Rob Chartrand (00:00.509)
record it after the countdown timer because apparently I'm jumping in too soon. So all right, here we go. I'll do the introduction and we'll dive right in. What we're excited to have on Church in the North today, Joel David. He is the lead pastor of Asian Christian Church in Edmonton, Alberta. Joel, welcome to the Church in the North.
Joel (00:22.862)
Thank you, so glad to be here.
Rob Chartrand (00:26.161)
Hey, we want listeners to learn so much about you and the work you're doing and your church, but why don't we start with your backstory? It's a fascinating story of your journey to faith in India, so why don't we start there? How did you come to faith? And maybe jump from there to, maybe your beginnings in ministry.
Joel (00:47.834)
Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, in the evangelical circles, it's commonplace to say, I gave my life to the Lord Jesus on such and such date and such a such year. But I can never figure out the year that I gave my life to the Lord, because it was in a midnight, New Year's Eve, midnight service. I was a teenager and attending a service and grappling with this whole idea.
of, you know, do I give my life to Jesus as Jesus for real? So somewhere along that service I did. So I don't know whether it was December 31st, 1977 or was it January 1st, 1978? Yeah, I, growing up, I grew up in what I would describe as a fourth generation Christian family in the sense that my
great grandfather from my mother's side came actually from a Muslim background. He was what they call a Qazi, a Sharia judge. And from my father's side, it was a Hindu priest. So in a sense, it was, you know, coming together of those two different streams. And so I grew up in a home that was brethren, you know, and
Rob Chartrand (02:14.597)
Okay, yeah, a brethren home in India.
Joel (02:15.23)
and then also in India. And also ecumenical because from one side, my mom came from a church that actually was an ecumenical church brought about as a result of the union of seven different denominations, denominations like the Anglican, Presbyterian, Disciples of Christ and several others. And that was the Church of.
North India. All to say that I'm an eclectic mix of things. But really I would say that the greatest influence upon my faith was the fact of these wonderful men of God preaching, laymen mostly, preaching God's word in brethren assemblies. And it just built a great and wonderful foundation of
you know, an understanding of the gospel and the depth of the scriptures and the applicability of the scriptures to our daily life. And I didn't know a foundation was being laid in my life, but you know, in high school, I was interested in philosophy, literature, and all of that stuff. So I kind of was an agnostic. I wasn't sure if God even existed, right? I understood the gospel very
and not understand it. So anyhow, my first year in college, I'm just walking out my door, the gentleman from across the door, across the passageway, he's coming out, he's going to his job, I'm going to my college, and he asked me, Joel, do you believe in God? And I said, well, that's, you know, I'm not too sure, I'm kind of sitting on the fence.
He says, that's an interesting response. We should talk about it. And I said, Oh, there he goes. I'm going to be evangelized because I knew how it went. Anyhow. Yeah. And so anyway, you know, even what I'm so thankful for is the fact that he took the initiative to start the conversation. Even though I knew the answers, it took somebody's personal interest in me.
Rob Chartrand (04:19.889)
Yeah, you need the territory, yeah.
Joel (04:39.218)
and taking that extra step to share the importance of making a decision about Jesus Christ. And lo and behold, at that midnight of the New Year's Eve, I gave my life to the Lord Jesus. And then the following year, I found myself in a different city, different college, and that was again God-ordained because God had divinely moved a young man from Delhi.
to this remote town and a Christian college in the Punjab. And he sent him there on purpose. And as a result of that man's ministry there, he's still a very good friend. There's a mini revival that broke out in the college. There was a high school there. And many others like me.
who were believers already got discipled. So my initial discipling was actually in the navigator's style. And so very, very well done, you know, and I'm so thankful for the men who invested in my life at that time. And that many revivals saw many, many men and women go into vocational Christian ministry. And I was one of them.
And I was one of them. That's what brought me into ministry eventually. Yeah, eventually then I moved to our capital city in India, Delhi. I began to work with World Vision because World Vision combined Christian ministry as well as community development, public health and all of those things. Yeah, so that was my beginning in ministry.
Rob Chartrand (06:25.021)
Hmm. Okay. Now you, uh, while you were in India, you mean you had the opportunity to be involved in ministry as a lay person and vocationally, I mean, you had a number of opportunities to be involved in and out of the church, but eventually made your way to Canada. So talk to us about that. How did you end up in Canada?
