When Michael Chhangur informed his neighbor he was a pastor, he was met with a clean stare.
“He simply checked out me confused, like, ‘What’s that?’” stated Chhangur.
Chhangur has seen this response typically since he and his household moved to Halifax, the capital of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, in 2019 to plant Christ Church Halifax. Companies started in October 2021. Now, practically 100 individuals meet every Sunday within the metropolis’s downtown. Many haven’t any earlier church background, not to mention familiarity with the PCA or Reformed theology.
Chhangur describes the expansion as miraculous. Few church crops survive in Nova Scotia, or within the different Atlantic Canada provinces: New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador.
Normally, the area is spiritually burnt out, stated Chhangur, probably owing to scandals within the Roman Catholic Church. Many individuals weren’t raised within the church, so, like his neighbor, they’ve little context for what pastors do or what church buildings are.
“It’s very a lot frontier evangelism in a variety of locations,” stated Chhangur, who was a pastoral intern at Resurrection Church in Ottawa, Ontario, earlier than coming to Halifax.
Chhangur and the remainder of the Jap Canada Presbytery hope to see extra church buildings planted on this frontier. The presbytery’s aim is to double its dimension within the subsequent 10 years, a part of Mission to North America’s imaginative and prescient to extend the variety of PCA congregations within the U.S. and Canada from 1,932 to three,000 congregations by 2033.
The plan is bold. The presbytery has 17 church buildings and 5 mission church buildings. Its aim is to start out 5 or 6 church buildings from scratch and plant one other 10 to 12 daughter church buildings. Pastors and church planters say church multiplication can solely occur by means of collaboration – each throughout the presbytery and the denomination.
Recruiting Inside and Past a Huge Space
The presbytery is rising. A brand new mission church was established in 2024. Two others opened in 2023. Particular church buildings have momentum, however doubling the presbytery requires a crew method.
“Our presbytery, like a variety of presbyteries, is struggling to know what it means to work collectively to plant church buildings,” stated Kyle Hackmann, pastor at Christ Church Toronto in Ontario. “We cowl such an unlimited area that what occurs in a single a part of our presbytery is nearly unknown to different members of the presbytery.”
“Huge” is an understatement. Canada’s 3.9 million sq. miles break down into simply two presbyteries. The Jap Canada Presbytery spans six Canadian provinces: Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador. This consists of Canada’s most populous province – Ontario, with simply over 16 million residents – and its least – Prince Edward Island, with slightly below 180,000 residents.
The presbytery needs to plant a church in every of those provinces. Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador haven’t any PCA church buildings.
Doubling the presbytery means encouraging pastors and church members to suppose past their cities and their provinces.
Church buildings naturally take into consideration planting church buildings shut by, stated Hackmann. He is aware of. He served at Grace Toronto, within the downtown of Canada’s most populous metropolis, earlier than planting Christ Church within the metropolis’s east finish. The Better Toronto Space wants extra church buildings, he stated. However he additionally is aware of he must encourage his members to consider planting church buildings outdoors Ontario.
“We’re making an attempt our greatest to see this space as our collective mission area as a bigger physique of church buildings,” Hackmann stated.
Like every mission area, it wants employees. The presbytery is seeking to recruit church planters from Canada and the U.S.
“Canada affords a singular alternative,” stated Hackmann, who was beneath care of and licensed in Chicago Metro Presbytery and moved to Toronto in 2010. Whereas Canada is extra secular than the U.S., the 2 international locations share a standard language and plenty of comparable cultural practices. Canadian pastors are keen to assist different pastors come to Canada, Hackmann stated. He thinks American seminary college students would profit from serving in Canada, as would younger pastors. Cooperation between pastors in each international locations “would solely make the PCA stronger as a complete,” he stated. “There’s only a great want.”
A French Church for Quebec
One of many neediest areas is Quebec, broadly thought of Canada’s least evangelized province. The PCA has one church there: Grace Gatineau, a mission church planted in 2023. The presbytery’s aim is to plant a French-speaking Quebec church.
