The need to plant churches in Canada is great. The following statistics help to confirm the need for more new churches. We strongly believe that “The single most effective evangelistic methodology under heaven is planting new churches." As a percentage of evangelical churches to the population, Canada is one of the most unchurched countries in the world!
As a church planter it is important to know, not only the statistics of our nation, but the local demographics.
By 2031, 74% or 42 million Canadians will live in urban centres in Canada (Source: Religion Mix Growth in Canadian Cities 2006-2031, Canada Heritage Dept.).
Throughout Canada and the world, people are migrating to cities for a variety of reasons. The trend has been going on for decades and it’s increasing. Are people finding what they are looking for by moving into Canadian cities?
In a statistics Canada Study: “How’s Life in the City? Life Satisfaction across Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs) and Economic Regions (ERs) in Canada,” the authors asked how satisfied urbanites were. There was some interesting data for Christians who desire to reach city dwellers with the Gospel. All info was based on 340,000 respondents over 2009-2013.
Which Canadian cities have the most “satisfied” residents?
o Respondents answered with a number on a scale of 0-10, 0 being “very dissatisfied with life” and 10 being “very satisfied with life”.
o The top cities were:
1-Saguenay 2-Trois-Rivières 3-St. John’s 4-Greater Sudbury
5-Quebec City 10-Ottawa-Gatineau 13-Montreal 14-Halifax
16-Calgary 21-Hamilton 23-Winnipeg 29-Edmonton
30-Guelph 31-Windsor 32-Toronto 33-Vancouver
In light of this reality, our movement of churches need to become more effective at reaching urbanites with the gospel. This growing demographic are typically more secular or part of another religious group other than Christian. For instance, by 2031, 50% of all non-Christian/other religion city dwellers will be Muslim.
Growing Diversity of Canadian Population
One notable feature of Canadian population in recent decades is the sharp increase of the visible minority population. According to the Employment Equity Act of Canada, visible minorities are defined as ‘persons, other than Aboriginal persons, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour’. The 2006 Census revealed that Canada had more than 5 million visible minority people constituting as much as 16% of the nation’s total population. It is anticipated that, by the year of 2031, the visible minority population will increase up to 30% of the Canadian population.
(From “Canada’s Ethnocultural Mosaic, 2006 Census”, by Statistic Canada, 2008, p.12)
A visible minority person is not necessarily from a foreign country. There are visible minorities who were born in Canada or whose family has lived in Canada for several generations. However, the majority of visible minorities in Canada are foreign-borns. In 2006, about 66% of visible minorities were immigrants from outside Canada. This chart below shows that most visible minorities from Asia, Latin America, and Arab countries were born outside Canada.
(From “Canada’s Ethnocultural Mosaic, 2006 Census”, by Statistic Canada, 2008, p.15)
When we discuss ethnic or cultural diversity of Canadian population, we can also observe a change in immigration pattern. In the latter part of the twentieth century, immigrant demographics of Canada changed significantly from European to non-European. The figure below shows that, while the proportion of Europeans among Canadian immigrants has decreased since 1981, the proportion of Asian immigrants has had a steep increase. In 2006, the number of Asian immigrants, for the first time, exceeded the number of European immigrants.
(From “Projections of the Diversity of the Canadian Population” by Statistics Canada, 2010, p.17)
The immigrants from Asia, Africa, South America, and Caribbean countries are expected to grow in number. Consequently, Canada’s population will become increasingly diverse.
Ethnic Communities of Canada
When people of different cultures and ethnicity come to Canada, they gather and form immigrant communities. In urban centres of Canada such as Toronto, it is not difficult to find ethnic communities where particular people groups are living and doing business together. These places accommodate supermarkets, restaurants, service agencies, and religious organizations specific to the ethnic group. China town and Greek town in the city of Toronto are examples of the regional ethnic community.
Ethnic communities are not always visible or distinctive to outsiders. Some ethnic groups are too small in number to become visible or some others just do not tend to live very close to each other. However, every ethnic group in Canada, including the one hidden or unknown to outsiders, has a network within itself. Through this network, members of the ethnic group socialize or share information and resources for Canadian life. The bond of the ethnic group is strong that their network reaches and is effective even across geographical boundary. For example, it is a common pattern of immigration in Canada that individuals immigrate following their family and friends who have immigrated to Canada before them.
