Navigating the Challenges of a New Season

AT THIS KAIROS TIME

(Published November 2nd, 2025)

This current season at Grace Woodlands is the most rewarding we have ever had… and the most challenging. This season is not just one open door, it is multiple open doors all happening at once. These are doors we didn’t come up with as good ideas; they are doors that God has opened… God ideas.

We didn’t choose these doors, they have chosen us. Our choice has been to decide if we were willing to be stretched on a number of fronts and step into what God was opening before us. While we have done our best to step into God’s story, doing so has always involved people who were willing to take that step with us. How grateful we are for all of you who are walking with us as God has begun a powerful new chapter for Grace Woodlands.

You can’t walk through the Life Centre or visit the Grace Garage (both facilities were very generous gifts) without being amazed at these incredible facilities the Lord has given us for ministering to women and families in crisis and the ability to transform our nation by training courageous pastors who will lead churches and plant new churches to impact their community through FORGE. Already 120 people have been involved in Forge training; whether taking one of the courses, the leadership training, Counter Culture intensives, internship, or the residency program. We have hosted several Grace International / Forge-related pastoral training and leadership groups where we would have had to provide hotel lodging and meals in the past. The same is true on the compassion ministry side, while we are also starting to have residential stays for a longer time. So far this year 139 people have stayed at the Life Centre. The Life Centre kitchen has been utilized for a number of GI/church/Forge events and multi day group stays. 2026 will see the residential part of the compassion ministries and Forge grow considerably which will increase our operating cost.

All of these open doors have come in the middle of our much-needed Cornerstone capital campaign to build a much larger worship center to accommodate the growth we have experienced and to make room for many more. You can’t park your car in the back parking lot without seeing the steel structure for our new worship center that will be erected soon, enabling us to minister to thousands more people than we do today. While we have experienced construction delays, they were largely due to cost-saving ideas our construction and design team came up with, enabling us to save millions of dollars in construction costs. I have some exciting things to share about this much-needed expansion of our facilities but need a few more weeks for some of the details to be firmed up. I will be giving you an update as soon as I have those.

I have learned over the years that God’s timing is generally never mine. And He always seems to add a little of the impossible to His story… so much so that you know you could never do this by yourself.

I want to give you my perspective on where we are. We knew that operating all of these different ministry opportunities that were opening to us would require significantly more income than we were currently receiving. While we do have some income that has been designated to operate these ministries, our general tithes and offerings have dropped by about the same amount. Overall, we are taking in about the same amount of income as we were before. While we have generally retained a modest reserve to carry us through an unforeseen shortfall, that reserve is now depleted.

With all that God is doing through all of our ministries at Grace, this doesn’t make sense. So many ministries and open doors, so many lives being impacted, so many stories of people's lives being transformed by the power of God, and our giving is stagnant. It doesn’t add up from human perspective. I have prayed often about this as I saw this predicament unfolding. Amazing ministry doors opening, but resource to fund them drying up with no reasonable explanation. I have witnessed this in the past when it seemed as if the only tactic the enemy had left to stymie the move of God was to attack the resources needed to finance what God was doing. I believe that is where we are. I can come up with no other explanation.

What we need is a breakthrough in provision. In order to maintain our present ministries and fund what God has opened to us, our monthly income must increase. If the enemy can’t get the church to implode by dissension, or get the leadership to fall morally in sin, he will attack the finances needed to further the Kingdom of God.

I am asking you to join Becky and me in giving in this season as generously as you can. I am asking those of you who have yet to become faithful tithers and givers to do so. I am asking everyone to consider the most generous year-end gift possible above your regular tithes and offerings. Year-end giving is very important to our budget every year, and especially this year as we face a considerable deficit. While increased giving will fund our ministries, the blockage we are now experiencing is also spiritual. Addressing that requires a people who understand the nature of the conflict and will pray and fast until breakthrough comes. Because of that, I am asking everyone to pray and to fast for breakthrough. We need this blockage broken spiritually so that the resources needed to fund every open door might be released for such a time as this… as the Scripture would say, an abundance for every good work.

With the growth we have experienced over the past few years, we have walked through a season of having an abundance for every good work, and we have shared that abundance with ministries all over the world. As we face this current shortfall in operating resource, we do so knowing that we have faithfully sown our seed in 130 nations around the world in extending God’s Kingdom to the ends of the earth. The planting of that seed puts us in a great place with our current need as the Scripture also says, that we will reap as we have sown, and it is God who supplies seed to the sower. Becky and I have lived that out for more than five decades. God has always been faithful.

What follows will show you where we currently stand in both giving income that funds all of our ministries and expenses year to date. You can see that this new season with all of the current open doors we are walking through has some large resource challenges. The need we have in funding is significantly larger than our current income. We have taken these steps in faith, believing that God has led us to embrace them. As Joshua and Caleb said when they surveyed the land for the first time… we are well able. Forty years later, Caleb would look at the mountain of challenge and say, give me this mountain.

FINANCIAL UPDATE
JANUARY–OCTOBER 2025

Income: $4,429,830

Expenses: $4,910,707

Deficit: -$480,877

Average Monthly Income (2025): $442,983
Projected Monthly Need (2026): $540,000
This allows the Life Centre compassion ministry and Forge to grow to 20 residents in each program. It would also fund 6 Counter Culture Intensives.

I am asking you to join Becky and me in facing these challenges together. We need many more financial partners to join us in providing the resources we need to meet the challenges of this strategic season.

Stepping into this awesome Grace story God is writing…
Partnering together with all of you…
Breaking through to resource-fullness…
Our greatest days are right before us!

Please join us in this great adventure that the Lord has opened to us…

Steve & Becky