Blog Post

Fall 2020

Brian Stegner • October 26, 2020

Well it's been a crazy season of pandemic-style ministry...so much so that it's been over five months since our last report (the Summer 2020 report didn't even happen!). There's so much to share that right away I'm going to mix up the format of these updates and start with our ministry highlights:

Ministry Highlights

After a long season of broadcasting services online and small group Zoom meetings and outdoor events and attempting to HOLD the center of our church TOGETHER, we FINALLY were able to resume worshiping in-person (socially distanced) on the weekends in the movie theatre downtown, in both English and French:

Though greatly limited in our seating capacity, there were enough high-risk folks and medical professionals who couldn't safely attend that we were able to accommodate everyone who could safely meet up in person, as well as continuing our live broadcasts for everyone at home.

However our wonderful reunion was short-lived. :/

October rolled around and Montreal went back into a modified lockdown. Initially it appeared as though we wouldn't be able to meet in any sized group and that the Quebec government was discriminating against churches and other religious services by allowing other types of meetings to continue. All of the denominations (and even other religious groups) banded together to fight for an end to these discriminatory policies, and by God's grace, when a full-lockdown of Montreal came a couple of weeks later, the government included a provision for religious groups of 25 or less to start meeting. Almost everything else is shut down, but the churches are open!

In response our English & French congregations immediately split up into little groups of 25 or less meeting across the greater Montreal area, wherever we could find spaces to gather (the theatre where we usually meet is still forced to be closed). Here is a picture from our first-ever worship gathering on the south shore (all spaced out by family units and masked):

The picture at the very top this page is of Kate & Ben greeting folks and ticking them off our registration / contact tracing page for this same south shore gathering. (What strange times we live in!)

Our second week into this new arrangement, I found myself preaching at four different gatherings in total, first downtown Montreal at 9am and 11am (which was also our live broadcast one):

And then I had to hustle down to the south shore to do a third at 1:30pm, and then drive out for a fourth at 4:30 pm in the west island (about 40 minutes apart by car). I felt like one of those ye-old circuit riding preachers of the 1800's...all I was missing was a horse:

However four locations totalling 100 people still falls far short of being able to accommodate everyone, and no room for visitors, which is a weird and unfortunate problem to have. So we've labored to create more and more local spaces for this type of safe gathering. This weekend we actually held SIX services in FOUR locations, including two in the south shore. To keep track of it all, we have to ask people to register ahead of time:

That also allows us to comply with the contact tracing rules. Obviously one person can't be everywhere on the above schedule so some of those will have live preaching an others will watch the broadcast version, but still get the have the in-person community experience.

This next weekend we're opening a seventh location in "NDG", a neighborhood just west of downtown and the part of Montreal Severine grew up in! Honestly, it's very exciting to see the gospel being preached in all these neighborhoods all over Montreal. Only our God can take something like a pandemic and use it for good in a city like Montreal.

We've just wrapped up a sermon series on "Who is God?" based on Exodus 34:6-7 where the LORD describes himself to Moses:

You can find older messages on our website, and if you ever want to catch a live broadcast, it'll be available at 11:00 AM EST on church21.online.church and on our Facebook page.

Another ministry-first, thanks to COVID, was running the annual members meeting by Zoom, trying to walk through a 500 line budget spreadsheet without putting everyone to sleep:

Our church has always felt called to help address the issue of human trafficking, and in line with that, our fight against the pornography industry continues. One of our international church members lost their work status for now and has decided to devote herself to leading the charge on this movement locally. Thanks to her leadership, protests outside MindGeek (parent company of Pornhub) world headquarters are happening weekly now:

You can follow this effort by joining the facebook group here: facebook.com/arreterexploitationhub

This is only scratching the surface of all that Jesus is doing in Montreal, and what ministry has been like these last five months. That said, we are enormously grateful to be involved, and for all of the amazing people He has added to our team over the years.

