By Mark Puckett
CNBC Church Starting Advocate
NUNAVUT—There’s an old adage that asks, “How do you eat an elephant?” The answer is “One bite at a time”.
That’s similar to undertaking the work of starting new churches in the vast arctic territory of Nunavut. “One small step at a time” describes this daunting task. Nunavut is the geographic size of Western Europe, but has fewer than 30,000 inhabitants spread across the area, mostly in small communities of a few hundred each. Very few of these communities have an evangelical presence of any kind.
This summer, July 7 through 12, Joe Hernandez, from the North American Mission Board, I (Mark Puckett) and a team from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS) in Louisville, Kentucky, were the first Southern Baptists to take a bite out of this “elephant,” Nunavut. Six students along with missions professor, Dr. David Sills, traveled with us to the territorial capital of Iqaluit.
The first goal of our trip was to learn about the territory, the people, the culture, and the spiritual needs, with an eventual goal of seeing new churches begun across the territory.
“The trip to Nunavut gave me and my students an awareness of and heavy burden for the spiritual needs of both the indigenous and Anglo people in this area of Canada,” Sills said.
Iqaluit has an evangelical population of less than one percent. The first Anglican communion in North America was held at Frobisher Bay in 1578. Other than the long-established Anglican and Catholic presence, the only other established church in Iqaluit is a small Pentecostal church.
Travel to Nunavut is expensive and the cost of living there is high. Because of its remote location and limited transportation, virtually everything is 100 to 150 percent higher than in the populated provinces of Canada: Two-litres of milk is $8; a dozen eggs is $4; a can of Campbell’s soup is $5.
The native people of Nunavut are Inuit and comprise 85 percent of the population. However, Iqaluit has a rapidly growing Anglo population which is now approaching 50 percent of the town’s residents. Iqaluit boasts of being the fastest growing town in Canada and has over 20 percent of the territory’s population. This, plus being the centre of government and commerce, makes the town the centre of influence in Nunavut.
The burgeoning Anglo population in Iqaluit also makes it culturally distinct from the rest of Nunavut. Inuit residents of Iqaluit told the exploration team that they felt a loss of their heritage and culture since the boom of outsiders, who have moved in during the past 15 years. This has led to heightened racial tension in the town.
The challenge of starting new work in Nunavut will be great but next steps are already being formulated. By the end of the week of exploration the team had made helpful and informative contacts and gleaned much useful information.
On behalf of the SBTS team, Sills said, “My research team and I feel that our labours are unfulfilled until we can hand the gathered data to a team of God-called missionaries and church planters who can use it to minister among those who so desperately need to hear the gospel and see it lived out there. I pray that God will lead someone soon to evangelize and plant churches in Iqaluit and the surrounding areas of Canada.”
Please pray for the Inuit people and all those in Nunavut. The spiritual darkness there is palpable. We must pray that the Lord will open eyes to see and ears to hear, and that He will raise up labourers for the harvest.