The Key to Greater Impact | Trinity Talks Podcast

Hello, everyone, and welcome to this week's episode

of Trinity Talks. My name is Kyla, and I am so

glad that you are joining us today. And I am

also so glad to have Scott Cochran here. Scott

works with World Vision, who is, of course, a

partner of Trinity Streetsville. And so, yeah,

we're really glad to hear from you and to get

to learn your story a little bit more. Thanks,

Kyle. It's really good to be here. You know,

I mentioned in the service today that. My initial

connection with this church was over 25 years

ago. So there's always been a little piece of

me here, even though I'm from British Columbia.

I've got a very special place in my heart to

Trinity, not only because of World Vision, but

just my own story is often intersected here.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. So maybe do you want to

start by just giving a little bit of an introduction

to sort of who you are, what your work is, what

brought you to World Vision? Sure. Well, so again,

my name's Scott. I'm from BC and I have been

in ministry work most of my adult life, but that

wasn't the direction I was going down. Okay.

In fact. I hope this is okay to say to a lot

of people who are in Ontario, but I'm such a

sports guy. And because I'm from BC, I wanted

to work in media and I want to do anything to

do with the Vancouver Canucks or the BC Lions.

That was my thing. So I studied in university

and communications and I got jobs in media and

so on. I had no intention whatsoever of being

in ministry. But things just kind of happened.

I ended up starting a marketing business. And

one of my early, I guess you'd call it pro bono

accounts, was a ministry that would eventually

be called the Willow Creek Association. And after

that, it became known as the Global Leadership

Network. And it was all about supporting churches

through leadership development. And that's probably

the first place I would kind of park in terms

of who I am is I'm a local church guy. I just

love the local church. And I love to see her

flourish in all that God wants to do in and through

the church. And so I worked in that ministry

for more than 20 years. And for a part of that

time, for about 12 years, my wife and I lived

in Chicago. That's where this ministry was based.

But we came back to BC. Our kids were getting

married. They were getting grandkids and all

this kind of stuff. We thought, okay, it's time

to go back there. Now, during those years, I'd

always been closely connected to World Vision

because there was also a big chunk of my heart

that was involved with World Vision. We partnered

together. We did lots of things together. So

when I moved, back to bc they asked hey do you

think you could help us out here as well and

what kind of sealed the deal for me is they wanted

to me to play the role of helping connect World

Vision and the resources and the opportunities

with World Vision with churches across Canada.

Sure. I said, hey, if this is going to help churches,

I'm in. You're right. So it finally all came

together just earlier this year, earlier in 2025.

And so I remain based in British Columbia. Right.

But of course, our office is not far from Trinity

Church right here in Mississauga. So I come out

here quite a bit. And as I mentioned, when I

do as often as I can, I try to get to Trinity.

This is a wonderful partner church with World

Vision and it's just a wonderful church. Yeah.

Yeah. So can you tell us a little bit more about

like your faith journey and how this sort of

move from sports into church leadership? And

yeah, what was Jesus doing in your life through

all of that? I love how every one of us have

a unique faith story. And God can intersect us

at any part of the journey. I was one of the

people that I consider very blessed to have been

raised in a household of faith. In fact, my whole

world was faith when I was a child growing up.

I probably didn't know. Until I was about 12

or 13 years old that there were people who were

not Christians. Sure. Because my whole world

was a very insulated sort of bubble. Yep. But

I think I gave my life to the Lord when I was

a child. But something very profound happened.

It was initially tragic, but God used it for

good. And that was when I was about eight years

old, my father died. And my mother was 30 years

old. And now found herself with five children

all under the age of 10. Yeah, that's a lot.

That's a lot. That's a lot when you're married,

never mind when you're on your own. Yeah. And,

you know, I didn't even realize, I don't think

that the impact of that, because when you're

a child, it's all about you anyways. Sure. Later

on, I remember when my own daughter turned 30,

I said, oh my goodness, that's my mom when she

lost her husband. You know, we were all these

little kids. But here's where the intersection

of the church story comes in. So again, I was

already a person of faith, even as a child. But

the way the church rallied around us and protected

us and preserved us was something beautiful.

And I think God used that to imprint something

in my heart, not out of payback, but I realized.

the beauty of the local church. There's an expression

that I came to learn later in life that was,

there's nothing like the local church when the

local church is working right. And so in some

way, I don't know that I ever formally declared

it, but I knew in my heart, I wanted to dedicate

my life to seeing the local church flourish.

