Church attendance in Canada ….in the FEBCC
In 1946, the weekly religious service attendance of Canadians was 67% of the population. Post COVID-19, I’ve seen stats indicating only 9% of Canadians attend weekly.
The Evangelical Population in Canada
Rick Heimstra, Head Researcher for the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC), of which the FEBCC is a member association along with 50 other denominations, reported that evangelical percentages in Canada have remained fairly static since confederation (1867). However in recent years numbers are dropping:
1996: 12%
2003: 13%
2013: 10%
2015: 9%
2019: 6.4%
2021: 7%
Heimstra reported that in 2003, 13% represented those classified as “evangelical affiliates”, however if you added the “evangelical aligned”, that percentage increased to 20-21%. The evangelical aligned represented some Roman Catholic and mainline people who aligned with evangelicalism.
By 2021, those classified as “evangelical affiliates” had dropped from 13% to 7%, but the “evangelically aligned” had dropped precipitously. Hiemstra reported the total percentage at 11%. Many churches, especially the Roman Catholics in Canada, are increasing their attendance numbers through immigration.
How is The Fellowship doing?
This past year our Regions sought to revitalize our efforts to retrieve statistics from our local churches. “Thank you” to the many churches who participated to give us a picture of our Fellowship of churches.
While your Region is seeking to retrieve these statistics from their churches for 2024, here are the stats from 2023. This is what the typical Fellowship Baptist church looked like:
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526 churches (336 submissions)
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147 weekly attendance
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6 professions of faith
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7 baptisms
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67 in small groups
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53% have discipleship strategy
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81 serve in the local church
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$0 in leadership development
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$363,754 annual budget
As for domestic church planting, our churches, with the support of our Regions, planted nine churches in 2024. In 2011 during my first Presidential address at the Fellowship National Conference, I called us back to being a “church planting machine”. I’m grateful to God and overjoyed to tell you we’ve planted 132 new churches in the past 15 years. And the vast majority have survived, many are thriving, and some have planted their own church:
FEBCC Church Planting (from 2010 to 2024)
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Pacific: 35
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Prairies: 3
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FEB Central: 73
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AEBEQ: 18
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Atlantic: 3
Total: 132
Fellowship Churches in 2025
Each June I discover how many local churches make up our Fellowship family. While we’re witnessing 132 births, we’ve also experienced some deaths – it’s all part of the church life-cycle.
Over a decade from 2015 to 2025 we’ve seen a modest increase:
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Total FEBCC Churches: 2015 - 2025 |
||
|
Region |
2015 |
2025 |
|
Pacific |
98 |
103 |
|
Prairies |
31 |
30 |
|
FEB Central |
269 |
302 |
|
AEBEQ |
86 |
85 |
|
Atlantic |
16 |
21 |
|
TOTAL |
500 |
541 |
Praise the Lord for His Hand of blessing on The Fellowship across Canada and around the world. What a great God we serve!