Our Story

Our Story

Nine Years In...

March 2019 marked nine years (!!) since we first packed up our 3 little kids and everything we owned into a 16 foot trailer and pulled it across most of Canada:

all packed up

In retrospect, this was a bit crazy: We had no church sending us, no church receiving us, no mission agency or network, no believing friends on the ground, no core group, no fellow church planters meeting us there, and only 30 days of money in the bank.

As I said, crazy.

And yet, once we were safely through customs, we had an unbelievable amount of peace as we drove through Canada to our destination. Why? Because the LORD had spoken to us, so clearly, that we were to go:

What about raising financial support first, building a financial support team? 

“No, just go.”

(The LORD doesn’t always speak so clearly, but when He does He always seems to get his way.)

Montreal...

We arrived in Montreal and moved into a (very) small apartment above some friends of ours.

new to montreal

We promised them that we’d always make rent (though we did not know how this would happen). I dutifully tried to find work, but without a visa or my permanent residence, I found I was mostly wasting my time. Those first months were a difficult time for our family spiritually, emotionally, and relationally. And yet God knew what He was doing in our hearts and continued to provide. The day before our second month’s rent was due we found $795 in our filebox. Even now we don’t know where it came from, but we took it downstairs, paid our rent, and were amazed and thankful.

By month 3 we managed to get Severine and the kids signed up for the Federal & Provincial assistance that the government awards you for having children, and this started to pay for food and rent, but not much else. Eventually I decided there wasn’t anything I could legally do other than try and grow our little online business from a $300/month enterprise to a $3,000/month enterprise so we could survive. It wasn’t a great plan, but I locked myself in our bedroom / office and rebuilt everything.

Long story short, the LORD blessed our efforts and the business supported us financially 100% for the next 9 years, allowing us to begin ministry without raising support or taking a church salary.

The Work Begins...

Jesus connects us with another church planting couple a few months later and we form a deep ministry partnership. 

FAST FORWARD: Over the next nine years we go on to start multiple churches together, impacting over a thousand people in English & French in Montreal, as well as develop church planting relationships in Eastern & Northern Quebec, India, and Brazil. (Yes, Jesus has been busy in Montreal.)


We’ve seen dozens of conversions & baptisms in all this time and continue to see people walk in our doors, either through relationship or just by Jesus Himself drawing them in. From the international student was drawn to find a place where they could experience community, to the same-sex attracted person who finds us on the very morning we address the topic of homosexuality and experiences conviction.

We are seeing Jesus build his church (as He promises!) person by person, English & French, lost and found. We are blown away to be a part of the process.

Time for a Change…

August of 2018 things shifted for us quite suddenly in terms of our business. All of this time I (Brian) had managed to run things about 50/50 with my time, half on the business and half volunteering as the Executive Pastor at the main church. We achieved this after structuring the business so that much of the day-to-day labor was handled by contract, meaning we hired other people, freeing us up for ministry.

However after eight years of almost unchanging numbers, due to changes in the marketplace that were totally outside of our control (operating costs, tax rates, export rules, competition, regulation, etc.) our business started to slide in a big way. We lost 33% of our business by Christmas 2018 (and a trend that has continued, down about 75% today).

My initial response to this situation was: “I can fix this.” 

However as I worked, my time began to shift more and more toward the business, and less and less on church matters. And at the same time, the more I tried to fix things, the more the LORD seemed to cause my efforts to fail.

So I finally gave up fighting and just asked Him what He wanted. His answer took some time but was eventually eminently clear: 

“I want you to focus on the church full-time.”

This represented an answer to a very specific question that our business crisis had left us facing: Either I let our staff go and start doing all of the day-to-day work on the business myself (which would mean spending 95% of my time on business and 5% on ministry) or we essentially stop taking a paycheck from the business, keep our staff on to run things, and find other employment.

I should probably note at this point that almost every year since the church leadership structure has been in-place, they have offered me a job. And every time I have declined because I knew what a burden it would be to the young church, and because the LORD continued to provide for us through our business, even though it meant our interests were divided. The reason the church leaders kept asking is because they wanted my full attention, not half of my time but all of it. 

(And I now suspect that some of our leaders had been praying towards this eventuality, as it seems that the LORD was suddenly very much for this idea.)

At that stage, what was being offered to me was a part-time ministry position, formally as the Executive Pastor of Church 21 in the Montreal Region. (We already have a full-time paid executive pastor in the Eastern Region of our church family, covering two congregations to the east of Montreal. Up until this point, I have mirrored his work as best as I can in half the time, and as a volunteer, but it has not always been easy.)

Being hired not only permitted me to continue in the current role I had within the church, but also allow me to expand my ministry to full-time, working not only with the churches in our planting region but also other ministry initiatives we’ve started such as Acts 29 Canada.

This transition came at a pivotal moment for us in the midst of this church planting movement: 


- We were looking at planting a new bilingual church out of our downtown location within a housing project in Montreal. 


- Our in-house seminary was mid-way through its first year, with half a dozen students, 3 of which were hosted in our downtown church. New additional students were anticipated in the fall, expanding our administrative needs.


- We were in the process of formally joining our denomination, which had required many hours of revising our bylaws, but which unlocked new levels of partnership among French-speaking churches with deep roots across Quebec.


- We had just started the Canadian Network of Acts 29 a year and a half prior, and were now poised to see dozens of new churches join over the following year. Additional administrative challenges come with growth, and yet there was such a great opportunity to mobilize existing churches to help train, send, and support church planters across Canada.


In each of the situations above, I (Brian) got to play a key role in providing logistical support and we (both of us) get to provide pastoral care for the leaders leading these churches and ministries. The urgent need is for me (Brian) to transition from volunteering 20 odd hours a week to being full-time staff and able to focus my undivided attention to these ministry opportunities.




Today...

We are four years into obedience to this new calling to full-time ministry, and are working to maintain a financial support team of individuals and churches around this mission. 

Over the course of 2018 & 2019, God was faithful to call many individuals to support us both in prayer and financially. As of today we are 100% funded and anticipate being fully funded through this next year. This is in partnership with our regional church and other ministries, which are fully participatory in caring for us and meeting our financial needs.

Our current financial goal is to build a small savings buffer in our fundraised account as an exercise in wisdom, guarding against a funding shortfall due to unanticipated changes in our support team and / or the impact of a global financial recession. This allows us to protect the church against an unanticipated burden in covering more of my salary than they had planned.


Are You With Us?

Through the years, we have seen God provide in wild ways and now again, we find ourselves driving off into the unknown, trusting that He has already put everything into motion. 

Are you a part of this? God may have prompted your heart before you ever landed on this page. We’re not sure of who we’re supposed to be reaching out to, only that the LORD has already gone ahead to prepare the way for us and has pre-supplied for the journey: 

“It is the LORD who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.” 
(Deuteronomy 31:8, ESV)

Regardless, we would love to keep you informed so that you might pray for us and with us for Quebec. You can sign up at HERE to begin receiving updates by email and see our latest updates HERE. You can also find more information about how to join our support team, either from within the U.S. or Canada.

We are thankful for your prayers. If you have any questions, you can TAP HERE to contact us.
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