Protestant church buildings have all the time been sparse within the traditionally Catholic, predominantly French province. However for the reason that Nineteen Sixties, Quebec has intentionally severed its non secular ties. For instance, it’s unlawful for Quebec authorities workers – together with lecturers – to put on non secular symbols at work.
It’s a far cry from Christian-saturated Mississippi the place Franky Garcia, Grace’s pastor, was raised.
“Transferring right here, I felt like I went from being the hero to being the villain in society,” he stated.
Grace’s progress has come amidst opposition. Quebec gives classes for pastors in different post-Christian contexts.
“The extra we minister right here, the extra we’ll find out about the best way to face the altering tides,” stated Garcia.
There are indicators of curiosity. Presbyterianism has typically been lumped in with Catholicism, says Luke Bert, a PCA elder who teaches at a French, Baptist seminary in Quebec. However he sees rising curiosity. Round 400 individuals attended the launch final 12 months of the French model of the Reformation Study Bible. A joint challenge of Ligonier ministries and Publications Chrétiennes, the research Bible accommodates all of the research supplies within the English Reformation Examine Bible translated into French.
“Reformed theology, covenant theology is one thing that’s actually interesting to Quebecers,” Bert stated. “I feel that French Canadians are very serious about it.”
Nonetheless, they want a French church. Grace is an English church with many French-speaking attendees. Companies are bilingual; sermons are translated stay into French.
Discovering a bilingual or Francophone Reformed pastor able to church plant is difficult. The presbytery must study to assist French-speaking pastors and study Francophone pastoral candidates who could battle to evangelise their trial sermons in English, stated Bert.
“We have to be very strategic about not solely offering sources [to French pastors], but in addition strolling hand-in-hand with French-speaking Christians and bilingual Christians, coaching them as much as the purpose that we are able to have good, robust French church buildings,” he stated.
Francophone Christians are already a key useful resource for the church, stated Garcia.
“We pay attention so much to the Francophones, as a result of most of the Francophone Christians have been ministering in a world that may be very completely different from the English audio system,” he stated. “They’ve realized so much. We pay attention, and we encourage.”
Planting with Creativity
Different presbytery church buildings could present inspiration for recruiting new church planters. Phil Tadros pastors Sojourn Group Church in Stoney Creek, Ontario. As soon as its personal municipality, Stoney Creek is a neighborhood within the east finish of Hamilton, a metropolis of about 600,000. This a part of town typically received ignored in church planting, stated Tadros. He doesn’t know of some other Reformed church buildings within the space.
Sojourn launched in September 2024. By December, near 60 adults, plus youngsters, attended weekly.
Tadros is pretty new to pastoral ministry. He began pastoring in 2023, becoming a member of New Metropolis Hamilton with the aim of church planting. He admits he wasn’t the standard church planting candidate: he was married with 4 youngsters and a longtime profession as a freight pilot. He’s now a bivocational pastor, flying seven or eight days a month.
Tadros appreciates the PCA’s emphasis on city facilities however says the denomination should keep in mind small and medium-sized cities.
“There’s nonetheless lots of people who aren’t ministered to and don’t have a variety of [biblically faithful] church buildings,” he stated. “We need to go the place there may be much less gospel presence.”
Sojourn already has a pastoral resident and is dreaming of the place and when to plant a church. However Tadros thinks the presbytery ought to take into account various kinds of church planters, maybe those that are older or have ministry expertise and established careers, however don’t have formal theological coaching. The presbytery ought to take into consideration sending groups of church members, maybe one or two {couples}, with ordained ministers to assist plant church buildings in cities additional away from the sending church.
“I feel we have to be inventive about how we recruit and the way we method church planting if we’re actually severe about doubling the dimensions of our presbytery,” he stated.
However he’s excited to see progress.
“There’s simply a lot that should occur that solely God can do for this to grow to be actuality,” he stated. “However we are able to dream. We will solid that imaginative and prescient.”
Meagan Gillmore is a journalist in Ottawa, Ontario, the place she attends Resurrection Church.
