Planning to evangelize Canada

BRAMALEA, ONT.

What would it mean to evangelize Canada? Can it be done? What would it require? Does it make any difference that 279 leaders from 39 denominations, 13 mission agencies and 4 seminaries got together in October to discuss those questions?

The answers will become clearer only as the next few decades unfold. The tentative answers, based on observation of the discussions, are generally, and perhaps surprisingly, positive. Canadian Church Planting Congress `97 was held Oct. 27-30 at Bramalea Baptist

Church in Bramalea, Ont. and was a joint effort of a number of Canadian denominations and agencies (see sidebar #1). Its theme was "mobilizing the whole church to disciple the whole nation through saturation church planting". Specifically, the Congress considered an ambitious goal of planting 10,000 new churches by the year 2015. Practically, the Congress showcased a number of evangelical movements and programs that the average church member may know little or nothing about but which nevertheless are having a significant impact on church leaders, on evangelical churches and on society.

The focus of the Congress was seven plenary sessions featuring worship, testimonies and major addresses. There were also 16 workshops offered in two timeslots; a "regional break-out" where various denominations could strategize on evangelizing specific parts of Canada; and two slots for "denominational break-outs" where representatives of each denomination gathered to plan that denomination's church planting strategy. Each delegate was given a thick binder which included outlines of the major presentations and workshops plus 300 pages of in-depth research on Canada and its churches.

The first main presentation, on Monday evening, was an example of successful

mother-daughter church planting. Pastor Gord Martin described how his church, Lakeshore Bible Church in Kitchener, Ont., had planted five daughter churches.

Following the Monday evening plenary session was a one-hour concert in prayer, led by Jacqueline Dugas, director of the Centre for Prayer Mobilization of Every Home for Christ Canada. Her enthusiasm and possibility thinking had delegates praying fervently and with expectation.

There were prayer sessions at the beginning of each day, and prayer teams met daily for weeks before and after the Congress, as well as during each session.

On Tuesday morning, Arnell Motz, director of SIM Canada, presented statistical information on the church in Canada. The numerical decline of Christianity in Canada is well known. According to a 1996 Angus Reid survey, only 68% of Canadians identify themselves as Christians, only 58% consider religion important, and only 21% attend church weekly. Estimates of evangelical strength in Canada range from about 7% to 16% of the Canadian population. (About 7% attend evangelical churches, but 6-14% of mainline Protestants and a lesser

percentage of Catholics are considered evangelical according to belief.) This is important because 58% of evangelicals strongly agree that "it is very important to encourage non-Christians to become Christians", compared to 18% of Roman Catholics, 17% of Anglicans and 16% of United Church members. In other words, the committeed mission force in Canada is quite small.

The good news is that evangelicals, having been on a plateau since 1931, have begun to grow quite significantly. (Mainline Protestant churches peaked in 1931, and the Roman Catholic Church in 1981.) In fact, evangelical churches now outnumber mainline Protestant churches and Roman Catholic churches (see sidebar #3).

Evangelical denominations in Canada are increasing their number of churches at an average rate of about 1.5% a year, faster than the 1.1% annual increase in the Canadian population. The worldwide evangelical church growth rate is 5.4%. Organizers of the Church Planting Congress wondered what would happen if Canadian denominations could increase their church planting rate from 1.5% to 4.5%. In that case, the number of evangelical churches would grow dramatically, from 8848 congregations in 1995 to 9926 congregations in 2000 and 18,768

congregations in 2015. Even with increases in the Canadian population, this means that there would be one evangelical church trying to reach every 2000 Canadians, compared to the current rate of one evangelical church for every 3163 Canadians.

Mennonite Brethren are about average, with a current growth rate of 1.8%. If we increased our church planting rate by 3% to 4.8%, we would grow from 208 congregations in 1995 to 484 congregations in 2015.

Is such growth possible? Motz pointed out that many evangelical churches and

denominations are small and that attendance at Church Planting Congress `97 was

smaller than that at the National Leadership Consultation on Evangelism in Ottawa in 1990 (see MBH, June 15, 1990). However, he urged delegates not to "despise the day of small things" (Zechariah 4:10) but to recognize that anything is possible when Christians are connected to God's power.

