Jocelyn Hansen leads Fusion Canada, a ministry focused on working alongside people of goodwill to transform local communities. She does this by building relationships and doing life with people within a community. Fusion Canada is reaching people with the love of Jesus in a uniquely Canadian way.
Learn more about Fusion Canada: https://fusioncanada.ca/
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Jocelyn Hansen leads, fusion, Canada, a ministry focused on working alongside people of Goodwill to transform local communities. She does this by building relationships and doing life with people within a community fusion. Canada is reaching people with the love of Jesus in a uniquely Canadian way.
Evangelism Podcast Host (00:33):
Welcome to the evangelism podcast with Dr. Daniel King, where Daniel interviews, full-time evangelists, pastors, missionaries, and normal everyday Christians to discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies, and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now here’s your host, missionary and evangelist Daniel King.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:56):
Welcome to the evangelism podcast. I’m Daniel King, and I’m excited about telling people about Jesus today. I have a very special guest, miss Jocelyn Hanson. She leads fusion Canada. We are in Warrenville Alberta. And thank you so much for being on the evangelism podcast.
Jocelyn Hansen – Fusion Canada (01:16):
Thank you, Daniel. It’s really exciting to be able to share the story with you. So thank you.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:21):
So let’s start at the beginning. Tell me what is fusion Canada?
Jocelyn Hansen – Fusion Canada (01:27):
Well, fusion Canada is a branch of fusion international, which started in Australia 65 years ago by a name man named Mel Garvin, who was a young man at the time, searching for his purpose in life and came across a Bible camp and found Jesus there.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:47):
And how did you get connected to fusion international?
Jocelyn Hansen – Fusion Canada (01:50):
So then interestingly enough, my daughter was working in Canmore, Alberta, right outta high school. And she met the Australians who had come to see bam and Jasper. And they asked her if she had a passion, what her passion was. And she said, oh, she would love to go to Africa someday. And they said, well, come in to fusion inter in Australia. And that’s how it got started.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:17):
And then later you ended up bringing it here to Canada because it had such a tremendous impact on your daughter’s life.
Jocelyn Hansen – Fusion Canada (02:25):
Then there were some people in Edmonton who were already connected and they had brought the internationals to bam. And so we did our first foundations course, I think 2003. And it just struck a chord with my heart to serve the community in the front lines and to find creative ways to care for people in our communities.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:49):
I really love your focus on going into a community and having an impact in the community. Tell me kind of what fusion does. What is the goal of fusion
Jocelyn Hansen – Fusion Canada (03:02):
We wanna share? The good news of God’s love, and we wanna do it in a way that’s by making relationships and walking with people on their journeys. The gospel comes alive when we’re walking with each other and we’re sharing God’s love. And that looks many, many, many different ways. Whether it’s for young people at risk or seniors who need help or mental illness we let it be creative where it is it isn’t cookie cutter. And that’s what I love about it. You go into a community and you say, God, what are you doing here? And then he invites you into the story that he’s already well on with. And then we get to be a part of that because God is good.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:53):
Now it sounds like there’s many different expressions of how fusion reaches out to the community and gets involved in what God is doing. And I, I know talking to your son-in-law Mattie, he loves doing block parties and, and going into a community and just bringing people together and having a time of fellowship. And so you have block parties. What are some other ways that you, you reach into a community and make a difference?
Jocelyn Hansen – Fusion Canada (04:20):
Yeah, so the, the festival, the block party came out of wanting churches and community organizations to work together. So we were in west Edmonton for over 10 years and we did breakfast clubs in junior highs and high schools. And we worked with the police, the community leagues, the churches, anybody that wanted to make a difference in their community, believing always that together we’re better. And together there is hope that we all bring something that is essential to the responses of the needs in the community. And that no one of us has all of the answers, but together we can really shine the light of Jesus in a community. So with that, we also have some training foundations is sort of the underpinning knowledge of the gospel living with God, living with others, living with yourself and then community transformation, but always the goal is to inspire a kingdom cell group of people who can then go and see what the Lord’s doing and, and play the part that they’re invited to play.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:29):
Let’s talk more about the foundations course, because it sounds like that’s really the foundation mm-hmm <affirmative> to discipling and, and really turning people from maybe someone who doesn’t have much exposure to God, to really having a living relationship with God. So kind of describe to me, what does the foundation’s course look like? How does someone go through it and, and what are some of the things that they learn as they go through?
