Montreal.... LP Blog

Travelled to Montreal by VIA Rail. Once I factor in fatigue and gas, it was the most economical way to go. I was able to board the train at Aldershot ( on the west end of Burlington ) and travel almost directly to downtown Montreal in about six hours.

Central Station was a huge, bustling hub of travel and business and only a couple of kilometers away from my destination – Evangel Pentecostal Church. EPC was a long, pleasant stroll down Rue Ste. Catherine’s. RSC is a street jammed with character and which is also filled with thousands of post-secondary students during the day.

Looking East on RSC. Just past the students is the green awning of EPC's 'storefront'.

The fact is, EPC is so strategically placed that it almost looks as if God knew what He was doing  . It is almost next door to LaSalle College, across the street from Dawson College and right in the middle of the urban campus of Concordia University. Concordia is an utterly fascinating project: integrating its campus buildings into the urban core of Montreal. The thousands of students who live, study and recreate in the area bring an intense vibrancy to the streets that must be “felt” to be appreciated, let alone understood.

Looking East from the EPC storefront towards LaSalle College. Concordia is just a few blocks down the road.

It has been contended that Montreal has the highest per capita population of university students of any major urban centre in North America. Boston would be the only real contender in its weight class. If we were to extract the post-secondary students from Montreal and transplant them somewhere else, say the Eastern Townships, it would create Canada’s thirteenth largest city. Seriously.

Psegga at the entrance of Innovation Youth - an organization we will partner with..

Into this, enter Psegga Jones, our newly commissioned Mission Canada missionary. Psegga is working through and with EPC to reach out to this burgeoning community. She comes with a boatload of experience and expertise that will be indispensible for reaching out to the student population. She has taken on a God sized challenge. I believe she brings the combination of wisdom, Holy Spirit savvy, people skills and humility to help create a powerful missional community right in the heart of the action. She is aware of both her strengths and limitations and it is evident that her previous experience has positioned her well to do what she has been called to do.

Psegga gave me a  a tour of the community, including a remarkable ministry called Innovation Youth. We intend to partner with IY in the near future. More about that another time.




EPC is situated “kitty-corner” from the old Montreal Forum, which has now been gentrified and woven into the mall architecture of downtown. Evangel owns a building which was previously a restaurant that faces out onto RSC with entrances at street level. There is space for all sorts of ministry opportunities that will give Psegga and those God calls to work with her a great launch pad for what God places on their hearts to do. As I walked among the thousands of young adults teeming on the street, it struck me that this is the kind of facility that I would be praying for if I were a missionary to the community. The beauty of it is that Evangel already owns it.






The vast majority of those out on the streets are young adults.



on a side street, what would look like a boutique is actually a classroom. Notice the sign...

I also had the privilege of spending some time with Jonathan Hutchison, who is the leader of our campus initiative at Carleton University. Jonathan joined up with me to hang out with Psegga and I in order to have an opportunity to see her new world. He has some great stories to share about what God is doing in and through his students at Carleton and brings some wise, fresh eyes to bear in looking at the challenge and opportunities of campus ministry in Montreal. Since he is only an hour and a half train ride from Montreal, I really believe that he will be a key piece in what God wants to accomplish there in the next few years.

Gary and Jonathan

I also had an opportunity to spend time with Gary Connors, our Mission Canada coordinator for Quebec and Francophone Canada. Gary is also based in EPC, where he works part time as the Adult Ministry Team Leader in a flexible arrangement. Godly, experienced and charming, Gary is completely bilingual and the perfect interface between French and English Canadian realities. I actually can’t conceptualize a better person for what he does. Having previously pastored in Montreal, he was also our District Superintendent of the Quebec District. He proved to be an extraordinary travel guide and gave Jonathan and I a wonderful tour of Montreal, including the quintessential bagel shop in the Jewish quarter.

Gary facilitated a breakfast meeting with Pastor Mario Sassi of Lakeshore Evangelical Church, a fine PAOC spiritual community near John Abbot College and the MacDonald campus of McGill University. His associate, Tammy Findlay,  and key ministry leader, Alexandria, are bright, aware and competent. They carry a deep burden to reach this campus and  are a natural fit for the larger national conversation occurring amongst our campus leaders. They recognize the challenge and the opportunity of the campus and are very concerned to provide an alternative to what has been previously done on campus.

