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For many Texans, the church-on-every-corner sort of town is more than a stereotype—it’s a commonplace reality. The thought of a town where one church exists for every 105,000 people could seem far fetched.
Yet that is the reality about 2,000 miles north in Montreal, Canada. Only 0.7 percent of those living in Montreal are considered evangelical. In the province of Quebec, that percent drops even lower to 0.5 percent.
Chad Vandiver, coordinator for SEND Montreal, has been working in Quebec for the past eight months to help organize church planting and mission work among the indigenous Quebecois people and the ethnic people who have moved there from all over the world. He says the people are not so much hardened to the gospel as they are ignorant of Christ and his salvation.
“As I walked the streets in Montreal, I realized that they didn’t know who the savior was. It was not that they were anti-Christian, they just didn’t know about the savior.”
—Chad Vandiver, coordinator for SEND Montreal
“As I walked the streets in Montreal, I realized that they didn’t know who the savior was,” Vandiver said. “It was not that they were anti-Christian, they just didn’t know about the savior.”
It is within this environment that Vandiver and his fellow workers set out to plant 50 churches in a five-year period, which, he said, they are set to accomplish by the end of this year. The work is far from finished, though, and really only beginning in the effort to reach the 3.5 million people living in the Montreal area. And that, Vandiver says, is where he seeks the help of Texans and Texas churches.
“We ask churches to dream with us,” Vandiver said. “We need all sorts of ideas. It’s a blank slate. There’re so many opportunities to minister there. Our response to a church is, ‘Yes.’”
Vandiver said there are four levels of partnership for churches to consider when looking for ways to join the evangelism effort in Montreal: supporting church, sending church, multiplying church and lead-partner church.
A supporting church is considered a basic level of engagement, meaning that the church commits to pray, participate and help provide for various needs.
A sending church is responsible for a new church plant until the plant is self-sustaining. At this level, a church will work alongside NAMB to send a planting pastor, send funds and possibly even send a core group. One innovative piece of this level is the opportunity for lay people to sign up to become a core member. A core member, while not being called to full-time ministry, can become an integral part of the evangelistic effort by moving to Montreal to continue in his own vocation and be a part of the new church plant. Vandiver says relationships have even been made in some instances where business owners from various industries have told him that if a person comes as a core member, he may be able to arrange a job for them beforehand.
A multiplying church, Vandiver said, is a church committed to having an intentional process for discovering, developing and deploying missionaries from within their church. NAMB offers a church training event for churches that desire to become multiplying churches and offers more information on the process at namb.net/SendNetwork.
A lead-partner church, he said, helps lead the SEND Montreal mission strategy in five ways.
1) They commit to partner with a church plant for a minimum of five years.
2) They commit to give a minimum of $30,000 each year for five years to a SEND Montreal church plant.
3) They commit to mobilize five other Southern Baptist churches to give $5,000 a year for five years.
4) They work with Vandiver to host at least one Catch the Vision tour each year.
5) They commit to become a multiplying church that intentionally raises up missionaries to serve in North America and throughout the world.
Vandiver invites Southern Baptists to join them on one of the five upcoming vision tours in 2014 that will introduce them to Montreal and allow them to see the opportunities available to serve and support the ministry God has begun there.
Five vision tours are set for 2014:
- March 10-12
- April 14-16
- May 12-14
- Sept. 8-10
- Oct. 27-29
Ten variously sized Southern Baptist churches from Texas currently partner with SEND Montreal, Vandiver said, explaining that there is a need and a way for even small churches to become involved. He said one of the partnering churches gives $100 a month—an amount that might not seem large but that makes an incredible impact in Montreal.
“Even $100 a month is a huge, huge support for us,” Vandiver said.
Vandiver said he simply asks that churches pray for those serving in Montreal, pray for the hearts of the people in Montreal and pray about whether God might have for their church or for them personally to get further involved in reaching Montreal.
“God is starting to open the eyes of Southern Baptists to Quebec,” Vandiver said. “It’s cool to be a part of that, because for 20-25 years, pastors in the area have prayed that that would happen.”
To find out more about how to support SEND Montreal, visit sbtexas.com/mobilization.
