HISTORY OF MOHABAT CHURCH

In 1996, Sam Nasser felt that God was leading him to begin a Persian focused ministry. The ministry began in Montreal, Quebec with a small group of believers gathered together in a home.  For 6 years the ministry had no financial support but continued with the Holy Spirit’s guidance and the Lord’s blessing and help.  In 2001, a Baptist church in the east of Toronto allowed the Persian ministry to use their facilities. Within two years, a large number of Iranians came to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and the ministry started to grow. In 2003, after much prayer and desire to serve and help nurture the growing number of Persian speaking believers, the Persian ministry accepted the offer to join the Christian Missionary and Alliance church of Bayview Glen in Thornhill.

Since joining Bayview Glen in 2003, the Persian ministry has attracted and witnessed to a large population of Iranians in the Toronto community and around the world. In 2010, the Persian ministry at Bayview Glen became known as Mohabat Church (meaning love).  By remaining in touch with the Persian culture, the church has been able to successfully reach and witness to a large number of Iranians through events such as their annual Persian New Year. Mohabat has also been successful in reaching the international Iranian community. In 2004, a number of Iranians in Tehran came to faith in Christ by listening to the Farsi sermon and worship songs through a mobile phone held open during a service at Mohabat.  The Mohabat website has also been an essential witnessing tool in reaching Iranians around the world as Pastor Sam’s sermons can be heard on the website and accessed in Iran.

As the church continues to grow, Mohabat plans to train and develop new leaders, pastors, teachers, evangelists and missionaries to do the Great Commission. We continue to need spiritual support as we seek to reach the Muslim community locally, national and around the globe.

PURPOSE

Mohabat church exists to glorify God through prayer, teaching, evangelism, worship and fellowship.

Governing Principles and Considerations:

God’s Provision:Our commitment is to put our trust and faith in God alone and not in our planning or works.  As such, we trust and believe that God will do immeasurably more in Mohabat Alliance Church than we could ever ask or imagine.

Faith:In Matthew 25:14-30,Jesus told the parable of the talents. The servants who were entrusted with much were faithful and thus were blessed with even more. We recognize God’s blessing on Mohabat Alliance Church and will strive to be faithful with the abundance He has poured out on us. In response, we need to take big steps of faith.

Prayer:Proverbs 16:9 says, “In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.” We recognize that prayer is very vital  and absolute necessity of seeking God’s direction at every stage of this process.

Relationships:  This will be our focus, since we come from a hospital background.  Toestablish, build and nurture relationships: with God, with one another, and with the Community will take priority in all we do. We are committed to love each other (I Corinthians 13.

Excellence: We will strive for excellence in all that we do. Excellence h8onors God. We desire to eliminate barriers between Christ and the unsaved. Our commitment to and demonstration of excellence will draw unsavedIranian people to be more receptive to hearing and considering the good news of Jesus Christ.

Planning: is the bridge that will help us join God in what He is doing and to accomplish what HE is calling us to do. We will always seek first to be lead by God without being constrained by our plans. Planning will help us coordinate our limited resources to move us from where we are to where God wants us to be.

Roles and Responsibilities of Individuals, Support Teams and Partners

The success of the Mohabat Alliance Church requires that numerous individuals and groups work together for the common good of the project. This section identifies these individuals and groups, including a brief description of their responsibilities.

Mohabat Alliance Church – Responsibilities include:

• Maintaining a list of core leaders and making regular contact with them (e.g. emails, one-on-one meetings, etc.).

• Marriage Counselling, Marriages, Funerals:  Establish a primary point of contact for these.  (Lead coordination.)

• Unity:  First, immediately touching on general disunity issues.  For example, making sure some contact is made within 24 hours (i.e., people leaving church, etc.).  (Lead coordination.)

• Staff Coordination:  Coordinating staff involvement for special events.  Keeping staff informed about issue/events.  (Lead coordination.)

• Visitor Follow-up:  Calling visitors.  (Lead coordination.)

• Bible studies and Sunday school: intended to deepen the understanding of the Bible and help members to grow in their faith.

At the present, most of the above tasks arelead by the Pastor and by individual members of the board.

The following ministries are currently active and working to be strengthened:

Children’s/Youth/Young Adults Ministry (TBD)– We need to find God directed individuals who have a heart for the younger generation.