It is a well-known fact that ethnic groups in Canada is diverse in nature. More than 200 ethnic origins have been identified in Canada. However, one thing that is not being noticed well about Canada’s ethnic groups is their ‘size’. There are 18 immigrant communities in Canada which are more than 100,000 in number.
Canada has become a place where big chunks of different ethnic groups are found together.
Two figures below show how diverse and large Canada’s ethnic communities are. The first figure represents where foreign-borns of Canada are from. More than 100,000 Canadian population respectively identified 18 countries of origin. The second figure below demonstrates 21 different mother tongues spoken by more than 100,000 people in Canada.
(From, “Diaspora Nation: An Inquiry into the Economic Potential of Diaspora Networks in Canada”, by Maurice Britan & Serene Tan, 2013, p.47, 56)
Immigrant communities in Canada are not always precisely divided by the country of origin or native language. Yet, data above still offer good sense about the size and diversity of ethnic communities in Canada.
New Canadian Church Planter (NCCP)
Having a large number of foreign-borns and ethnic groups in Canada is a challenge to Canadian church. People from different cultures including those from so called ‘the 10/40 Window’ or ‘unreached people groups’ are living among us. These different people will be making up larger portion of Canadian population. Therefore, how to respond to the reality of ethnic population has become a crucial concern for Canadian church.
New Canadian Church Planters (NCCPs) are the ones who can contribute significantly to the ministry for ethnic groups. NCCPs come to Canada with “a burden to evangelize…and at the same time searching to improve their education and lifestyle”.[7] As newcomers to Canada, often times, New Canadian Church Planters lack resources for life and ministry. However, the experience and passion in church planting, in addition to the knowledge of specific culture and language, give NCCPs potential for their ministry in Canada.
The work of New Canadian Church Planters are already being manifested to be fruitful. The products of their ministry are seen in the areas of ‘missions to the diasporas’, ‘missions through the diasporas’, and ‘missions beyond the diasporas’.
First, NCCPs are doing ‘the missions to the diasporas’ by reaching out to their compatriots and planting churches among them. As Marc’s example in the introduction of this paper shows, the immigrant church planters are effective in finding a network of ethnic groups and reaching out to people of their own ethnic origin. Most ethnic churches in Toronto are being planted by church planters and pastors belonging to the ethnic group.
Second, some NCCPs are engaged in ‘missions through the diasporas’ that they evangelize their kinsmen in their home country or diaspora in other countries. For example, one Arabic speaking church in Toronto, which was planted about two years ago by an Arabic NCCP, has purchased a broadcasting facility in order to produce gospel materials in Arabic language. The church is planning to spread their gospel materials to their home Arabic countries using the local network. Third, some New Canadian Church Planters are practicing ‘missions beyond the diasporas’. They have vision for not only reaching out to their own ethnic groups but also to broader Canadian community. These NCCPs and their churches choose to become intercultural in ministry. Green Hills Christian Fellowship Toronto Church, which was planted by a Filipino pastor in 2007 and planted 5 other churches in its first four year, shares a vision with its planted churches to be missional and multicultural. These churches are intentionally crossing the ethnic boundary in ministry.[
The presence of diasporas in Canada has brought new realities and new opportunities for Canadian churches. Nations are truly on their doorsteps. Canadian churches need to appreciate the significance of this phenomena and respond properly to it. New Canadian Church Planters are people Canadian churches need to get to know and cooperate with. When New Canadian Church Planters and Canadian Churches come together for mutual learning and collaborative relationships, we will see the great commission (Matthew 28:18-20) realized, right in our neighborhood.
From http://ureachtoronto.com/content/immigrant-churches
Toronto City Wards
http://www1.toronto.ca/wps/portal/contentonly?vgnextoid=2394fe17e5648410VgnVCM10000071d60f89RCRD
Dont Forget! We have a Healthy Church Plant Seminar coming up in April 4, 11, 18 & 25). It is free for you and your team.
Call Dr. Aaron Kerr at 416 805 5850 or
Email The Church Planter at aaron@thechurchplanter.com or
Visit our site page at http://www.gilgalchristiancommunity.org/church-planting.html
- In Canada there are close to 24 million people who do not have a personal relationship with Christ!
- Nearly 82% of all Canadians have no meaningful church relationship!
- According to Outreach Canada demographic research, only 18% of Canadians attend church regularly. In urban centers like Toronto, only 5% of the population can be categorized as consistent church attendees!
- No single city or province in Canada has a greater percentage of churched people today than a decade ago.
