Tim Melnichuk, an assistant pastor in The Prayer Palace (theprayerpalace.com) and son of its senior pastor Paul Melnichuk, spoke in an exclusive interview with the Christian Telegraph about practical ways to reach people with God's love. The Prayer Palace is one of the biggest churches in Canada and is located in Toronto.
“For example, say, somebody doesn’t have a watch,” he began, right away showing us a new large room for a new ministry called Hope Renewed which offers people in need new and gently used clothing free of charge. “You know, I’ve met people who have gone through difficult times. In addition to clothing, we are going to have a showcase with watches and jewelry and those kinds of things.”
“Everything will have a standard of quality. It’s going to fill like a mall. It’s going to look very trendy and very modern when you go here,” said Pastor Tim, totally fascinated by this idea. “You can try something on in a changing room and you can stand in front of this huge mirror and your kids sit here and wait for you in front of the mirror. It will look like a store. So we invite everyone here who is going through a difficult time, transition in life, whether it between jobs, whether they lost their job, whether they can’t make their ends meet, whether they don’t have anything. For example there are some people in the church who have nowhere to go and they feel like they are wearing the same thing over and over. They can actually come in here.”
We were so interested in this new approach and continued our conversation:
How do you distinguish people who really need access to this room?
It's a great question. It will start from inside the church. A lot of times we can miss the people who are inside here. You are so busy reaching out, looking out everywhere. You are reaching over your own kids to reach another one. So you have to be careful. The way that we are going to distinguish that is really by people communicating. There is the sense of a shame that comes upon people, “I don’t want anybody know that I need help”. That’s the idea of making this feel like you are walking into a store. I can come here and I feel great about it. It’s going to be a very communicative way to say “I need help.” Christians helping Christians. Somebody who is not a Christian and doesn’t know Jesus as Lord and Savior, they will also be invited “Hey, by the way, why don’t you come with me? Come for free shopping!” They can come here, they can shop away, and the amazing thing about it is that it is free. So our people will be able to minister to them, reach out to them. The Word of God says “Let your requests be made known.” So as long as we know about the requests, we want to take care of them. You know it’s funny, but I’ve met some people that you never ever think they were having a difficult time. I mean, they come, put a smile on everything, but down deep they are hurt so bad by somebody else, they are experiencing problems, pain, disappointment... We want to let people know that this church cares, it has ministries to care, and we are going to do everything we can to reach out to people. No matter what it takes we’ll do everything we can.
What other areas does this ministry include, like feeding the hungry, clothing, dental facility outreach - what else?
We are going into street evangelism. We’ll be integrating with the “Jesus in the City” in the summer time. So we’re going to be able to go there and get on the floats. It’s wonderful to go on the streets and put all of our volunteers on the streets, reaching out to people. It will be great to have mobile prayer boots. I know we always talk about a lost and hurting world, but there is a lost and hurting neighborhood next to us, there is a lost and hurting town that we live in, city that we live in, province, country, it is lost and hurting. So we need to do whatever we can. We also have the food area, food depot, the medical facility outreach. This past medical facility outreach, we reached out to 300 people. And for those 300 people, there was over $45,000 worth of work done from dentistry to other medical treatments. So those are the medical availabilities and facilities that we have. Two of those a year. What is interesting is that the doctors we invite are real doctors, real dentists, not students, real optometrist, real hygienists. Some of them attend the church. They are members here. But there is a percentage of doctors who are not, but they see the need. They do their part, we do our part, and it’s great. We have the food bank which is opened on a weekly basis. We have a clothing bank area. We have our mission street outreach area. We would like to facilitate other things in-house, furniture for example. For example things that people were saying ‘I don’t need these anymore. Can you come and get it?’ We can come and pick it up or they can deliver it here. And later, for example somebody’s house is flood damaged or fire damaged. Great, here is what we can do for you. We can come and refurnish their home. And I’m going to refer back to why we are doing it. It’s because of the love of Jesus in our life.
What is the reaction of people who met the church's outreaches for the first time in their lives and then realize that it is the church that is doing these things? I am asking this because in some not really democratic countries, no matter what you do, if you’re a protestant church you’re considered a dangerous sect. So “a sect is feeding hungry”, “a sect is saving drug addicts” and everything like that. So what is the attitude of people?
