Pastor Brodie Kalamen | Global | November 23rd, 2025

That's so well said, Josh, and what a legacy to have is uh a great ant.

Uh I d in order to fix a uh uh a radiator hose, you have to have pantyhose, Josh, which makes me question a lot of things.

We're so grateful to have everyone here today and uh to be sharing together on our Legacy Sunday.

Uh this is legacy season at KCC, and uh what an appropriate day because uh 42 years ago Carolyn was at our first service at KCC, and uh and now she's here, continues to be with us today, and so we are just so again so honored to have continue to do ministry alongside of you.

She told me not to say anything either, but it already got out of the bag, so I'm free and clear of any guilt for uh throwing honor on you.

That's what we do around here.

Uh I want to say that uh KCC is focused on the mission of leading the church forward, uh the church into the community, into the world, uh globally, and fostering a culture of generosity and planning our giving and planning it forward.

Uh I I want our church to be known to be a generous church.

I want I want to be known by my children and our community as a generous individual.

My dad was generous.

And so that becomes our output in our life is uh the generosity that goes into our living.

And you happen to be here today on our Giving Sunday for our legacy offering where we look to impact how our giving will impact uh the next and future generations.

Legacy giving is at KCC is about building financial strength for the church to ensure that it exists and thrives for generations to come.

The church at its origin 42 years ago was at the OK Corel.

And those of you who know, no one's gonna admit to knowing about the OK Corell, what's that?

I don't know what that is.

It's a it's a country bar downtown right now, and it happened to be one of the places that was open on a Sunday morning and available for service.

And so we started at that place, but because of the giving, because of the legacy mindset of the church, we are now here today, uh not only established in this community, but actually extending our influence around the world.

God is doing something expansive.

When we think of the world in context of the gospel, it was never intended to stay contained.

The gospel was never intended to be within me or in my family or in my home or just in my neighborhood.

It was intended to go global to the nations.

And this is the heart, a global vision is really a kingdom vision.

Jesus had a vision, God had a vision for the whole world.

And that same heart, it must exist in us if we have that same gospel-centric vision.

It reminds us that church is just bigger than us.

It speaks more languages than we do, it worships in different styles than we do.

We couldn't even dream of touching the places that we may never set foot in.

That's where the gospel can go.

And God's heart beats for people across every border, every language, every culture.

God cares for the whole world.

He's a global God.

The global God has a global gospel.

And the gospel, though it started in one small place, I'm reminded of how it started in the upper room with 120, spilled out of that upper room onto the streets, and went from Judea to Samaria to the ends of the earth.

The intention of the gospel is actually to move us, to be moved out of our place, to be moved out of our seat, to be moved out of these doors.

The Great Commission is to go into all the world, preaching the gospel, reaching others with the gospel message.

And we have now been able to have many different touch points in South America, in Mexico, in Africa, in Asia, in China, a global focus in Taiwan that reminds us that the gospel is still spreading.

Lost people matter everywhere.

We need to think global because God thinks global.

And in order to do this, we need to learn what it means to give beyond ourselves, to live a generous lifestyle.

The Bible encourages us to have a generous spirit.

It even promises us that the quality of our life will get better if we live generously.

Solomon in Proverbs, the wisest king of that time, he said, the world of the generous gets larger and larger, but the world of the stingy gets smaller and smaller.

I want to end my life not like a raisin.

I want to end my life full, full, generously giving and giving and giving.

How do you relate when it comes to money?

Resources, your time, your talent, your treasure.

How do you relate?

And I understand that whenever you talk about money, it's a personal thing.

And it becomes something that's uh that's self-uh self-identifying.

Uh, but what are you gifted at when it comes to money?

Some of you may let me give you some options here because I don't hear anything coming back at me overwhelmingly.

Some people are really good at spending.

Yeah, we got a few out there.

I heard of a little kid who got a hold of their mom's uh uh device and went on Amazon and bought 600 rolls of toilet paper.

Just a buy now, buy now, buy now, buy now.

What's a what's interesting to me is that Amazon didn't think that was abnormal to have that much toilet paper.

Some of you are really good at spending.

It's click now, buy now.

Others, uh, and our family's really good at it.

My wife is a Mennonite background, she's really good at bargain hunting.

Anyone else out there?

Like a good deal starts at 50% off, and it works its way.

She's good at price matching, she's good at finding a deal.

Um, she's she's really good that way.

How many are good at saving?

I've talked to people who have envelopes.

