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Missionfest Manitoba, this year, will be at Church of the Rock in Winnipeg from February 6th to 8th (2026), and our theme will be Who is this King of Glory? This is taken from Psalm 24.
We believe strongly that all missions, in fact the whole Christian life, is founded on who God is as revealed in Jesus Christ. We will be exploring some of the paradoxes in God’s character (such as His uncompromising righteousness and unfailing love) and how that all is essential in moving us to “declare and display Christ together”. The earth is the LORD’s, and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell in it Ps. 24:1 In Thai, the translation for “the LORD” is “the One who is the owner.” Again and again in the Bible, we see these claims to God’s rightful ownership of everyone and everything because He is the One who created it all. When we come to a greater understanding of who this God of all creation is, we will see this Mission of God as Good News. We have a great slate of plenary speakers for Missionfest Manitoba 2026: Jason Mandryk (Operation World), Aaron Pierce (Steiger International and speaker at MFM ’24), Dr. Mary Ho (International Director for All Nations International) and Dr. Timothy Tennent (former President of Asbury College). Aaron Pierce will speak at After Hours, and Danny MacKay will speak for the Youth Event. We hope you’ll join us for Missionfest 2026, February 6th to 8th at Church of the Rock in Winnipeg!  Missionfest in Steinbach! Missionfest Manitoba will be holding their first Free Boost event in Steinbach on Saturday, November 1 from 9 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Daniel Krebs (Christian Fellowship Church), Arley and Janice Lowen (OM) and Sammy Bernard (MAF) will be our main speakers, and we will have several breakout workshops, representatives from several ministries, great worship music from Danny Plett (morning and afternoon) and a youth/young adult praise and worship service featuring Free Servant in the evening. Come join us and see how you are Empowered for a Purpose!
Schedule: 9 a.m. Doors open 10 a.m. Main session with Pastor Daniel Krebs and Danny Plett 11:30 a.m. Breakout Workshops, featuring: Andy Smith (OMF Philippines) Communicating the Gospel Cross-Culturally Howard and Kathy Weir The Ripple Effect of Christian Camping Peggy Kauffman Prayer: Making a Difference from Home Dave and Sharon Dickey Welcome to Our Home 12:30 p.m. Lunch 2 p.m. Main session with Arley and Janice Loewen and Danny Plett 3:30 p.m. Breakout Workshops, featuring: Carl Loewen (SBC) Travis Plett Hope and Purpose in an Empty World: Reaching the Next Generation Kody and Amy Friesen Creative Pathways: Art and Storytelling to Middle Easterners 7 p.m. Praise and Worship Service, featuring Free Servant and Sammy Bernard There will be representatives from Avant, Evangelical Mennonite Conference, the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, Ethnos, Frontiers, MAF (maybe even with their flight simulator!), OM, OMF Canda, One Hope Canada, Wycliffe and YWAM Island Breeze. (And more???) A prayer team will be available!  Congratulations to Leslie Yan, winner of our contest to develop the logo for Missionfest Manitoba 2026! We had over a dozen submissions, and it was incredibly difficult to choose a winner. Leslie will now be designing posters and invitation cards for the event. Well done, Leslie!!!
Missionfest Manitoba, this year, will be at Church of the Rock in Winnipeg from February 7th to 9th (2025), and our theme will be How Shall They Hear? This is taken from Romans 10.