And I think it started when I was a child for

that thing. And so I've been able to do that

through the Global Leadership Network and now

through World Vision as well. You know, I had

another, I guess, experience that helped confirm

my journey into World Vision. Sure. In 2023,

so I was still working with the Global Leadership

Network, I was taken as a guest by World Vision

into northern Uganda. And I got to see the work

they were doing there, particularly through Chosen,

which is part of the way they do sponsorship.

And to make a very long story short, I had a

really profound experience with the Lord there.

And again, with no idea, no knowledge that I

would ever actually work with World Vision. But

I knew two things. First of all, that what World

Vision is doing, there needs to be more of it

because I could see this impact is profound.

You know, the impact that Trinity Church is having

through World Vision in Honduras. It's profound.

But I also knew this is that any church. who

gets involved in this is going to be changed.

Any church that gets involved with World Vision

in doing this kind of work, God will work in

and through that to help that church to flourish.

And because in my heart of hearts, I'm a church

guy, right? That really softened me up. And so

by the time World Vision invited me to come in,

I think God had already prepared the soil in

a sense. And I say, yeah, I could see myself

helping out because I've seen the work for myself

and what that can mean for the local church.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. So when you think about

the way that World Vision works, both with Canadian

churches and with international churches, like

what what does that look like for a local church?

I think one of the there are, of course, a number

of ways that that World Vision can serve churches.

I think I'd start with the posture we have. And

I always say is we serve churches with a white

serving towel over our forearm. You know, we

are committed to seeing the local church flourish.

And so we want to do everything we can. to see

that happen. Now there are various programs and

offerings. We have the, the global six K for

water is, is one, the 30 hour famine. Often youth

groups will do things like this as well. But

I think where we're really seeing God work through

world vision to help churches flourish is through

chosen. So the traditional sponsorship model,

of course, is where a church decides, yes, we

want to sponsor some children in Honduras or

in Uganda or in Kenya or wherever the case may

be. And through that. they will get some pictures

taken of some children in that country. Those

pictures are sent to the local church here in

Canada. And then in the fellowship hall or some

room in the church, the people of the church

who want to participate, they choose a child

and say, that's the one that we want to sponsor.

What World Vision now does through Chosen, though,

is it flips the script on that. And instead,

what happens is when a church in Canada says,

yes, we want to support a village in, Honduras

through, uh, through sponsorship. What happens

now is that those pictures of those children

are not sent to the Canadian church. Instead,

the people in the church who want to participate

in Canada, their pictures are taken and they

are sent to the village in, let's say Honduras.

Okay. Now the children in that village, they

go into the town hall of their village and they

see these pictures of these Canadian families

and they choose their sponsor. And, you know,

the sense of empowerment that provides for children

is really profound. Yeah, for sure. One of the

best definitions, I think, that I've heard for

poverty is poverty is the inability to make choices.

See, when you're a person of wealth, you can

make many choices. Where do I want to live? What

do I want to do? What do I want to eat? Where

do I want to vacation? The more you go down the

poverty funnel, in a sense. Yep. When you're

at the poorest point, you don't have many choices

at all in terms of what you're going to eat or

where you're going to go. You have almost no

choices. So when a child for whom that is their

experience, they've simply lived not ever recognizing

that they can make choices. Now they know that

they can actually choose their sponsor in Canada.

That's a profound experience for that child.

It's also a profound experience for that family

in the church in Canada. Right. Because, and

I've been there, my wife and I, we sponsor children

through World Vision in the Chosen program. And

there is nothing like the experience of sending

your pictures off and then wondering and waiting

and praying. Sure. Are we going to be chosen?

Sure. And then you find out, like in our case,

there were two boys in Honduras, in our case.

that chose us. And when we opened the envelope

that had a letter from these boys and they said,

we've chosen you to be our sponsors and here

are the reasons why, based on what we saw in

your picture and so on. It's a profoundly moving

experience and it makes a... tremendously deep

heart connection between us, the person in Canada,

and those children in the other part of the world.

So that's one of the, I think, the most compelling

ways that churches in Canada can get involved

with World Vision is to explore the possibility

of chosen. You know, I met with a pastor not

long ago, and I asked him about his own church's

connection with global missions work. And all

he said was, I understood this. He wasn't being

critical. He says, all we do is write checks.

I wish we could do more, you know? And of course,

writing checks is an expression of wonderful

generosity and that matters. But what he longed

for, for his congregation, I think many pastors

long for this, is to connect the hearts of his

people in his church with the hearts of the people

where they're serving kind of thing. Totally.

