The Call to Edmonton

It was late 2022 when the call to plant a new Gospel-centered church in Edmonton began to really take shape. I (Clay) had been meeting with the lead team for Acts 29 Canada (an organization dedicated to planting and sustaining healthy churches where I serve as the director of assessments) when we were looking over a map of Canada and discussing and praying about how we can continue to reach people across Canada with the Gospel. We needed not only new church plants across this country, but also renewed churches and church re-plants. As the focus moved towards Eastern Canada, my mind remained locked on the Prairies. 

As the conversation continued, my mind wandered, and it felt like an inaudible question was posed to me, “If finances weren’t an issue, what would you be doing with your life right now?” Immediately the answer came back, “I’d plant a church in Edmonton.” To which the next question pounced, “And why are you letting finances stop you?”

That’s a scary thought for someone who was really enjoying their season of life in a small Saskatchewan city surrounded by an amazing church family who we had had the privilege of seeing grow over the previous 8 years since we planted Grace Warman. And it’s scary because we need finances to live and move, and potentially giving up a stable income to move to a more expensive city when you have a family to support seems crazy.

If you know me, you’ll know that I often get entrepreneurial ideas that spring up and fascinate me for a while, but rarely do these flashes of inspiration stick with me for more than a day or two. I’ll think about how great it would be to start that new thing, but then I go back to my comfort and life just goes on.

But as I thought about our church, like a dad or a mom who looks at the joy their kids bring them, I couldn’t help but think, “I think it might actually be time for another one.” As the days went on, I was having a hard time not thinking and praying about it.

My family and I had been intimately involved with two church-plants already. I was on the leadership team for Grace Saskatoon back in 2011, and then was sent out to plant Grace Warman as one of two pastors less than four years later. We had seen God do some amazing things. And as much as there was a desire to stay where it was comfortable, where it was safe, there was something working inside me to push me outside my comfort zone.

I had grown up in Edmonton after my family moved here from Saskatoon when I was about 6 years old. I got to know the city primarily through its various arenas and sports facilities, as hockey was my idol of choice for many of my growing up years. And even though there are a lot of churches in the city, having found my Gospel-awakening while I was here, I realized that like most Canadian cities, there are so many people here that have never heard the Gospel, read the Bible, or experienced the tangible presence of God in any meaningful way.

But I still wasn’t quite convinced that I was willing to make the sacrifices necessary to move our family to a new city. But after praying about it some more I decided to involve Kim and the kids in the discussion. I asked them to start praying about it, and to see if this might actually be God’s call for us to do this. If this was, then He would make that clear to our whole family as well as to our church leadership team.

After taking a while to pray about it, the evidence that God was actually doing something in our hearts was blooming, since it seemed even though everyone would need to make sacrifices to make this work, there was a collective agreement that moving to a new city for the sake of reaching more people for Jesus was a call worth pursuing. The only problem was that I was still unsure if I wanted to do this. Was I willing to make the sacrifices necessary?

Not too much later, I found myself at the Gospel Coalition Conference in Toronto, preparing to be part of one of the booths for Acts 29 Canada. Church planting in Edmonton, at this point, was heavy on my mind and heart, and yet I felt like I was constantly wrestling with God over it. I both desperately didn’t want to do it and desperately wanted to do it, if He was actually calling our family to do this. 

On the morning of the conference, I remember praying and asking Jesus to just make it abundantly clear to me if this was His will for us. I asked him to arrange some kind of divine appointment to make it painfully obvious that He was calling us to Edmonton. I know that Scripture doesn’t command us to do that, and we’re actively discouraged from testing God, but I didn’t know what else to do.

As I was setting up our booth, it just so happened that there was one other person there setting up their booth across from ours. We got to chatting, and it turned out that he was a pastor who had just recently retired from leading a church in Edmonton. As I engaged further, he told me how Edmonton desperately needed more Gospel-centered churches. I peppered him with questions about the city, about the spiritual climate, and why a place like Edmonton could be a good place to plant a church.

I went away from that conversation feeling like it was definitely a real possibility that God was indeed calling us to this. But I still wasn’t quite convinced. Was this the divine appointment I had asked for? Or was I reaching?

