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At a conference that focuses on world mission, we cannot ignore the fact that in many ways the world is coming to Canada. Each year more than 250,000 people from other countries receive permanent resident status in Canada. This has led to the establishment of many immigrant communities (and new mission fields!) in and around Canadian cities. Revs. Tony Zekveld and Matthew Vanluik have been involved in efforts to reach these “new Canadians” with the gospel, Rev. Zekveld by way of planting a South Asian congregation in Mississauga, Rev. VanLuik by way of integrating immigrants in an existing church in Brampton. In their presentations they reflect on their respective missionary methods.

If you talk about the need global missions in Canada today, someone will inevitably share the popular perspective that significant investment of money and time into supporting foreign missionaries is no longer necessary because the nations are now on our doorstep and in our neighbourhoods. In this talk, I hope to expose the fallacy of this line of thinking, and demonstrate that global missions must in fact be more of a priority for us. To do this, I will survey the state of Christianity and missions around the world, share what other conservative, Reformed churches are doing to fulfil the Great Commission, and consider the state of “foreign mission mindedness” among our churches. Throughout, I will draw on my experiences as a pastor in Canada and as a missionary in Papua New Guinea.

The apostle Paul worked tirelessly among the churches he had planted but he never lost his zeal to take the gospel to new areas where Christ had not been proclaimed (2 Cor. 10:16). At the beginning of a conference on world mission it will be good to reflect on Paul’s missionary approach. We will focus especially on the balance he maintained between planting churches in new areas and nurturing the churches he had already planted.