Daniel Im on Leadership Succession, Partnering With Other Churches and the Core of Evangelism
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In this conversation Jason chats with Daniel Im. Daniel has served in three counties: Canada, Korea and the U.S. as a pastor, teacher, resource developer, and author. In this podcast Daniel begins by discussing he and his families call back to Edmonton, Alberta to serve at Beulah, Alliance Church — an influential, growing multi-site church. The discussion does a dive into the topic of pastoral succession and how to successfully step into a lead pastoral role when the founding pastor moves on. The importance of this conversation can’t be underestimated. Daniel actually highlights this as one of the major challenges facing the church in Canada over the next ten years.
From there Daniel provides wide-ranging, helpful advice for church planters, including: engaging in kingdom work as a prelude for people coming to love King Jesus, surrendering our right to make it about us and engaging in strategic kingdom partnerships in the city where you serve.
In light of the COVID pandemic, Daniel unpacks a framework for ministry change and practice during these unprecedented times and speaks to equipping his church to neighbour well as the scattered people of God living throughout the city.
Evangelism quickly takes centre stage in the conversation and the unique opportunities that the pandemic has created are highlighted. Daniel shares that, “70-80 percent of non-christians surveyed claim that, if their friend was genuine about their faith, they would be willing to engage in a spiritual conversation with them.” In other words, there are unforced evangelistic opportunities all around us through being a good neighbour and investing lovingly in the lives of others — leaving the results up to God.
Daniel Im
Daniel Im is the Senior Associate Pastor at Beulah Alliance Church in Edmonton, Alberta. He has his M.A. in Global Leadership and has served and pastored in church plants and multisite churches ranging from 100 people to 50,000 people in Vancouver, Ottawa, Montreal, Korea, Edmonton, and Nashville. He co-hosts the New Churches Q&A Podcast and a podcast with his wife on marriage and parenting called the IMbetween Podcast. His latest book is called You Are What You Do: And Six Other Lies about Work, Life, and Love. He has been married to his wife, Christina, since 2006 and they have three children.
“Would we disciple people to own their spiritual growth so that when we gather together again, it really is more of a celebration than a feeding.”
His Podcasts
The New Churches Q&A Podcast is an invitation to pull up a seat and listen to the musings of church planting and leadership experts Daniel Im, Ed Stetzer and Todd Adkins. The conversation refuses to live in the clouds of abstraction but, instead, is down-to-earth, practical and contextualized to the experiences and ministry settings of the listeners. The podcast is an interactive experience where every episode answers a listener's question and provides practical advice in response.
In the IMbetween Podcast Daniel joins with his wife, Christina, to discuss the practical challenges of building a strong, connected, joy-filled marriage and family with faith at the centre. The truth is navigating marriage, parenting, and faith in the everyday ups and downs of life in the 21st century isn’t getting any easier. If you are looking for ideas about how to keep romance alive with your spouse, how to navigate relationships with in-laws, how to raise children that change the world and more check out this lively, humorous, insightful on-going conversation.
“We don’t have to worry about offending if we’re first neighbouring well.”
His Books
You Are What You Do: And Six Other Lies about Work, Life, and Love
More and more the GIG economy is changing how we work. Society is becoming filled with people engaged in lucrative side-hustles, short contracts, and diversified work portfolios — all in the pursuit of promised freedom and control over their work lives. How has this shift impacted us as people who participate in producing or consuming the products of our GIG economy? How is it shaping our souls?
You Are What You Do is an exploration of 7 specific lies we are told and the ever changing cultural context in which these falsehoods flourish. With informed insight and pastoral wisdom, Daniel exposes these as powerful and persistent lies, teaching us how to recognize them, as well as providing truth that liberates us to a life of purpose, adventure and meaning.
We all hope for quick fixes to our problems. When facing leadership challenges it is tempting to pursue the “silver bullet” or the overnight fix. But what if the solution to organizational change and growth isn’t a new model to be immediately implemented? What if a shift in perspective is what is truly required? No Silver Bullet explores five micro shifts leaders can implement, which have the potential to produce macro changes in organizations. The profundity and insight of this book is matched with its sheer practical nature as the author provides a pathway to developing a plan to structure, communicate and evaluate these shifts in attitude, paving the way for lasting change and ministry impact.
Every church in existence was planted. Starting a new church is a challenging adventure requiring initiative, leadership, strategic thinking and a whole lot of prayer. Good help can be hard to find and Planting Missional Churches is a practical guide that walks the planter through key movements in the planting journey. These pages teach the reader how to lay a missional foundation, evaluate different models of ministry, develop the appropriate systems, and build into the churches DNA a multiplication strategy that leads to maximum impact over time. In this newly revised version new content has been added to every chapter as well as new topics like church multiplication, multi-ethnic ministry and how to go multisite. Planting Missional Churches is a fantastic resource for pastors, whether they are planting a new church or revitalizing an existing congregation.
Youtube Links
We have also posted some of our favourite sections of this interview on our Youtube Channel - here is one of them:
This episode was brought to you by Compassion.
The mission of Compassion is to release children from poverty in Jesus’ name. And they’re doing exactly that in 25 different countries. Now, here is what is unique about Compassion—100% of their work is done in partnership with local churches. In fact, for many of the communities Compassion serves, they don’t know a large international NGO—they simply know the people of the local church who serve the most vulnerable in their community. Compassion’s heart for the local church extends here, to Canada, too. They are experts at equipping the Canadian church for mission in ways that are tailored to each church’s unique context. We want to encourage you to begin a transformative missions partnership with Compassion.
Coming Up Next
Kim Moran
Over the past 13 years Kim has served as a youth pastor, director of a non-profit organization, a Bible College instructor, and is currently a Lead Pastor in Abbotsford, British Columbia. Kim's passion for the Bible, her inspiring story of hope, and her desire to see lives transformed, resonates with people of all ages. While her favourite things include warm pastries and exploring new places, if you ask her what she really loves she'll gush about her family, her passion for ministry and her love for the God who has never left her side.