We all long to see our friends, our family, our co-workers, our neighbours all come to know the Lord, as well as people from around the world. We long to see them know His grace, His love, His hope, and of course His salvation. In Romans 10, Paul sets out this reverse set of conditions for people coming to faith: “All who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. But how shall they call upon the One in whom they’ve not believed? And how shall they believe in the One of whom they’ve never heard? And how shall they hear if nobody goes and preaches, proclaims this Good News to them? And how shall they go and proclaim this Good News if they are not sent? As it is written: ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring Good News.’” However, Paul points out in verse 16 that not everybody who hears this Good News comes to faith for various reasons. What are these reasons? We’re going to explore these reasons at Missionfest ’25. One possible reason for people not coming to faith would be access: They never get a chance to hear the gospel! And that’s true for up to a third of the world’s population. Another possibility is that the gospel is proclaimed, but it’s not proclaimed clearly, in a way that people can understand. Or perhaps another obstacle is that the lives of the messengers are inconsistent with the truth of the gospel. Another possible obstacle is the conditions, the context for these people and how they live: poverty, persecution, even affluence can affect how a person responds to the gospel. Just consider the parable of the soils and the sower. And, of course, there’s one more obstacle: the obstacle of the cross itself, which Paul in 1 Corinthians notes that to some is foolishness and to others is a stumbling block. Of course, this is not an obstacle that we remove, but that we overcome through prayer and trust in the Holy Spirit. One of our speakers is Brian Hogan, who was at the beginning of the church in Mongolia in the early 1990’s. Another speaker is Nard Pugyao. Nard comes from the Philippines, and he lived in a village that had no access to the gospel until missionaries came to translate for his people. And another speaker is Andrew Goodman, who works among the Shan in Southeast Asia. We hope you’ll join us for Missionfest 2025, February 7th to 9th at Church of the Rock in Winnipeg. Come and hear, so that they can hear.  On behalf of the Missionfest Board, we are so very thankful for the incredible engagement we had for our Missionfest Manitoba 2024 weekend! We would like to make you aware that we are looking for individuals who would be willing to put their name forward as a candidate to serve on the Missionfest Board. We are looking for individuals who have a heart for missions and seek to fulfill the great commission (Matthew 28:19-20). If you believe you have the gift to serve in this role, or know someone who does, we would be glad to hear from you. The Missionfest Board is a Policy Governance board, which means that our Board is not a working Board. The Board engages the services of an executive director, (currently that person is Tim Noble) and that individual provides overall management leadership. Our Board meets four times a year. If this opportunity piques your interest, would you prayerfully consider reaching out to [email protected] with questions, or fill out the application form below to submit your name for consideration. We would love to hear from you! Cindy Friesen, Chair Missionfest Manitoba  “And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left – and also many animals?” – Jonah 4:11 “Should I not be concerned?” God’s concern, His pity, His love for those He has created, moves Him to act. He loves the world so much that He sent Jesus to die on the cross to redeem us from our sin. He has room in His great heart for all the pain and suffering of our world and has promised that He is making all things new (Rev. 21:5). As we wait for that great day when every tear will be dried, He calls us to be engaged in His work as ministers of reconciliation. Implicit in the rhetorical question, Should I Not Be Concerned? is another question: Should we not be concerned? Jonah reluctantly went to Nineveh to bring God’s urgent message to repent; Will we be concerned enough to respond to God’s call?
Bob Pierce, missionary to Korea, said, “Let my heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God.” Will we allow our hearts to be so broken, and to delight in the things that delight His heart? The theme for Missionfest Manitoba 2024 will be Should I Not Be Concerned? Each plenary session will focus on a different area of concern: The Unreached. The Newcomer. Global Youth. The Poor and Vulnerable. The City. Much can be said about each of these, but I’d like to say a few words about that last topic, lest I be misunderstood. Should I Not Be Concerned for the City? is not exclusive of God’s concern for those in rural areas. I am very aware of the problem of “perimeteritis” in Manitoba, and am working to build bridges with the churches outside Winnipeg. However, the influences of urbanization, migration, globalization and technology have left none of us untouched, and it seems the Church is just waking up to the reality that the future of missions must take the city into consideration. Dr. Timothy Keller was a pioneer in advocating for the Church’s concern for the City, and with his recent passing we have decided to dedicate the Sunday afternoon session to his memory. I hope you will join us for the weekend of February 2-4, 2024 as we gather in celebration of His concern for the world and His call for us to join Him in His concern. Grace and Peace to you. Tim Noble Executive Director, Missionfest Manitoba  Missionfest Manitoba is delighted to introduce Tim Noble as our new Executive Director. Tim is very familiar with Missionfest, having served on the Board as well as being an exhibitor.
