Fellowship French Missions

By Pastor Bill

Last Sunday it was our privilege as a church to host our newest missionary, Maurice Cloutier, from Gaspésie, Quebec. Both Maurice and his wife Vicky came to know Christ in their 20’s. Since that time more than 30 years ago, Maurice has acquired considerable practical experience in ministry, eventually taking Bible training and evangelism under Ernie Keef. The Lord called him into full-time ministry in 2003 and enabled the Cloutiers to pursue their vision of planting a church in Sainte-des-Monts, a vision they share with Pastor Israël-Luc Godfrey of a nearby sister church in Matane. In January 2008 they became full-time missionaries with the Fellowship French Mission and with the blessing of church and mission leaders, the work was begun. While working on the church plant, Maurice has also been able to contribute to the pastoral ministry in Mantane.

Although our support is a small contribution to the Cloutier’s overall financial support listening to Maurice’s burden and vision for church planting in Quebec’s Gaspé penninsula reminded me of the following:

Sometimes we forget that only 0.54% (half of one percent) of Canada’s francophones identify themselves as evangelical Christians, which makes Canada’s french-speaking population the most unreached mission field in North America. By God’s grace our church is blessed to work together with the Cloutiers for the gospel in the most needful people group on our continent today.

At the recent Fellowship of Evangelical Baptist Churches in Canada’s National Convention the Director of the Fellowship French Mission (FFM), David Dobson, announced the beginning of a 5 year (Jan. ’10 – Dec. ’14) transition period for the FFM. This transition will focus on the complete transfer of all leadership responsibility for the missionary advance of the work in Quebec to the well-qualified francophone leadership already in place. The FFM was birthed in 1958 with the lion’s share of missionary service (and suffering) borne by zealous English-speaking missionaries who carried the gospel to a Québécois people who had lived for centuries in spiritual darkness. Now, the Fellowship French Region of churches are on the cusp of completing the original dream of the “three selfs principle,” that the churches would become: self-propagating (i.e. sharing the gospel on their own); self-financing (i.e. fully supporting themselves); and self-governing (i.e. raising up leadership within the new churches). By God’s grace our church is blessed to work together with the Cloutiers for the gospel by encouraging the Fellowship French Region in the fulfillment of their foundational “principle of three selfs” after 51 years of great sacrifice and toil.

Let us prayerfully uphold the Cloutiers and the FFM in the establishment of new and growing francophone churches in Quebec and other French-speaking regions of Canada.

“Pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message” (Colossians 4:3a)

Pastor Bill