The Harvest Field

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The Harvest Field

• Lift up your eyes and see the fields ripe unto
  Harvest
• John 435

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Thanks for your commitmenttoPlanting for a
Greater Harvest!
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Some Canadian People Groups
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The Canadian Harvest Field

• What are the Largest Components?

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The Harvest is Post-Modern
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Postmodern Canadians

• Conceive of truth as personal, not absolute
• Influenced by new-age thinking
• Syncretistic - believe a little of almost
  anything
• From broken families - now hesitant to make
  commitments
• Open to following Jesus (but dont care for their
  image of the traditional church)
• Require seeker-targeted churches

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The Harvest is Ethnic
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New Immigrants

• 227,000 new Canadians entering annually during
  last 12 years
• Majority are Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Buddhist, or
  Confucian - the mission field is here!
• More open to new ideas in first generation
• Greater Toronto Area 49 first generation,
• Vancouver 63 do not speak English at home

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Sample of 15 Language Groups Requiring New
Churches
More Info Contact Brian Seim at SIM
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The Harvest is Cocooned
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High-Density Housing

• 1/7th as likely to attend church as residents of
  single family homes (i.e. unreached)
• Residents almost invisible to most churches
  untargeted (i.e. a hidden people group)
• Highly mobile population
• More likely to be poor
• Quebec and Ontario have highest proportion
• Require a church in EVERY larger housing complex

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Quebec, Ontario, and B.C. lead in High-Density
Housing
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The Harvest is French
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French Canadians

• Largest unreached people group in North America
  (6 million in Canada)
• Less than 1 evangelical
• One church for every 13,059 persons (Cf. English
  ratio of 1 church for 2,440 persons)
• Do not participate in Catholic church but highly
  suspicious of non-Catholic cults
• French evangelical church is very small, and has
  lacked leadership other resources

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The Harvest is Aboriginal
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Aboriginal Canadians

• 2400 reserves without Gospel witness. Few
  evangelicals, desperately few leaders.
• Christian profession is common but counter-
  productive native spirituality (animism,
  spiritism and syncretism) predominates.
• Overwhelming social problems compose 50 of
  federal prisoners. Disproportionately high
  portion of Canadian suicides are native youth.
• Need to look to cross-cultural Asian and
  Polynesian planters for assistance

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The Harvest Field An Overview

• Declining religious observance
• In 1957 53 attended church twice a month,
  in 1993 23
• Today 82 of Canadians are functionally
  unchurched
• 10.8 evangelical worship (including renewal
  groups in historic denominations)
• Canada is the best country in the world to live
  in but has 3rd highest world suicide rate

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Canadians Dying without Christ 182,389 Souls
each Year

• The harvest is past,
• the summer has ended,
• and we are not saved.
• - Jeremiah 820

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The Best Solution?

• Research and experience has shown that the most
  effective evangelistic methodology under heaven
  is to plant new churches. This applies both to
  old ground where churches have existed for a long
  time and to new ground where no churches yet
  exist.
• - C. Peter Wagner, Professor of World Missions,
  Fuller Theological Seminary