Spring 2021

In February I preached on stewardship as a part of our "Remodel" series. You can catch the whole service here (sermon itself starts around 25:50):

Overall winter was a hard time, and yet Jesus was still at work. More were added to our number during this season, and when we were (finally!) allowed to gather in our various locations this spring, we celebrated the new individuals and families joining our church and mission.

One challenge unique to our location on the south shore was that we lost our in-person meeting space, but then (praise God!) we gained an even better one. A French congregation from our denomination had (sadly) closed their doors four years ago, leaving the building empty:

The church has a lighthouse theme going, with a small lighthouse outside and a tapestry on the inside with an inscription that translates roughly into "A light at the center of the Montérégie region." But no light has shown out of that space for four years. Now that we have limited ability to meet in groups of up to twenty-five again, we've been able to resume gathering in our locations and make use of this space for the first time. And it's hard to convey how excited we are to be the ones that Jesus chose to restore the light in this space.

Let's just say, VERY excited.

Already, neighbors have inquired about the sudden and obvious activity in the church building, and we are looking forward to the moment where we can fully engage the neighborhood under reduced restrictions that would allow us to gather more people and / or at least hold events outdoors. 

In the meantime we are thankful for new faces that have joined with us there, within the small capacity we have to welcome them, and are praying for a greater allowance from the government.

(Immediately above: Severine reading scripture on a Sunday)

We (very briefly) had a much greater gathering allowance for Easter weekend, which we capitalized on by having all five of our locations gather in two back-to-back services downtown at an Anglican Cathedral where we currently rent office space and broadcast online from (see picture at top). That was short-lived and we're back to the government allowing only twenty-five for the time being. Pray for greater allowances!

Our church is currently running a couple of Alpha Courses online, one downtown and one in the south shore that we are helping with. There are at least seven folks exploring faith through this series, which is amazing. You can be praying for those folks as they wrestle with Jesus and the good news!

There is so much more to share but just to rapid-fire include some other exciting stuff I've been working on:

1. As of January I've resumed full oversight of the financial systems of our Canadian organization, as well as successfully transitioned our U.S. legal entity to a fresh set of board directors. Now overseeing both sets of books and the related legal filings.
2. Currently working with our corporate lawyer to set up a new legal charter to separate out our parachurch operations which are set to massively expand (more on that next time). 
3. Bringing four guys through the final year of our Eldership process over the next seven months, two of which are set to be church planters.
4. Just starting in on the process of bringing yet another missionary couple up to Quebec from the U.S. to be involved in church planting, arrival target of Summer of 2022.
5. Building a fancy new website that reflects our new multiple location structure (you're seeing the very first public sneak-peek of it right here):

I'm looking forward to preaching a couple times over the next few months as we start off a new series in the Gospel of Mark:

And also to staying up late to pray as our church tackles a week of 24/7 prayer for the very first time: 

We're going to build a prayer room somewhere in our house and our kids are excited to be able to get up in the middle of the night to pray. :)

Our battle against MindGeek/PornHub continues, literally standing outside the building with signs (better signs now) and in the past months we have seen huge moves of God. Visa & Mastercard have both cut ties with the pornography industry, and partly in response to this and other pressures from the government of Canada, PornHub removed more than 10 MILLION pornographic videos from their website, nearly 75% of their content that they were unable to verify who was depicted. The've also removed their "download button" which was making the permanent removal of sex crimes videos nearly impossible. Canada and Montreal are starting to own this problem and call this company to account.

There are still huge challenges ahead but Jesus is answering this prayer, keep praying!

(Above: Ben, Kate, and a hint of Emma in the background, protesting in front of the MindGeek world headquarters, along with about twelve other people on International Women's Day.)

Again, you can follow this effort by joining the facebook group here: facebook.com/arreterexploitationhub

One project I haven't been involved in yet but want you to know about is the new Acts 29 Canada Podcast our team has been working on:

Already several episodes have come out dealing with issues such as "Should churches in Canada be gathering? (considering the laws against gathering in some provinces), "Rethinking Discipleship, and "Mental Wellness." You can find these and more here: https://acts29canada.com/podcast-001/

Finally, this past March we celebrated 11 years since moving to Quebec!

Hard to believe it's been that long, but as I always say, all you have to do is look at our giant children and reality hits...gone are the days where we see these little faces:

Ben has been working on pre-filming a bunch of content for an upcoming gamer themed YouTube channel and Twitch stream, no pictures yet, more on that next time probably.

And Emma has continued to sharpen her cooking and baking skills. Here's her putting the finishing touches on a cake for my birthday:

(She made everything by hand except for the dice.)

One of the saddest things from the past six months is that yet AGAIN we made the painful decision to cancel a trip to visit family, friends, and supporters in Oregon & Washington. :/   We just don't know when we'll be back out to see everyone, these are challenging times. We miss you all very much but trust that God will make a way for us to visit you someday soon. Prayer toward that end would be appreciated.