Joel (06:43.89)
That's an interesting story. I mean, I had such a deep sense of God's calling me to serve in North India. I would never have imagined in all of the years that I was there that I would ever, ever leave North India. Because that was the mission that God had given to me, right? And, you know, I had opportunities to move down to South India.
Rob Chartrand (07:04.241)
Yeah.
Joel (07:11.962)
I refused those. There was another opportunity to move to the US. I refused that. I just had that absolute conviction that God is going to bury me here in North India. But I wasn't really listening to God because I think as I look back over a period of two years, God was quietly saying something about moving and I wasn't listening because I wasn't that frame of mind.
And one summer day, my wife says to me, we have two daughters, and she says, they were about to graduate from high school. And she said, maybe we should consider moving to North America for the sake of our girls' education. And my typical expected response would have been, no, no way, you know, but I found myself saying, let's pray about it.
And you won't believe it, within a few months, my wife Asha and I, we were on a trip through North America, exploring different places in Canada and US. And that was in 2008. In 2009, I came to Vancouver and eventually landed in a ministry position, receiving a call to serve as a pastor in the Asian Christian Church in Edmonton, where I've been since.
Rob Chartrand (08:38.981)
Okay, so let's talk about that. Let's talk about the Asian Christian Church in Edmonton. Tell us about its history. I mean, how has it started? Let's go there and then maybe tell us a little bit about the church. How would you describe it?
Joel (09:00.787)
From what I've been told, there were a group of, a very small group of South Asian families back in the mid-80s or early 80s that were here in Edmonton. And obviously when they'd go to a mall or some other place, a public place, you see another South Asian and you right away want to talk to them and connect and where are you from? So eventually what happened was there were a...
Christian families there. And in 1985, they came to obviously the conversation went on for a couple of years before that. But they came together and planted a church with the help of a local missionary pastor. And that started in 1985. So it was, it's Asian Christian Church was started to meet the needs of Christian South Asian immigrants.
in Edmonton. Now they started this for South Asian Christians, but they have a number of Muslim and Hindu friends. And what they tell me is that back in that day, their friends didn't have really worship opportunities or social opportunities, because these were their friends, right? This was a social circle. So every Sunday they would join.
their Hindu and Muslim friends would join them for service and then for the fellowship meal afterwards, it was like social time out too. Things have changed since then, but that's how it got started. Yeah. And then of course, there were a few bus.
Rob Chartrand (10:37.866)
Yeah. What did it have been?
Joel (10:41.471)
Sorry.
Rob Chartrand (10:47.854)
No, sorry, there is a delay in our thing, isn't there?
Joel (10:50.252)
Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (10:54.793)
I was going to say, why don't we pick it up again? You said, and then of course, just ignore my comment. We'll let the editor fix it.
Joel (11:04.51)
Yeah. So then there were obviously several other pastors who served in the interim. And I came here in 2009. And when we arrived here, it was like we had been through a time machine and landed a generation back in terms of church. Because we were part of
a cosmopolitan evangelical contemporary church in the city of Chandigarh, where I came from. And my family and I find ourselves in this church where people were essentially trying to reproduce the church as they knew it a generation back in the home country from where they came.
So that was a culture shock for us. I mean, the culture shock wasn't really so much outside, it wasn't Canadian culture, it was a culture shock. It was a culture inside the church. But we got used to it and in fact, began to enjoy some of those old songs, some of those old ways of doing church. And so, yeah. And of course, a big part of
Rob Chartrand (11:57.383)
Right.
Joel (12:25.862)
My ministry here has been trying to move the church towards a focus, considered focus on mission, you know, and making sure our people hear the gospel, making sure they have had an opportunity for making a decision for Christ for responding in faith. And I was telling one of my co-pastors now that
my evangelism ministry over the last decade or more actually has been within the church. Just preaching the gospel, seeing so many people come to faith, baptizing them. So that's been one of the great opportunities for fruitfulness within the church.
Rob Chartrand (13:19.302)
So tell me a little bit more about the maybe the ethnic breakdown of your church and maybe even the age breakdown. So what would how would you describe that?