They make a little money, they put it in the envelope.

They're storing, they're collecting, they're saving.

And but what's interesting, and you're gonna feel like I set you up because I did.

There's not a single Bible verse that says that we should be great at spending.

There's not a single Bible verse that says that you should be good at bargain hunting.

There's not a single Bible verse that says you should be good at storing up treasures and material goods for yourself.

There is, however, many scripture that says that we should be really good and great at giving.

Jesus exemplified this message.

2 Corinthians 8, verse 9.

2 Corinthians 8:9

It just, if you read it fast, you won't capture it.

But if you read it in point here, it says, For you know the grace.

How many of you know the grace of God?

The grace, the amazing grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that this was his grace, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you, through his poverty, might become rich.

How did he do it?

He took his richness and he gave it generously to you so that you through him would become rich.

It's the greatest point of wealth transfer that we could have ever experienced.

They're saying today is the greatest wealth transfer in generations, but I would say 2,000 years ago, there was a massive, massive transfer from life, we gave him our death, and he gave us life.

We gave us our he gave him our temporal, he gave us eternal.

We gave us him our sickness, he gave us his health.

We gave him our shame, he gave us his joy.

There was massive wealth transfer.

The scriptures related to Paul speaking to the church in Corinth, and he's challenging them.

He says, You gotta be generous, and you gotta be generous like Jesus.

And he didn't dumb it down at all, he didn't pull back at all, and he didn't use a poor example or a small example.

He used the greatest example.

He says, Champion this message, give it all, live generous, give your life.

We're gonna give, we have to have a plan to give.

And he said to the church in Corinth, he says, You guys started so well.

You started but you stopped.

You had great intention, but that intention began to wane over time, and you've lost yourself.

Giving is actually very, very, very spiritual.

A lot of people will say, going to a prayer meeting is spiritual, going to a worship meeting is spiritual, listening to a message is spiritual, serving is spiritual, giving is a spiritual act.

It's actually a ministry when you give.

2 Corinthians 8 7 says, Since you excel in so many things, he was saying to the church in Corinth, he says, you excel in so many great things.

In your faith, your gifted speakers, you've got great knowledge, you've got great enthusiasm and your love from us, like we just you excel, you're over the top, you're world class in all these areas, and I want you to excel also in the gracious ministry, the gracious act of giving.

Excel, be world-class givers, find ways, structure ways, look for ways to give.

Give, give, give.

And if you're like me, you have had great intentions and desires to be that kind of giver.

But sometimes the pressure of life pulls back that desire.

I've had those thoughts about it.

I've wanted to do it, and and there have been times in my life where I didn't follow through with it.

And it happens to all of us, and Paul's saying to the church in Corinth, the same way he'd speak to us today, he says, You're a great church, you're a powerful church, you've got great enthusiasm, you've got great excellence, you've got great faith, you see great things happen in your church, you're reaching out, you've got great knowledge, but now become great at giving.

It's your spiritual act, and the reality is that you'll never ever become more like God than when you are giving.

When you are giving, you will become like God, you'll identify with God.

He gave, for God so loved the world that what did he do?

He gave his most sacrificial, his most loved.

He was a giver.

And when we give, we actually identify with God in his spirit.

That same spirit that was in him begins to identify itself in us.

We know that no one becomes great at giving by accident.

No one walks up to the piano and just begins to play.

No one uh bakes the perfect sourdough loaf.

I've learned that.

You have to plan, you have to be strategic about what you want to excel at.

You take time to learn it.

And no one accidentally becomes irrationally generous because we're naturally selfish.

How many of you would identify with selfishness?

No one likes to identify with that.

I was out the other day with at a family uh event, I forget what the last holiday of Remembrance Day.

And uh my little nephew is four years old, and we're talking about Christmas upcoming, and he was saying, we were we were kind of talking about gift exchanges and who's gonna get what and how we're gonna do this for Christmas.

And he's sitting there as a little four-year-old looking up, and he's like waiting to get your attention, and in the like he can barely hold his tongue back in the front, and he's like, um, um, um, um, um, and we were like, Yes, he goes, and I want a blue jays hat for like he's just throwing it out there, it's all about what I want.

And some of you were like, Yeah, that's what happens when you're four years old, you know, you have to deal with that selfish spirit.

But let me tell you, we are all naturally selfish, and I can prove it to you.

When you stand in a group photo, and that photo's taken, and the person shows you the photo, who do you zoom in on first?

Yourself.

Why?

