In my travels I have the tremendous opportunity to meet people who are not only embracing the transformation message but are practically out working it in both the business and political aren
a. One such man is Tim Schindel. Please read this article by him and be inspired!
Have you ever had God give you a word that was so big, so intimidating, and so audacious you wondered if you were truly hearing things right? I did, and it’s led me on a journey I could have never imagined, praying for, and with, our political leaders and their staff right across Canada. This is only something our God could do, and 15 years ago when I got the call, I was stunned.
When Ian directed us to take a morning session at our Pastor’s Camp in ‘to get alone with God and hear something new,’ I fully expected to get the download for the fall program at our church. What I heard as I quieted my heart changed the course of my life.
‘I want you to leave your church and set up a Legislative Chaplaincy that will serve elected leaders across Canada.’
You want me to do WHAT? WHO does that? HOW am I going to do that? More importantly, in my mind, who’s going to SUPPORT for that?
That was the summer of 2004. By Christmas, I had convinced myself that I really hadn’t heard God speaking and by September 2005, Jesus had made obedience VERY appealing! I resigned from my church, got a sales job and spent the next 18 months going through a spiritual/ practical boot camp to prepare me for the mission ahead.
God used that season to help me develop ministry philosophy around what He had called me to do that still frames how we approach the work:
We would operate with a Transformational and Kingdom mindset
We would be a non-issue and non-partisan ministry
We would use the ministry of presence as our primary operating system and
We would champion daily prayer networks for sitting politicians.
We began in February 2007 at the B.C. Legislature in Victoria. The most valuable lessons from our early days were there is no replacement for time spent and persistent honour and encouragement opens doors into people’s lives. By God’s grace, we were able to engage with people where they were, pray with them, and point them to the love, wisdom, and goodness of Jesus.
Over the past 12 years, we established our chaplaincy work in B.C., SK and most recent
ly in Ontario. Collectively we are positioned to minister to almost 300 leaders who serve 19 million Canadians. This is good, but our vision is to establish a chaplaincy in every province and territory across Canada.
Over our history, we’ve helped leaders through personal and professional crises and have even stood beside their hospital beds through health challenges. I will never forget receiving an email from a retired member who told me of a mental health battle and contemplations of suicide while in office. In their words ‘it was your visits, presence and care that helped me through that time.’ Sometimes it’s best to find out after the fact…
We believe transformation can’t happen without a prayer foundation! In 2008, we launched our first prayer network in B.C. The vision was simple: to provide a resource for people who wanted to pray for the leaders of our province. Today, we have 5 prayer networks reaching from B.C. to Ontario. On any given day, as many as 5,500 people are praying for provincial leaders! There isn’t room to tell the stories of how prayer coming out of those networks has impacted leaders.
The Bible teaches us that God raises kings up and lowers them down according to HIS purposes. Within our context that happens most often through the electoral process so it stands to reason that God would use an intentional, kingdom-focused prayer initiative to strategically shift our nation in a single day.
Since 2009, we have been running prayer initiatives that parallel provincial election campaigns. We intentionally choose to embrace Kingdom themes/patterns and remain non-partisan, non-political, and non-issue. Our core prayer is always that God would give us men and women through whom He would work to accomplish His plans and purposes. Our most recent campaign in Ontario saw a 700% increase in the number of Christian members. Astounding!
We are currently making plans for a national prayer campaign in the fall of 2019. Our vision is to have at least one partner church in each Electoral District (338) and an average of 100,000 people/day praying along with us. We fully expect God will do something sovereign and powerful in our nation through this campaign. You can join the Pray Canada Campaign today at www.praycanada.com.
You’ll find more of our stories at www.leadinginfluence.com and learn how you can participate and partner with us! We’d love to have you join our Leading Influence network!