Prospective New Members: Dan McKay and Sarah McKay

Beth Knight   -  

As a church, we are excited about how God is working among and through us.  One aspect is seeing people excited to lock arms as they seek to partner with us in Church Membership.  If you are curious about what it means to partner with Knollwood in Church Membership or just want to learn more about that, consider signing up for our upcoming Next Steps Class.

Please read Dan and Sarah’s testimony and take some time to get to know them over the next couple of weeks.

Dan McKay

I grew up going to church every Sunday. I remember taking the school bus to Sunday school. At the age of 6, I remember attending a VBS in someone’s backyard and it was there that I heard the gospel and wanted to avoid going to hell. As I grew older I wandered away from the faith and did things I wasn’t proud of. One day at the end of 1999, I was on the GO Train and headed downtown I read a little book called ‘I Know I Should God But’. After reading this I decided to go back to church. I realized my need for God, I repented of my sins and received the grace that only He offers. He died on the cross to take on the wrath of God so I didn’t have to. Shortly after that, I was baptized. Since then I will admit that the journey has had some rough patches but thanks be to God for His faithfulness. Now I am happily married to the woman of my dreams, we have 2 boys. I want to model for them what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.

Sarah McKay

I was born and raised in a loving Christian home. I can not remember a time when I did not believe that Jesus was the true Son of God and my Saviour. When I was sixteen I made a sincere public profession of my faith before my family and church. But in my walk of faith, I struggled greatly with fully trusting God in all aspects of my life… in surrendering my need and desire to control my future. Proverbs 3 instructs us to “Trust in the Lord with all your heart” and yet I struggled with living out that command. My father died when I was only 24 and I found I could not fully embrace the God’s promise expressed in Jeremiah “I know the plans that I have for you .. plans to prosper you and not to harm you.” How could I trust God when he took my father from me? Through the years I struggled with that internal battle but throughout that time, God continued to place before me His truth time and again. During a time of bible reading, I read Psalm 103 “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those that fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame and he remembers that we are dust”. God understood that I struggled to trust him and yet he had compassion on me. This knowledge ripped away at my fear and allowed me to step towards more fully embrace the knowledge that my life has always been, and will always be, in His hands and he is able and willing to walk into the storms of my life! I had always believed that Jesus Christ was my Saviour but never truly embraced the freedom of salvation through Him. I chose to be baptized shortly after that as a public reaffirmation of my faith. My journey of faith has continued to be fraught with times of anxiety and an ongoing struggle to remain in the truth that God’s plans for my life far exceed anything I could plan for myself or my family. But God is endless in His love and his mercies are new every morning.