Jocelyn Hansen – Fusion Canada (05:56):
Mm, thanks, Daniel. When I did foundations for the first time I grew up in the church, my dad was a pastor, so I wasn’t really expecting to blow, be blown away. I thought, you know what, you know, and I probably came with some arrogance in, in all of that. And I think what I loved the most was that it was actually tools of how important it is to listen to another human being and why listening is so profound. And then things about our own like body, soul, and spirit. We’ve all got bruises and deficits. We’ve all got things that have gone wrong because we live in a broken world, but then the redemption of Jesus and the forgiveness of Jesus and the glory of God, justice, mercy, and compassion. And so whether you’re a new believer or whether you’ve been believing for 40 years, I found that the course always meets you where you’re at and the group of people that God in brings together for that time that we share is always for the work that he wants to do. So it allows for a large gamut of flexibility for sharing the gospel and going deeper at the same time.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:10):
And so how does <affirmative> and so how does, how do people go through the foundation’s course? How long does it take to go through it?
Jocelyn Hansen – Fusion Canada (07:18):
So we could, we have a one week foundations course that would be generally residential. So we’d rent a camp and 40 or 50 of us would turn up and we would do life together. And it would be from 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM. And it was foundations is a really, really jampacked course, most would say, there’s too much for too little time. So now we’ve done a 12 week with two weekend retreats. We’ve done it as small groups in churches, and we’re going to do one starting in September here in Warrenville. It will run till December 14th and we’ll also have pods from other communities. So we’re gonna try something new this time, but the whole idea is that you’re doing it with a group of people that you’re actually doing life with because that’s kind of where the rubber hits the road, isn’t it? The gospel is meant to be lived out it’s meant to be transformational. And so when you wrestle these things with people who are particularly not of the same views as you might be, it even gets more deep and more exciting about finding how much God loves us and how much grace he has for us. And so it has been super profound in my life.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:38):
You’ve used this, this term doing life together several times now. So can you give me some examples or some testimonies of how you are doing life together with others and kind of what God has done through those relationships? Mm,
Jocelyn Hansen – Fusion Canada (08:57):
Yeah, I think for the many people that the Lord has brought that call themselves fusion, Canada has been that small group of friends that wanna do life together, share in the hard stuff cry with each other, laugh with each other, rejoice with each other be on mission with each other, but not as an event or a program, but really where the rubber hits the road doing life together. So I know there’s times when yeah, profound times where I have had crisis in my own family with my children or my grandchildren. And I have been had this group of friends that have been around me that have prayed for me and celebrated me and held me up when I just wanted to fall down. And I think that’s been the biggest thing where, mm, yeah, it, it was very, very deep.
Jocelyn Hansen – Fusion Canada (09:57):
I, I guess that’s the word that I would use people who have your back prayer warriors who are around you and diverse people that I may not have chosen if I had to choose. And I, I think that’s the other thing I celebrate is that who I was 10 years ago is thank God different than who I am now, the refiners fire and my, my diverse group of small group of friends that I do life with that challenge me, ask me the hard questions. So it’s not superficial. And I guess that’s what I love about it. Daniel.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:35):
That’s wonderful right now we’re sitting inside a fusion thrift shop is right here in downtown. Morville more is not very big, no like 7,000 people, but this is the, the little town where my wife grew up and you have this, this thrift shop here. But it’s under the, the fusion ministry. And so you’re using it to, to reach out to the community. You’re right here in the middle of the community. The other day, my, my wife was helping my father-in-law to clean out his house. And so we had some stuff and, and brought it over here and we saw that you already put it out for sale <laugh>. And my wife even came and bought some, some books and stuff at, so we’re being part of the community. And, but kind of talk to me about the, the vision for this thrift shop and, and how you use it to, to help people in the community.