And Chosen facilitates that. Chosen through World

Vision. allows a church to not only support a

wonderful work, a transformative work in a community

in another country, but it can knit the hearts

of the congregation in Canada with the hearts

of the people they're serving over there. And

that can be transformative for that village overseas.

And it's transformative for the people and for

the church here in Canada. Totally. Totally.

Yeah. And what about like, so you talk about

being a local church guy, like the local church

internationally, like how does World Vision work

with? A local church in Honduras or Uganda or

wherever. Well, World Vision, let's start right

there, is a what I would call it's a Christ centered

organization. OK, so we work all over the world.

But at the heart of everything we do is the gospel.

The heart of everything we do is the lordship

of Christ. That will have different expressions

depending on where we are. OK, so in a country

that is. and receptive to the Christian faith,

then we will work and empower local churches

wherever we go. We'll work and empower local

churches to help in the distribution of the resources

and so on. So we are committed to partnering

with local churches. But it has to be acknowledged

as well that World Vision serves the poor in

places where Christianity is not welcome. And

in those contexts, we have to be respectful to

that culture as well. We are still in our hearts

doing this in the name of Jesus. But we won't

risk the work that we're doing in these communities,

in countries where the Christian faith is not

welcome. We won't jeopardize that by inappropriately

proselytizing, for example. So the heart of World

Vision. The very center, the essence of World

Vision is that it's Christ -centered. Christ

is our motivator for all that we do. And in Christian

-friendly countries, we will do that joyfully

with local churches. We will work with them.

We'll partner with them to see them empowered

as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah,

I think it's that sort of two -way transformation

that I think is so important about the work that

you're doing, right? That it is... And often

we think about generosity towards the poor and

saying, oh, well, I'm going to go help them.

Right. And like, give it, give it all so that

they can have a better life. But like when it's,

whether it's through this chosen and sort of

flipping the script or whether it's through some

other means, right. Like just the ability for

the Canadian church. to also be transformed by

this act of generosity is so important. You know,

we talked today in the service about God's economy

and that's one of the, what that's one of the

hallmarks, one of the distinctive features of

God's economy is multiple blessings. Right. And

so, yes, when I write a check every month or

my bank account comes out every month for a support

of, of world vision, my wife and I are blessed

by doing that. And my church who supports world

vision, is blessed by doing that. And the community

in Honduras who receives that, they're blessed.

So you see these multiple blessings happening

all over the place. You're quite right. It's

like everybody wins when you're in a kingdom

venture like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

So when you think about this work that you do

with World Vision, like what brings you the most

joy or what feels most meaningful to you in your

work? I appreciate you asking me. And again,

this is not going to be the official World Vision

answer. This is the Scott Cochran answer. OK,

that's good. Because I there's nothing better

than knowing that some child overseas is now

thriving. Right. There's nothing better than

knowing that a community overseas is now able

to provide fresh drinking water and sustainable

agriculture, for example. That fills my heart

with great joy. But as you asked me, if there's

the one thing that drives me. It's the local

church in Canada. And these are not easy days

to be a pastor in Canada. These are not easy

days to be involved in local church ministry

in Canada. And I just feel compelled in any way

possible to leverage the resources of World Vision

to help support, sustain the Canadian church

and to see her flourish. So that's really what

drives me. I wake up in the morning and one of

my first prayers is, Lord, can you use me today

to help the church in Canada to flourish? And

again, in God's economy, he's going to do that

by helping children overseas flourish and churches

overseas flourish and so on. But for me, it's

what can happen in the church in Canada. Yeah.

And I think one of the things that I have often

seen is local churches in the Canadian context,

in many contexts probably, but specifically in

the Canadian context, when they are thinking

outside of their walls. whether it's locally

or internationally, when they're thinking outside

of their walls, that's when life and flourishing

and joy happens. Absolutely. Right? Absolutely.

It is. You're right. It is a tough time to be

in local church leadership as a pastor or a lay

leader or whatever it is. But if you can get

your congregation thinking. Not just about their

decline, but thinking about, OK, how do we use

what we have, whether it's, you know, some minimal

financial resources, some people power, whatever

it is. How do we get that outside of our walls?

Absolutely. Yeah, it renews life. Absolutely.