The photo could be great if everyone, no one goes to the photo and goes, Oh, you look so good at this photo.

I know I you kind of caught me with my mouth open, my eyes closed, but you should keep it because it's awesome.

No, you want to make sure you're standing the right way and you're situated and your best side is out.

You want it to be the best photo, and it doesn't matter about anyone else, you don't even know about anyone else on the photo.

You don't even know who else is in there.

You just want your picture to look the best when you see it, because there's that natural part of you that thinks of self.

And as a Christian, we're supposed to take self off the throne of our heart and put Christ on the throne in our life, and we're supposed to say, Lord, what do you want us for us?

What have you given us?

I was so reminded today that we live like in worship.

There was a moment I just I felt God speak to me.

He was like saying, Brody, it's like the veil between heaven and earth is so thin.

Can you almost see through it?

Can you see through it?

Like heaven and earth are coming close, and in these moments you can sense heaven and earth, like you can sense God's presence.

That's the heart when we're giving, we get to that point where we identify with heaven, we connect with heaven.

Isaiah 32, 8 says this generous people, generous people plan to do what is generous, and they stand firm in their generosity.

Generous people, would you say plan?

Plan to do what is generous.

And would you say stand?

They stand firm in their generosity.

I love this.

If you want to be like God, you have to plan to be generous.

You have to stand firm in your generosity.

I know a lot of people don't plan particularly generosity.

They carry a little bit of money and maybe they give a little bit out of their change or what they've got on their on themselves.

I know a lot of people they'll plan their holiday, plan their vacation, plan what they're gonna eat after church, plan what they're doing with their weekend.

But do you plan your generosity?

Generous people plan their generosity.

And then they stand firm.

Giving is what we do, but generosity is who we are.

It's who we are, and there's a big difference.

So today, if we want to be generous, I'm gonna show you three qualities of generous people and pray that God will help us grow into these qualities.

The first is this generous people are people who give willingly.

Would you just say that?

Give willingly.

They're people who give proportionately, and they're people who give sacrificially.

Three different ways.

So let's start with the first one.

Generous people give willingly.

Would you say willingly?

Willingly.

How many of you put New Year's New Year's resolutions in place?

Did you finish them?

Paul's saying it's good for you to finish what you started.

Last year you were the first who wanted to give.

You were the first to begin doing it.

Now you should finish what you started.

Let the willingness or the eagerness you showed in the beginning be matched now by your giving.

Whatever you give is acceptable.

If you give it eagerly or willingly, give according to what you have, not what you don't have.

Generous people give willingly.

God isn't just concerned about the amount that you give, He's very concerned with the heart that which you give it.

Sometimes we can give with the wrong heart.

And we don't want to give with a half half heart.

So when I come to give, to live with a generous spirit, even before I come to the to the uh offering, I'm thinking, Lord, I'm planning to give.

And now I'm not just planning what I'm going to give, the number of what I'm giving.

I'm planning to position my heart as how I'm giving.

And so there can be a difference between someone who gives uh someone who gives a small gift versus a large gift.

You can give us you can give a small gift wrong or a large gift wrong dependent on your heart.

It's not about the gift, it's not about the size of the gift, it's about the the capability, the character and the value that your heart is bringing to the gift.

2 Corinthians 9 7 says that God loves a cheerful giver.

So when you go to give, you go with a smile on your face, not a not a I have to give this away.

And the seed the when they plant the seed in the ground, they're not they're not loathing the fact that they're losing the seed, they're giving with a cheerful heart because they know that the harvest is going to return.

And so the cheerful nature comes from seeing what it the harvest will become.

And when I come To give willingly, it's about not a have to, but that I get to.

I get to give.

Second of all, generous people give proportionately.

What do you say proportionately?

Out of their portion.

Generous people give in proportion to what they have.

One person can give ten dollars incredibly generous because it's what they have.

Another person a thousand dollars, and they know that it's not in proportion to what they have.

They're just it's it's quick for them, and it's not out of proportion, and it's not it's not proportional.

Because generosity is about giving in proportion to what you have.

Again, 2 Corinthians, Paul speaking to the Corinth church.

He says, give in a verse 8, uh, chapter 811, it says, give in proportion to what you have.

So the wonderful thing about giving in church, giving as a community, is not about comparison, it's about our heart and it's about our our capability.

And it's about celebrating one another.

Some go, some uh like I think about that story, Josh, about your great aunt, and I'm like, some people like she she didn't, it wasn't like it was a big job, it wasn't like she made money being out on the mission field.