- Among existing churches in Canada, 80% are characterized as plateaued, declining, or disintegrating.
- To have one evangelical church for every 1,000 people, in Ontario alone 8,594 new churches would need to be planted!
- Evangelical churches have failed to gain an additional 2% of the Canadian population in the past 50 years. In other words, we are not even reaching our own children!
- Evangelical planting (1.6% annually) falls behind population growth (1.9% annually).
- North America is the ONLY continent where Christianity is not growing!
- 230,000 new Canadians have immigrated annually during the last decade. The majority are Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Buddhist or Confucian – the “mission field” is here.
- Canadians dying without Christ: 165,000 souls each year.
As a church planter it is important to know, not only the statistics of our nation, but the local demographics.
By 2031, 74% or 42 million Canadians will live in urban centres in Canada (Source: Religion Mix Growth in Canadian Cities 2006-2031, Canada Heritage Dept.).
Throughout Canada and the world, people are migrating to cities for a variety of reasons. The trend has been going on for decades and it’s increasing. Are people finding what they are looking for by moving into Canadian cities?
In a statistics Canada Study: “How’s Life in the City? Life Satisfaction across Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs) and Economic Regions (ERs) in Canada,” the authors asked how satisfied urbanites were. There was some interesting data for Christians who desire to reach city dwellers with the Gospel. All info was based on 340,000 respondents over 2009-2013.
Which Canadian cities have the most “satisfied” residents?
o Respondents answered with a number on a scale of 0-10, 0 being “very dissatisfied with life” and 10 being “very satisfied with life”.
o The top cities were:
1-Saguenay 2-Trois-Rivières 3-St. John’s 4-Greater Sudbury
5-Quebec City 10-Ottawa-Gatineau 13-Montreal 14-Halifax
16-Calgary 21-Hamilton 23-Winnipeg 29-Edmonton
30-Guelph 31-Windsor 32-Toronto 33-Vancouver
In light of this reality, our movement of churches need to become more effective at reaching urbanites with the gospel. This growing demographic are typically more secular or part of another religious group other than Christian. For instance, by 2031, 50% of all non-Christian/other religion city dwellers will be Muslim.
Growing Diversity of Canadian Population
One notable feature of Canadian population in recent decades is the sharp increase of the visible minority population. According to the Employment Equity Act of Canada, visible minorities are defined as ‘persons, other than Aboriginal persons, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour’. The 2006 Census revealed that Canada had more than 5 million visible minority people constituting as much as 16% of the nation’s total population. It is anticipated that, by the year of 2031, the visible minority population will increase up to 30% of the Canadian population.
(From “Canada’s Ethnocultural Mosaic, 2006 Census”, by Statistic Canada, 2008, p.12)
A visible minority person is not necessarily from a foreign country. There are visible minorities who were born in Canada or whose family has lived in Canada for several generations. However, the majority of visible minorities in Canada are foreign-borns. In 2006, about 66% of visible minorities were immigrants from outside Canada. This chart below shows that most visible minorities from Asia, Latin America, and Arab countries were born outside Canada.
(From “Canada’s Ethnocultural Mosaic, 2006 Census”, by Statistic Canada, 2008, p.15)
When we discuss ethnic or cultural diversity of Canadian population, we can also observe a change in immigration pattern. In the latter part of the twentieth century, immigrant demographics of Canada changed significantly from European to non-European. The figure below shows that, while the proportion of Europeans among Canadian immigrants has decreased since 1981, the proportion of Asian immigrants has had a steep increase. In 2006, the number of Asian immigrants, for the first time, exceeded the number of European immigrants.
(From “Projections of the Diversity of the Canadian Population” by Statistics Canada, 2010, p.17)
The immigrants from Asia, Africa, South America, and Caribbean countries are expected to grow in number. Consequently, Canada’s population will become increasingly diverse.
Ethnic Communities of Canada
When people of different cultures and ethnicity come to Canada, they gather and form immigrant communities. In urban centres of Canada such as Toronto, it is not difficult to find ethnic communities where particular people groups are living and doing business together. These places accommodate supermarkets, restaurants, service agencies, and religious organizations specific to the ethnic group. China town and Greek town in the city of Toronto are examples of the regional ethnic community.
