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Key City #3 Montreal

Ewald Unruh

Should Canadian Mennonite Brethren consider Montreal as Canada’s next Key City for church planting?


Consider the following needs:

Only 0.5% of the people in Quebec attend an evangelical church. The Greater Montreal area contains half of the population of Quebec. It is the second or third largest French-speaking city in the world. The population of 3 million is made up of 2,100,000 francophones, 600,000 anglophones and 300,000 “allophones” (people from other cultures). In this great multicultural city, there are only 114 evangelical churches. This city is host to 168 language groups, of which only 30 have any type of evangelical ministry. Anglophones in Montreal are the least churched group of anglophones in all of North America. Laval, part of Greater Montreal, has a population of 270,000 francophones with only eight evangelical churches; 1400 people attend these churches, with 80% attending two of the churches and only 280 attending the other six. At least three of the eight churches are “regional” churches, meaning that people drive from outside Laval to the churches located there. Brossard, a community of 70,000 has one evangelical francophone church. Montreal now is host to the largest number of university students per capita in all of North America. During the past five years, five ethnic groups have approached the Quebec MB Conference in order to obtain assistance in church planting efforts.

The need is staggering, and the opportunities are endless. At the Quebec MB Conference convention Sept 8, 2001, the Quebec Conference decided to invite the Canadian Conference to make Montreal Key City #3. The Quebec Conference also initiated “Phase 1” – the appointment of Patrice Nagant as Director for Evangelism and Church Planting for the Quebec Conference. His primary responsibilities include being a resource to the existing churches in evangelism and leadership development; researching needs in Montreal; researching successful church planting models; recruiting church planters; and preparing for the launch of a new Montreal church planting initiative.

“Phase 2” will be launching Key City Montreal. The Canadian MB Conference Board of Evangelism will present to the Canadian Conference Executive Board in January and to the Canadian MB Conference convention in July 2002 a recommendation that Montreal be accepted as the third city in the Key Cities Initiative.

Evangelism and church planting director for Quebec appointed

Patrice Nagant of Sainte-Rose, Que., has been appointed director of evangelism and church planting for the Quebec MB Conference. Delegates to the Quebec MB Conference convention September 8–9 voted unanimously in favour of his appointment. Church leaders from Quebec had previously presented the project to the Canadian MB Conference Board of Evangelism in January 2001. The Board of Evangelism responded with an initial subsidy of $20,000. David Wiebe, executive director of the Canadian MB Conference, and Ewald Unruh, executive director for the Canadian MB Conference Board of Evangelism, were present at the business session on Saturday, as well as the Sunday morning rally held in Église Chrétienne de St-Jerome, to show support for this new venture. Nagant, a member of Église Chrétienne Évangelique de Ste-Rose (MB), recently graduated with a B.Th. from Canadian Mennonite University in Winnipeg. He is well-known in the Quebec churches as a successful businessman and for his passion for evangelism. He has represented the Quebec MB Conference on the Canadian Conference Board of Evangelism since 1996, and has been involved in a number of evangelistic projects in his local church. His wife Cindy was involved in the children’s program at The Meeting Place during the family’s one-year stay in Winnipeg. They have three children, Marie-Eve, Rémi and Patricia.  – from a Quebec MB Conference news release

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Last modified November 13, 2001.

© 2001 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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