She came back and like it wasn't, but she gave of her life proportionate, like she gave of herself.

Whenever we give, whatever you give is acceptable if it's done willingly, and you give according to the portion that you have.

Give in proportion to what God has given you, and it's a principle.

I we see it in scripture that the tithe is the portion of 10%, and we return this back to God, and many think that there's no way in that they can do that.

Um, they'd have to rearrange their entire life, and and instead, I think, Lord, help me to be able to put that first and prioritize that tithe, and then help me build my life around that priority.

How I can like begin to adjust my life so that I have the ability and the margin to be able to give.

How can you live generous when you don't have the margin to give?

Tithing has always been a part of my personal practice.

From when I was really young, my parents would give me a dollar to put in the offering, to teach me how to give, to teach me what it's like to give.

They gave me an allowance just to teach me how to tithe.

I was okay with that because 90% of it still stayed with me.

Right?

That's the proportional part.

When I look back at my life, I'm not sure how I was able to accomplish the things I've been able to do, but I truly believe that it's because honor you, when you honor God with your tithe and you honor His house, He takes care of your house.

That's right, that's true.

One of the uh this week I I met with some uh people who have been super generous with our organization here at the church and and the schools, and we're we're starting to build a building, and we're just rallying people together because it's a it's a big cause.

And one of the people I was sitting with at my table, I reminded them of a time where they uh sold a company, and they sold one of their companies, and he literally chased me down.

He said, Listen, you have to take this check now.

I said, Well, I'm kind of not here in the office at the moment.

Um where are you?

I'm writing you a check and I have to bring it to you today.

I said, Well, I I don't like he's like, I know, I need you to have this.

And he said, he felt like no, I'm gonna tithe on the portion of my company's sale.

And that portion that he gave allowed for the surveying of the property, it allowed for the engineering and some of the design work for the property, and actually got the dream up off the ground, all because of a tithe.

God uses that that tithe, God uses that portion to do great things.

I'm not saying if you tithe, God will give you X, Y, or Z, but there's a there is a principle in Scripture that says that you can test God with the tithe, and and it will prove, he says, and see if I will not prove myself faithful to you.

God will provide, God will bless, and it may be financial, it may be material, it may be relational, it might be familial, like in your family, it may be spiritual, but God will prove himself to us when we honor Him with our resource, we honor Him with our tithe, we honor Him with our life, God will prove Himself to us.

It's a spiritual act, it's God honoring, and and it begins with God.

And sometimes I think about it and I go like, if you can't get to that 10% today, because then start like move to like 3% and then have a plan to move to five, and then have a plan to move to 10.

Like put a plan in place because generous people they have a plan.

And then they stand firm with that plan in their generosity.

So put the plan in place if you want to live a life that's generous, you have to plan to become generous.

Generous people give sacrificially, and this is difficult.

How many of you have ever felt the pain of being generous?

Good.

That's the way it's supposed to be.

They just don't give when it's easy, don't give when it feels convenient or comfortable, they give in a way that they feel it.

Um, Jesus used this illustration where he said in Mark 12, he said he sat down near the collection box in the temple.

And I always think this is so crazy.

It's like Jesus watched what people were giving, and he watched as the crowd dropped in their money.

Many rich people put in large amounts.

Then a poor widow came and she dropped in two coins.

And that's a sobering thought that Jesus would actually watch.

But what we see here is that God looks at our giving because he wants to honor us and he wants to reciprocate back on our giving.

And Jesus said he called his disciples to him.

He says, I tell you the truth, the poor widow who is given more than all the others who are making a contribution, they gave for they gave a tiny portion of their surplus, as but she, as poor as she is, has given everything that she has to live on.

It's incredibly emotional because you feel the sacrifice.

And there are times in our life where we need to sacrifice.

And I just would like to challenge us today.

When is the last time we gave sacrificially?

We felt it.

Um when we first started our school here on site, we we started as an online school 21 years ago, or 22 years ago, and we just finished be uh being classified as a pilot project from the BC government.

So we're over the pilot project phase after 20 years.

And we started with online education.

We were wanting to help support uh home learners.

And so we looked for curriculum and we said, where are we gonna find this curriculum that we can start instructing students?

And what we found was virtually textbooks on a screen.

And we're like, we I'm surely we can make better curriculum, and because nothing existed, we had to build our own.

So we started building curriculum for online education.