And I think you painted that picture very well,

too, that often if you're a local church here

in Canada, if it's in a season of struggle right

now. We can become very inward focused and we

can become very, we'll put the walls up and we're

going to raise the drawbridge because we've got

to take care of ourselves. And yet God has still

put things in every congregation that he can

use to bless the community and to bless communities

overseas as well. You know, I often think of,

I think a good way for pastors and local lay

leaders in their church to look at things is,

you know, when Moses was unsure, how he was going

to stand up to Pharaoh, to let the people out.

He says, I'm nothing. I can't even talk very

well. I can't do anything. And God said to him,

okay, well, what's that in your hand? He said,

it's a staff. And God said, well, if you give

me that, I can use that. And I think that's the

posture we want to have in the Canadian church.

We may not have much, but God says to us, what

do you have? And you might say, well, we... We

have this congregation. You know, we have these

resources. We have whatever it is. We have a

building. We have a building. That's exactly

it. We have favor in the community. And just

as Moses says, well, you can use my staff. When

we say to the Lord, you can use all of these

things that we have. Well, now God's got something

that he can work with. And once again, those

multiple blessings follow. Totally. Yeah. Yeah.

So you've done this work with World Vision. You've

done all this work with the Global Leadership

Network. As you reflect on this sort of career,

how have you seen the impact of generosity like

sort of overflow? Is there a story or two you

can share with us as you think about what that

looks like? That's a very, very good question,

because all of these organizations. That I've

been a part of. The only reason they exist is

because God has tapped people on the shoulder

and asked them to give, asked them to support,

asked them to be generous, often very sacrificially

as well. When I sit down with people in across

Canada or around the world, I sometimes even

think that there is another chair in the conversation.

There's another chair there and that belongs

to the person. who provided some of the funds

to allow us to do what we're doing right now.

So generosity permeates just everything, everything

that we're doing. In the service today, I talked

about some experiences I've had in Burundi, which

is a small country in East Africa, and it has

the distinction of being the world's poorest

country. Often if someone's asked, what's the

world's poorest country, you might say Haiti

or Bangladesh or one of these places. The actual

answer is Burundi. I met a young man. He was

actually my interpreter in some of the teachings

I was giving over there. And he told me his story

of how he had lived in abject poverty. He's now

in university. He speaks multiple languages,

including English. his community has supported

him. So you talk about generosity. There's a

group of people who don't have much in themselves,

but they were willing to support this young man

in his education training. Well, when I asked

him what he wanted to do with that, he wants

to become, I think he called it an agricultural

engineer. He knows he'll have to go away out

of Burundi to continue his education, but his

plan is now to come back. and to improve the

agricultural sustainability of Burundi as well.

So you can see that cycle of generosity repeating

itself. The village was generous, and now he

in turn wants to be generous by coming back to

serve the community as well. And again, that

to me, that's a picture of how we talked about

in the service, how God's economy works, because

there is an ongoing growing cycle of generosity.

It starts here, but God says, I can use that

seed of generosity and I can grow it and multiply

it in ways that we can't even imagine sometimes.

Totally. Yeah. Yeah. It's that. I think I like

this sort of cyclical imagery of it, right? That

like sometimes we think if I give something away,

then like I'm done with it. It just goes out

there. But like it does come back around. Absolutely.

In God's time and in God's ways. Yeah. But every

gift God will bless. That's one thing we know.

We don't always know how, but God will bless

every gift. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So as folks are

sort of. listening to this conversation and thinking,

you know, maybe this sounds very inspirational,

but maybe it also sounds very challenging. And

there's probably some questions about like, how,

like, what does this look like? So if you were

to sort of think about that person who's asking,

okay, I want to lean into this posture of generosity,

but I don't know what that looks like. What would

you sort of say? So very practically here would

be my. My first answer, my first step on that,

I believe that our first giving responsibility,

if you like, is to the local church. OK, so wherever

you wherever a person receives their primary

spiritual nourishment, I believe that's where

giving begins. OK. And I would also say that

in a church like Trinity and many other wonderful

churches, when you're giving to a church like

this, you are also giving to the ministries that

support the community and even beyond as well.

So in other words, it's a safe bet when you invest

in a church like Trinity Church here in Streetsville.

So that's number one. Number two, and I'd pick

up on one of the themes that we mentioned in

the service today, and that is Jesus calls us

to sacrificial giving. not giving when all the

bills are paid at the end of the month. Sure.

You know, someone has told me that that's sort

of giving God a tip, you know, like all the obligations

are done. So here's my, here's my tip guide.

