A New Church Plant in Canada

Vancouver, Canada

Canada is massive, spanning six time zones. If you stand in Toronto you are physically closer to London, UK than you are to Vancouver! Canada has a population of 35 million, 90% of whom live within 100 kilometres of the US border. Rhys Scott tells us more about a planned church plant into the region.

Vancouver is a city emerging onto world consciousness. The recent 2010 Winter Olympics drew the focus of the world to this metropolitan centre. Vancouver is a fascinating mix of cultures: a recent census recorded that Vancouver is now 52% non-English first language. Walk the streets and you'll hear English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Punjabi and a host of other languages spoken. It is this cultural melting pot that makes this city so strategic: a meeting place of East and West.

The marinas are filled with expensive yachts, yet here we find Canada's poorest post code. Over the past years the port has become a major route for the drug trade and sex trafficking and while blessed with remarkable natural beauty, it is spiritually impoverished, with less that 3% of the population attending church of any kind.

At a recent gathering of Newfrontiers Church Leaders in New Brunswick, God gave us a picture of a bicycle chain spread across the southern half of Canada, from Fredericton in the East to Vancouver in the West. Attached to this chain were cogs, representing churches. These cogs were over cities into which we're currently working: Fredericton, Oakville, Owen Sound, Lethbridge and now Vancouver. Linking the cogs together was a flow of people, the links in the chain. As people moved between the cogs, strengthening the churches, these cogs began to grow in size, and other cogs began to appear in other cities as new churches are planted.

Encouraged that Canada is on God's agenda, a team of us are heading to Vancouver at the end of 2011 to plant a church. God has given us some wonderful prophetic promises to believe Him for as we go, and we are trusting that we will see a beautiful church established there. We’re believing God for a church which is a truly multi-cultural community displaying God's grace to the city, loving the poor, and serving society.

There are many challenges before us, but God is more than sufficient for all our needs, and we would love you to stand with us in prayer as we go, praying for:

• a strong team, particularly for Canadians and Asians to be added
• visas for those moving internationally
• house sales
• God's wisdom for where to meet, and provision of facilities to meet in
• provision of funding for those seeking to move, and for the church plant itself.