And at first, we we as we started to develop this online Christian uh education curriculum, um, other schools wanted to be able to use it as well.

And we thought, well, we can we can sell it and we can start to take care of ourselves this way, or we could use it as a tool to be able to support the kingdom, and we could sew it first.

So we began to sew it into different parts and places around the world.

We sowed it into Russia, into Taiwan, we sowed it into uh into places in China, into South Africa, we sowed it into uh where else do we go?

Um, well, we sowed it all over the place.

And we sewed it, and we now we're giving this tool, and I learned today, we got our some of our feedback um for the annual general meeting tonight.

We're hearing some of the reporting back that now with we've got over 30,000 students using our curriculum across the world, and 400 partner schools that are now using our curriculum that we've developed.

God looks at us and says, Hey, I know you could have sold it.

I know it was in high demand, but you decided to give it, and now God honors the sacrifice.

And now doors are opening up where we would never have thought that doors would have opened up.

The whole state of North Dakota, Wisconsin, different places in Florida and California using the curriculum now that we it was developed from this small place in Rutland.

What God can take from one place using simple people to make a difference and a global impact.

Personally, I learned this principle early when it was sacrifice, and I remember being younger and wanting to hunt so bad.

I loved hunting.

And so my grandpa gave me a gun.

You know, here's your gun.

It was like a World War II rifle.

And I remember uh looking down the scope, and it was foggy and misty, and uh, and the magnification was like two power, like my eyes were better than the scope was.

And I remember putting money aside for this scope, and personally, I I recall as a kid grinding away to get this money, and uh it came to a point of giving at the church when we were in our season of giving, and I felt the Lord say, You have to sow this money into into the offering, and I thought, well, get behind me, Satan.

That's not you, it's not God.

I've sacrificed for this, I've followed you, you've brought this money to me on purpose, you've brought it my direction.

And I felt like, what's gonna happen?

So I ended up sacrificing.

I poured my money, a portion, like my portion.

It wasn't like anyone else's portion, but meant a lot to me.

And I gave it willingly in offering.

And I tell you the truth today, that the next day my neighbor came over with a brand new scope, and he said, Here you go.

I just bought a new one, and this is a one that I would never have been able to afford.

And he said, Here you go.

And I put that on my gun, I still missed things, but it were it was it was God's blessing to me.

God never said to be great at spending on yourself.

We have a generation that's good at the buy now button.

He never said it's be good at finding bargains.

He never said be good at storing up for yourself treasures here on earth.

He said, be great at storing up treasure in heaven.

Giving is spiritual.

And if we take a lesson for the from the church in Corinth, we want to be givers and we want to carry on that generosity.

I'm gonna invite the worship team to come up to the front here.

I'm gonna invite you all to stand along with me.

Today we have a we have opportunity to actually give.

And uh and I know in the last five weeks or four weeks, we've shared about how this uh this legacy offering is used.

And uh we use it in five lanes.

We look at ways that we where we can advance locally, we look at ways where where we can advance nationally.

How many of you know have a have a heart for our nation in Canada and know we love our nation and we want to advance the kingdom of God nationally?

How and we want to work globally, we want to we want to sow into the next generation.

We believe that the next generation matters.

We need to care on the next generation, and we want to look at doing things that are like special projects that actually move the message into the hands of people that uh may never have heard the message before.

I know that we're becoming a multicultural community, but I would love people from Mexico to be able to log on to KCC and be able to hear the message in their language.

I'd love to be able to find ways to advance the kingdom in different layers as a church today.

So I'm gonna invite you to take a moment today.

We're gonna enter into a time of worship.

And if you're with your family, would you just take a moment together and just begin to pray?

If you're with someone around, someone maybe beside you, just take a moment.

If you have to just bow your head and say, Lord, how can I become a generous person?

How can I move that needle in my life towards generosity?

This may be the first time you've ever given.

This might be the the first time you've ever stretched yourself, the first time you've ever sacrificed something that was out of your pocket.

But I want us to be able to give as a church together.

There's no there's no imposition here today.

We're gonna have the if you if you feel like God, God's mentioning to you, like, hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna work in you, uh, I need to, you need to talk to me about some of these things.

There's absolutely you take your time, but we're gonna be taking up an offering at the end of service.

But I believe we should just go before God for the next few minutes and just focus our heart.

We want to be giving out of a willing and cheerful heart today.

So I'm gonna allow the worship, ask the worship team to lead us in worship for a moment, and let's just begin to focus on the Lord for a few minutes today.