Ethnic communities are not always visible or distinctive to outsiders. Some ethnic groups are too small in number to become visible or some others just do not tend to live very close to each other. However, every ethnic group in Canada, including the one hidden or unknown to outsiders, has a network within itself. Through this network, members of the ethnic group socialize or share information and resources for Canadian life. The bond of the ethnic group is strong that their network reaches and is effective even across geographical boundary. For example, it is a common pattern of immigration in Canada that individuals immigrate following their family and friends who have immigrated to Canada before them.
It is a well-known fact that ethnic groups in Canada is diverse in nature. More than 200 ethnic origins have been identified in Canada. However, one thing that is not being noticed well about Canada’s ethnic groups is their ‘size’. There are 18 immigrant communities in Canada which are more than 100,000 in number.
Canada has become a place where big chunks of different ethnic groups are found together.
Two figures below show how diverse and large Canada’s ethnic communities are. The first figure represents where foreign-borns of Canada are from. More than 100,000 Canadian population respectively identified 18 countries of origin. The second figure below demonstrates 21 different mother tongues spoken by more than 100,000 people in Canada.
(From, “Diaspora Nation: An Inquiry into the Economic Potential of Diaspora Networks in Canada”, by Maurice Britan & Serene Tan, 2013, p.47, 56)
Immigrant communities in Canada are not always precisely divided by the country of origin or native language. Yet, data above still offer good sense about the size and diversity of ethnic communities in Canada.
New Canadian Church Planter (NCCP)
Having a large number of foreign-borns and ethnic groups in Canada is a challenge to Canadian church. People from different cultures including those from so called ‘the 10/40 Window’ or ‘unreached people groups’ are living among us. These different people will be making up larger portion of Canadian population. Therefore, how to respond to the reality of ethnic population has become a crucial concern for Canadian church.
New Canadian Church Planters (NCCPs) are the ones who can contribute significantly to the ministry for ethnic groups. NCCPs come to Canada with “a burden to evangelize…and at the same time searching to improve their education and lifestyle”.[7] As newcomers to Canada, often times, New Canadian Church Planters lack resources for life and ministry. However, the experience and passion in church planting, in addition to the knowledge of specific culture and language, give NCCPs potential for their ministry in Canada.
The work of New Canadian Church Planters are already being manifested to be fruitful. The products of their ministry are seen in the areas of ‘missions to the diasporas’, ‘missions through the diasporas’, and ‘missions beyond the diasporas’.
First, NCCPs are doing ‘the missions to the diasporas’ by reaching out to their compatriots and planting churches among them. As Marc’s example in the introduction of this paper shows, the immigrant church planters are effective in finding a network of ethnic groups and reaching out to people of their own ethnic origin. Most ethnic churches in Toronto are being planted by church planters and pastors belonging to the ethnic group.
Second, some NCCPs are engaged in ‘missions through the diasporas’ that they evangelize their kinsmen in their home country or diaspora in other countries. For example, one Arabic speaking church in Toronto, which was planted about two years ago by an Arabic NCCP, has purchased a broadcasting facility in order to produce gospel materials in Arabic language. The church is planning to spread their gospel materials to their home Arabic countries using the local network. Third, some New Canadian Church Planters are practicing ‘missions beyond the diasporas’. They have vision for not only reaching out to their own ethnic groups but also to broader Canadian community. These NCCPs and their churches choose to become intercultural in ministry. Green Hills Christian Fellowship Toronto Church, which was planted by a Filipino pastor in 2007 and planted 5 other churches in its first four year, shares a vision with its planted churches to be missional and multicultural. These churches are intentionally crossing the ethnic boundary in ministry.[
The presence of diasporas in Canada has brought new realities and new opportunities for Canadian churches. Nations are truly on their doorsteps. Canadian churches need to appreciate the significance of this phenomena and respond properly to it. New Canadian Church Planters are people Canadian churches need to get to know and cooperate with. When New Canadian Church Planters and Canadian Churches come together for mutual learning and collaborative relationships, we will see the great commission (Matthew 28:18-20) realized, right in our neighborhood.
From http://ureachtoronto.com/content/immigrant-churches
Toronto City Wards
http://www1.toronto.ca/wps/portal/contentonly?vgnextoid=2394fe17e5648410VgnVCM10000071d60f89RCRD
Dont Forget! We have a Healthy Church Plant Seminar coming up in April 4, 11, 18 & 25). It is free for you and your team.
Call Dr. Aaron Kerr at 416 805 5850 or
Email The Church Planter at aaron@thechurchplanter.com or
Visit our site page at http://www.gilgalchristiancommunity.org/church-planting.html