1. “Lift up your eyes and see the fields ripe unto Harvest…” John 4:35
The Harvest Field
“Lift up your eyes and see the fields ripe unto Harvest…”
John 4:35

2. Thanks for your commitment to “Planting for a Greater Harvest!”

3. Some Canadian “People Groups”

4. The Canadian Harvest Field
What are the Largest Components?

5. The Harvest is Post-Modern

6. 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 don’t care for their image of the traditional church)
Require “seeker-targeted” churches

7. The Harvest is Ethnic

11. 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

12. Sample of 15 Language Groups Requiring New Churches
More Info: Contact Brian Seim at SIM

13. The Harvest is “Cocooned”

17. 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

18. Quebec, Ontario, and B.C. lead in High-Density Housing

19. The Harvest is French

23. 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

24. The Harvest is Aboriginal

26. 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

27. 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

28. Canadians Dying without Christ: 182,389 Souls each Year
“The harvest is past,
the summer has ended,
and we are not saved.”
- Jeremiah 8:20

29. 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