By Frank Stirk
MISSISSAUGA, ON—With only 10 years left before the CNBC hits the deadline for reaching its God-given goals of 1,000 healthy, reproducing and cooperating churches and 100,000 baptisms, President Rick Lamothe predicts that pastors and churches are in for “quite the journey.”
“We’re going to have a lot of decisions to make. We’re going to have a lot of ups and downs. We’re going to come to a lot of crossroads,” Lamothe told the CNBC annual Convention held July 5 through 8 at Portico Community Church in Mississauga, Ontario.
“The 2020 vision is a sacred trust. And so we must prove to be faithful.”
The scope of the challenge, he noted, is reflected in the numbers. There now exist 275 CNBC churches across Canada, up from about 130 in 2000. The past decade has also seen about 8,000 baptisms. But while that is reason enough to be grateful to God, 725 more churches will need to be planted and 92,000 more people will need to be baptized for the vision goals to be realized—and all of that in the same time-span.
“I believe with all my heart,” Lamothe said, using Proverbs 3:5-6 as his Scripture text, “that if we are going to see God bring fruition to our CNBC 2020 Vision, we must live the next 10 years with complete trust, an obedient heart and a ridiculous faith.”
Share Team leader Paul Johnson agrees. “Our goal of 100,000 baptisms is so compelling, so staggering, that we must have a fresh movement of the Holy Spirit to see that happen,” he said. “We’re not at the level of seeing a movement and that’s a concern to all of us.”
In 2009, CNBC churches celebrated 828 baptisms. That is 18 more than in 2008 for an increase of 2.2 per cent. Yet the only region to report an increase in baptisms was British Columbia, with 150 more than in 2008. All the rest reported declines. And even in BC, only three churches accounted for most of its increase—Surrey Chinese (50 baptisms), Royal Heights (49) and Vancouver Chinese (44).
Johnson acknowledged that not every church will enjoy a banner year for baptisms every year. But he said that does not account for the fact that nearly half of all CNBC churches baptized no one in 2009. That includes 45 percent of newly planted seeds and congregations, where disproportionately more baptisms are normally expected to occur.
“We want to find ways to help them,” he said, “including churches in their association that would encourage them, train them and help them to fulfill the Great Commission among their own communities.”
Making sure that all new seeds and congregations are actively engaged from their inception in evangelizing their communities is also a priority for Start Team leader Jeff Christopherson.
“We just feel that we have to intentionally put evangelism in as part of the church-planting strategy, because it doesn’t happen accidentally,” he said. “It seems like many church planters opt to bring in sort of the easier fruit, people who are Christians already. And then they become an insular, non-influential, non-factor in evangelism.”
This component is just one of the nine quality characteristics developed by the Start Team: every new seed must demonstrate this part in its core structure—its DNA—before it can be considered a fully birthed CNBC church.
“If we’re going to get to 1,000 churches, we have to have the right kind of DNA in the churches that we’re starting,” he said. “And so we’re spending extra time and care in making sure we influence the DNA towards multiplication and community transformation.”
“This is a new paradigm for everybody,” Christopherson said. “And so it’s not like we can compare this year to last year.”
In 2009, a total of 27 churches, both congregations and seeds, were started—eight in Alberta, six in Ontario, five in BC, four in Quebec, two in Nova Scotia, and one each in New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador.
In the same vein, National Ministry Leader Gerry Taillon in his message to the Convention called on fellow pastors to take a fresh look at what the Great Commission means when Christ commands His followers to “make disciples.”
Recently, Taillon said, the Lord had impressed upon him that the command is in fact to “make disciple-makers.”
“Can you think of the movement, if the people in our churches were disciple-makers instead of just disciples, experiencing the abundant life?” he asked. “What if instead we gave them the dream to be like Jesus Christ, the dream to be a reproducer, a multiplier of disciples, so that everyone in our church is a disciple-maker?”
Lamothe also urged pastors and church leaders to take action themselves, and not just leave it up to the Convention staff to move them closer to the goal.
“If we believe in the vision that God has given us, if we as CNBC people are going to lead people to the cross over the next 10 years—725 churches and 92,000 baptisms—maybe we need to go back to the cross,” he said. “Maybe we are in the way.”
In June, Lamothe himself resigned as lead pastor of Sequoia Community Church in Ottawa so that he could, in his words, “give vision” to the Eastern Canada Mission Centre, an initiative of Sequoia and First Baptist Church of Montgomery, Alabama, to support churches and church planters in the eastern half of the country.
“I was willing to put it on the line and say, ‘Lord, I believe I’ve heard from you,’” he said. “For our Convention, something else has to happen in these next 10 years, and I’m not just going to wait for it.”
Overall attendance at each of this year’s convention sessions numbered between 300 and 350 people. Churches sent 97 messengers: 37 from Ontario, 26 from Alberta, 12 from Atlantic Canada, 9 from Quebec, 8 from Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and 5 from BC.
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