My name is Ben Beland. I grew up in a Christian family in Quebec, Canada. God, through the help of an IMB missionary, led me on a mission trip doing disaster relief after the devastating 2017 hurricane season. During this time, my wife, Katheryn, and I met while we were both serving in Puerto Rico. We now have three kids: Albert (3), Theophilus (2), and Augustine (2 months). With God’s grace, I will graduate from dual enrollment at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary this May with an Masters in Missiology and a MDiv in Church Planting.
I currently serve as a church planting intern at NorthWoods Church in Evansville. NorthWoods Church celebrated two decades of ministry last year and has a heritage of sending and planting 10 churches while supporting numerous other churches. Supplanting this, our passion for missions and our connection with practitioners around the globe. Several mission trips are organized every year with the intent of reinforcing our partnership with these kingdom workers. Each mission trip is intentionally suited to the needs of the locals; evangelism, pastoral training, or related to community needs.
However great is this missional mindset, no result in this area would be possible without the intentional evangelism and discipleship emphasis for all our church members. Based on the Scriptures, our Mission statement “Making Disciples Who Make Disciples” is put into practice. Over the years, our elders have constantly been at work to clarify and make this process easy to integrate. Recently, the staff redefined what discipleship looks like at our church. A disciple is now considered as one who Loves Jesus, Learns from Jesus, Lives like Jesus, and Leads others to Jesus. Each year, a new display in the lobby is encouraging our members to invite people to church and to meet Jesus. Through this, numerous people in the last years have come to believing faith in Jesus as Savior and King in their lives through this emphasis. The culture of the congregation has grown into becoming a discipleship-grounded church which is exciting to see.