You know I think no matter what country you go to, no matter what area of the world you live in, you’re going to have those people that hate the church, they hate Christ, they hate the Bible, they hate prayer to God in the name of Jesus. We get that too, usually from the media. The media isn’t doing what we are doing. The media isn’t supplying clothing or food. What do they do? Maybe they need to start publishing what they do. And as for the people, a lot of them are saying “Wow! You are helping me!” They love the idea that we are actually reaching out. I mean the idea that we are helping them when we really don’t have to. And that is so surprising to them and then you have of course the doors opened to minister to them and help them and then there is a contact made. Sure there are people that feel the same way as the media feels about us. But what are you going to? You’re going to continue to do what is good. But they can’t stop us. We're going to keep going, we're going to keep moving forward.
Do all church members share this vision?
Oh, yes. In the medical clinic alone we have over 200 volunteers. They show up at 7 o’clock in the morning and there is a volunteer for every patient that comes in. A volunteer and a patient stay together until they are registered, until they are treated and then released. Sometimes that takes between 2 or 3 hours. Volunteers were able to sit there for 3-4 hours and just talk with them, develop a friendship, share different things. People of every nationality, even different religions came, even Muslims came. They come here for help and, guess what, we help them and their children. We say “Hey, we want to reach out to you without discrimination with the love of Christ.”
And how do you spread the word about this?
We have a committee of ten people. They are energized toward this. For example, I emailed one of our committee members today and said, “We need bags that have a big stamp on them ‘Hope Toronto Outreach’ and at the other side ‘Prayer Palace Ministries’ and I need a bunch of these bags.” She was excited and said, “I was praying about it today and I was going to call you tonight to talk about what is going on with Hope Toronto Ministries and the clothing area. I can’t wait to supply those. I going to pay for them all.” So these committee members can be unique in their area, so that they can grow in the ideas, in thoughts. That made it very powerful. Opportunities for people to work in the ministry with absolute cooperation are huge. It’s awesome; it’s really wonderful.
Are you planning to set up some online facilities for those who want to donate?
I’ll tell you this: the world out there is really quick to talk about all the stuff they’re doing. And we sometimes, as Christians, when something great happens we don’t talk about it enough. We don’t push if forward enough. We should be talking more about all of the great things that are happening in the lives of people by God's grace. The website will take care of all of that. It will be great to have this area on camera, on video, photographed, talking about and showing people in here shopping. Free. Shopping for free. It’s the best place to come because everything is 100% off. Then of course, people will want to donate.
A lot of churches today fight for people, I mean to attract people to church. Since The Prayer Palace is a megachurch, what is the main secret of the church's growth?
You have to have a passion that burns beyond your own will. For example, you may be tired and fatigued and you don’t want to do it, but that passion inside of you burns. It's the necessity that you realize. The necessity for what you’re doing. The Son of God is an example for all of us of how we need to have a passion to do something. You have to pick yourself up and you have to make that conscious decision. To say “I am going to church. I am going to do this.” That’s what makes people come here, reach out to them, love them, care for them, preach the Gospel, preach the Word, give them something to hang on to, give them the word to hang on to, not opinionated sermons or opinionated segments. Give them the word to hang on to. Our opinions are going to fade quickly. But the Word of God will stand forever. The amount of prayer that we do, not only as a congregation but on the individual basis, the time we spend in prayer. And that’s not an easy thing to do with the business rhythm of life we see everywhere. David the psalmist gave his early mornings. He would preach and he would sing over and over again in Psalms how important it was to give the early mornings of our day to the Lord because when we set our face before the Lord in the morning our whole prospective of the day changes. You can't fool people. Years ago maybe you could play this game because nobody knows. But with the media the way it is in the world today, with the Internet, it makes communication so incredibly simplistic that you’d better be the real deal. You’d better be the real thing. Will the Devil fight? Sure he will. That’s his job. But we are more than conquerors, because we trust in God, we trust in Jesus. So we are just going to keep the passion, we are going to keep the focus, to keep putting Christ at the center of our lives, starting from our early morning hours. And what a waste of time trying to fool the people, because it will blow up to your face. Just reach out and love people. Share the love of Christ through yourself.