Joel (13:28.874)
Well, when I came here, I should actually start saying when we came here, because my family and I keep, when we came here, we found ourselves in a church that was primarily seniors. The church had just gone through a little bit of a rough time and it was, you know, it was just barely holding on. So the first ministry challenge was to rebuild.
Rob Chartrand (13:37.157)
Yes.
Rob Chartrand (13:46.589)
Hmm.
Joel (13:58.03)
the church there bring health. So we were in a group that was primarily seniors and they were the first generation that had planted the church and then a few who joined them later down. And our people, they come primarily from Pakistan and from northern India.
Rob Chartrand (14:22.697)
Okay. Hmm.
Joel (14:23.866)
And the languages that are common to us are Urdu, Punjabi, and Hindi. The interesting thing about these three languages is that the script is different for each of these languages, but a lot of the vocabulary is similar and the grammar is similar. So if you would speak to somebody, a Hindi speaking person, if you would speak in simple Punjabi to them or simple Urdu with them.
Rob Chartrand (14:44.204)
Hmph.
Joel (14:52.662)
they would understand. So that's like one language, three languages kind of together. And then of course English. And so what we do these days is of course we sing songs that are in Urdu, Punjabi and Hindi. And typically I preach in English because everybody there understands English. But when we want to sing praise and thanks to our God, we want to use our vernacular language.
Rob Chartrand (15:13.769)
Okay.
Joel (15:21.422)
And now of course, we have a number of younger families as well. You know, and so now it's a good mix. We have seniors. In fact, the seniors have now a much smaller number. We have a lot of new immigrant families. And so typically we have a bunch of kids running around the church now, which is wonderful. Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (15:46.053)
Wonderful. Yeah. So how many new Canadians and maybe how many second generation Canadians, like what's the breakdown of that look like?
Joel (15:55.51)
very few second generation because essentially I would say that we've lost 90-95% of our second generation kids. They, well, they're no longer kids. They're all adults, married, settled. They usually attend, they either don't attend church or they attend some of the larger churches in the city.
That's how it seems to work. Yeah. And my typical, when I meet with them, because I do meet with them socially, and I talk to them, my question is, you're attending this church, have you volunteered there? Are you serving there? No, we just attend and go come back. I said, no, you want to be part of a church. I'm glad you're attending the services, but I want you to be part of the church, volunteer. But that doesn't seem to happen. I mean, oh, that's the exception anyway.
Rob Chartrand (16:25.101)
Okay. Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (16:40.178)
Right.
Rob Chartrand (16:51.442)
Yeah.
Joel (16:53.918)
when it happens. Yeah, so, yeah. So, uh,
Rob Chartrand (16:55.717)
Yeah. Well, it's not uncommon for ethnic churches to have this similar challenge of the next generation and how they integrate. Is that a challenge you're experiencing?
Joel (17:08.842)
Absolutely, absolutely. However, I would say there are two things that I'm thankful for in this and pleasantly surprised. Number one is that ancient Christian church is the church of their parents. So there's an emotional connection there, you know, and it is the church of their childhood and youth.
So, all those wonderful memories that they've had socially speaking, that's Asian Christian Church. They know each other from there. And so, they have that deep connection. The second is, there is a good number of our second generation when it comes to missional engagement or missions projects, they do support the church. So, they're not attending regularly, but
They're part of our mission, not everybody, but a good number of them become a part of our mission. So it's a matter of talking to them and say, hey, we wanna do this. And they identify with the mission and they become a part of that. So I've had a young second generation Christians who don't attend our services, but they're part of our refugee sponsorship project. They're part of prayer groups. They are part of even Bible studies. You know.
So it's a strange mix there. And there are about, I would say.
Rob Chartrand (18:37.242)
Yeah.
Joel (18:41.882)
There are about half a dozen of them that have stayed on and they continue to attend, they're participating, they're active. So they're really members in the church, fully active members in the church. So that's also happened. Yeah. And then now over the last few years, we are seeing a new wave of immigrants coming in from India, as well as from other provinces into Edmonton.
