Nestor Abdon is a Filipino-Canadian pastor serving as Global & Local Outreach Pastor at Bramalea Baptist Church in Brampton, Ontario. Having ministered among newcomers, refugees, and diaspora churches across Canada, Nestor carries a deep passion for hospitality, multicultural mission, and the vital contribution of diaspora communities to the life and future of the church in Canada.

In this conversation, Nestor traces his journey from growing up in the Philippines to arriving in Canada in 2010, pastoring within a Filipino church, serving at a refugee centre, and eventually leading newcomers and diaspora ministries at large churches in the Toronto area. His life and ministry have been shaped by the conviction that migration is not just a social reality but a biblical lens, that God is gathering the nations in Canadian cities, and that welcoming newcomers is central to the church’s participation in the gospel today.

Together, Nestor and Jason explore:

• How Nestor’s own experience as a newcomer to Canada shaped his pastoral calling among immigrants, refugees, and international students,
• Practical ways churches can embody hospitality, through ESL programs, settlement partnerships, shared meals, and newcomer fellowships,
• The importance of a listening posture and intercultural competence in majority-culture churches, rather than rushing to fix problems without hearing people’s actual needs,
• The unique role and strengths of diaspora and ethnic monocultural churches within the wider “gospel ecology” of Canadian cities,
• How majority-culture churches can move diaspora leaders from the margins to the centre, offering real voice, leadership, and shared decision-making,
• The tensions and possibilities of first and second generation dynamics, and why second-generation immigrants can serve as “cultural bridges” for the church,
• What it means to contextualize the gospel across cultures and why diaspora Christians give Nestor deep hope for the future of the church in Canada.

Nestor speaks with warmth and a reflective wisdom formed in the overlap of the academy and local church. His story invites pastors to see their city as a global mission field, to make room for diaspora leaders at the table, and to embrace the beautiful, diverse foretaste of Revelation 7 that God is already bringing to life in Canada.

Show Notes

• Nestor’s Book: Marginality of Visible Minorities in Canada
• Jason Georges Book: The 3d Gospel
• Bramlea Baptist Church
• Give to The Pastorate’s Year End Campaign
• Lead Pastor Fellowship Application
• Emerging Leaders Lab Application

Partners

Contact John Wright at Generis for help cultivating a culture of generosity in your church.

In today’s episode, Derrick Miller invites us into the story of Makers Church in San Diego and the co-vocational calling that’s shaped his life as both pastor and firefighter. Derrick shares how a surprising “church marriage” with a 100-year-old congregation, neighborhood change, and a multi-million-dollar building renovation have forced him and his team to slow down, listen carefully to the Spirit, and rethink what sustainable leadership actually looks like. Along the way, he offers a lived picture of priesthood-of-all-believers, where every follower of Jesus is sent into their workplace, street, and city as a full participant in God’s mission.

In this conversation Jason and Derrick talk about:

• The origin story of Makers Church and how Derrick’s firefighter calling shaped their co-vocational model,
• How a young church plant “married” a 100-year-old congregation, and inherited a spiritual legacy, not just a building,
• How neighbourhood change and selling church-owned homes opened the door for new mission and a major renovation,
• The shift from pastor-led decisions to communal discernment, elder leadership, and governance that reflects real church life,
• Why co-vocational ministry is about more than budgets and how it reframes staffing, power, and how we view congregants as sent ones,
• Practical ways pastors can affirm everyday work as mission and equip people to live as the church where they live, work, and play.

Derrick offers a hopeful and grounded vision for pastors wrestling with limited resources, changing neighbourhoods, and questions about what’s next for their church. Whether you’re leading in a rented gym, renovating a century-old sanctuary, or simply tired of feeling like everything depends on you, may this conversation expand your imagination, ease some pressure, and help you see your people, and their everyday work, as central to the kingdom story God is writing in your city.

Show Notes

• ⁠Makers Church – San Diego, CA⁠ 
• ⁠Lead Pastor Fellowship Application⁠
• ⁠Emerging Leaders Lab Application⁠

Partners

We couldn’t do the work we do at The Pastorate without your generous support. We invite you to pray, share, and ⁠⁠give⁠⁠ towards seeding a hope-filled future for the Canadian church.