Tim has extensive experience in missions both overseas and in Canada. He has been a member of OMF International since 1996, with 20 years of experience in Thailand and now serving on the Community Engagement Team as its Deputy CE Team Leader. Adding to this, Tim is the Regional Coordinator for the Perspectives course for Manitoba, as well as serving on the national administrative team and helping with the nationwide virtual Perspective courses. You can quickly see why we are so blessed to have someone with Tim's demonstrated passion for missions in general and specifically for Missionfest Manitoba by providing overall leadership to this initiative to see the cause of missions advanced in Manitoba and across Canada. Tim will formally take on his new role March 1, 2023. In the meantime he will be shadowing Tom Castor, our current Missionfest Executive Director, to ensure a seamless handing off of the baton. Tim, along with his team, will be taking over an organization which Tom along with his team has worked tirelessly to not merely maintain, but to move Missionfest to a new level of excellence and broadened its impact through having virtual sites for the Missionfest weekend. Church leaders and mission influencers can look forward to hearing from Tim or reach him at [email protected]. Serving together for His glory, Shannon Silvestri Chair  A bit over thirty years ago, I sat in a course in linguistics in which the professor frequently reminded us that, “there is no such thing as a true synonym.” By the time we had finished the course, we were convinced as well. However, there are times when a good synonym (or related word) is the only thing that helps someone “get the picture.” The theme for Missionfest Manitoba 2023 is Holy Ambition. I have been asked by more than one person to explain the choice. Let me walk you through how the theme developed in my head. I was reading in Romans and came to chapter 15 and verse 20 where Paul uses the phrase, “thus I make it my ambition.” In the next phrase, he explains the focus of that ambition: “to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named…” Of course, anyone who has kicked around in the missionary world knows that verse well. But what I found interesting on that day was the use of the word “ambition.” Let me explain. If you grab your concordance off the shelf you will find that, when the word ambition shows up in English translations, it is almost always a bad thing. The underlying word in the N.T. documents leans heavily that way. That is why most translators add the word “selfish” to qualify it. In Walter Elwell’s Topical Analysis of the Bible, he puts “ambition” at the top of his long list of Sins of Self-Indulgence. One commentator of another era infers that “ambition” was the original sin (Gen. 3:4-6). But the English word “ambition” is used as a translation for two different Greek words in the New Testament text. One is without exception something God wants us to avoid. That is why the word “selfish” often tags along with it (Php 1:3; 2:3; Jas 3:14; 3:16). The other is what Paul uses in Romans 15 (and two other times in his letters). That kind of ambition is a good thing. It shows up in the Romans passage attached to Paul and preaching to the UUPGs (unengaged, unreached people groups). It appears in 2 Corinthians 5:9 and speaks of Paul’s personal aim to please Christ (knowing that he will someday appear before the judgment seat of Christ). And again, it shows up in 1 Thessalonians 4:11 where he urges the Thessalonian believers to aspire to live quiet lives as they wait for the second coming of Jesus. Open a parallel New Testament and you will see that translators have used a variety of words to express this more positive idea of ambition: to aim, to set as one intent, to aspire, to intend, to labour, to strive restlessly. In one translation, Paul’s encouragement to the Thessalonians reads, “do everything you can do.” No one will argue that there aren’t bad ambitions. Sometimes, even missionaries can come down with a case of those. However, holy ambition, animated by a desire for God’s glory, is honorable, noble, admirable – and energizing. These good ambitions are not only important, but without them, nothing much happens. This holy ambition, this zeal, led Paul to fasten his sandals and head into a storm (2 Cor. 11:24-28), to risk prison, to be willing to expose his back to the rod, to spend sleepless nights so people might know about Jesus. And he did not choose a simple task. “To go where Christ has not been named” meant that he intended to go where the Gentiles were. His driving aspiration, his restless longing, his strong ambition, was to find the people who were unfamiliar with Christ, the Messiah and share good news -THE Good News. Ambition: to aim, to set as one intent, to aspire, to intend, a goal to which one’s passion is attached. The synonyms all hint at something soulish. But there is more, and we must not miss it. Embedded in this word ambition is action. When I am infected with this strain of ambition, I am not satisfied to rest with the emotion that such a thing may stir up within me. True ambition will lead me to do something, to act. I will learn, plan, strategize, prepare, and eventually, I will strap on my boots, pick up a map, sling a backpack over my shoulders, and do something. This holy ambition may attach itself to a people group, or a place, or a problem. But, if it is the ambition Paul describes, it will faithfully pursue its objective until, with God’s help, it has made a difference.  Written by Tom Castor,
Executive Director of Missionfest Manitoba Inc.  Missionfest Manitoba is looking for a new Executive Director to lead following the 2023 Missionfest event. The current Executive Director and Board of Directors have put together a job description and application that is available here:
Executive Director Job Description Please submit your résumé and other requested documents to the attention of: Shannon Silvestri, Missionfest Manitoba Board Chair at [email protected] In the meantime, please be praying along with us that God will bring us the right person to lead Missionfest Manitoba into the future. |
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Church of the Rock
1397 Buffalo Place
Winnipeg, MB
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