And most of them are younger families and they're breaking a bunch of young kids with them too. So, and so I would say we have about five or six new young families that have become part of our church relatively recently. Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (19:27.941)
Yeah, yeah, that's interesting. I think I shared with you, we planted Crosspoint Church in Northeast Edmonton and our goal and desire and our heart was to be a multi-ethnic church. But we realized that our greatest strength wasn't with new Canadians, like first generation, but actually with their kids, the second generation Canadians. And to create a multi-ethnic environment was a lot.
a lot easier with that generation because they were third culture kids. And so they're coming from these different ethnic backgrounds. But what they share is this experience of living between two cultures. And we found that was an easier place for us to reach. But I mean, we had some new Canadians who did who were participants in our church family as well. Would you say that in your.
greatest reach, I mean you've got a broad reach, but your greatest reach is with the new Canadian population who's coming in.
Joel (20:27.018)
Yes, that's absolutely true. Yeah. I mean, second generation Christians, the only ones that we are really able to connect with are people who grew up in the families that belong to ACC. And other second generation, we actually hold essentially no appeal for them. Yeah, so it is the new immigrants that's really driving whatever measure of growth we have in the church, yeah.
Rob Chartrand (21:01.337)
Yeah, yeah. And they'll continue to be part of our Canadian context. So there's a great need for that and places where they can come and hear the gospel and find community and friendship.
Joel (21:19.262)
Yeah, yeah. And the other opportunity, this opens up, of course, I've been talking about, you know, new Canadians who are just arriving here and the Christians who are already searching out for a church that they can belong to. But the greatest opportunity lies outside because we have so many South Asians and their families moving here. Now, South Asia,
Rob Chartrand (21:31.357)
Mm-hmm.
Joel (21:48.462)
is India and then other countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka. So there's typically eight countries that are understood to be South Asian. And so, and they're a diverse group, multiple languages, different religious backgrounds, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu.
and a number of them coming in. So reaching out to them is actually the bigger challenge that we have and the bigger opportunity that we have.
Rob Chartrand (22:34.629)
Yeah. Just so you know, Joel, I just switched it to low data mode. So if one of the cameras seems like it's off, I've done that on purpose just to try and get rid of the lull in our conversation. Can you hear me?
Joel (22:46.89)
Yeah, I can hear you. I figured that's what you were doing. Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (22:53.357)
Yeah, good. Okay, we can keep going though. Let me let me jump into it with another question here then. So, I mean you and I've talked a lot about your church, but I think one of the features many of our listeners would be interested in hearing about is the work you guys are doing with refugee sponsorship. I think you call it refugee bridge. Why don't you tell us about that?
Joel (23:16.826)
Yeah, that's been one of the more exciting and challenging ministries that we got involved in relatively recently. When I came here, I came with the idea that, you know, that every church ought to have a serious missions program. And so I was absolutely convinced about that. And I began to see how I could motivate.
our church to actually get involved in missions. And I initially tried, in fact, we tried the traditional way of, you know, getting missionaries to come by, share their ministries, and hoping that to spark some interest in our people. And while there was, and there were, you know, some individuals who ended up supporting those missionaries, but as a church, it wasn't really gelling. It didn't touch our, you know.
core of what we wanted to do. And then, I don't know if you or the other listeners would remember, we had, there was a twin bomb blast in a church in Bishawar. And about 127 people died, and about double that number were injured.
A number of them were kids as they were coming out of this Sunday school building, which was off the church and walking across back to the main church. And one of the suicide bombers blew up before he could enter the church. And so eventually a number of kids got caught in that blast and died. When that happened, that galvanized our church all across age groups and all.
Rob Chartrand (25:01.201)
Yeah, yeah.
Joel (25:05.402)
and we said, we must do something, we have to do something. And so we began praying, we began looking at how we could help, and eventually we ended up working to rehabilitate five of those families. We initially anticipated to, you know, kind of work with them for about six months, but we eventually, I think almost 18 months, we spent rehabilitating them. That project actually helped
focus in our missions emphasis on the persecuted church. And we knew then that that's what God's calling us to, that our missions focus needs to be the persecuted church. So prayer was a huge part of that, and it has continued to be a part of that. But then the next, it narrowed down further to sponsoring those refugees, Christian refugees that had experienced persecution.
because of their faith and sponsoring them to come to Canada. And so that's a project we got involved in. Now we're a small church and we're really right off the bat that we're not gonna be able to do this on our own. So we began to reach out to other churches. And eventually that kind of led to a coalition of individuals and local churches. And that is the coalition we call Refugee Bridge.
Rob Chartrand (26:22.749)
Right, right.
