Summer / Fall 2025

Where are we going?...See the family update section. 😉

This past March we celebrated 15 years of ministry in Montreal! Hard to believe. The LORD has been so faithful throughout, as have you all who have been praying for us and supporting us all of this time. Thank you.

The pace of ministry has accelerated in a unique way over this last year, making it a bit more difficult to find a moment to write one of these updates. I am telling myself that something is better than nothing and I will keep this a bit shorter to actually get it done.

We will see how successful I am at that. 😅

Right away I can provide a much more significant ministry update by pointing you to a "Seasonal Report" that I wrote for our growing church body this summer. Since we have multiplied into more congregations, it has become more challenging to communicate changes with the whole church. The aim is to write two of these kinds of reports a year for the church, and so I will begin to incorporate those into my updates here as my ministry update, only adding in a couple extra ministry things that wouldn't naturally show up in the church report (like a link to one of my recent sermons, etc.), and then adding the family and financial updates at the end.

That *should* result in more regular updates from me here.

So here is the "seasonal" church report. I'm putting a lighter resolution series of images below so the load time isn't crazy. If it doesn't show up well on your device, you can get a full resolution PDF at church21.ca/reports (and it's in French there as well, if that is your preference):

Prayer request #1 would be that the LORD would provide additional qualified men to take on the leadership of the church plants we have coming up in the next 2-3 years, especially as we press more into French, Spanish, and other languages.

Lastly, here is a sermon I gave this summer (starts at about 28 minutes in):

There is much more but I'll save that for a future update, in the meantime some pretty significant family updates:

Emma has wrapped up her 11th grade year of high school, and now is looking at SATs and working to save up for a year of Bible college at Heritage in the Fall of 2026. She'll be turning 18 in a couple of months, meaning we'll be at the end of an era as parents. This summer she is enjoying gardening, drawing, baking, and learning to drive... 😬

Ben is back after his first year at Heritage Bible College. He has been working three different jobs, helping out with Church 21 stuff, as well as sometimes driving back to Ontario to visit his girlfriend Evelyn. :)  He'll be returning to school to tackle year #2 of studies, as well as begin serving as a Resident Assistant in the dorm, leading five young men in regular meetings and shared dorm life.

Prayer request #2 would be for both Emma and Ben as they seek good work opportunities to make money for college.

Most notably, Katie has gotten engaged to be married. 💍🎉  Her fiancee is a young man named Gavin, and he is an excellent provision from the LORD for Katie. The photo at the top is the three of us in an airplane going to meet him in person for the first time, as he lives in the U.S. and much of their relationship has been through video calls (they met on instagram...long story!). We are very excited to welcome him into our family. He loves Jesus, loves Katie, is hardworking, gentle and kind.

Now all manner of wedding preparations are in full force in our home. It'll be a smaller event so the invite list is mostly family and some friends from Montreal, but we'll for sure post some pictures in a future report. Gavin is currently working in Hawaii so they'll spend the first few years of marriage living there. Which is far away but we're excited for them and know they'll probably (hopefully) be closer in the future.

Prayer request #3 would be that the LORD gives favor and peace of mind to Gavin, Katie (and Severine) as they all work on preparations for the wedding, and for Katie as she moves out of our home and into a new stage of life.

As our kids are quickly growing up / moving out / getting married 🤯, Severine has pivoted to taking on more work vocationally. Her main occupation continues to be helping to run the Learning Tree homeschool group, which, as was mentioned last time, is now formally incorporated, a pivot that involved a huge amount of work, and then with the location flooding and having to find a new venue, already a crazy year. But then after all of that, one of the other key team members moved away, which increased the complexity of getting through this past year, and then running the play in the spring involved finding a third, new venue just for that. 😮‍💨 Too many changes all in one year.

If the above wasn't enough change, Severine also joined our church staff for four hours a week, significantly expanding two roles that she had filled in a volunteer capacity over the years we've been in ministry here: leading hospitality for our larger, all-church events and trainings, and providing pastoral care for the wives of our pastors and pastoral apprentices (now like 15 ladies and counting). I don't know if she would have agreed to taking this on this year had she known everything else that would end up on her plate. 😅

Add to that the impending wedding, caring for her mom here as she ages and has many doctor's appointments to be taken to, it's been probably the most busy and challenging year Severine has ever faced.

Prayer request #4 would be that Severine has wisdom, strength, and energy for all of these many responsibilities.

For the play this past spring, they tackled the Narnia story "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" by C.S. Lewis. Emma played Susan, Ben got roped into coming back for one more year to play Aslan, and Katie did basically all of the crazy animal makeup. It was a pretty cool production. In this first photo below, Emma is getting crowned and Ben is behind her, with the dreadlocks:

I'm very thankful for the 20-some years that Severine has poured into the lives of our children, day in and day out, both as a mom and as a homeschooling teacher. It's the end of an era. We are going to be celebrating 23 years of marriage in a couple of weeks, and are often now contemplating the fact that we will essentially be "empty-nesters" when Emma leaves for college, which is just about a year away. So we are spending a lot of time talking about what the next season of life and ministry will look like, and looking back on moments like these with a sense of wistfulness:

As always, thank you for your faithful support of our ministry in Quebec!

I have just completed the first draft of our 2026 church budget. It is, for the first time, feeling a little weighty. We have eight congregations in the one big budget, three of which are new plants, and require start up funds. We have many individual, church, denominational, and network partners that are contributing to make this all happen (including you!). But to get through to 2027 is going to be a bit of a big lift, and we are going to be spending a lot of our church planting "war chest" to make it happen.

Toward that end, I am leading our whole team through a fundraising push to see if we can raise an extra $100,000 CAD by the end of 2026 to replenish our savings for the next round of church planting. I think it is possible.

Would you consider giving a one-time gift toward this goal? Or raising your monthly giving by 5-15%? Your faithful investment in the work of the gospel in Montreal is resulting in brand new churches, brand new Christians, and many changed lives.

If you would like to make a one-time contribution towards this goal, please use the donation button below or tap here. As always, you have the option of giving either in the U.S. or in Canada (and receiving a charitable tax receipt that works for your country).

Thank you again for your prayers and your generosity as we seek to serve Jesus here and plant more churches. ⛪️ ⛪️ ⛪️ ⛪️ ⛪️

Blessings,

Brian, Severine, Katie, Ben, & Emma :)