“For example, say, somebody doesn’t have a watch,” he began, right away showing us a new large room for a new ministry called Hope Renewed which offers people in need new and gently used clothing free of charge. “You know, I’ve met people who have gone through difficult times. In addition to clothing, we are going to have a showcase with watches and jewelry and those kinds of things.”
“Everything will have a standard of quality. It’s going to fill like a mall. It’s going to look very trendy and very modern when you go here,” said Pastor Tim, totally fascinated by this idea. “You can try something on in a changing room and you can stand in front of this huge mirror and your kids sit here and wait for you in front of the mirror. It will look like a store. So we invite everyone here who is going through a difficult time, transition in life, whether it between jobs, whether they lost their job, whether they can’t make their ends meet, whether they don’t have anything. For example there are some people in the church who have nowhere to go and they feel like they are wearing the same thing over and over. They can actually come in here.”
We were so interested in this new approach and continued our conversation:
How do you distinguish people who really need access to this room?
It's a great question. It will start from inside the church. A lot of times we can miss the people who are inside here. You are so busy reaching out, looking out everywhere. You are reaching over your own kids to reach another one. So you have to be careful. The way that we are going to distinguish that is really by people communicating. There is the sense of a shame that comes upon people, “I don’t want anybody know that I need help”. That’s the idea of making this feel like you are walking into a store. I can come here and I feel great about it. It’s going to be a very communicative way to say “I need help.” Christians helping Christians. Somebody who is not a Christian and doesn’t know Jesus as Lord and Savior, they will also be invited “Hey, by the way, why don’t you come with me? Come for free shopping!” They can come here, they can shop away, and the amazing thing about it is that it is free. So our people will be able to minister to them, reach out to them. The Word of God says “Let your requests be made known.” So as long as we know about the requests, we want to take care of them. You know it’s funny, but I’ve met some people that you never ever think they were having a difficult time. I mean, they come, put a smile on everything, but down deep they are hurt so bad by somebody else, they are experiencing problems, pain, disappointment... We want to let people know that this church cares, it has ministries to care, and we are going to do everything we can to reach out to people. No matter what it takes we’ll do everything we can.
What other areas does this ministry include, like feeding the hungry, clothing, dental facility outreach - what else?
We are going into street evangelism. We’ll be integrating with the “Jesus in the City” in the summer time. So we’re going to be able to go there and get on the floats. It’s wonderful to go on the streets and put all of our volunteers on the streets, reaching out to people. It will be great to have mobile prayer boots. I know we always talk about a lost and hurting world, but there is a lost and hurting neighborhood next to us, there is a lost and hurting town that we live in, city that we live in, province, country, it is lost and hurting. So we need to do whatever we can. We also have the food area, food depot, the medical facility outreach. This past medical facility outreach, we reached out to 300 people. And for those 300 people, there was over $45,000 worth of work done from dentistry to other medical treatments. So those are the medical availabilities and facilities that we have. Two of those a year. What is interesting is that the doctors we invite are real doctors, real dentists, not students, real optometrist, real hygienists. Some of them attend the church. They are members here. But there is a percentage of doctors who are not, but they see the need. They do their part, we do our part, and it’s great. We have the food bank which is opened on a weekly basis. We have a clothing bank area. We have our mission street outreach area. We would like to facilitate other things in-house, furniture for example. For example things that people were saying ‘I don’t need these anymore. Can you come and get it?’ We can come and pick it up or they can deliver it here. And later, for example somebody’s house is flood damaged or fire damaged. Great, here is what we can do for you. We can come and refurnish their home. And I’m going to refer back to why we are doing it. It’s because of the love of Jesus in our life.
What is the reaction of people who met the church's outreaches for the first time in their lives and then realize that it is the church that is doing these things? I am asking this because in some not really democratic countries, no matter what you do, if you’re a protestant church you’re considered a dangerous sect. So “a sect is feeding hungry”, “a sect is saving drug addicts” and everything like that. So what is the attitude of people?