Contact ⁠John Wright at Generis⁠ for help cultivating a culture of generosity in your church.

In today’s episode, Darrell Johnson opens his journal and his toolkit, sharing how a hard year has softened his pastoral heart and how a simple morning liturgy that includes journaling, reading Scripture, and listing notes of gratitude have helped refresh his soul. Darrell invites us into his new book, an Advent reader titled Awaken Wonder, and shares six practical frameworks for preaching through Advent that he invites pastors to glean from and borrow. Darrell helps us imagine Advent preaching that’s both bold and deeply formative.

In this conversation Jason and Darrell talk about:

• Darrell’s morning rhythm that sustains tender heartedness,
• Why Christmas is history, not myth, along with a helpful guide to chronological reading of the Christmas story,
• Darrell’s new book Awaken Wonder, and the four-week outline it provides for preaching Advent,
• Practical help for solo pastors through six ready-to-preach Advent frameworks,
• How to give ethical and freeing attribution when we use sources to inform our preaching.

Darrell offers us a timely invitation to preach Advent with clarity and courage, and a helpful roadmap that will help those who are still figuring out what they will preach this Advent. Whether you’re mapping a four-week series or just searching for Sunday’s next faithful step, may this conversation steady your heart, spark courage, and help you lead your people to wonder at Jesus’ coming.

Show Notes

Darrell Johnson’s Website - https://www.darrelljohnson.ca

Order Awaken Wonder - https://a.co/d/fbKOL1u

Lead Pastor Fellowship Application - https://www.thepastorate.ca/lpf

Emerging Leaders Lab Application - https://www.thepastorate.ca/lab

Guest Biography

Darrell W. Johnson has been preaching Jesus Christ and His Gospel for over 50 years. He has served a number of Presbyterian congregations in California, Union Church of Manila in the Philippines, and the historic First Baptist Church in the heart of Vancouver, Canada. He has taught preaching for Fuller Theological Seminary, Carey Theological College in Vancouver, and Regent College in Vancouver. He has authored eight books, including The Glory of Preaching and Discipleship on the Edge: An Expository Journey Through Revelation. ‍He is currently serving as a pastor at The Way Church and The Pastorate Ministries Canada. ‍He and his wife Sharon have been married over 50 years. Together they have raised four children adopted from four different countries of the world, and now enjoy loving 11 active grandchildren.

Partners

Special thanks to Generis for helping us make this episode happen. Contact John Wright at Generis for help cultivating a culture of generosity in your church. - https://generis.com/team/jon-wright

The work of strengthening pastors across Canada is only possible because of generous partners like you. As we look to the future, would you consider joining us in prayer, sharing this episode, or ⁠making a gift to invest in a vibrant, Jesus-centered church in every community⁠? - https://thepastorate.ca/give.

On today’s episode of The Pastorate we welcome Junie Josue, pastor of International Worship Center, in Winnipeg, Manitoba. From a three-day fast in Manila to planting a multi-ethnic church in central Canada, Junie shares a Spirit-led story of obedience, discipleship, and multiplication. The conversation traces the discernment journey that brought Junie and his wife, Fatima, to Canada in 1999, the cell-church structure that fuels IWC’s inter-provincal growth, and a vision to plant 100 churches across the nation. Junie also opens up about the inner life of a pastor, moving from performance to presence, and letting God heal old wounds. 

Jason and Junie explore: 

• How a season of prayer and fasting led to a call from God to plant a church in Winnipeg.
• Why International Worship Center chose a cell-church architecture to disciple deeply and multiply churches.
• Releasing real authority to the next generation and why reaching dominant Canada culture will be led by second generation immigrants to Canada.
• Fostering a church culture where every site plants new sites, supported by ongoing coaching, care, and connection.
• The strength of bi-vocational leadership: volunteers and part-time pastors who stay embedded among the lost.
• The inner work of the pastor: healing from past wounds, resisting performative spirituality, and receiving God’s goodness before ministering it.