On Tuesday afternoon, Evangelical Fellowship of Canada president Gary Walsh told stories of a church planter who was thinking of quitting because he felt rejected by the pastors of established churches, and of a pastor who was thinking of quitting because he had been told repeatedly that only church planters were doing important work for God. Walsh made a plea for balance, where both established churches and church plants are valued and where church growth

comes in a context of deep spirituality.

On Tuesday evening, Lynn Green described another nation, England, had undertaken a comprehensive growth strategy such as was being proposed for Canada. Church attendance in England has levelled off at 10% of the population, but the evangelical churches are growing, and the percentage of evangelicals in mainline Protestant denominations is growing. Out of a growing church renewal have come some spontaneous movements that have impacted other countries as

well: the annual March For Jesus; Alpha (an Anglican-based evangelism program in which people are invited to dinner parties and then enrolled in basic Bible courses); and the Reconciliation Walk (which retraces the steps of the First Crusade to defuse bitterness between Christians, Muslims and Jews). A church planting congress held in 1992 (modelled on the DAWN strategy) had an unannounced goal of planting 20,000 churches and increasing church attendance to 20% of the population. Leaders of the 32 denominations present met separately to

establish their own church planting goals, and the total came to over 19,000. Now, five years later, the denominations are on track to meet their goals.

Green is director of Youth With A Mission for Europe, Middle East and Africa; chair of Challenge 2000 (England's DAWN movement); and leader of the Reconciliation Walk.

Two presentations were made Wednesday morning. David Chiu, evangelism director for the Conference of Mennonites in B.C., introduced the Church Planter Assessment centre program. This program, first developed in the US, evaluates potential church planters over a number of days in order to discern the giftedness each candidate has and what help he may need in order to plant a church. (Such a program is currently operated annually in British Columbia by the Conference of Mennonites, the B.C. MB Conference and a number of other denominations.)

Tim Berends talked of the need for support systems for church planters. He particularly endorsed the New Church Development program led by Bob Logan of Church Resource Ministries. This program assists the spiritual and strategic development of church planters and new churches in the same way CRM's ReFocusing the Church program assists the spiritual and strategic development of pastors and churches (see MBH, Oct. 24, 1997).

On Thursday morning, Jim Montgomery introduced the DAWN strategy, based on his book Dawn 2000. DAWN stands for "Discipling A Whole Nation". The strategy encourages all of the evangelical denominations in a country to cooperate in developing resources and research, encouraging each other and planning church

planting. The minimum goal is to plant a church in every community and numerically significant ethnic group so that everyone in the nation will have the opportunity to hear the gospel. The strategy is already being implemented in many countries. In fact, it was the DAWN initiative that gave rise to the church planting congress in the first place. Canada's goals of planting 10,000

churches is part of the number which DAWN is going to use for its worldwide table of goals. The key usefulness of DAWN is that it helps Christians to become intentional and focussed on the challenge of reaching their country for Christ. It is clear that if the Canadian Christian church is to reach its goal, it must be intentional and strategic.

Communion and declaration

A final service was a moving experience for many. They had taken the challenge of church planting seriously. Many responded to an invitation to publicly declare their submission to God's call in pursuing the Great commission more strategically for Canada.

A lasting impact?

Will Church Planting Congress `97 have a lasting impact on the church in Canada?

As Arnell Motz pointed out, the National Leadership Consultation on Evangelism in 1990 also set ambitious growth goals, and those were not met. On the other hand, between 1990 and 1997, Canadian evangelical churches made very significant progress toward those goals. By the end of the Congress, 21 of the 39 denominations present had established individual church planting goals which totalled 541 of the 1078 church plants desired by the year 2000.

An encouraging sign was that in virtually all of the presentations, even those dealing with statistics and projections, great emphasis was placed on prayer, submission to God's direction and deep commitment to Christ. Despite occasional lapses (such as a Monday night video which seemed to be promoting Canadian nationalism as much as Canadian evangelism), there was little sign of triumphalism. The spirit seemed right.JC

SIDEBAR #1

The sponsors

The Canadian Church Planting Congress `97 was hosted by Church Planting Canada

(itself a merger of the Canadian arm of AD 2000 & Beyond Movement Canada and the

Evangelical Fellowship of Canada's Vision Canada) and by Outreach Canada (a parachurch organization that provides research and other services to denominations and church planters).

