Meet Amanda, a New Ventures Implementer
The New Ventures team is growing! This week, we are so thrilled to introduce you to Amanda Corbin, the New Ventures Lead in the Eastern Canadian District. Amanda will be overseeing New Ventures in Eastern Ontario, leading a team of New Venture Implementers who will walk alongside emerging leaders and communities in the region.
Amanda grew up in Ontario and has lived in many places across Canada. She met her husband Kris in Saskatchewan, and the two have served in the Alliance for over 15 years—in British Columbia, Alberta, and now in Ontario! Passionate for missions both locally and globally, Amanda loves to connect with people, and help them form partnerships for the growth of The Kingdom.
Along with their four children, the Corbins are now moving to Bowmanville, Ontario. There, they plan to continue living as 'front porch people', just as they have in every town they’ve lived. What’s that, you ask? To put it simply, it’s all about intentionally and proactively getting to know and reaching out to their neighbours.
Amanda shares, "My passion for local and global missions really came alive during our first Covid summer. Sitting on the front deck watching my kids play with a dozen other kids on the street, I realized that every single family represented a different ethnicity, either newly immigrated or first-gen Canadians, and they were all in front of my house!
My impact to reach the world only required me to sit on my front deck and be open to having a conversation… with an 8-year-old about his trip home to India later that month; a 10-year-old neighbour who would be fasting for Ramadan with his parents; a mom in need of consolation after her husband left her on her own with four children; another who knew we were praying people and asked us to pray for her dad's heart surgery. Other conversations over the years with our neighbours have opened our eyes to Ramadan, Diwali, Kwanzaa, Navratri, Holi, Purim. The nations, as we have discovered from living here in Oshawa have come, literally, to our front doorstep."
For now three years, Amanda has served as a missions mobilizer for the ECD and, later, in communications for the district. As she actively embraced the multiculturalism of her area, she learned more about New Ventures. She was drawn to its emphasis on creatively engaging new neighbourhoods, and making space for leaders to discern and listen to the voice of Jesus. But for Amanda, with her deep love of missions, one aspect of New Ventures stood out above all.
"The thing about New Ventures that has always captivated me is this embrace of Canada as a mission field."
With a keen awareness of the promixity of all nations within Canada, Amanda is now following Jesus' lead as the Director of Mission Mobilization and New Ventures within the ECD. She is particularly excited about the New Ventures process, and its emphasis on hope, growth and creativity. She prays to see a movement of new expressions of church across Canada, and for God's Kingdom to grow here and now.
"Knowing that Jesus is active outside the traditional four walls of the Church and that he is calling us to engage with our neighbours and the nations in creative, meaningful, life-giving, Christ-centred ways is what fuels my soul!
. . .I look forward to working alongside others throughout Canada that are collaborating and having strategic conversations about building the Kingdom of God here, in our own backyards."
In their family time, the Corbins love to road trip and host people in their home. Amanda happily admits that adventure is in their DNA, and “. . .if there is a reason to celebrate, there will be an invite to our house!”
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To follow the things God is doing in the Eastern Canadian District, click HERE.