Fall 2021

We are also thankful that (so far) we are not required to limit entry to only the vaccinated. If you didn't know, Quebec has locked almost everyone into a vaccine passport system that makes vaccination mandatory for most public spaces (excluding only things deemed "essential" like shopping, picking up take-out, or worship services). Like everywhere, this debate has the ability to divide. Prayer Request #1: Pray for unity in the gospel and for the continued freedom to gather in the name of Jesus without increased restrictions.

In the summer we were still able to gather large groups outside and celebrated five baptisms within our English congregations (also see photo at top):

Prayer Request #2: Pray for protection over these young believers, and for the network of folks they now can share the gospel with.

In August I preached to three of our congregations on "Who do you say I am?" as a part of our series in the Gospel of Mark. You can catch the whole Downtown service here (sermon itself starts around 21:30):

Over the summer and in partnership with SEMBEQ (our local, French denominational seminary) we relaunched our church planting, competency-based Masters program "Academy in Context" as Movement Seminary. I worked with Dwight and our graphic designer on the rebrand and built an all-new website for it which you can check out here:

This new seminary is going to play a huge role in bringing church planters into Quebec as they get to spend time IN churches, serving while studying and developing the specific competencies that make for successful church planting teams.

And in addition to accepting several new church planting students this fall, Movement Seminary also launched "Courses for Everyone," an eight-week, three-course program that meets once a month, in partnership with ten other churches in Montreal via "Movement Montreal" (another ministry initiative we're involved in):

Movement Montreal has also partnered in developing a network of youth groups called You(th) Church:

(Above: One of the youth from our congregation helping lead worship at the You(th) Church rally)

Launched just before COVID hit, it had a bit of a rocky start, but it's up and running, gathering all of the youth groups together once a month, as well as providing service opportunities. I've tapped into my youth ministry roots to help launch a local youth church within Church 21, and this past summer they spent a week in the city studying and serving within the homeless population and the local food bank:

Let's just say we had a lot of baby dedications to catch up on (immediately above)... 😅

This Fall has also involved a lot of time investing in our leaders as we've sought to refine systems decimated by COVID and challenged by spreading out into multiple congregations. In each of the follow events, my specific role was to run logistics and do some of the teaching.

Lunchtime during our annual Leader's Retreat Day:

For our Children's Ministry Team Training Day we brought in a trainer to help equip us in working with kids who have experienced forms of trauma:

And for the first time since we spread out across multiple congregations, we brought together all four of our worship teams for an afternoon of vision & equipping and to bless them with food:

(The room pictured above for each of these events is Eglise Verdun, a French church revitalization project we've been involved in and who generously allows us to use their space free of charge. Our youth group nights meet there also.)

End of October, I and most of our pastoral team participated in the first-ever Xtreme Character Challenge (XCC) held in Quebec. It has been a dream for a while now to make this happen, and our hope in sending most of our staff was that we'd be able to rapidly migrate over into holding these in French within the next few years. If you don't know what XCC is, you can learn more about it here. It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do, but the life-change we saw in the men who were there was huge. Jesus works through this ministry and we're excited to have it in Quebec:

(Photo Credit: https://victorgavino.ca/quebec-xcc/)

Just this past weekend we had our first post-XCC men's event (outdoors in subzero temperatures) where we shared about our experience and challenged the men in a number of areas, including the pursuit of brotherhood (not going into battle alone). Prayer Request #4: Pray for our men to become sold out for Jesus and the mission.

There is always more to include than is reasonable, but just a few additional bullet points:

1. In September we successfully completed the 2022 budgeting process, which is always a massive project, including gathering all of our members into the world's most challenging Zoom call. 😅 
2. Still working with our corporate lawyer to set up a new legal charter to separate out our parachurch operations which are set to massively expand (see notes on Movement Seminary & Movement Montreal above). Now looking like this will be mid-2022 to launch.
3. I'm wrapping up the Eldership process with four candidates and should be presenting them to our congregations as potential Elder / Pastors in January.
4. We're continuing to press the fight with MindGeek (parent company of PornHub), protests are now monthly outside of their building. By having them less often, we anticipate being able to involve more churches and have a bigger presence. Prayer Request #5: For government pressure / regulation to increase on this industry.

(Photo Credit: Jessica Bernier Photography)



Emma continues to be our baker and reader. If she's not doing school or work, she's often reading or crafting something in the kitchen. I failed to get pictures before we ate them, but she recently tried her hand at a couple of French pastries: Madeleines & Macarons.

We would have liked to see more people but out of respect for my parent's health we pretty much stuck to family activities, such as disc golf and a beach day: