PART 1: Why This People Now?

Transcription

1 PART 1: Why This People Now?! English Christians have largely been ignoring Quebec, within which is the largest unreached people group in Canada, and even in North America. According to the Joshua Project, only 0.8% of the population is evangelical. (See also Why Quebec.) This is not enough for the gospel to continue and spread, without outside help. But besides that, you will see by the following stories that there are very personal reasons for us to be concerned about this particular people group. *****! When I was a young man, I was touring in London, England. I was in a pub helping a group of North Africans communicate with a waiter. They spoke the strangest French that I have ever heard so I became uncomfortable when they persisted with conversation. I do not speak good international French either. I was rescued by a tap on the shoulder by an older man who introduced himself as a history professor from l Université de Paris, if my memory serves me correctly. He somehow came to be sitting at our table, so as team leader of our senior high school group, I introduced him to my group which consisted of 3 francophones, a pure blood North American Indian, and an anglophone. That got our friend the professor really excited because he got to hear le Français de Louis XIV naturally and not on tape. It is grammatically correct, but very different and distinct. It is not patois, which les anglais who educated me led me to believe.! Paris is much more refined the professor said, but we are in England, so we need to make the best of bad food. And here we drink ale not wine. After ensuring that we had sufficient fish and chips along with room-temperature English Ale, he proceeded to give us a Français de France 1 interpretation of Québecois history while we sat in a London pub, the capital city of les anglais. It had a profound influence on my perspective of my identity.! French people make notoriously bad colonists. They love their country and always want to return; for example, starting way back when Samuel de Champlain could not get many women to go to the new country. There were few families, mainly male adventurers, or courier de bois 2 who mated with the squaws. This was the beginning of the Métis people group. [A Cliche came with Champlain and later 6 Proulx brothers came, who s descendants number over thirty thousand. 3 ]! The colony grew slowly. The Intendant Jean Talon recognized that if the colony was to survive it needed women, so he asked the king of France, Louis XIV for some. 1 A person from France thought of by most Québecois as a different nationality and almost a different race. 2 men in the woods, usually fur traders and explorers. 3 I, Rejean, am an eleventh generation product of those two families--cliche and Proulx.

2 The king had some of the prostitutes and female thieves of Paris gathered and gave them a choice: marriage to a Canadien or prison. A few ship-loads of les Filles du Rois 4 sailed to Québec, where the girls were given to the men after both were interviewed by the nuns, and then promptly married by the priests. The women became les Canadiennes 5. A feudal system, the seigneuries, were set up where people could farm the land, bake bread in community ovens and give part of the proceeds to le Seigneur 6. The people were poor, but they built beautiful churches in every community. 7! New France were a people who followed the true faith --Protestants were not allowed to immigrate. The colonial government gave tax incentives to people with large families, which was also good for the Roman Catholic church. The people kept them both happy with very large families. 8! As a boy I recall a conversation between maman (my mother) and 4 of my sisters. Although as usual they all talked at once, I remember part of it. How can the pope say that the birth control pill is a sin? He is an old bachelor, a fool How can these priests give us marriage courses? They know nothing about it, at least they are not supposed to. They even try to tell us how and how often to have sex said another. At that point my conservative, church-loving maman retorted that they are lucky she didn t have the pill as some of them might not be here, which got us some peace and quiet for a minute or two. I was sure I would be here, after all I was le bébé gautier 9. Today, a generation later, the birth rate in Québec is the lowest in Canada.! The professor continued, The colony grew until the Treaty of Utrecht was signed in 1713 which ceded most of North America to the French. Hemmed in by the mountains, the war-like English who lived in their 13 colonies were yearning for a piece of the pie, at least a much larger one than they already had. The peaceful canadiennes depended on trade. That is why it was so easy for les maudit anglais 10 to deport les Acadiens 11 and scatter them in Ten years previously a mortal blow was dealt to the colony. The English colonists caused Louisbourg, a city on Cape Breton to 4 the king s daughters 5 women of Canada 6 the lord of the manor 7 Today some of those churches are becoming community centers where the people gather and socialize. 8 These large families continued until the early sixties. My mother s family had 12 girls and 3 boys and my father was the seventeenth child of 18. I am the last of ten. 9 can mean lovely spoiled baby or spoiled brat depending on its use 10 the accursed English 11 French colonists living in current day Nova Scotia

