It is called “the most unchurched city in North America” — Montreal, in the province of French-speaking Quebec in Canada. The city, located on an island in the Saint Lawrence River, was not always so spiritually dark. And there are signs its present condition may be changing.
Montreal was founded by Roman Catholic Jesuit missionaries 375 years ago this year. The number of churches and seminaries attest to the long, strategic role the city played in the spread of Roman Catholicism in the New World. Mark Twain once said of Montreal, “You couldn’t throw a brick without breaking a church window.”
Not anymore. Today sociologists say the area is mostly secular with only traces of a post-Christian culture. In the 1950s, Catholic and Anglican churches — the two dominant religious faiths — were 85–90 percent full each Sunday. Today many of those churches have been closed or torn down. The remaining function at about 5 percent of capacity or less, observers say. One Anglican church built to accommodate 250 had only three people recently.
Only about 1 percent of Montreal residents attend church regularly, we were told.
A University of Vermont professor called the decline of Christianity in Quebec province the most dramatic religious change since the fall of the Roman Empire and the rise of Christianity.
God is working
That conclusion may be premature. There are signs God is beginning to act in Montreal and Baptist churches are in the middle of what God is doing.
In 2010 statistics indicate an average worship attendance of 1,941 persons in 38 Baptist churches in Montreal. That is, 38 Baptist churches cooperating with the Canadian National Convention of Baptists, a body related to the Southern Baptist Convention. In 2017 the average worship attendance is reported at 6,266. In 2010 Baptist churches in Quebec province baptized 99 new believers. The number reported in 2017 is 460.
In 2010 there were no new church plants in Montreal. In 2017 there are 12 with two others nearing launch.
On Oct. 1–3 it was my privilege, along with other state paper editors, to visit Montreal and see some of what God is doing firsthand. The trip was arranged by the North American Mission Board (NAMB) which plays a key role in what is happening in this strategic location.
The vision to turn around Montreal’s slip into spiritual darkness did not originate with Baptist churches. The spark came from a nondenominational church called New Life Church. That congregation averages about 4,300 in worship, we were told.
But even that church did not have the resources to match its vision. That is where NAMB entered the picture.
David Pothier was youth pastor at New Life Church. He resigned and with the assistance of NAMB founded La Chapelle, Rosemont, in 2013. A year later Pothier was featured in NAMB’s report to the Southern Baptist Convention where he shared that in one year, La Chapelle had grown from zero to more than 700 in average attendance. Now the church averages about 950 each Sunday in its rented space on the fifth floor of a commercial building.
Pothier’s vision was not to build a great church like New Life. His goal was to plant 50 churches in Montreal in 30 years. That is one church for every major neighborhood. Since then the vision has expanded to planting new churches in every French-speaking nation in the world.
La Chappelle starts each church with a four-member team consisting of a teaching pastor, worship pastor, children’s pastor and administrative pastor. Each person must apprentice at La Chappelle to be trained in the specific approach of that church.
In addition, the church also sends 200 of its members to help start the new work. Two new churches have been started since 2013 and a third is about to be launched.
Not all of Montreal’s church plants are like La Chappelle. Tony Silveira planted Passion Center in 2014. The church is located in the South Shore area, a reference to being on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River. When local zoning laws prevented establishing a church in a highly visible and highly trafficked area, Silveira formed a family corporation and purchased part of a strip mall. Now he “rents” the space to the church he leads as well as other community groups.
The space seats about 100 people when set up for worship and is filled for each of the two Sunday services, we were told.
Renaissance Church is a more traditional church plant. It was started with the assistance of a Missouri church. When the founding pastor moved to another field, the sponsoring church’s mission pastor, James Copeland, felt called to the Montreal church plant.
Renaissance Church now meets in an elementary school each Sunday. Copeland said the children in the elementary school where the church meets speak 40 different languages and come from 60 countries.
As an outreach ministry, Copeland teaches English in a nearby Muslim mosque using the Bible as the textbook.
Even though Renaissance is numerically small — averaging about 40 in attendance — the church hosts a church planting intern who will begin a new church plant in a few months.
All of this and more are part of Send Montreal, a concentrated effort to plant churches in this geographical area. Send Montreal is a large area stretching from Montreal to Quebec City in the north all the way down to near the U.S. border in the south.
Forming partnerships
NAMB provides limited financial assistance through the Send Montreal program. The major goal is to link established churches in the U.S. with underserved areas like Montreal in order to form ongoing partnerships which can help with financial support, short-term volunteers, prayer support and other helps as opportunities arise.
Currently 143 Southern Baptist churches are part of the Send Montreal effort.
But Montreal is not the only area in Canada where NAMB sponsors a Send City program.
Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and Toronto are all special areas of concentration. And according to information provided by NAMB, each is helping change the spiritual nature of its area.
God does seem to be moving in Montreal and elsewhere in Canada. Surely all of us will want to uphold these efforts in prayer and other ways as the Lord makes possible.
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