Testimony

A couple of days after we buried our stillborn baby, God spoke to my wife. It was Krista’s first time returning to the grave after we’d buried Avery. As the van rolled up to the cemetery gate, a song started playing on the radio. Krista sat in the vehicle and listened as the artist declared that God does not abandon us in our sorrow. As she began to cry, the lyrics went on to assure her that God holds our tears.1 She hadn’t been asking God to speak to her. God’s voice cam...

Seven Questions Seven Questions for Rev. Michel Bisaillon

Q1: Your bio on the PAOC website is interesting. You were working at the National Bank before attending Bible college and going into full-time ministry. What led to that major life and career change? My mother left home when I was four years old. My father, however, was filled with love and devotion for his two children and secured full-time custody of us. All of this was not the norm in Quebec at the time. During my teenage years, I lived in a town near the west end of the island of Montre...

Your Story A Royal Wedding

On May 8, 2018, I received a message from a longtime friend, Shelley McAmmond, congratulating my wife and me on 37 years of marriage. Her message also included a request: “Our son, Tyrel, is engaged to be married. He and his fiancée asked me to contact you to see if you would consider performing their marriage ceremony this summer in Saskatchewan.” There are three activities that, as a pastor, I am truly honoured to do: baby dedications, weddings, and funerals. But this reques...

Everyday Thoughts Immanuel Every Day

“The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel … ‘God with us’ ” (Matthew 1:23). The holy wonder of the Incarnation is the good news of Christmas, but Immanuel is more than just the baby in the manger. It’s more than a 2,000-year-old miracle. Immanuel means more than God being with us in some abstract theological way. Immanuel means God with us right here and now. If Jesus has really done this—brou...

Vitality Matters Supernatural Gifts for Ordinary People

Most Pentecostal and charismatic believers have witnessed incidences of abuse and misuse of spiritual gifts. These include everything from strange physical displays to condemning, threatening or manipulative “words from the Lord.” Such abuses can cause believers to fear valid supernatural demonstrations and, in some cases, to develop disdain for them.Improper and unwise demonstrations of spiritual gifts have contributed, in a large degree, to a downward trend in their use. &ldq...

Your Story Love Never Lets Go

Phyllis Ryan Fisher was born December 19, 1947, in Toronto, Ontario. Her mother was a loving and resourceful woman who, during those postwar years, either cared for Phyllis herself or left her in the care of wonderful people who “adopted” her into their families. Although Phyllis was an only child, the “moms,” “dads” and “sisters” she collected along the way enriched her life and helped mould her into the lady she grew to be. This small-town girl l...

Our Story No “Do Nothing” Option

The town of Slave Lake, Alta., gained international attention on July 6, 2011, when William and Kate, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, came to visit. Seven weeks earlier, a devastating wildfire had swept through the town destroying 40 per cent of its buildings and forcing all of its 7,000 residents to evacuate. Many left with nothing more than the clothes they were wearing. Asthe world watched these two representatives of an earthly kingdom tour the town, representatives of God’s ki...

On The Issue In Need of a Good Samaritan

In November 2013, Brock Harrison was going about his life as a new dad and speechwriter for the leader of a political party when it hit him. It presented innocuously enough as panic attacks. Sitting down at his computer brought sudden and paralyzing physiological discomfort. He had experienced the odd panic attack in the past, but they were periodic and easy to shake off. These were different. He was physically unable to work. “Fortunately, I never experienced the desire to end my life,&rd...

Seven Questions SEVEN QUESTIONS FOR: VINJELU MUYABA

Vinjelu Muyaba and his wife, Kathryn, are lead pastors of Lighthouse Fellowship in Wetaskiwin, Alberta. They have a great love for the community they serve. Having grown up surrounded by poverty in Zambia, Vinjelu brings a fresh vision for reaching a needy and broken world. They have nine children: Million, Esther, Francis, Seth, Lexsina, Taliah, Elizabeth, Chawezi, and Hezekiah. Q 1: Tell us a bit about your family … and your nine kids! I come from a ver...

Everyday Thoughts Door to Door:

“I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest” (John 4:35b). As I rounded the corner on my alternate daily run, I could not help but notice them. They were paired up, two on one side of the street and two on the other. Middle-aged, modestly dressed and book in hand, they were going through this prestigious neighbourhood knocking on doors. They were not selling anything. They were Jehovah’s Witnesses doing “door-to-door” evangelis...

