Daniel Im

Pastor + Author

Edmonton

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.

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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My Hope for Beulah, the Local Church and Edmonton

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edmonton

Whenever I pray, “God may your kingdom come and your will be done,” I’m not just going through the motions and praying some sort of ritualistic prayer. Nor am I praying it and hoping that God would do that through someone else in some other place. Since this is a part of the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray, I have confidence that he is doing “something” when we have the audacity to pray that prayer with sincerity and faith. And I’m convinced that God chooses to do that “something” through you and I – through the church.

Let’s face it. The local church can be dysfunctional because we are the local church and we can all be dysfunctional. Regardless, I have full faith in God’s redemptive power and his desire to usher in his kingdom through the local church.

God wants to usher in his kingdom through the local church.

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When I came to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada to serve at Beulah Alliance Church in 2010, I wasn’t just coming for some job. I came because I was convinced that Beulah was all about God’s kingdom and his mission. After all, since its birth in 1921, over 60 churches have been planted out of Beulah.

And now that God is leading us into a new season of ministry, I’ve been spending a lot of time reflecting on this question,

“What gives me hope that Beulah will continue on this trajectory and be a transformational kingdom agent in Edmonton and beyond?”

Here are some of my thoughts:

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Loss of Hope: Perspectives on Death – Part 2/6

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In stark contrast to my first post in this six part series, this article takes the time and space to explore the emotions that individuals go through when they lose a loved one, especially when it is a tragic death that takes a young person’s life. For an introduction to my six part series, click here.

The second perspective on death that I am going to be exploring is the loss of hope.

On Feb 21, 2011, Laura Chee’s life came to an end. Click here to read about her story. When reading through this story, I’m sure you picked up on the dehumanizing/humanizing theme that underlines this story, especially when Judge Day refused to use the word accident to explain the death of 23-year-old Laura Chee. He told the court that Stephanie Gaylene Beckley, a 27-year-old mother of two, who had been free on bail, and who didn’t attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings after her previous charges, “killed Laura” while driving with a blood alcohol level that was twice the legal limit. Judge Day called her actions “grossly selfish.” Although Beckley did kill Laura, the author tries not to dehumanize Beckley by including a few sentences on her remorse over the situation. The author’s attempt is quickly forgotten when he goes back describing the “despicable” actions of Beckley at the police station. As a result, the article ends with the author dehumanizing Beckley. In contrast, it begins with the author humanizing Laura by providing a look into the hurt that her parents, sister, and friends have experienced and will continue to experience for a very long time.

Another theme that is found in this story is the loss of a part of each family member’s identity that came with the loss of Laura. Her father told the court, “My identity was taken from me that evening.” Her mother wrote, “Nothing can mend my broken heart.” And her sister expressed how “a part of me died with her.” The pain that the family is experiencing is so deep that it has hit the core of each of their beings – they are disoriented and are, so far, without hope for the future.

Join me next time as I explore another one of our culture’s perspectives on death.

Desensitized: Perspectives on Death – Part 1/6

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Over the next while, I am going to explore the various perspectives on death that our culture holds by examining news articles, blog postings, and various social media outlets.

After all, death is one of the hardest things to deal with, as it really is one of the only final things that we have to deal with these days, especially since through the Internet it is very easy to stay connected with pretty much anyone. However, what makes death even more difficult is when it is not expected and very tragic. We hear of these stories very frequently on the news.

What makes this such a close topic for me is because I am still processing the death of my seven year old niece who passed away last year so suddenly. As a result, through these next six postings, my hope is to learn as much as I can on this topic. After all, are we not all most open to questioning our views on life when we encounter such tragic deaths?

Here’s the first perspective on death that I will explore: the desensitized perspective.

As I was driving home from work last week, I was listening to the 5:00 newscast on CBC Radio-Canada. Just before the news ended and the reporters were going to report on traffic and weather, there was a brief 15 second mention of how a 38 year old roofer died falling off of a roof in one of the new developments in Edmonton. They said that he was wearing a safety harness, but that the rope was too long. That was it – there was no mention of his family or any other detail. When looking on the Internet, the following news articles were the only ones that I found, and each only had a mere paragraph or few sentences about the situation. There has been no other news report on the situation following the incident.

The brevity of the reporting on this situation, or the lack of information thereof indicates how our culture has become desensitized to tragic death. There was no commentary given on the news to this situation and the number of social media shares recorded on those news sites numbers less than 15. On the CBC article, nearly half of the words were given to the job site, occupational, health, and safety concerns, which sends the message that those issues are more important than this single man dying.

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