MY JOURNEY
(by Pastor Marc Konynenberg)
I can honestly say that God called me. I remember how circumstances forced me to move back to Edmonton from Vancouver (Canada). At the time I was a welder/flame cutter for a pretty stable Westcoast company. But as I was to find out, not stable enough. The company went belly-up, I lost my job and found it tremendously difficult to find another. So I did what I had said I’d never do, I called my friend in Edmonton, and he had a job position for me. Well to make a long story short, we packed up and moved.
I worked in a sheet metal warehouse, not something I really wanted to do. But it was a job and it gave me a steady income. Yet I knew deep down in my heart that God had other plans for me.
I remember one particular day as I went about my duties in that warehouse. I drove a forklift and filled orders. As I was doing this God placed this strange thing in my mind. The thought was that I was to go into the fulltime ministry. That thought stayed with me the entire day. It would not leave, everything I did brought me back to that thought. Could it be God was talking to me?
I went home had dinner and sat at the table with my wife. She strangely enough began talking about a guy who lived across the street and was going into the ministry. Again not something we usually talk about. She continued and said that she felt God directing me into the ministry as well. That took me aback. Wow! Coincidence or what?
I told her and she too was surprised. The following day I had to go to my mother’s house , a few miles North of where we lived. On the way I prayed and asked God to let me know if this was really of Him. I laid out a fleece and asked him to let my mom tell me the same thing if this is what you desire of me O Lord. I walked in the door and she told me she had a message for me from God, that I was to go into the ministry. I just couldn’t get over it.
The following day was Sunday. We went to church. I sat down in the pew and had the lady in front of me turn around and tell me she too had a Word of the Lord, that I was to and pursue the fulltime ministry. That was too much. I then spoke to my pastor, who urged me to resist it as long as I could. To make sure this was genuine. Well I entered college that year in the Fall in preparation for fulltime ministry.
After my training I was called to pastor the Powell River Reformed Church (PRRC) in sunny Powell River, B.C. I was there for about 7.5 years and learned much about the practical everyday running of the church. PRRC was excellent training ground for me, it gave me a whole new look at ministry and helped me to come to a better understanding of my role as pastor.
From there I moved to Michigan City Indiana where I became the pastor of Grace Church. I was there for about 2.5 years. My time in the USA was rewarding in that I gained more experience in church related ministry both inside and outside the church. Grace Church grew resulting in the development of another more contemporary service. The contemporary service grew as more people came to be part of Grace. At the same time the more traditional service saw its numbers in attendees decline all to the chagrin of its members. A real rift began to emerge which eventually became detimental to the entire church to the ponit where it divided the “old” members from the “new”. That situation causeed me to re-evaulate my role as pastor of Grace and after much discussion and prayer I felt that God had other plans for my wife and I.
Along with some of those frustrations came a real sense of God’s call for me to move back to Canada to plant a new church. My son, Shawn was in Edmonton at the time and by means of numerous phone calls, prayers, and seeking God’s will we moved back to Canada with the proviso that we would begin plans to establish a new church. Once my wife and I were back in Edmonton much time was spent between Shawn and I planning, researching and developing what we now call Life Saver Fellowship.
The new church grew out of a Alpha Course that we had begun at the time in my son’s basement. Nine people came out that first night and together we shared and learned what God was doing. Having completed the course all of us felt that we needed to stay in touch and that we would somehow continue on and begin Sunday morning worship services. We began looking for a place to meet and found a unique community hall that met our needs. Life Saver Fellowship was born that day, Sunday, September 8, 2002.
Since that inagural day we have grown and moved to our present location to 4130 – 95 Street, where we continue to meet and where God has and is blessing us tremendously.
I call it a privilege to serve as pastor of this new church that seeks to be real in all that it does. At Life Saver Fellowship you will find people of all types - people who are “as is” and have a deep love for God and each other. May God continue to bless us, and may His spirit fill us as we continue to be the body, Life Saver Fellowship, He has called us to be.