Joel (26:32.218)
Essentially what it is partnering churches and individuals partnering to sponsor families, persecuted Christian families. So by now we have been able to sponsor through this coalition more than a dozen persecuted Christian families. A couple of those families, their applications are still being processed, but the rest of them are here.
When the Ukrainian war happened, we were able to help because we were already in the place to do it. I think about if I have the number of almost 18 individuals and families to resettle here in Edmonton and in some other parts of Alberta. And so that is the Refugee Sponsorship Project. And yeah, that's been exciting, challenging, but very, very rewarding as well.
Rob Chartrand (27:33.309)
Well, talk to us about the challenges of it. Like say some other churches reach out to you and they say, hey, we wanna get involved in refugee sponsorship. You know, you probably wanna tell them in advance what this is gonna mean. What would you say to those churches about some of the challenges and maybe even, you know, the celebrations?
Joel (27:51.234)
Yeah, the challenge is for an individual church, for one church to begin to do this, the challenge usually happens in presents itself in this way. The church gets excited, there's a refugee family they want to sponsor, you fill in the applications, you raise the funds, you submit the application. And in most cases now, then you sit and twiddle your thumbs and wait.
for the government to process the application. And all of that initial enthusiasm and focus and momentum kinds of gets dissipated. So what we did to counter that was to set, we said we have to set up a pipeline. So we began by sponsoring one family, raise the funds and in partnership between the two churches, I believe the first one. And...
Then while we were waiting for this family to come, we got involved in another family. And so that helped us keep the momentum going. And because there were multiple churches involved, there were different individuals involved, there was always conversation happening about something that we are doing. The second thing we did to overcome that was actually...
and not just forget about the families that is out there in this country of refuge that they have run away to, but actually to get practically involved in helping them. So we set up a system of pen pals, we communicate with them, one person communicates with them, this continuously prayer for the family. In some cases, they have medical or financial needs and we try to assist with that.
And so there's a continuous back and forth communication. So that helped maintain that interest and involvement. And we got to know, they got to know the church. We got to know them better over this time. In fact, for Asian Christian church, one of the joys has been that our refugee families have been able to join post the pandemic via Zoom, our Bible studies and services. And so they already, before they land here,
Joel (30:09.55)
are almost part of the church family. So that's one challenge overcome. And the other is, the other big challenge starts when the family actually lands here, because then we have this one year commitment to walk with them, and it requires patience, because sometimes they've gone through awful trauma.
and we have to kind of find the help that they need. We have to learn to be patient with them. We have to be gentle and kind, you know? And it is a learning experience. And if, you know, because we, when we sponsor a family, they land here, we think, oh, finally, you know, it's done, but it's not done, it's just beginning. And so we have to be prepared for that intense time of
Rob Chartrand (30:44.573)
Yeah, yeah.
Joel (31:05.646)
into this family and it is often very counter culture, counter intuitive and so that can be the second big challenge and not every sponsorship ends well, but by God's grace, each one of our sponsorships that we've done so far that the families are successfully integrated and.
they have settled and we've been able to celebrate God's provision of the funding, God's help in bringing the families across. Because once they land in Canada, it's a life or death difference for them. I mean, it's like they were in a situation that was near hopeless and nothing seemed to be happening for years on end. They're stuck in this refugee.
situation and then finally they're in a country where they're free and a world of opportunities opened up for them. And so then seeing them and their children successfully navigate life in Canada, pick up jobs, get into the educational system, begin to grow, find life, you know, find independence. Oh wow, that is something to celebrate, I tell you.
Rob Chartrand (32:32.625)
Wow, wow. So I'm sure that other churches, you've already said, have been helping out with this and getting on board. What if a church is interested in refugee sponsorship and maybe working with you? What does that process look like?
Joel (32:48.303)
A simple conversation to start off and then we could talk about what the opportunities are. In many cases, it depends what denominational background the church comes from because several denominations have their own national or provincial level, you know, set of people or team to work on refugee sponsorship so we can dialogue with them.
and help set up a team that can serve as a refugee sponsorship team to raise the funds, to prepare for the family's arrival and then to help them settle down. So that is the first step, to have a conversation within the denomination or if they would like to contact us, certainly we'd be glad to help out there as well. Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (33:52.497)
I wanna go back to something you had said earlier about the effects of Zoom and how that helps with refugees coming. You know, they can attend the service and get to know members of the congregation because of the technology. But I remember our conversation before, you had said that the technology actually plays an effect in terms of gospel witness as well. You had mentioned that
in the past, if somebody came to Canada and they were new, they'd have to develop new social networks, they'd have to reach out for help and whatnot. But a lot of that has taken place long before they even come to Canada. Is that correct? And how does that affect the church's ability to reach new Canadians?
