Church Planting and the Conversion Story in our Fellowship
We are living in amazing times. If today were a typical day, 30,000 people came to Christ in China, 20,000 in Africa and 10,000 in South America. If you take that “much fruit” of known conversions happening DAILY in the world and divide it by 24, we discover that about 3,000 people are coming to Christ HOURLY around the globe.
What was the apex of growth in the days of the early church with 3,000 coming to Christ on the day of Pentecost, is now an HOURLY occurrence, not a DAILY occurrence. We live in “fruitful” times.
Fellowship Church Planting in Canada
I meet up with our Fellowship Regional Church Planting Directors several times each year to pray and strategize to better support our local churches and Regions in the establishing of church plants across our country. The team just completed an analysis of church planting in our Fellowship over the past decade. It is encouraging news as between 2010-2020 our Fellowship planted 102 new churches. Not all survived but the vast majority did. Here are the results:
|
Year |
Pacific |
Prairies |
FEB Central |
AÉBÉQ |
Atlantic |
Total |
|
2010 |
1 |
- |
- |
- |
1 |
2 |
|
2011 |
2 |
- |
3 |
1 |
- |
6 |
|
2012 |
2 |
- |
4 |
1 |
- |
7 |
|
2013 |
2 |
- |
5 |
1 |
- |
8 |
|
2014 |
- |
1 |
2 |
2 |
- |
5 |
|
2015 |
2 |
- |
11 |
- |
2 |
15 |
|
2016 |
2 |
- |
6 |
1 |
- |
9 |
|
2017 |
- |
1 |
7 |
1 |
- |
9 |
|
2018 |
3 |
- |
5 |
4 |
- |
12 |
|
2019 |
- |
1 |
11 |
3 |
- |
15 |
|
2020 |
2 |
0 |
9 |
3 |
0 |
14 |
|
Total |
16 |
3 |
63 |
17 |
3 |
102 |
This is good news. Wonderful news. And many more Fellowship churches are strategically considering how to multiply themselves via church planting, satellite congregations, or multiplying through Discovery Bible Studies.
However, before we get too encouraged, recognize that the EFC’s 2020 survey on evangelical growth in Canada shared some sobering news. The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada surveys our nation about every five years. The EFC recently discovered that the evangelical population of our nation dropped from 7.7% to 6.4% over the past five years. The largest decrease to occur since the second World War. This is not good news. We are not reproducing ourselves.
A few years back, with the help of a friend more inclined than I when it comes to discovering statistics, we sought to discover how many Fellowship Baptists it took to produce one new believer. Here is our “unscientific” estimate.
How many come to Christ each day in Canada?
The Fellowship is a movement of 507 churches from coast to coast. Our latest statistics, based on 429 churches, indicate that on any given Sunday approximately 80,700 people show up to a Fellowship church. However, since only a certain percentage of our people are present on any given Sunday due to sickness, vacation or apathy, likely the true number of Fellowship Baptist church-goers is closer to 135,000. Our statistics indicate that approximately 2,141 people came to Christ in our churches in one year. We can get our average either by:
-
Total number of churches (507) divided by total number of conversions (2,141) equals 4.2 conversions per year in each Fellowship church
-
Total number of Fellowship believers (135,000) divided by total number of conversions (2,141) equals 63. It takes 63 Fellowship Baptist believers to produce one new believer
Hmmmm…. So if the Fellowship is typical of other Canadian evangelical denominations or movements, then somewhere between 100-120 people are coming to Christ on a daily basis in Canada. I pray that you’ll join me in asking the Lord of the Harvest for many, many more. Could we start praying for 1,000 a day? Imagine 1,000 Canadians coming to Christ each day – that’s 365,000 a year; 1.1 million in just three years; 10.1 million in ten years. In a country of 35 million….this would revolutionize our nation!
This Christmas, thousands of Canadians will hear the Gospel…the real reason for the season. Let’s pray that many will respond to their Saviour and make Jesus their Lord! Can I get a “witness” out there in cyber space?!