In this podcast we bring part 1 of a message delivered to our Online School leadership from David Kalamen, Senior Pastor of Kelowna Christian Center. It is a very challenging and inspiring message for any Christian Educator.

You can download his full article below:

Hello fellow educators welcome to podcast #103. We have been talking about the importance of the three fold community in raising our children, home, church and school using the inspiration of the African proverb made famous by former first lady Hilary Clinton, "It takes a village to raise of child." We have been speaking to various stake holders in the community. Last week we spoke with a student who has graduated with Heritage Christian Online School and one of our Campus School Teachers. Today and over the next three podcasts, we have a very special guest who will bring a very interesting and unique perspective to the discussion. Back in January we had our annual Leadership Advance for the Admin team of the Online School and invited Pastor David Kalamen, Senior Pastor of Kelowna Christian Center to come and speak to us. We want to share the message he brought to the leadership team that was both inspiring and challenging. For the last 25 years KCC is the church that has given birth and oversight to Heritage Christian Schools. There are many forms of governance for schools but, obviously, I am a proponent of the Church run school model. As you listen to the next few podcasts you will see why our governance has been so successful. David Kalamen is the founding Pastor of KCC which started 28 years ago. Since the Church began it has embraced the mandate of Christian Education and the discipleship of our children. All three of his children are alumni of Heritage and continue to live their lives in relationship with Lord. His oldest son, Brodie is now part of the KCC leadership team. His wife Carleen is now working with us as our Business manager of the International Christian Online School our ESL program. There is great security and blessings for our families when both Church and School are on the same page. When our vision for discipleship is unified between the three legs of the village our children will have the foundation to keep their faith, know who they are in Christ, be prepared for their role in this fallen world, understand their part to play in the future church and raise godly children themselves to carry on the work. Here is my pastor, boss and friend, David Kalamen:

                Thanks Greg for the opportunity to share with your pod cast audience today. You have asked me to convey what was shared at our HCOS leadership retreat. You know, let me start with a little bit of history about Kelowna Christian Center, its inception, mission and mandate. It takes a team committed long term to build destiny, and I would like to share our story with you.

The Call on KCC

Historical and Values Background to KCC connection

KCC - founded 1982: history - moved here with family in 1969 (have a heart for the city), pastor’s son who reluctantly responded to the call to ministry, took me to Kelowna, Vancouver and California for my education (B.A. in Political Science/Religion), strong desire to see the ideals of Christianity lived out in a committed life and lifestyle of discipleship, have been married for 37 years - three children serving the Lord - HCS and MTI (GMTC) grads, been pastoring KCC for 28 years - strong commitment to missions, apostolic, church planting, city transformation, kingdom business development (passion)

• Biblical Mandate - Isaiah 61 - through the anointing, become a transformational force in the earth, with the promise that wealth would come into our coffers for mission globally, as our children would be known among the nations (close to 40 nations now)
• Mission - to build a global spiritual family, based on spiritually fathering (and mothering) families, inculcating a spirit of disciplined sonship, with an inheritance mindedness that is international in nature (Ps 2)
• Values - Christ-centered, Word-based, Holy Spirit presence led, trans-denominationally inclined, leadership directed, character focused, mercy moved, discipleship oriented, mission minded, purpose motivated, and transformational in culture and business
• HCS/HCOS/ICOS/GMTC - to think trans-generationally of our responsibilities with the training of the next generation: required three spheres of agreement working together: Home - parents, Church – pastors, School – teachers.

Undergirding Team Principles. As a team, we have been -

• Called to work sacrificially
• Called to the Lord, to Christian community, to the City and nations
• Called to work in covenant and through the gift of honor build a relational integrity
• Called to function in unanimity – one heart, one mind, one accord
• Called to grow old together by His grace
• Called to a passionate pursuit of His presence
• Called to be flexible as to the wineskin God wants to use to cause growth (business calls it an “entrepreneurial gift”)
• Called to use whatever method we can to create highways into the hearts of the people of the nations without compromising the message for generation’s sake

Henry Ford made this statement: “Coming together is a beginning,keeping together is progress, but working together is success"

I sincerely believe that God raised up a team at KCC and called us to be a transformational tool in His Hands. There is a synergy that occurs when God brings a team together.  Synergy is a word that implies that “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” It refers to a coming together of energies.

The Greek roots of the word: syn + ergos = ‘together working.’ It has an educational application when administrators, technologists, financiers, and teachers collaborate in their special gifting and anointing. At that point, serving with their gifts and abilities, they create a momentum that builds a greater whole.

We all know, according to Maxwell’s Law #1 of significance (note: different than a focus on success), that “one is too small a number to achieve greatness.”

The Lone Ranger is a myth. We cannot Rambo our way through life. Individuals did not conquer the West – wagon trains did. Teamwork is essential to succeed, but also for significance, if we are to leave an enduring legacy for generations.

The Chinese say, “behind an able man there are always other able men.”  Teamwork is at the very heart of great achievement. The question isn’t whether teams have value: the question is whether or not we believe and value each one practically as a lifestyle, and whether we will dedicate ourselves to collaborate and complete and not to compare and compete.

“There are no problems that we cannot solve together, and very few that we can solve by ourselves” (Lyndon Johnson)

My pastor called KCC “cutting edge,” and I guess the only problem with “cutting edge” is that you can get cut. However, God has given us:

• a unique “governance structure” (all this would have been impossible had we not had it – leadership/apostolic),
• a solid and growing “financial structure” (empowering our projects), connected to corporate and Foundational strengths,
• a dynamic “missions structure” (enabling us to calibrate what we are doing in a self-sufficient manner),
• a compassionate “mercy structure” (giving opportunity to build compassion community through Houses of Mercy),
• a trans-generational “ministry structure” (building upon father/sons and an inheritance mentality; and
• a creative, almost revolutionary, “education structure” (campus, online, Global ministry training center, ICOS – all making a highway into the nations and into the hearts of what we pray to be a million children)

We'll stop Pastor David here and look forward to next week as we continue his sharing Please email us your comments and thoughts on this podcast. Also, if you would like us to mail you a free copy of my book or send you the download link for the audio version of, Discipling This Generation for a Digital World, simply send an email to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it and let us know what type of an educator you are, home schooler, classroom teacher, school administrator, or interested parent. Please let us know how you heard about the podcast and, of course, please include your mailing address. Thank you for listening and thank you for your commitment to discipleship-based Christian education.