Prayer Team– A prayer team made up not only of Mohabat Alliance Church members and staff, but outside partners as well is vital to the success of the well being and growth. A Prayer Team leader will be sought to help build the team and communicate prayer needs on a regular basis to them (Friday Nights)

Worship Team- Worship and godly music is the essence of praise and appreciation of our Lord. Our goal is to have vibrant, spirit filled team of worshipers and leaders trained in various instruments not only to minister to Mohabat Church members but also conduct concerts evangelizing Persian speaking crowds.

MINISTRY ALIGNMENT

Vision

To multiply and add to the body of Christ by reaching and witnessing to Iranians and other communities locally, nationally and internationally, by preaching the Good News and teaching the Word of God.

Mission

As a church family our mission is to make disciples of Christ by reaching and transforming the lives of those whom we can reach locally, nationally and internationally, by bringing glory to the Triune God.

Core Values

• We are committed to: The Glory of the Triune God

  • Therefore we love Him whole heartedly, worship Him sincerely and seek passionately to complete the work He has given us to do.

• • We are committed to: The Authority of the Bible

    • Therefore:

    • We adhere to our doctrinal statement as a summary of key truths from the Bible that we agree on as a church body.

    • We affirm the ministries of preaching and teaching in order to understand, obey and apply the Bible to our faith and practice.

  • We are committed to: Christ-centered Living

    • Therefore:

    • We lead believers into the fullness of the Spirit and faith in the all-sufficient Christ for healing and power to live Holy lives of service.

  • We are committed to: The Church

    • Therefore:

    • We love the Church and seek to plant and nurture healthy, transformational local churches as the means of building Christ’s kingdom and nurturing individual Christians.

    • We minister on the basis of spiritual giftedness as essential to divine power and effectiveness

    • We encourage dynamic creativity resulting in diverse congregational composition, language and organizational structures in order to fulfill Christ’s desire to reach all people.

  • We are committed to: Lost People

    • Therefore:

    • We allocate a disproportionately large amount of energy and resources to reaching lost people, disciplining them to maturity in and devotion to Christ.

  • We are committed to: Missions

    • Therefore:

    • We give priority to world evangelization

    • We give priority in our missionary activity to evangelizing those people who have had the least opportunity to hear the gospel, thus expediting the return of Christ

  • We are committed to: Leadership

    • Therefore:

    • We intentionally identify and train godly leaders

    • We affirm and empower our pastors, other credentialed workers and lay leaders, esteeming them highly in the Lord

  • We are committed to: Strategic Cooperation

    • Therefore:

    • We serve each other with humility and compassion

    • We create strategies, structures and policies that enhance local initiative and maximize cooperation in the accomplishment of our purpose

    • We develop strategic partnerships with those of like-minded message, mission, passion and purpose

  • We are committed to: Social Responsibility

    • Therefore:

    • We uphold Biblical justice

    • We minister to the poor and oppressed as ministry to Jesus Himself

    • We encourage and strengthen marriages and families

  • We are committed to: Stewardship

    • Therefore:

    • We view all our resources and possessions as God-owned and we use them with integrity, accountability and maximum effectiveness.

    • We embrace faithfulness and sacrifice in the advance of Christ’s kingdom

  • We are committed: Prayer

    • Therefore:

    • We do nothing until we pray.

FINANCIAL PLANNING

Fund raising:

• • Internally: Support from our members via pledges, tidings and offering.

  • Externally: through website and other media forms, other churches and ministries interested in supporting outreach to Muslims and Persians via preaching and communication (letters, emails etc.), and special events.

 TARGET & DEMOGRAPHIC

Please see the attached 2009-2012 financial spread sheets. See Appendix A.

• • Since 2009 our monthly offerings have been increasing

  • As we are an autonomous church, we will be budgeting for expenses and be limiting and/or changing past spending amounts.

  • Based on the trend of monthly tithing and offering in previous years, our projected church monetary total for 2012 will be similar to previous years.

Please note that 98% of our members are first generation immigrant Muslim converts. Tithing/offering are not a common practice among Muslims. As such, much Biblical teaching and preaching on tithing is necessary for our members to understand the importance of giving. Based on our experience, giving is directly correlated with spiritual growth and maturity.

 

In conclusion, we would like to extend our appreciation to Bayview Glen to allow us to remain at this strategic location and share our vision to reach and evangelize to the Persian speaking community.