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John Smed, Keynote Speaker
Friday evening and Saturday morning
John Smed’s passion for prayer and mission was born out of lessons learned in ministry. After becoming a Christian in the Swiss Alps community of L’Abri, John and his wife, Caron, adopted a rich practice of prayer, open inquiry and deep fellowship set by this community as a model for his future ministry. He started Grace Vancouver Church in 2000, where he currently pastors with his wife Caron. They also started Woodgreen Presbyterian Church in Calgary. In between, John served as the Church Planting Coordinator for Mission to North America for seven years in Atlanta. He founded The Grace Network, which seeks to plant churches across Canada. As the Founding Director of PrayerCurrent.com, John is the visionary who charts the course for the team. He is frequently invited to speak and train in prayer throughout North America and internationally. John and Caron have five grown children and five grandchildren. They live in downtown Vancouver and enjoy their cottage by the lake in Kelowna. Read about John’s personal journey in prayer.
“I know of no one better able to train our church in prayer than John Smed.” Tim Keller, Senior Pastor Redeemer Presbyterian Church, New York City
Audio Sermon: The Power of a Praying Church
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Willy Reimer, Keynote Speaker
Friday afternoon
Willy Reimer is Executive Director of the Canadian Conference of MB Churches. He is well-known throughout the Canadian MB community as he has provided leadership in a variety of capacities, including that of moderator from 2006–2008 and through leadership coaching for pastors and churches in the conference. Willy is founding pastor of SunWest Christian Fellowship (MB) in Calgary and has served as lead pastor for the last 15 years. Having transitioned through several meeting places, the church now worships in multiple satellite venues.
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Connan Kublik’s calling is to help start gospel-centered churches that make and train disciples in the gospel of Jesus and its implications. He grew up sensing a strong call to missions, but never imagined it would be in his own country! He went seminary at Regent College in Vancouver, B.C. While there, he got involved as a staff intern in Grace Vancouver Church, a plant led by John Smed, who instilled in him a compelling vision for new churches in Canada. After seminary, Woodgreen Presbyterian Church in Calgary opened an opportunity for a church planting apprenticeship. Connan, his wife, Brenda, and family moved to Hamilton, Ontario in 2007 to begin New City Church (PCA) with a vision for a church that loves and serves the city and that is a safe place for people to explore and grow in the Christian faith. He is part of the GraceNetwork, a church planting network with a vision to see Canada saturated with gospel-centered churches so that millions of people are coming to Christ, live under his Lordship and communities are being transformed. Connan and his wife, Brenda, have four children: Kira, Brysan, Evan, and Rylan.
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Justine Hwang has a passion for prayer, mission and creative communications. As the Communications and Training Coordinator for PrayerCurrent.com, Justine’s heart is to equip people with practical tools to integrate prayer into the rhythm of life and ministry for greater fruitfulness. From the early days as one of John Smed’s first prayer training participants in 2000, Justine has since helped to train hundreds of leaders in prayer, from campus ministry leaders to church planters, through teaching seminars and developing training materials. She also currently coordinates Grace Network Canada’s church planter’s assessment centre. Previously she served with Campus Crusade for Christ, creating an evangelistic website ministry for the national campus ministry.
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Leah Yin has a passion for prayer. She is a creative artist and is a media design and branding specialist with her own company. She loves the city and is creative in outreach and evangelism.
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Lloyd & Carol Letkeman serve with MB Mission in the Central Canada office in Winnipeg. Prayer is an organizational value of MB Mission. Being attentive to God’s voice is a key learning outcome for all short term mission programs and strategic for long term mission workers. A posture of attentiveness helps Christians to be ready to respond to God’s promptings in their ministry of reconciliation.
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Mary Reimer is a founding pastor of FaithWorks, a congregation that began almost 10 years ago as a Manitoba Missions and Church Extension churchplant. She has a Masters degree in Spiritual Formation and Leadership and is a director in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. Her ministry includes guiding the maturing of the local church through a return to the reading of Scripture and contemplative practices.
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Victor Neufeld is Lead Pastor at North Kildonan MB Church. Victor and his wife, Elaine, have been serving at NKMB since 2008. They moved to Winnipeg from Dallas Texas where Victor served as an associate pastor at Grace Bible Church. Victor graduated from Dallas Theological Seminary in 2001 and has worked as a physics & drama teacher in addition to 6 years in the telecom industry.
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Fred Stoesz and his wife, Jolene, moved back to Winnipeg in 2003 after 29 years of ministry with World Impact in Los Angeles and Wichita, Kansas. Fred continues to work part time with World Impact, giving support to its ministries in Wichita, Dallas and St. Louis. Since coming back to Winnipeg, Fred and a group of other urban leaders have started the School of Urban Leadership for the training of urban leaders at work in this city. Fred has experienced the effects of prayer as he journeys through cancer.
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Rachel Twigg Boyce is the pastor of House Blend Ministries. She is also a trained spiritual director who loves helping people to deepen in both their personal and corporate practices of prayer. She lives in the West End of Winnipeg with her husband Michael. When she is not working, she can often be found drinking coffee, walking her dog, or doing both at the same time.
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Gord Fleming is the Director of Church Planting BC and the C2C Network. Gord is married to Marcy and has three adult daughters. They live in Langley BC and attend North Langley Community Church.
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