You know I think no matter what country you go to, no matter what area of the world you live in, you’re going to have those people that hate the church, they hate Christ, they hate the Bible, they hate prayer to God in the name of Jesus. We get that too, usually from the media. The media isn’t doing what we are doing. The media isn’t supplying clothing or food. What do they do? Maybe they need to start publishing what they do. And as for the people, a lot of them are saying “Wow! You are helping me!” They love the idea that we are actually reaching out. I mean the idea that we are helping them when we really don’t have to. And that is so surprising to them and then you have of course the doors opened to minister to them and help them and then there is a contact made. Sure there are people that feel the same way as the media feels about us. But what are you going to? You’re going to continue to do what is good. But they can’t stop us. We're going to keep going, we're going to keep moving forward.
Do all church members share this vision?
Oh, yes. In the medical clinic alone we have over 200 volunteers. They show up at 7 o’clock in the morning and there is a volunteer for every patient that comes in. A volunteer and a patient stay together until they are registered, until they are treated and then released. Sometimes that takes between 2 or 3 hours. Volunteers were able to sit there for 3-4 hours and just talk with them, develop a friendship, share different things. People of every nationality, even different religions came, even Muslims came. They come here for help and, guess what, we help them and their children. We say “Hey, we want to reach out to you without discrimination with the love of Christ.”
And how do you spread the word about this?
We have a committee of ten people. They are energized toward this. For example, I emailed one of our committee members today and said, “We need bags that have a big stamp on them ‘Hope Toronto Outreach’ and at the other side ‘Prayer Palace Ministries’ and I need a bunch of these bags.” She was excited and said, “I was praying about it today and I was going to call you tonight to talk about what is going on with Hope Toronto Ministries and the clothing area. I can’t wait to supply those. I going to pay for them all.” So these committee members can be unique in their area, so that they can grow in the ideas, in thoughts. That made it very powerful. Opportunities for people to work in the ministry with absolute cooperation are huge. It’s awesome; it’s really wonderful.
Are you planning to set up some online facilities for those who want to donate?
I’ll tell you this: the world out there is really quick to talk about all the stuff they’re doing. And we sometimes, as Christians, when something great happens we don’t talk about it enough. We don’t push if forward enough. We should be talking more about all of the great things that are happening in the lives of people by God's grace. The website will take care of all of that. It will be great to have this area on camera, on video, photographed, talking about and showing people in here shopping. Free. Shopping for free. It’s the best place to come because everything is 100% off. Then of course, people will want to donate.
A lot of churches today fight for people, I mean to attract people to church. Since The Prayer Palace is a megachurch, what is the main secret of the church's growth?
You have to have a passion that burns beyond your own will. For example, you may be tired and fatigued and you don’t want to do it, but that passion inside of you burns. It's the necessity that you realize. The necessity for what you’re doing. The Son of God is an example for all of us of how we need to have a passion to do something. You have to pick yourself up and you have to make that conscious decision. To say “I am going to church. I am going to do this.” That’s what makes people come here, reach out to them, love them, care for them, preach the Gospel, preach the Word, give them something to hang on to, give them the word to hang on to, not opinionated sermons or opinionated segments. Give them the word to hang on to. Our opinions are going to fade quickly. But the Word of God will stand forever. The amount of prayer that we do, not only as a congregation but on the individual basis, the time we spend in prayer. And that’s not an easy thing to do with the business rhythm of life we see everywhere. David the psalmist gave his early mornings. He would preach and he would sing over and over again in Psalms how important it was to give the early mornings of our day to the Lord because when we set our face before the Lord in the morning our whole prospective of the day changes. You can't fool people. Years ago maybe you could play this game because nobody knows. But with the media the way it is in the world today, with the Internet, it makes communication so incredibly simplistic that you’d better be the real deal. You’d better be the real thing. Will the Devil fight? Sure he will. That’s his job. But we are more than conquerors, because we trust in God, we trust in Jesus. So we are just going to keep the passion, we are going to keep the focus, to keep putting Christ at the center of our lives, starting from our early morning hours. And what a waste of time trying to fool the people, because it will blow up to your face. Just reach out and love people. Share the love of Christ through yourself.
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