You did a good job this month, right? What Jesus

calls us to, and I think where the blessings

kick in is when we say, no, I'm going to give

sacrificially. You know, Jesus called it, Jesus

said in the parable we read today, sell your

possessions and give to the poor. Well, that

means it's our giving needs to come from a place

of sacrifice. It should actually, if we're going

to give to the poor, it should affect our lifestyles

somehow. Right. We should operate our lives differently

because we want to be generous to the poor. How

that. How that works, again, it can start with

your local church. Certainly a person can get

involved directly with World Vision, and there

are other wonderful agencies that do terrific

work as well. We never pretend to think that

World Vision is the only game in town. Sure.

But I do know that World Vision is a ministry

of... of impeccable integrity as well. And with

a track record of doing really, really good work.

So a person, if they're a part of Trinity, they

can certainly explore supporting World Vision

through Trinity. If a person is not necessarily

a part of Trinity, check to see if your own church

is already connected with World Vision. Sure.

And if not, go to the World Vision website, worldvision

.ca, and there's opportunities there to support

the work that we're doing. Yeah. Yeah. I think

one of the things that I, comes back to mind

for me and that I still sometimes struggle with

in this, you know, selling your possessions,

going and giving to God first is like, I've heard

sort of stewardship people talking about like,

you know, pre -authorized giving because that

forces, it takes the money out of your bank account

before you pay the other bills. Yeah. And just

thinking about how that is a really practical

step, but a really challenging step. Sure it

is. Right. That, that, yeah, it is. Yep. You

know, you asked about things practical. I think

we're coming into a season where we can get very,

very practical on this. Totally. And I'm not

just talking about Christmas. My wife and I,

we've been married for 40 years. And for 40 years,

we have sat down in the month of December to

make our household budget for the following year.

Sure. Okay. Here's what I know. If we don't put

generosity in our budget, it won't happen. Sure.

You know, life will just take over. Yep. For

us, one of the expressions of sell your possessions

is when we make our budget, our giving is in

there first. Right. So everything else gets built

around that and we follow that. So pre -authorized

giving is certainly a very practical digital

way to do that, you know, and I support that

fully. But I also think that as we're coming

into the December season, it's a good time for

all of us, even regardless of generosity, make

a good budget for your household kind of thing.

Make sure it makes sense. Yep. And in the heart

of that budget, trust God with the first line

to be, this is how generous we're going to be

this year. And God will honor that. God says

in scripture, test me in this. And sometimes

it can be very nerve wracking to say, oh my goodness,

if we put that much generosity into our budget,

what's that going to mean? God will take care

of you. And it does mean you know you've gotten

it right. when it does mean we've got to make

some changes in our lifestyle. One of the things

we talked about in the service is that, you know

what, we've got four streaming services, you

know, maybe we only need two. Sure. You know,

we go out for dinner four times a month. Maybe

we're only going to go out once or twice a month.

Sure. Because we've already committed in our

budget, we're going to be generous people. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a really practical

step. And it really, yeah, like you said, sort

of timely step as, as we think about, the Christmas

season, but then even beyond that, how we think

about setting ourselves up for the rest of the

year. Absolutely. We can decide right here and

right now. that 2026 is going to be our most

generous year ever. Sure. Right. And, but it

starts now because let's face it, once we get

into February, March, April, I'm not saying you

can't still be generous, but what an advantage

it is when you've already got a household budget

set up. Right, when you plan it all ahead. You

plan it out and you say, here it is. And by the

way, I would add too, it's very important that

it, that the preparation of that budget makes

sense financially, but also prayerfully. When

you bring, when we bring our household budget

before the Lord and lay it before him, we talked

in the service about open hands and say, Lord,

we're trusting you with our finances this year.

And it's reflected in the generosity we want

to have. God will honor that. Yeah. Yeah, for

sure. Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Scott. I

think this has been a really helpful conversation

just to like. hear some of your stories to get

a sense of the work that World Vision is doing,

but then also to sort of bring that home to how

this work. can be part of our lives, part of

our blessing ourselves and our community and

across the world. So thank you for your time.

Thank you very much. It's a real joy and privilege

to be back at Trinity. I've loved this conversation

with you. Yeah, thank you. And thank you for

tuning in to this week's episode of Trinity Talks.

I hope that through these stories and reflections,

you've been able to think about some ways that

you can begin to express generosity, whether

that is just through sharing with your neighbors

or through looking at your budget, whatever it

is. is, I pray that you can find those ways to

be generous. And I trust that God will bless

you in that. And we will see you again next week.