Lifestyle Minding the Mind

Our nine-year-old son would not swallow his dinner. He cried, coughed, and then ran to the bathroom to spit it out. It wasn’t my cooking—not this time anyway. It was anxiety. He had learned choking safety tips at school that day, and for the rest of the week he was consumed by the fear of choking. It startled us because we weren’t dealing with the typical childhood fever or scraped knee. We were trying to comfort a child whose mind was not OK. As parents we strive to keep...

Interview SEVEN QUESTIONS FOR: PAUL FRASER

In October 2017, Rev. Paul Fraser of Edmonton, Alberta, accepted the call to serve as the PAOC’s Multiply Network co-ordinator. His role is to support and co-ordinate our local, district and national church multiplication movement. Paul brings a wealth of experience to this challenge. Here is a glimpse into his story and his heart. Q1: Congratulations on your new role as the PAOC’s Multiply Network co-ordinator! For those in our Fellowship who may not know much about you, what are so...

Worldview Flashes of Facts

A Tim Hortons® coffee shop is an excellent spot for eavesdropping. Wedged into a corner with a dark roast and a book, I mostly watch and listen to three men at the next table. Someone from their church has died recently. They wonder what heaven will be like. Being a preacher, I have much to say about that, if only they knew to ask. A fourth man, whom I know somewhat, enters and joins them. I didn’t know that his wife had died during the year, but his friends speak of it and ask him wha...

Our Story One Hundred Years Young

The year was 1917. Edmonton was a rapidly growing prairie city of 54,000 citizens. The High Level Bridge and the Hotel MacDonald had recently opened, and the dismantling of Fort Edmonton had just been completed. The First World War was still raging in Europe. Many young Edmontonians had lost their lives at the Battle of Passchendaele and at Vimy Ridge. That same year, Mr. and Mrs. Edgar Taylor invited interested friends to their home at 11816 79th Street in Edmonton to pray for revival. Th...

Your Story First Nations for All Nations

“God has a plan for the Indigenous People,” Deloris assured me. It was a Friday morning and I’d called Deloris Netmaker to chat with her about a miracle regarding a stolen car and a bag full of money. Marvin and Deloris Netmaker are both professional educators. Before coming to Saskatoon and starting All Nations Church, they had spent 10 years at Big River First Nation teaching and working in the local church. In 2012, God called them back to Saskatoon, and they landed at...

Arts & Culture When a Nation Prays

“When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:13,14). Dunkirk, the movie, with its superb acting and riveting scenes, tells of a Second World War military miracle—but fails to in...

Worldview Lost Inn Translation

Hanging on the wall of my basement office is a framed piece of my early writing. It is dated December 11, 1964, written in pencil, and titled “The Meaning of Christmas.” It goes like this: Jesus was born on Christmas in a stable and his mather name was Mary they had sheeps and a cow and a donkie Jesus sleeped in a manger and he grow up to be Jesus crist and his birthday was on Christmas to. The end. It loses some of its charm when it’s copied from my childhood script—I wa...

Everyday Thoughts One Extra-Ordinary Flight

For Maureen Scraba, ministry doesn’t end when she walks out the door of her church. On an ordinary day in the fall of 2006, Maureen was on a flight from Toronto to Edmonton. She had ended up in the worst spot on the plane—back row, middle seat. Always one to look for the extra in the ordinary, Maureen often prays before boarding a flight that God will lead her to touch someone’s life. Since faith requires action, Maureen introduced herself to the woman seated next to her and l...

Perspective A Passion for the Return of Christ

Since its earliest days, around the start of the 20th century, the modern Pentecostal movement has been characterized by a fervent belief that Jesus’ return is imminent. For the early Pentecostals, this was not simply a doctrinal confession, but a heartfelt persuasion and one that many writers agree led to passionate missionary service.1 Within a Canadian context, the pioneers of the Pentecostal movement in this country were certain they were living in the final days of the age of grace.2 ...

Seven Questions SEVEN QUESTIONS FOR: PATTI MILLER

Two things Patti Miller is passionate about are urban ministry and equipping women for leadership in the church. Patti is the lead pastor of Evangel Pentecostal Church in Montreal, Quebec. Prior to coming to Evangel, she was lead pastor of Crossfire Assembly in Hamilton, Ontario, and before that was on the pastoral staff at Christian Centre in the Jane and Finch area in Toronto. Patti serves as a member of the General Executive of the PAOC. Q1: You were in Hamilton for a long time. What ...