Joel (34:39.09)
Yeah, that's become a barrier to reaching people. Because earlier in our evangelism efforts, we could count on the fact that somebody who is a new Canadian is looking for a new social network. And therefore, we would offer ourselves to be their family here. But now what's happening is through WhatsApp, through internet.
and through other social media means of connecting, people who are planning to be here the next year, they're already reaching out to people here, talking to them, getting help, getting information, making friends, finding places to stay in, asking about which schools my kid should go, which would you recommend? So they come here well-informed, well-connected.
and they already have their social network. So they're really not looking for, you know, new people to connect with. And so that is a sort of a barrier, but it also means that if we are able to place ourselves in those social media channels, and as we have opportunity offer ourselves, you know, to help them, that could be a way of connecting.
Rob Chartrand (36:00.734)
Mm-hmm.
Joel (36:03.47)
And I have to say that we've tried a little bit of that over the last two years and haven't had any success. And that simply might be that we've just not had the people who are social media savvy enough to do that well. But there's an opportunity there.
Rob Chartrand (36:26.565)
Yeah. Well, I have to say like it's, um, old school analog still works as well. That, uh, person to person face to face contact, uh, can still be pretty powerful. I have to tell you a story. Um, in our church, uh, in, in Mushta, Mushta Alliance, we've had, um, uh, four Nigerian families come to the church, uh, and they're here studying at, uh, at our local college. And, uh,
My wife Karen and I have made really good close friendships with them. We had them over for a New Year's Eve turkey dinner and just really making great friends. Well, one of those Nigerians, his name is Michael, has reached out to two of his classmates and they're from South Asia. They're Indian. And he invited them to church and he insisted they come to church.
Joel (37:19.123)
Mm-hmm.
Rob Chartrand (37:21.101)
They've now come and they've joined our network of new Canadian friends. And they said they've never been to a church before. He said, one of our friends, he said, he wasn't sure what to expect, what to experience. He said, but when I came this morning and there was the singing and all of that, he said, something inside of me just felt alive. And he even went forward for prayer at the end during altar prayer time.
Joel (37:22.669)
Hmm
Joel (37:28.078)
Mm.
Joel (37:43.639)
Mm-hmm.
Rob Chartrand (37:50.445)
God is doing something in their lives. But it was actually through the analog network of a fellow classmate in their college that said, you need to come to church with us, that they ended up coming. And it wasn't through the socials necessarily.
Joel (38:00.161)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Joel (38:06.37)
Yeah, and that's true, you know, because what I'm also seeing on the social media channels is that once people arrive and begin to settle in and the honeymoon period is over, their disappointment sets in because they have expectations of people and others, whatever the other expectations they came with, and they are usually disappointed.
Rob Chartrand (38:28.114)
Hmm.
Joel (38:30.838)
because the people here, they're already too busy, they've got their own commitments and they expect that, so one of the people will be good friends with them and provide them that social connection, but most people aren't able to. And so they begin to hunger for genuine friendship. And so I've had conversations that have happened on social media where people are saying, hey, summer's here, I wanna do something, I wanna connect. And so they're trying to form
some sort of a, you know, you'll see a cricket club or some other trip to Jasper or to BAM for, you know, one of those kinds of things. So there's a hunger there that sets in about a year or two after they land where analog would be the way to go.
Rob Chartrand (39:26.565)
Yes, and then there are limitations to that social network, which is supposed to set you up for real incarnate embodied relationship, but it doesn't always do that. And so maybe that's a place where the church can lean in and provide something that the promise of social media cannot.
Joel (39:45.018)
Yeah. And that I would say has been consistently one of the, I would say, in quotes, disappointments that we've experienced, for instance, in terms of reaching out to the South Asians who are coming to Edmonton. We've longed for, you know, other churches to get involved here. But
every church, every pastor has already got a full plate of ministries and priorities, and this often isn't it. And I wish there were a lot more, because South Asians really are spiritually hungry, no doubt about that. And if there are people to make friends, show them love, receive them, you know.