Nineteen denominations were listed as official sponsors of the event, including the Canadian Conference of MB Churches. Canadian MB Conference Evangelism Director Ewald Unruh was a member of the organizing committee.

SIDEBAR #2

Workshops

Sixteen workshops provided information and discussion of a number of areas. Some workshops offered resources, such as Outreach Canada's computer-based research, which analyzes the population in a target church planting area and also discerns where new churches are needed. Other workshops focussed on specific types of church plants (cell-based churches, mobilizing the laity) or target groups for church plants (First Nations people, urban areas, youth, minority ethnic

groups).

SIDEBAR #3

1990 1995

Evangelical 7854 8848

Mainline Protestant 9226 8358

Roman Catholic 6173 5355

SIDEBAR #4

We, the delegates to the Canadian Church Planting Congress `97--representing

39 denominations, 13 mission organizations and 4 seminaries--called together to address the urgent spiritual need in Canada, declare concerted prayer and evangelistic church planting to be the key to reaching our nation.

We acknowledge:

* That without the raising up of new congregations, there are still thousands of

Canadians wbo will not have the opportunity to hear of the saving grace of our Lord Jesus Christ;

* That we have a personal and corporate responsibility to reach these people;

* That church planting is the key to discipling our nation, calling the people to worship and serve our Lord Jesus Christ.

We commit:

* To earnestly pray for the harvest field and the harvest force;

* To the goal of planting 10,000 new churches by the year 2015;

* To plant churches that are geographically accessible and culturally relevant to every Canadian;

* To develop networks for support and accountability;

* To work together as the whole body of Christ to accomplish the task of the

gospel for every person and a church for every people.

At least 25 Mennonite Brethren attended Canadian Church Planting Congress `97,

including the Canadian MB Conference Board of Evangelism (which held its fall meeting just prior to the Congress), some church planters and several executive staff of the Canadian and provincial conferences. These delegates met togther in the two timeslots scheduled for "denominational break-outs", then added an extra pizza-supper meeting.

These sessions featured a frank assessment of the Mennonite Brethren Church. (For example, it was admitted that while lip service is often given to evangelism and church planting, this is often not followed by real commitment and budget allocations.) There is a healthy movement among MBs to return to a daughter church model of church planting, but it was recognized that this model would not work in the large urban centres. It was suggested that a concerted effort must be made to reach Toronto and other large cities, that a small-scale approach will not work there and that the current national/provincial conference jurisdictional rules may be a hindrance. A need for trained church planters was noted, and professor Jim Westgate reported that MB Biblical Seminary is hoping to begin an intensive, one-year church planter training program that would include direct experience in a church plant; that program may be in operation as early as fall, 1998.

Although the assembled delegates were not an authorized decision-making body for the MB Church, the discussion resulted in a firm commitment to a statement of direction. JC

* the Great Commission and Great Commandment mandates of our Lord Jesus

Christ,

* the spiritual climate of Canada and the need to reach the post-Christian society in new ways, and

* the declaration of the Church Planting Congress `97,

As the Canadian MB Conference Board of Evangelism, a group of church planting

representatives and conference leaders,

We affirm:

* our national commitment to fostering healthy, growing churches reaching our

world;

We determine:

* to make evangelistic church planting the top priority of the Board of Evangelism

and provincial conference church extension boards;

We agree:

* to use new avenues of collaboration and make a concerted effort to accomplish

this task, including:

* strategic targetting of the key cities of Canada

* concerted focussed prayer

* implementing evangelistic church planting strategies

* building networks to strengthen church plants and develop effective church

planters

* supporting and sustaining existing church plants;

* each church to become involved in a church planting initiative.

Beyond this statement, the Mennonite Brethren leaders present expressed a faith goal to see 31 new church plants by the end of 2000 AD, and 179 new church plants by the end of 2010. The Board of Evangelism, together with Executive Board, have already begun talks as to what strategic components and initiatives must be put in place in order reach this goal.