Jocelyn Hansen – Fusion Canada (11:25):
Yeah. And that’s a really good segue to what do we mean by community? So I will have my community of people around me, and then there’s the community of Warrenville and the people that we do life with. And so how the Lord birthed this thrift story is always an amazing story to me. Kathy, the assistant manager, and I turned up to do sandwiches for a funeral at our church. And we ended up having this amazing conversation and, and we both had a heart to do this. And honestly, within weeks it was happening and both of us would look back and say, wow, we did not see this exact thing coming. And so the goodness of God he wanted something in the heart of this community where people can come shopping. Yes. Providing reasonably priced clothing in housewares, because there is no clothing store in Morville would be one very upfront need.
Jocelyn Hansen – Fusion Canada (12:25):
But I’ve just found that people will be dancing and singing to Johnny Cash. I’ve been sharing my story with some people who ask questions and, and they say, I gotta get back to church and my son died and I need some support. And so the whole, the whole place has been so holy spirit filled the conversations that we have. Now, we have a partnership with Jesse’s house victim services, social services, the town, the hotel other congregations who have people in need. And really you can’t outgive God Daniel, you can’t outgive God. So as fast as it pours in, as fast as it can go out people are being blessed by the abundance and generosity of people who donate to the store. And we’ve just been able to pour that abundant blessing back out the front door. And I am in awe. I go to tell you, I stand in awe of the goodness of God and yeah, how much he loves Warrenville and how much he loves this community and how much he wants to be revealed to his people.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:41):
Well, I so love all the different things that, that fusion Canada is doing. Let’s talk a little bit about vision. What do you hope to see God do in the future and how can this reach other people here in Canada and other parts of the world?
Jocelyn Hansen – Fusion Canada (13:59):
Yeah, look, that’s that’s a really good question. We walk, we walk by faith, not by sight. We walk day by day and what I see the Lord doing now, moving Maddy and Ashley to Australia here in the next year, it’s going to become very related to fusion in our, in India, Nepal Africa, where we have people who really want to have foundations more accessible. And so using zoom and, and other technology to make the teaching and the training except accessible for the purpose of discipleship, not for the purpose of getting more information in people’s head, but for the purpose of serving remote Indian communities. So that, and in Canada, I would love to fly into Northern remote areas. We’ve always had a dream of flying into Northern remote areas, doing the foundations course, doing festivals, empowering and training teams, so that it isn’t dependent on us, but that you can encourage others who are waiting to share the gospel and give them hope and a way to do that. So across Canada in the Northern remote areas and yeah, Jerusalem Judea, and to the end of the earth,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:22):
What a tremendous vision. Well, we have lots of listeners who are here in Canada and in other parts of the world. And, and so if someone’s listening and they would like to find out more about fusion or, or even support what God is doing through you, what’s your website. What’s a way that they could find more information about you.
Jocelyn Hansen – Fusion Canada (15:41):
Yes, you can go to canadafusion.ca. And everything that we’ve talked about today, there’s snippets of it. All, all the contact information is there as well, Daniel, and we would love to dream with people. We would say, what’s God doing in your community and how can the tools we have help you to grow that and bring life and hope to that. So that would be our offer and we would be happy to come wherever you are.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:14):
Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for being on the evangelism podcast.
Jocelyn Hansen – Fusion Canada (16:18):
Thank you, Daniel and blessings to you and your family and king ministries as well.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:24):
Thanks so much for listening today. I am excited about telling people about Jesus. And I want to invite you to be a part of helping us to rescue people from hell and take them with us to heaven. There’s two things you can do to help. First of all, can you go find the evangelism podcast on apple iTunes and leave us a positive review by giving a review, you will help other people find these valuable resources about sharing our faith. And second, would you become a financial partner with king ministries? Every single dollar that people give us enables us to lead at least one person to Jesus. And so that means for only $1, you can help start a party in heaven. And so today I want to invite you to become a monthly partner. You can start out for just a dollar, but if God puts it on your heart to do more, of course you can do more, but please go to king ministries.com and become a monthly partner with us today to help us to lead more people to Jesus. Thank you so much. And God bless you
Evangelism Podcast Host (17:43):
For more information about how to share your faith or to financially support our worldwide evangelistic outreaches. Visit kingministries.com. Again, that’s kingministries.com.