Rob Chartrand (40:21.83)
Hmm.
Joel (40:39.596)
Those relationships would become the vehicle on which the Gospel travels and Christ can reach into their lives.
Rob Chartrand (40:52.797)
Hmm. Are there unique challenges of reaching those with a South Asian background? I'm thinking more in terms of maybe worldview or how to share the gospel.
Joel (41:05.802)
Typically South Asians are very open to spiritual conversations. And the real worldview challenge really arrives at the point where one begins to talk about the uniqueness of Jesus Christ and salvation only through Him being the one and only mediator between God and human beings. The comeback is
Rob Chartrand (41:29.476)
Yeah, yeah.
Joel (41:33.11)
that there are many ways to God and I have my way and somebody else has another and Jesus is just one of many ways to God. And that's a hard conversation to have. Not that having that conversation is difficult, but in terms of convincing the other person that no, there is a unique way to get to God.
That's the logically correct way if you think about it. And it partly goes back to what we have grown up in India, what I and others grew up in India too, because we are an extremely diverse country and our secularity, our secularism is different than what is understood in the West. Our secularism is not a lack of religion. Our secularism in India is defined
as many religions able to live together. And so we have created a way of looking at life and looking at religious diversity and cultural diversity as doing everything to build harmony. And anything that upsets that harmony by trying to convince a person of one religious background to convert to another religious background.
Rob Chartrand (42:41.193)
Hmm.
Joel (43:02.302)
is understood as basically betraying the dearest values you've held, betraying your culture, betraying even your nation in that sense. And so that's a hard barrier to navigate. But then this is where we depend on the Holy Spirit.
to convict the people of their need for a savior. And arguments don't do it. I mean, that is where the word of God needs to be shared. And prayer is so much a part of that, to praying for the Holy Spirit to convict the people of their sin, of the impending judgment, of their need for repentance, their need for a savior. Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (44:00.429)
Yeah, that's helpful. One of the things our listeners might not be aware of is that your church actually merged with another Asian church. Why don't you tell us that story a little bit? How did that come about? And what would you say is the difference between the two congregations?
Joel (44:14.73)
Well, the congregation that I came to serve, the church, we located in northeast of Edmonton. And at the time when I had come, we had very few South Asians living in that side of town. Now, of course, there are more than there were before. And so much of the South Asian population was in southeast Edmonton, in the Middlewoods area.
for those who are familiar with Edmonton. And so we found ourselves with the desire to reach out to South Asians, but we were physically placed in a location that was far away from where most of the South Asians lived. And so we thought about planting a church in Southeast Edmonton. Then we came up with this thing that there were already a couple of other South Asian churches there, and we'd just be adding to the number there.
And so we said, hey, let's see if we can actually partner with another church. And eventually that led to a merger with another South Asian church that was already doing the kind of ministry reaching out to South Asians. And that was Pastor Pat Bhatti.
as people from the Alliance might know him. And so we talked and we were able to move together, but then we found that our church is Alberta Baptist Association. They were Alliance, and so we had to negotiate those denominational boundaries to eventually, it took us a year to work through everything that was involved in the merger, but we are happily married.
No. And so we are one church with two congregations. And the difference really is that the primary focus of our South congregation has always been to reach out in evangelism, direct evangelism efforts to those South Asians from a different religious background. And the North has been a little bit more insular because our primary ministry has been among
Joel (46:39.394)
Christian South Asians who have come to Canada. So that's one of those distinctives between us, but it works well because we are socially and culturally integrated and we are one in mission and so yeah it's been good going.
Rob Chartrand (47:07.165)
You know, we've been talking about South Asia in this conversation, but some of our listeners might not know the difference between South Asia and say East Asia. Why don't you spell that difference out for them?
Joel (47:18.934)
Well, South Asia is a group of eight countries. And if you can visualize India as the center of it, it's Southern Asia, then India, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Nepal, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, these are the countries that make up South Asia. And South Asia is...
