VITALITY (Spring/Summer 2018)

ground work
Spring/Summer 2018
7X7=1:
AN UPDATE
by Terry Cuthbert
Since the inception of the Fellowship, English churches across Canada have recognized francophone
Canada as one of their God-given mission fields just next door. Through their missionary
efforts, a francophone movement of Fellowship churches was born which today, numbering
around 80 congregations, is ably led by the francophone leadership of the Fellowship French
Region (AÉBÉQ). This mature movement exists within a mission field in which the number of
evangelicals is under 1%, thus still justifying our continuing assistance — but in a different form.
Since the beginning of 2015, the Fellowship has been encouraging partnerships between English
churches from across Canada and French reproducing congregations, their church planting projects,
or specific francophone regions with sparse Gospel presence. In the last three years, seventyfive
church partnerships have been established: Bramalea with Terrebonne-Mascouche; Forward,
Cambridge, ON with Saint-Jérôme; Stoneridge, Lower Sackville, NS with Saint-Léonard; Fort
Saskatchewan, AB with Oasis, Deux Montagnes; and First, Timmins, ON with the Abitibi Regional
Project, just to name a few.
GROUND WORK: FRANCOPHONE AND CHAPLAINCY MINISTRIES
What do these partnerships look like in real life? Terrebonne-Mascouche sent their youth down
to Brampton, ON to interact with the youth at Bramalea Baptist on their own turf. Ecclesia,
St Jérôme bought an old theatre in the heart of their mission field. Partners provided teams of
volunteer workers to help with the renovations. For several years now,
francophone church plants have been inviting their respective communities
to join them in showing acts of kindness to their neighbours. Teams
from partner churches needed to learn little French to participate in these
initiatives and yet leave a significant and lasting impression. New and
creative ways to express these partnerships are left to the imagination of
those involved in these cross-cultural but not too distant relationships.
— Terry Cuthbert serves as Francophone Mobilizer Coordinator.