By ANDREA FURLONG
Mission trips by churches generally share the meaning of Christianity with others through volunteer work and Biblical-based conversations and interactions in their community. Volunteers from a rural Williamsburg church had their work cut out for them last month while on a mission that prohibited any conversations, games or instruction of a Biblical nature.
Twelve members of Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church embarked on the church’s first mission in five years, Aug. 7-14 in Montreal, Quebec. It was a non-traditional mission in many ways. The mission was to form relationships with children at an English-learning camp, in hopes that the relationships will grow and possibly the children’s and their parent’s interest in Christianity will increase, as well. But, the terms of the camp prohibit camp leaders from discussing anything of a Biblical nature, out of respect for the beliefs of Quebec residents or Québécois.
Even customs in Quebec was befuddled at how the mission was a Christian mission.
“Probably one of the strangest parts was to explain to customs how an English camp fell under the category of missions. There were some people that didn’t understand that,” Nygren said.
Montreal, Quebec, is proclaimed by some people to be the “least churched city in North America,” but there are actually many churches in the city of 1.6 million people. In fact, Mark Twain once described Montreal as “a city where you couldn’t throw a brick without breaking a church window.” But while there a variety of churches, synagogues and mosques in Montreal, as well as the rest of Canada, 43 percent of Canadians do not attend church services, according to Statistics Canada. This number has increased more than 10 percent over the last 25 years.
Cornerstone Pastor Eric Nygren said that missionaries in Quebec attribute the growing disinterest in organized Christianity to the Catholic Church’s role in Canada more than 50 years ago.
“My understanding from (many) of the missionaries there who have spoken to us is that within a couple of generations within the 50’s and 60’s, I think, there was quite a bit of social pressure and the Catholic Church was getting too much into people’s private lives. That kind of gap was being bridged too much and there were some things that I guess the Church went too far on and now we’re seeing a reaction to that and some distrust,” he said.
For more of this story, pick up a print edition of the Williamsburg Journal-Tribune.
You must log in to post a comment.