This conversation shares Junie’s story and invites pastors to receive God’s goodness in their own inner life while being attentive to the work of God in the lives of those they’ve been called to serve.

Shownotes

International Worship Centre - https://iwcentre.com/

Lead Pastor Fellowship Application - https://www.thepastorate.ca/lpf

Coram Deo Foundation Joseph Chung Scholarship - https://coramdeofoundation.com/joseph-chung-scholarship-application

Fall City Meetups - https://thepastorate.ca/gatherings

Partners

Special thanks to the Canadian Bible Society for making this episode possible. We invite you to explore their ⁠Bible Course⁠ to help your church grow in Scripture engagement.

The work of strengthening pastors across Canada is only possible because of generous partners like you. As we look to the future, would you consider joining us in prayer, sharing this episode, or ⁠making a gift to invest in a vibrant, Jesus-centered church in every community⁠?

Today’s episode features a conversation between Tammy Giffen, Lead Pastor of Groundswell Church in Turo Nova Scotia and Shaila Visser, National Director of Alpha Canada and Senior Vice President at Alpha International. It’s a recording of a conversation that took place live in front of our Lead Pastor Fellowship cohort, two weeks ago when they were gathered together in Vancouver for a city meetup. Over the course of that week together, the cohort, made up of 15 pastors from across Canada, spent time learning from local pastors and leaders, touring local churches, and enjoying quality time together. This conversation between Tammy and Shaila was one of the sessions of the week that was designed to help encourage our cohort members and sharpen their pastoral imagination, specifically around the themes of evangelism, prayer, and ministry to Gen Alpha and Gen Z. 

Shaila shares how a late-night encounter with the Holy Spirit reframed her entire sense of calling and how that moment has shaped Alpha Canada’s vision for the next generation. In this conversation, Shaila unpacks the four questions God gave her in the middle of the night and how they’ve become a compass for her leadership. She reflects on what it looks like to hold a big vision while cultivating deep spiritual rhythms of prayer and fasting, and why people across Canada are uniquely open to the gospel during this time.

Along the way, Shaila highlights:

• Why naming 4.4 million Canadian high school students has expanded Alpha’s vision for youth ministry.
• How Made for This, a national prayer initiative, is mobilizing churches to cover schools across the country.
• Why she believes Gen Alpha is more spiritually open than any generation in decades.
• How equipping students to run Alpha for their peers strengthens discipleship and mission.

This conversation will encourage pastors to think bigger about the next generation, lean deeper into spiritual dependence, and not grow weary in ministry. Shaila closes with a moving word of encouragement: to keep going, for the sake of those who do not yet know Jesus.

Show Notes

• Shaila’s Website
• Gen Alpha Data and Resource Pack
• Made for This Campaign
• Alpha Student Leadership Collective
• Coram Deo Foundation Joseph Chung Scholarship

Partners

The work of strengthening pastors across Canada is only possible because of generous partners like you. As we look to the future, would you consider joining us in prayer, sharing this episode, or ⁠making a gift to invest in a vibrant, Jesus-centered church in every community⁠?

Generis helps churches to cultivate a culture of generosity. Contact Jon Wright at Generis to learn more. 

In this conversation, Jason sits down with Ryan Johnson, pastor of Church Untitled in downtown Vancouver. Ryan shares openly about how the church began after the collapse of another, walking through seasons of anxiety and depression, and learning to cultivate a dependence on God while shepherding people who were hurting. What started with a small group meeting in the corner of a nightclub has grown into a worshipping community in the heart of the city marked by prayer, consecration, and God’s presence.

Jason and Ryan explore themes that matter deeply to pastors today, including:

- Consecration before vision: The formative role of Joshua 3:5, focusing on internal formation and God’s presence ahead of programs and plans.

- Dependence vs. strategy: Learning to follow the Spirit’s guiding, and how to keep choosing dependence even after growth and momentum arrive.

- Worship as shepherding: How worship shapes us beyond emotion, trading what we feel for what we know of God, and the importance of extended spaces of prayer and song.

- Ongoing healing for leaders and churches: Naming self-protection, practicing vulnerability, and letting love perfect what fear distorts in the life of a community.