And this month we celebrated an extra special anniversary, 10 YEARS of ministry with Dwight & Jessica Bernier:

Hardly a day goes by that we're not thankful for this "arranged marriage" Jesus put us into way back at the beginning of our ministry adventure in Quebec. What a blessing it has been to be partners in ministry with them! Please be praying for us as we look at the next ten years, and the energy to keep up with Jesus and everything He has planned. Here are a few specific request that you can be praying for with us through this winter:

Continued favor with the government, that we can continue to meet and in larger settings.
Wisdom and endurance for our teams as they continuously seek to minister in these changing & challenging times.
That Jesus would reach the hearts of Montrealers all across the city.

Family Highlights

Despite all of the challenges of life under COVID restrictions, we were still able to take our annual camping trip with friends. We weren't 100% sure it would be open, but in the end it worked out...except for the fact that the shower facilities were closed the whole time. Other systems* were employed:

(*Severine powdering the hair of our co-camping friend Sheila.)

Personally I had a bit of time off last week to catch up on writing. I'm never as far along as I'd like but I have several projects I'm picking at, including a parenting / discipleship book I've been meaning to finish for years. Finally put some real time into it last week, and I hope to release it not too far into the New Year, along with a few other smaller projects. In the meantime you can find all of my existing work at brianmichaelstegner.com

Severine has released another collection of watercolor paintings and continues to see them sell, which is exciting (and pays for the paint supplies!). You can follow her painting journey on Instagram at @pulpandpigmentco and visit her shop on Etsy.

We always knew she could sing, but during the pandemic Katelyn has taught herself the ukulele, discovered a talent for songwriting, written a dozen really amazing songs, and caught the eye of a music producer friend of ours. She's had three recording sessions so far and, as of this past weekend, I think they've captured all of the pieces for her first single. The mix should be completed by next week, and then it will be off to be mastered. As parents, we are both proud and mildly bewildered by how quickly this has all happened. You can follow her progress on instagram at @alora_farenweh

All three of the kids have resumed school and are working part time for our business, so these are very busy days for all. Ben & Emma have grown up quite a bit during the COVID months. Recent apple picking day:

And all three kids have also officially outgrown Severine, who is now the shortest member of our family, if you can believe it. She's not in this shot but here's photographic proof of their tall-ness:

Severine's other major project this fall has been her participation in the "board" of the homeschool group our kids are a part of. There have been huge headaches to work through with constantly changing rules for gathering. Overcoming is a big theme of life right now. She has spent quite a bit of time working with these two amazing ladies over the last few months to make it all happen:

In all, much to be thankful for, including God's provision! I'll wrap up with a quick update on our support raising progress:

Support Raising Highlights

I just want to start by saying thank you again to our support team. The unwavering faithfulness of your support of our ministry and family during this unprecedented time has been a huge blessing and encouragement to us.

Up until this fall, I had been working three days a week for the church (at least on paper) and putting the other two days into completing the transition of our home business back into our home. However after about a three year hiatus, I have resumed the lead on the financial management of the legal entity that houses our churches, church planting projects and related ministries. Another pastor on our team who had been running things over these last three years needed a transition and I felt like the timing was right to step back into that role. I'm thankful for the systems he built as our organization grew quite a bit in both size and complexity during those years, and now we are working to finish the handoff.

The flip-side of this is that I am no longer able to get by working any less than four days a week at the church, the job is just too huge. Toward that end, we've hired someone to take some of the customer service for our business off my shoulders and their training is just about complete, so the timing of everything is working out OK, but due to COVID-19 I have not had the opportunities to continue support raising as I had originally planned.

I am working with the church elders to determine what is possible for 2021, how we might get to four days a week financially with some adjustments, but as there are few guarantees in the months to come under the pandemic, I'm moving forward assuming that we will need to fundraise this additional amount for 2021.

Praise God, with existing commitments from supporters and the churches we serve, we are already 85% funded for our 2021 ministry year, and we are prayerfully seeking the LORD to provide $704 USD / $930 CAD in new monthly support to get us to 100%: