Daniel Im

Pastor + Author

Beulah

Great and Meaningful Work

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“I want this to be a place where you can do great and meaningful work with the people that you love.”

That’s what I shared with my staff team at Beulah when we were celebrating our certification as a Best Christian Workplace for 2022. It was our best year ever, as our overall score marked us as flourishing. Now according to Best Christian Workplaces, there are eight keys to a flourishing workplace culture, and I was excited to see that we grew in every single area compared to the previous year:

  • Fantastic Teams
  • Life-Giving Work
  • Outstanding Talent
  • Uplifting Growth
  • Rewarding Compensation
  • Inspirational Leadership
  • Sustainable Strategy
  • Healthy Communication

And while I am the primary preacher at Beulah Alliance Church, preaching to our church family isn’t the only thing I do. As Lead Pastor, I am responsible to lead, pastor, and lead our pastors and staff team. As a result, creating a workplace culture where our 50+ staff can do great and meaningful work with the people that they love is really important to me!

I see that as equally important as my calling to preach because that’s how we’re going to live out Ephesians 4—where it’s not the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers who are doing the work of ministry, but it’s the people of God! My role—and the role of our staff team—isn’t about doing. It’s about equipping. And when we equip our church family to do the work of ministry, we will see the body of Christ built up, move toward unity in the faith, and grow into maturity with a stature measured by Christ’s fullness. Instead of being tossed by the waves and blown around by every wind of teaching, we will be firm, strong, and be able to stand against the schemes of the evil one (Ephesians 4:11-16; 6:10-12).

So to create and cultivate a culture where our staff team can do great and meaningful work with the people they love, we have three leadership virtues: healthy, humble, and hungry.

I want us to be a HEALTHY team by…

  • Praying for and with one another
  • Giving each other the benefit of the doubt
  • Refusing to hold grudges
  • Growing in our spiritual, emotional, and relational health

I want us to be a HUMBLE team by…

  • Sharing credit
  • Celebrating team over self
  • Helping each other get back up when we fail
  • Despising ego

I want us to be a HUNGRY team by…

  • Being self-motivated and hungry to grow ourselves, others, and Beulah
  • Being a place where you can continue to grow
  • Together—shoulder to shoulder—being a place where we are actively moving forward

In other words, I want Beulah to be a place where you can do great and meaningful work with the people that you love. I want us to be teammates who love Jesus, are for one another, and are passionately focused on seeing God’s Kingdom come and His will be done in Greater Edmonton.

Do you want this too?

We’re always looking for fantastic people who love Jesus and the Church to join our team. And we actually have a few mission critical roles open, such as campus pastor positions for our Southwest campus and our Faro de Luz campus, and a role for an Outreach Pastor. You can learn more about those roles (and the rest of our open roles) here.

Keeping Short Accounts

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It’s been a little over three years since my family and I moved back to Canada for me to become the next Lead Pastor at Beulah Alliance Church.

Here are a couple of posts that I did on the succession journey:

I was recently interviewed by Sean Morgan about the transition, why humility must be the chief characteristic of the outgoing pastor, and why leaders must keep short accounts.

Here’s the episode on the Leaders in Living Rooms Podcast:

The Role of Mentors in Healthy Leadership Succession

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Two years ago, Christina and I started our journey back to Edmonton by first praying and seeking God’s face for His will and His ways.

In addition to saturating this entire process in prayer, we also sought the counsel of others who had gone before us in making similar transitions. After all, it says in Proverbs 15:22, “Plans fail when there is no counsel, but with many advisers they succeed.”

While this might seem like I’m just name dropping, I want to take the time to publicly acknowledge and thank those who have invested in us through prayer and wise biblical counsel, as we sought God’s will and ways to enter into this succession process at Beulah Alliance Church.

I know I’m going to miss some people, so I apologize in advance, but a huge thank you to Todd Adkins, Ed Stetzer, Eric Geiger, Kevin Peck, Josh Patterson, Kevin Queen, TJ Tims, Chris Freeland, Ron Edmondson, Matt Boda, Brent Trask, Phil Kniesel, Sean Morgan, Carey Nieuwhof, Bill Willits, Gregg Matte, and Brent Dolfo.

This past year in particular though, Dave Stone has been instrumental in my life.

As a humble and godly leader who has been on both ends of healthy succession, I couldn’t think of a better pastor to mentor me and guide our church and leadership through this process. At Southeast Christian Church, he followed Bob Russell, a 40 year founding pastor, then, after 13 years, he passed the leadership baton to Kyle Idleman.

As I’ve been preparing to step into this Lead Pastor role, Dave has been a deep well of wisdom who has been walking with us closely. One of the things that he graciously agreed to do was to speak to our broader church family to help us understand what healthy leadership succession looks like.

Here’s his message:

https://youtu.be/aOpA0ZgMm4w?t=2260

Thank you for praying for Christina and me, and our broader church family as we continue this succession process over the next few months.

Succession at Beulah

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Are you willing to surrender your good ideas for God’s best idea for your life?

A couple weeks ago, the official announcement was made that in 2021, I was going to be the next lead pastor at Beulah Alliance Church—a church that has planted more than 50 churches in Edmonton, in Alberta, and in Canada over its 99 year history.

Here is Pastor Keith’s announcement:

https://youtu.be/gIaAU2furGk

Here is a conversation between Keith and I about this transition:

https://youtu.be/9FR8riW_e6s

To learn more about the backstory of our journey back to Edmonton—and how we discerned that this was God’s calling over our lives—take a look at these two articles:

  1. The Most Important Question When Discerning Your Next Steps
  2. The Difference Between an Opportunity and a Calling

Now that the news is public, I’d love to take a few moments to personally respond.

First and foremost, there’s no other pastor that I love and respect more than Keith Taylor. His love for Jesus, his incredible humility, and his faithful care and commitment to our church family over the past 30 years is jaw dropping to put it mildly. If you could join me in praying for him and his wife as they discern how they might serve Beulah and the greater Church in this next season of life, that would be incredible.

Next, we have a webpage that outlines everything you need to know about the transition. On this page, you’ll find a ton of FAQs about the process and what’s next.

When Christina and I were praying about coming back, God did two things in our hearts: First of all, he broke our hearts for Edmonton and for Beulah. He gave us such a deep burden and love for our city and our church. You can read about the story here.

Secondly, as we were praying and waiting on the Lord, he brought up what happened between Elijah and Elisha in 1 Kings 19. Perhaps you know the story: After Elisha was called to be Elijah’s successor, he took everything he had and surrendered it to God. His oxen, their yoke, and the plow—he burned it all up in surrender and worship to God. That was the image the Holy Spirit impressed upon my heart with this whole transition. That we were called to do the same—to surrender our green cards and to offer up the life and ministry we were living in Nashville, for what God has planned for us and Beulah here in Edmonton.

So here we are, all in, and ready to serve.

Christina and I are so excited to journey with our Beulah church family, as we together lift up high the name of Jesus over greater Edmonton because it’s all about Him. His name is the only name that matters. And he’s the one that has led Beulah for the past 100 years and will continue to lead her as we start this second century of ministry. I absolutely love the history of our church and the role that Beulah has played in Edmonton, in Alberta, in Canada, and around the world to make Jesus known.

Would you join me in praying that Beulah would continue to be a multiplying church? Please pray for God’s hand upon this time. Pray for guidance, pray for anointing upon Keith and I and our leadership team. Pray for vision, continued unity, commitment, and dedication to be a part of God’s calling for our future. And lastly, please pray for our Elders Board for this important and exciting season ahead of us.

A Vision to Reach 1% of a City

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Our vision is to reach 1% of Edmonton.

I know it doesn’t seem like a B.H.A.G. (big hairy audacious goal) or a W.I.G. (wildly important goal), but it’s the specific vision that God has given our church.

And reaching this vision in Edmonton—through Beulah Alliance Church—is the very thing that God broke my heart over as Christina and I were discerning our calling to move back to Edmonton. You can read about our story in these two posts:

But why Edmonton?

I used to think that Edmonton was the “Bible Belt” in Canada—if there was even such a thing—because of the number of churches and megachurches here. But when we were candidating to come back to Edmonton, God showed us otherwise. On the one hand, he showed us the spiritual dynamics that have changed (and are changing) in this city—making it a mission field. On the other hand, based on the recent Vital Signs report, it’s clear that the rapid growth and change in our city is going to necessitate an increase in healthy, multiplying, missional churches. Here are a few statistics:

  • Edmonton grew by close to 200,000 people in the last 10 years, making the city’s population 972,223
  • 53% of the city is a millennial, Gen Z, or younger—making the median age 35.7
  • 4 in 10 of Edmontonians are a visible minority—this is more than a 100% increase in the last decade

So reaching 1% of any city that’s growing and changing is actually quite a dynamic vision statement.

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