- Citywide unity and hunger: Stories of collaborative worship nights, overflowing prayer ministry, and a growing hunger for God across ages and backgrounds.

If you’ve walked through church hurt, or are leading people who have, this episode offers an honest, hope-filled account of how God turns ruins into foundations and pain into worship.

Show Notes

- Church Untitled | https://www.churchuntitled.com/

- Fall City Meetups⁠⁠ | https://www.thepastorate.ca/gatherings

- Lead Pastors Fellowship⁠⁠ | https://www.thepastorate.ca/lpf

⁠⁠- Fall 2025 Pastors Retreat at Barnabas Landing⁠⁠ | https://www.thepastorate.ca/events/pastorsretreatfall2025

- The Pastorate Listener Survey⁠ | https://www.thepastorate.ca/survey

Thank You to Our Episode Sponsor

Special thanks to the Canadian Bible Society for making this episode possible. We invite you to explore their ⁠Bible Course⁠ to help your church grow in Scripture engagement. | https://biblesociety.ca/thebiblecourse/

Today’s episode of The Pastorate looks a little different. Instead of our typical format where Jason interviews a guest, we’re pulling back the curtain on our Lead Pastors Fellowship and inviting you into a conversation that Pete Hughes, pastor of KXC London, had with our cohort participants during one of their monthly Zoom sessions. We’re sharing it here because it speaks directly into the cultural moment we find ourselves in, and because applications for the next round of the Lead Pastors Fellowship open next month.

In this conversation, Pete Hughes unpacks the “quiet revival” taking shape across the global West, especially among Gen Z, and what courageous, Spirit-led pastoring looks like in this season. He names why many are rejecting secularism both intellectually and experientially, and why this surge of spiritual openness demands bold, clear invitations to follow Jesus.

Pete invites pastors to imagine what courageous and Spirit-dependent leadership looks like in a cultural moment hungry for more. This conversation wrestles with how to speak with clarity in contested spaces, how to shepherd both skeptics and seekers, and how to walk at a pace that can endure renewal. It points to a vision of ministry that pairs bold invitation with deep formation, offering hope for leaders who long to see Jesus meet people with power and presence. Stay tuned until the end of the episode as Pete concludes the conversation with a prayer for Canadian pastors.

Show Notes

• King’s Cross Church
• Pete’s Instagram
• Fall City Meetups
• Lead Pastors Fellowship
• The Pastorate Listener Survey
• Fall 2025 Pastors Retreat at Barnabas Landing

Partners

• The work of strengthening pastors across Canada is only possible because of generous partners like you. As we look to the future, would you consider joining us in prayer, sharing this episode, or ⁠making a gift to invest in a vibrant, Jesus-centered church in every community⁠?
• Generis helps churches to cultivate a culture of generosity. Contact Jon Wright at Generis to learn more. 

In this conversation, Jason sits down with Dom Ruso, pastor of The 180 Church in Greater Montreal, to talk about the joys and challenges of church planting in one of the most secularized contexts in North America.

Dom shares openly about his discernment journey, how God drew him and his wife back to Quebec despite initial resistance, and what it has looked like to build a church community from scratch in a region where many are spiritually open but institutionally skeptical.

Jason and Dom explore themes that matter deeply to pastors today:

• Dom’s honest wrestle with returning to Quebec, and the slow ways God confirmed the call to plant a church there.
• The unique dynamics of Quebec culture and what it means to preach the Bible in ways that connect with people who carry wounds from religion or who feel indifferent toward Christianity.
• How congregations can embody health and unity in a divided cultural landscape, and what Canada’s regional differences can teach us about God’s work across the country.
• Why it’s not enough to “tell” people what the Bible says, but to invite them into its story, and how plot points of Scripture resonate with modern longings for justice, meaning, and identity.
• Why it matters to recover a distinct vision of pastoral calling, and how the overlap with modern leadership and coaching culture can blur what shepherding the people of God really means.

Dom also talks about his new book, The Bible for a Shifting Secular Age, which brings together his pastoral experience and academic work to offer handles for understanding secularism and fresh ways of presenting Scripture today.