The next day, I decided to test God again. Please remember that I’m not saying we’re supposed to do this! I prayed that he would arrange another divine appointment to confirm that this was really something he was calling us to. 

The day continued like normal with no special meetings, no conversations regarding Edmonton, and no obvious signs. Maybe I could put this thought to rest, and I could convince myself that we could just stay where we were, and I could go back to my comfortable life in Saskatchewan.

However, just before lunch, a couple who had been at the booth started asking about what it looks like to be part of a church that values discipleship and training within the local church. They were plugged into a decent church in Ontario, and they wanted to see how they could grow as potential leaders in their local context. As I told them my story and how God had used the local church to train me and prepare me to be a pastor and a church planter in Saskatchewan, they mentioned how they would love to be part of a church that placed a high emphasis on raising up leaders locally.

I’m not a big fan of having people think I’m strange. I don’t think most of us are. But immediately, I felt like I was supposed to ask them a question that I still felt really weird about asking. I said, “This might sound like it’s coming out of nowhere, but if I were to move my family and plant a new church in Edmonton, Alberta, would you and your wife be willing to move there to be part of the church as well?”

I felt like I was really putting myself out there on a limb, asking a strange question to a couple I had just only met, but also feeling like I was taking a step of obedience in just testing out this call to Edmonton.

What I expected was for them to give me a strange look, maybe a quick laugh, and at best, an obligatory and apologetic, “that’s something we’ll have to pray about” response.

But that’s not what happened. With tears welling up in his eyes, he said, “You have no idea about this, but last night my wife and I were looking at houses in Alberta because we were thinking for some reason we might be called to move there. So yes, if you moved to Edmonton to plant a church there, we’d love to be involved with something like that!”

After making plans to go for lunch to get to know them better, I texted the family to tell them all about the exchange. When I called home later to fill them in with more detail, my eldest said, “What more confirmation does Dad need?”

From my perspective, there were a few more non-negotiables to confirm that this was God’s call. Having the family in agreement was an obvious one that God had met, but having planted before, I knew that being able to plant with at least two pastors (especially in a parachute-planting situation) was going to be key. I know myself enough to know that it’s not wise for me to do anything alone. So I essentially said to God, “I’m not doing this unless you can convince the Klassens to come with us.” I had relayed this to Kim and the family earlier, but now that I had just had this conversation with the couple from Ontario, I decided it was time to ask Jared and Chantel if they’d be willing to consider joining in this adventure.

If they said no, then I didn’t need to have the awkward conversation with the rest of the church leadership team, and we could put this church-planting thing to rest and go on with our lives as if it never happened. But if they said yes, the last non-negotiable was the confirmation of the church that they felt called to send us out and partner with us to get Grace Edmonton off the ground. As you can guess, with us having already moved, the Klassens said yes, but I’ll let Jared share his perspective in a future newsletter.

During the process, we would continue to learn more about Edmonton, speak to more pastors and denominational leaders, and confirm that planting in Edmonton would be a good idea, even if we never received a particular message that said, “Go to Edmonton!”

Over the last few weeks and months, we’ve been connecting primarily with West Edmonton Baptist as we work on finding and developing a core-team. They’ve been gracious enough to offer us their space for information and vision casting events, the first of which will be happening on October 6th of this year. They’re allowing us to share details about the plant with their church in addition to inviting Jared and I to preach on some Sunday mornings. I’ve been given the blessing of unpacking Hebrews 2:5-18 on September 22nd, so I’m looking forward to it, since this is the longest I’ve gone without preaching in over 12 years. 

We’ll be posting more about our vision casting events in the weeks to come, so stay tuned. Thanks for coming along with us on this adventure: for praying, for listening, and for encouraging our families as we seek to faithfully follow God’s call as disciple making disciples.

If you would like to contribute at all to any of our expenses for moving or the ongoing cost of serving in these roles of missionary-church-planters, you can do so at https://graceyeg.com and click the “Connect” link on the top left.

If you'd like to read previous editions of the newsletter, you can do so here: https://graceyeg.beehiiv.com/

On behalf of our families,

Clay Bitner and Jared Klassen