Mission Canada. What are we about...

Let’s talk about what we are about. Mission Canada is about doing missions in Canada, realizing there are unreached peoples right in our own front yard. This is our Jerusalem and Judea ( Acts 1:8). We are prayerfully developing strategies to reach the unreached people in our own country: people who would otherwise live beyond the reach of the traditional model of doing church. In otherwords, people who for whatever reason would rarely if ever darken the door of an organizational church.


In my world, this involves the campuses of our nation. It is clear to me that what we are doing in CMC anticipates the need for creative models of building Kingdom communities among the unreached. These redemptive communities do not replace the church. They augment it. Better yet, they are arms and hands of the church reaching into the darkness. They may not be the complete Body, but they are connected to it. They are part of it. For that reason, we do not see what we are doing as “para-church”. The term I coined years ago is “apo-church” which means out from the church. Organically connected to it.

It has been rewarding to share with people who not only on the same team but who do their parts with passion and excellence. Further, they do it with humility. We all realize that we are up against Goliath – a giant that mocks and intimidates. Goliath has a way of breaking any sense of self reliance. Goliath has a way of forcing us into God. Goliath is the entrance point for the revelation of God’s glory.

I sat down with a dear brother and a new friend , Norm Bishop, who is the men’s ministry director for the District I am a part of: The Western Ontario District. He was very encouraging. Actually, he simply could not believe he had not heard about what we are doing on campus and was passionate about getting our story out. When he had a chance to hear our story and what we are about, he was determined to help us find ways to get our story out to the churches and to help us connect with those people who would be thrilled to hear what we are actually up to.

Emerging Gen discussion

As part of the conference, when we were not in the plenary sessions, we met in various groups. On the first day, the groups were mixed. This means that the various focus groups did not meet together but were jumbled up into various groups that responded to hard, searching questions regarding what we do and why we do it. On the second day, I was part of an emerging generation discussion where we talked about ensuring that discipleship does not happen in isolation amongst the various age and stage ministries ( e.g. Children’s, Junior High, Youth, Campus ). While we did not arrive at any conclusions or action points, it opened up a long needed discussion.

When we met as a Campus Guiding Group, it was all synergy. We have such gifted people and it was amazing to see how they had incorporated the overall vision of our national leader, David Wells, and incorporated it into our values and goals. The outcome of that meeting will be another blog....