Show Notes


The 180 Church

The Bible for a Shifting Secular Age

Give to our $30,000 August Match Campaign

⁠⁠Fall 2025 Pastors Retreat at Barnabas Landing⁠⁠

The Pastorate Listener Survey⁠

Thank You to Our Episode Sponsor

Special thanks to the Canadian Bible Society for making this episode possible. We invite you to explore their ⁠Bible Course⁠ to help your church grow in Scripture engagement.

Howard Jolly has served as a pastor, musician, and leader among Indigenous churches across Canada for decades. Recently retired as Executive Director of the Indigenous Alliance Churches of Canada, Howard carries a deep passion for reconciliation within the Church and the renewal of Indigenous communities in Christ.

In this conversation, Howard shares his journey from growing up in Moose Factory, Ontario, to pastoring First Nations Community Church in Winnipeg for 15 years, and leading a national network of Indigenous Alliance churches. His life and ministry have been shaped by a conviction that First Peoples reaching First Peoples is central to the gospel’s witness in Canada, and that reconciliation is not just for the healing of Indigenous communities, but for the health and fruitfulness of the whole Church.

Together, Howard and Jason explore:

• How ministry to Indigenous peoples must engage colonial history, identity loss, and generational trauma,
• Why reconciliation is essential for the whole body of Christ, not just Indigenous peoples,
• The role of relationship, dignity, and presence in pastoral ministry,
• Howard’s personal story of coming to faith through the transformation of his father’s life,
• and Howard’s hopes and prayers for the future of the Church in Canada and the righteous reign of Jesus in our land.

Howard speaks with warmth, humility, and deep wisdom born of a long obedience to Christ. His story invites pastors to move toward reconciliation with courage, to honour the dignity of all people, and to believe afresh in the hope and healing found in Jesus Christ.

Show Notes

• Indigenous Alliance Churches of Canada
• Give to our $30,000 August Match Campaign
• Fall 2025 Pastors Retreat at Barnabas Landing
• The Pastorate Listener Survey

Partners

Contact Jon Wright at Generis for help cultivating a culture of generosity in your church.

The Old Testament can feel daunting to preach, but it’s an essential part of the story we’re called to tell. Many pastors avoid preaching texts of violence, trauma, and grief but what if these difficult texts are exactly what our churches need to hear? In this conversation, Old Testament scholar and Anglican priest Dr. Lissa Wray Beal offers a thoughtful and deeply encouraging guide for engaging the harder parts of Scripture. Drawing from her current writing on the book of Jeremiah and her years of pastoral ministry and academic scholarship, Lissa makes the case that these ancient texts are essential for helping congregations find language in time of suffering and struggle.

Together Lissa and Jason explore:

- Preaching texts of trauma with both theological clarity and pastoral care, especially in communities shaped by grief, abuse, or injustice,

- Finding solidarity with Jeremiah as a model for faithful ministry in seasons of exhaustion, obscurity, or rejection,

- Navigating denominational shifts with humility, theological conviction, and an openness to the diverse expressions of the Church,

- Recovering the Psalms as vital resources for congregational prayer, especially in times of cultural and spiritual disorientation,

- Rethinking the future of seminaries: the importance of embodied formation, theological depth, and renewed partnership with the Church.

Lissa is thoughtful and pastoral, blending scholarly depth with real-world insight. This is a thoughtful conversation about formation in the word, pastoral faithfulness, and the steady grace of God in the complexity of everyday life.

Show Notes

• Lissa Wray Beal’s Publications
• The Pastorate Listener Survey
• Fall 2025 Pastors Retreat at Barnabas Landing

Support the Work of The Pastorate

The work of strengthening pastors across Canada is only possible because of generous partners like you. As we look to the future, would you consider joining us in prayer, sharing this episode, or ⁠making a gift to invest in a vibrant, Jesus-centered church in every community⁠?

Thank You to Our Episode Sponsor

Special thanks to the Canadian Bible Society for making this episode possible. We invite you to explore their ⁠Bible Course⁠ to help your church grow in Scripture engagement.