Planting a Church in Toronto, Canada
Canada has become the “land of opportunity” for church planters who have a strong sense of God’s call on their lives. Canada was birthed out of religious fervor; but most of its 33 million citizens now dismiss religion as irrelevant. In Toronto there is only one Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) church for every 269,605 people! We, however, are blessed to live where, for every 1,998 Tennesseans, there is a SBC church. There is a SBC church for every 1,315 Mississippians.
How does our church respond to this need in Toronto for evangelical churches? First we discover what God is doing around us.
Several months ago, Matt Hess, a former CFBC staff member and later pastor of Carrey Chapel in Mt. Pleasant, Mississippi, came to Pastor Chuck and to our missions minister individually to let them know that God had burdened him and his wife, Arrica, to plant a church in an unevangelized area of North America. Both responded, “Have you thought about Canada?”
The couple began to pray and felt God confirming this direction. Matt has resigned his Carrey Chapel pastorate, and he and Arrica are preparing to move to Canada in May, 2012. Our church will be their primary sponsor, and our Mid-South Baptist Association has agreed to join in supporting the Toronto church plant. We are working with the association to organize a vision trip for other local pastors to see the opportunity of planting churches and sharing the gospel in Canada.
More than 25 million Canadians live in cities. Almost 75% live within 100 miles of the U.S-Canadian border. Their cities are ethnically diverse. Toronto’s population is comprised of 46% immigrants. Jeff Christopherson, NAMB’s vice president for the Toranto region, says of the effort to reach Canada, “It’s God sized. We need support from the outside and leadership raised up within our cultures. There’s no other way we’re going to accomplish this (evangelization) without patience and partnerships with state conventions, associations, and local churches.”