hilarious. I've been using them for a couple of years.
Rob Chartrand (01:01:38.967)
Yeah.
Kyle Harnett (01:01:42.382)
Okay, rapid fire. Number one is this. In prayer, ask Jesus every day, who do you want me to nudge towards the kingdom and how do you want me to do it? And allow the mind of Christ, 1 Corinthians 2, to actually creatively come up with names and people and then obey.
Rob Chartrand (01:01:44.392)
Okay. So, so give it to us rapid fire.
Kyle Harnett (01:02:02.574)
So that's one. I can tell you a story, but we're low on time. So I'll just... That's one. And you say, that won't change the world. You go, oh, that'll change the world. Because if you can get 50 people, 100 people, a thousand people every day to take a step of obedience on Mission for Christ, you'll change the world. Number two, discern your own mission field. So this is rapid fire.
Rob Chartrand (01:02:15.371)
Oh yeah, for sure.
Kyle Harnett (01:02:30.99)
prayer and obedience to Christ. So pray, ask the Lord, what mission field do you have for me? But here's how you can determine what your mission field might be. Your mission field could be the thing that you do routinely, repetitively, with routine. I'm sorry, routine and repetition are the two. But here's what I mean by that. My mission field is the gym I go to. I go to the same gym Monday through Friday.
every day that I am in Calgary. Every single day, same place. I go to the same Costco at the same time, to the same line, but I can be with Sherry, the new fee, who is new to Calgary, and I can have an interaction with her. Here's what's interesting. I start developing relationships with people at Costco. At Costco, you're not supposed to develop relationships. You're supposed to just navigate that place, make sure you don't run into old ladies, and get your food and...
become more poor. Yeah, and then and then get out of there. I've become the pastor of my gym. People know that. Sometimes people go, Hey, I need to I need to confess something. I think these are people outside of faith, because I'm there. Routine and repetition. Where could you develop routine and repetition locally over and over and over and then start praying who and how every day, and then God will start to use that. The third one simple prayer tool.
Rob Chartrand (01:03:33.006)
Yeah. Get your hot dog. Get out the door.
Kyle Harnett (01:03:59.77)
is this. And I said, I use my cell phone for this every day in about 45 minutes. I'm going to get an alert to pray for three of my friends. I pray for them for three minutes, simple, three for three. But you start praying, you go, okay, I'm praying for my friend James. I pray for him for one minute. I ask that God would open his eyes. I pray for his well-being. I pray all kinds of prayers.
about his life, about his soul, about his eternal destiny. So three for three, who and how, develop a mission field. Those three tools will get you started really well. Final tool is this, if you get somebody who's spiritually curious, this is all old school, none of this isn't new. I just hope it's helpful. You start reading the Bible with somebody who's spiritually curious. Golf courses are wonderful.
But there's nothing better than saying, hey, I'll read the Bible with you. And we'll meet for coffee. We'll meet for a cappuccino, a crepe, whatever it is. It could be a meal, could be in a home. But I did this. This is how I, uh, we saw the first person to capstone come to faith in Christ. We started reading the book of John together and we worked by every, every couple of weeks we'd meet, we'd read like two or three chapters. I allowed him to ask any questions he had. I allowed him to say, I don't believe this part.
That was a really important question for him. What's really hard for you to believe? And it was interesting over the span of about three months, this guy, I'll call him Brad, he said, I believe Jesus is real. And he started actually repenting of sin before he had given his life to Christ, which was really fascinating. He came to me, he said, Kyle, I've been reading this Bible now for like 12 weeks, but here's the question I really have. How do I stop sleeping with my girlfriend? Because I think that's the right thing to do. I get no church background, atheist background.
Wild question. So those are four tools. There are many more, but that will be a great start. Yeah, I'll throw one more out there. Here's a classic one. In church planting assessments, they do this horrible thing that every Christian should go through. Horrible. They do this with a friend. They go, I want you to pretend that this is
Rob Chartrand (01:06:06.07)
Yeah.
Kyle Harnett (01:06:21.654)
with a partner, they go, I want you to pretend that your partner is a friend who wants to have what you have, who wants to give their life to Christ. So they've come in saying, hey, I want to figure out this Jesus thing. I want to be saved. I want to be part of God's family. And then you, Kyle, you have to lead them to Christ in a conversation. You got eight minutes.
And then you receive feedback. Here's what's happened. You have all these people who are like, I'm gonna go live on Mission for Jesus, all these church planters, all these radical missionaries locally. So many of them get terrified. So many of us did a terrible job. I felt so silly the first time I ever did that because I'd never been trained. I'd never been trained to personally hear the gospel with the people I love most. And so that's the fifth tool. If you can grab a friend and go.
Hey, let's get better at this. Let's drill this until you go, that's a good testimony or that's a good gospel presentation or that's really helpful. Once you do that, God opens all kinds of doors. We use this silly language. My son's a wrestler. He wears a singlet. Here's an old wrestling truism. Drillers are killers. What you drill, you'll be able to do really effectively.
And unfortunately, we have not drilled sharing the faith, living on mission, creating a mission field, being good neighbors. And so that's a handful of tools, five of them that people can use.
Rob Chartrand (01:07:58.314)
Yeah, no, that's great. You know, and I think you're right, that repetition creates it. Well, practice, you know, how many hours do you practice before you perform in anything else in life? So why would you not practice on one of the most important conversations that you could ever have with somebody, which is to share Christ with them? Kyle, our time is almost done. What encouragement would you give to our Canadian pastors who are listening today? Give us a final thought.
Kyle Harnett (01:08:24.334)
There's a final thought.
There are more men, there are more women, there are more children who are desperate for an encounter with Jesus Christ than you and I could possibly imagine.
And they're confused. They've been indoctrinated by worldly cultural messages. But they're desperate. So a lot of people will mourn the decline of the Church in Canada. And here's the encouraging word, I hope. That for every leader who's listening to this, you need to know that God placed you and I, He placed us in this time, in this place, in this season, observing the decline of the Church in Canada. And He did it in hopes that we would partner with Him.
to see a great reversal and perhaps God willing, a renewal and revival of true biblical faith in our time. He did not put us here so that we could steward the decline of the church and turn off the spiritual lights in our country. He called us to be men and women of courage and to stand for the goodness and truth and beauty of the gospel in our time. And, and as somebody who for years and years and years never led anybody to faith in Jesus.
and who wouldn't call himself an evangelist. Here's what I promise you. The harvest is right out there. And Jesus wants you to set up a handshake between him and another person so that they might enter his family forever. You can do this. God loves you and he believes in you. We're his only choice to reach the nation.
Rob Chartrand (01:10:01.538)
Yeah, amen, amen. Good word, brother, good word. Well, hey, thanks for joining us on Church in the North. I hope that maybe we'll have you back on here again in the future. Yeah, how can people get a hold of you if they want to contact you?
Kyle Harnett (01:10:07.69)
I'd love it. Yeah. Let me know.
Kyle Harnett (01:10:14.362)
I am fairly inactive on social media. However, I do get all of the messages and respond to them. So you can look me up. I'll KYLE hard at HR and ETT, you can find me on Facebook, Instagram, you can also search me up on our website, my foothills.ca and send me an email would love to touch base with anybody who might need some more help or further debrief on this.
Kyle Harnett (01:10:40.526)
Brilliant. Thanks, Rob. Okay, bye-bye.
Rob Chartrand (01:10:41.914)
Awesome. All right, thanks a lot brother. Talk to you soon. Yeah.