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As a teenager, leader Kyle Harnett had what he describes as a radical moment with Jesus which sent him on a journey to study the Bible.
As a young man he set an industrious goal of reading over 30 chapters a day. As he read, he noticed patterns of God speaking to people through personal communication. This inspired him to begin to pray, “Lord, I want to hear Your voice,” and even borrow Samuel’s prayer, “Speak Lord, your servant is listening.” Eventually, Kyle learned to hear God through a still, small voice and impressions.
One day, Kyle heard an audible voice telling him that he would be an apostle to the city of Calgary - someone who would start up and send out churches and create a sort of missionary outpost. Along the way he discerned God’s call to undergo a church planting assessment, and after a year of apprenticeship at a church (actually, the church where he’d had his radical moment with Jesus), he planted what is today Capstone Church.
Today, Capstone meets in a dinner theatre in Calgary.
Their weekly Sunday meetings are comprised of about 150 people weekly, mostly in the 22-35 age bracket. The church is in a mixed income area - not technically downtown - but far more urban than most suburbs, and it is very dense in terms of population and diverse in terms of ethnicity.
Over this past summer, Capstone began experiencing a desire to deepen their roots, to pursue living face-to-face with God and being filled with His Spirit.
Through teaching, prayer, training and one-on-one discipleship, Kyle says, "The stuff you see on TV shows was happening. We were hearing from the Lord in ways we never had before: signs and wonders, physical healings … and we shared a powerful time of communion at the end of every week’s service. People were taking seriously the desire to be part of God’s family and crying out to him."
Kyle and Capstone are longing for a door of effective evangelism to open in dark neighbourhood.
There are many immigrants and lots of Islamic groups in the neighbourhood which makes for a fair amount of spiritual opposition - though skeptical Westerners are often as hard to reach as faithful Muslims.
When asked how to pray for Capstone, Kyle responded saying, “We need more leaders and wisdom. We need the Spirit of God to pour gifts out on church and that Jesus would bring actual people - a lot of experienced godly older people." Capstone is also sending out a new church this coming fall through an apprentice who has trained with them and whom Kyle has discipled for years.
Finally, Kyle says, "We just need more people to pray.”
From someone whose journey began with a passionate prayer to hear God speaking, to a church who is asking God to continue speaking to them, we would do well as a larger Christian & Missionary Alliance family to heed his words. Please pray with us for this New Venture.
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