The Summit

The summit is now over and I am waiting for a ride to the greyhound so I can get back to Medicine Hat. We had over 70 people at the summit all with the same mindset -- how do we plant churches in a country where people are so unchurched? We had Canadian born, and immigrated church planters there, we had American church planters who are investing their lives into Canada, we had partner churches from Wyoming, Colorado, South Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia up there asking us planters all the same question, "How can we partner with you to see the Good News of Jesus Christ come to Canada?"

We are in a culture that is so unchurched that most mission teams don't understand why the church planter says don't share the Gospel when you come up. Most of Canada is so unchurched that if you would try to share the Gospel in most cases it would be like trying to teach calculus to somebody who is just learning to count to 10.

Relationships. That's the key. Developing relationships and building community among people who do not yet have a relationship with Christ in order to have them see Christ lived out in you.

Pray for the prosperity of the city. Be involved in helping the city prosper. Jeremiah 29 goes well into that.

Don't be afraid to get your hands dirty, and be as real as real can get.

You may be wondering why this matters to you if you are not in Canada and are not really thinking about coming to Canada. Well, in South Carolina alone, during the lifespan of this generation's pastors, the percentage of South Carolina's evangelical population will drop into the single digits this generation. That's not including Georgia, or Texas or Louisiana. The Bible Belt is deteriorating and I believe it is because we have been doing church and not building the Kingdom.

It is very humbling when people who were teaching us at the summit were telling us that we are doing better at church planting up here than the Americans are down south because we need to do it out of necessity and not convenience.

I met a church planting strategist from Quebec who told me about 5 cities in Quebec, Hull, and Troi Rivier to name a few. These 5 cities are the most unchuched cities per capita in North America. One does not have to think very long about how these people's personal lives are and what their homes are like.

Church planting is not about building buildings are having nice services with excellent choirs, but is also about exposing a dying people to the living God in order to see transformed lives and communities.

All in all the summit was good. The days were long, we would start at 8:00 am and I would get home at 11:00pm, but we left refreshed, excited and encouraged.