Joel (47:49.808)
Southeast Asia, countries like Malaysia, Thailand. So those would be Southeast Asia. And then you have what, from North America's perspective, a geographical perspective we call Middle East, but for South Asians, they are West Asians. They're on the west of us. So that'll be, you know, Saudi Arabia, Iran, all of that is West Asia. So that's where we are, that's South Asia.
That's the Indian subcontinent, so to speak. It's a very diverse set of people, multiple languages, multiple cultures, multiple religions, high density of population. Yeah, so that's South Asia.
Rob Chartrand (48:23.163)
Right. Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (48:40.457)
Hmm. So I can imagine that refugee bridge is drawing a lot of attention for people who want to come to Canada. I think you said to me you're trying to keep it a little bit on the down low, keep it a little low key. How would somebody say from a country that needs to come here, get connected with you from their end? Is it by word of mouth or through networks?
Joel (49:09.078)
Typically our preference is for us to kind of initiate the dialogue. And, uh, and though you're right, I mean, uh, through social media and through the fact that, uh, we have these, uh, programs, people do find out. So we do get direct requests over social media, Facebook, usually of people trying to connect with us. Uh, our, uh, way of handling that is.
we, because we have to do our due diligence in evaluating the beneficiaries of the program, right? And so we look to connect with local churches in the places where those refugees come from. For us, most of our refugees have actually come from Bangkok, another family from Kuala Lumpur, and then there's one family from Baku in Azerbaijan.
And so we've connected with local churches there so that they can meet with our potential beneficiaries in person and provide us a kind of evaluation. And so that helps. And if we are just receiving a direct request off the internet, we usually will.
And truly so, we usually have to say, we are sorry we are unable to help because we simply don't have the capacity to respond to every request. But there are some requests that came that started that way and then we went through, you know, sort of checking up through various local churches and eventually ended up sponsoring them. So that has worked in a couple of cases too, yeah.
Rob Chartrand (51:00.692)
Hmm.
Rob Chartrand (51:05.833)
So if I'm the pastor of a church and I'm hearing today's podcast and something inside of me is stirring and I want to consider our church, um, get involved in refugee sponsorship and I know my denomination is not doing anything, but I want to say participate in what you're doing. How could they contact you?
Joel (51:26.102)
Well, my email address would be just fine. Perhaps you're able to put that in the show notes and that would be an easy way. I'm also on Facebook. Yeah, I'm on Facebook and that would be an easy way to connect as well. Yeah.
Rob Chartrand (51:37.925)
Yeah, I can do that.
Rob Chartrand (51:48.345)
Yeah. Okay. Well, we'll make sure I get them the opportunity to have that information. Hey, I wonder if you could close today by giving us a final word of encouragement to our ministry leaders who are listening in.
Joel (52:02.134)
Yeah, thank you for that question. I mean, encouragement seems to be in short supply these days for pastors and ministry leaders. And I've had my share of dark days. And the thing that really, really brings me encouragement, and this has happened time and time again, and that's why my piece of
word of recommendation for encouragement is simply continue investing in the people that God has given to you. Because on the darkest of my days that I've experienced, I have to recall, I do recall the names and faces of the people whom God used to help me bring to faith, to build them up in the faith. They are, as the apostle says,
the letters of recommendation God has written, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of flesh and blood. And that's the encouragement I would give, that's the focus to come back. I mean, we may plant churches, we may grow churches, we may build institutions, but when we need encouragement, it is that reward that I find personally most,
rewarding, most encouraging. I mean, those are the names of faces I think we're going to carry into eternity with us. You know, our churches and our institutions are all going to remain here, but our people. And so, I mean, I tell you, I can on my darkest day, think about the people, and I would have a sense, thank you, God, that my life was not wasted, because you used me.
Rob Chartrand (53:40.869)
Yeah.
Joel (53:56.086)
to invest and build into these people. And for some of those people, and we know this as pastors and ministry leaders, what God allowed us to do in their lives made the difference between life and death for those people, literally sometimes.
Rob Chartrand (54:20.221)
Yeah, yeah. Good word, amen and amen. Joel David, thank you for joining us for Church in the North podcast.
Joel (54:22.286)
Thank you.
Joel (54:27.283)
Thank you, Rob. It's been a delight having this conversation with you.
Rob Chartrand (54:38.949)
All right, we'll hope to get you back here again real soon.
Joel (54:40.95)
Thanks, I look forward to that.