Tammy,   Mario   &  Alexandra

I met with Stephen Schalm, a  leader for InterVarsity at McGill University, where he works among international students. One of our own PAOC guys, Stephen has a big heart for McGill which presents a very different set of opportunities and challenges than found at Concordia.

Steve Schalm @ McGill

While Concordia is spread out across Montreal and is primarily a ‘commuter’ school, McGill is more of a “bubble”. It is almost a self contained universe. You will see some photos that illustrate this, from Mont Royal and on the street level. It has the classic architecture that is designed to impress, if not awe, the observer complete with large iron gates, stone walls and sweeping lawns. McGill enjoys high international ratings as a university and not a few students absorb some of its elite swagger.


The dream is that we can be part of what God is about to do on the campuses of Montreal. I have not even begun to talk about the francophone universities, like the University of Montreal which enjoys considerable prestige and influence in the French speaking world and which is one of Canada’s largest universities. That too is part of the dream, but one we will have to give much prayer to until it is fulfilled.

The lowlying buildings ( including the round one ) in the foreground belong to McGill



Multiplying.....

I had the privilege of being an observer at a special church multiplication summit hosted by Mission Canada at Portico Church in Mississauga. At the request of the District Superintendents, Mission Canada facilitated a two day conversation between national and district leaders, along with key church planters, to work on a national strategy for church multiplication.

Good things happen when good people are locked into a room for two days to pray and plan. It was a rewarding opportunity to see God at work in and through people I have grown to love and respect.

First, we heard from Craig Burton, the Superintendent of our Eastern Ontario District, who originally called for a national level discussion about why and how we do (and will do) church multiplication in our movement.

Next, we heard from our General Superintendent, Dave Wells, who spoke from his heart about finding ways to reach lost people. He revisited an image from several years ago when he described how he received his news. He uses both “Hard Copy”( printed media on paper) and wireless ( on the screen). He appreciates both. It is not a matter of either/or. The same is true for how people can receive and appreciate the Good News.

For years we have done “Hard Copy”, gathering people into “church”. We have learned to do this reasonably well. However, future success does not lie in simply trying to do this better, but in finding ways in which people are open to hearing and receiving the most amazing message ever given to our species. It is not about replacement. It is about augmenting what we do - adding to our tool box.

This certainly resonates with what we are about at Campus Mission Canada. We are on the cusp of the movement to both strengthen and improve what we have done before and to risk and innovate in finding ways to reach people who would otherwise never be able to hear or receive what it is we have to share.


So, facilitated by John Caplin, the former assistant superintendent of the BC/Yukon District and now the president of his own consulting/coaching company, the group was led through a series of questions and exercised in first framing the issues and then in determining how we would respond to them. It was stated from the outset that there was an allergy to the phrase “church planting” because for various reasons it has accumulated a considerable amount of baggage. So, we used the term Church Multiplication.



John Caplin coaching a discussion...




More specifically, we wrestled with “ Why become a Church Multiplication Movement (CMM)? What barriers are there to our becoming a CMM? What would it look like if we really  were a CMM? What strengths and liabilities do we bring to the table? What steps can we take , at all levels, to become a CMM? What steps will we take?


Leaders hashed through the questions at their tables , wrote them on large sheets of paper and then presented them to the larger group. As they did, there was the creation of a synergy where we were all able to see the issues from a variety of perspectives and to develop a larger picture. My role was to absorb and chronicle. I would have loved to have jumped in on the discussion, but Mission Canada was concerned to facilitate the discussion and not to skew it in any direction.

CMC's own Matt Glombick ( Epic @ U of Alberta ) presents...

Having said that, I need to underline that I really believe that what we are doing on the campuses anticipates the direction of where the larger movement can go ( while I have banned the term “cutting edge” and “paradigm” from our CMC vocabulary, they might actually work here ;) ).

In the discussion, the term church was queried. I believe that there are biblical and historic markers for the term so we need to find other terms rather than bend this one out of shape. Given this, we have been talking about “missional communities” or “discipling communities”. I would also add “redemptive communities” which means that we are aligned with the big picture of God’s redemptive activity on this earth. It is not limited to reaching people ,but also transforming culture and affecting institutions. For me, properly understood, it combines the elements we are looking for. It can be applied to formal and informal groups. It can refer to clubs or churches. It works for us. Therefore, I would see us as a RCMM – if you will…