3 surrender, and the people were deported back to France. General Wolf brought several thousand trained redcoats to Québec to deal with the menace of the French once and for all. He climbed a cliff by night, and fought the French on the infamous Plains of Abraham. The English took the fort, but became trapped inside. They wintered there with little to eat and little heat, while the French lived in comfort in the farms outside the city. Nothing happened as no one had any ammunition left. That spring they watched the river for supply ships, which turned out to be English. So the battle was lost. The undefended rest of the colony fell a few months after, so the English and their 13 colonies had most of North America.! The professor explained that the battle, which was nothing more than a large skirmish, had little to do with the fate of the colony. During the negotiations in 1763 for the Treaty of Paris, the French government wanted other possessions more, so on February 10, 1763 they abandoned their colony, except Louisianna. Les Canadiens were left to deal with les anglais by themselves. No more French colonization came. They were a people left to their own devices for 250 years. That is why we spoke le Français de Louis XIV. The professor told us that Québec lost a small battle but were not conquered, because les anglais could not do it. 12! In 1774 it was evident that les anglais were more afraid of their own 13 colonies than of the Québecois. They passed the Quebec Act, which guaranteed the right of religious self-determination to the Québecois. They would govern the people, but the church looked after the colonists. That way the church would keep the colony neutral during the War of Independence. Québec became Lower Canada and the British and united empire loyalists from the United States settled mainly Upper Canada. 13! The church had its power and the colony continued. Les Québecois fought on the British side during the War of 1812 against the Americans. They outnumbered the English in Canada up to As the colony grew, the church grew and built schools to educate the people.! I will always be in debt to that professor who gave me that interpretation of events. I don t even remember his name, yet I have not forgotten even after forty years.! During one of my many trips to a 95% French part of Northern Ontario, one of my brothers drove me 100 kilometres to the airport in Kapuskasing to catch the Bear Skin Airlines flight back to Toronto. He saw four priests traveling together, and became terribly excited and animated. They were his teachers, mentors and spiritual guides when he was in high school, at the Catholic college we use to affectionately call le Seminar (the seminary). They chatted for a while and he introduced me, and they said they remembered me. I was not taught by them, I went to school in southern Ontario 12 To think that when les anglais educated me, they called that part of history the conquest of Quebec. 13 Upper Canada is present day Ontario.

4 and had English-speaking teachers until late high school, after which I attended school in that northern community which is ninety-five per cent French-speaking. The priests were good, kind, generous men, dedicated teachers who graduated students who became Lawyers, Doctors, Engineers, Accountants and good trades-people. Little did they know, it was a seed which led to the demise of the Catholic church, because their students learned to think and question.! A few rotten apples in the barrel spoils it all. A few priests could not control their sexual desires and hurt a few students and publicly tarnished all of their brethren in all Catholic schools run by the clergy. I don t know if it happened in that particular school, but they were all tainted by these scandals.! It is actually a good thing that these kinds of schools have closed. For example, another one of my brothers who had gifted intelligence, wanted to learn to speak English while attending the public school, which was thought of as Protestant High School. He did not, on threat of excommunication by the Bishop. I did attend a few classes in the building that was Le Seminar and did homework, but mostly played cards in what the kids nicknamed le Casino. There was a girls school run by nuns, which we referred to as Le Couvent which closed at the same time.! As a boy I often attended the Bishop s Levy, held every New Year s. We were expected to greet him and kiss his ring. I don t remember the significance of the ring kissing, but it certainly was a symbol of power over the people. I suspect the ring had supposedly a fragment of bone of saint in it.! One time I was sitting in the living room of a best friend participating in a discussion with his parents. He told his parents that they should stop going to church. Is going to mass the first Friday of the month nine times in a row really going to get you a spot in heaven?! We certainly had superstitions. I stopped wearing my St. Christopher medallion and I am still safe. I haven t been run over by a car. It broke a long time ago as it must have rusted as a result of baths and showers. I put it and my rosary where it would never be found and forgot about it. If St. Christopher can t prevent rust, how can he possibly keep me safe? I was low hanging fruit ripe for the picking of the Protestants, which happened during university and was complete when I married Cathie.! The statue of Mary is gone from the car and it runs just fine, my friend said. His parents did try skipping church but it felt funny to them. Old habits die hard. Knowing what I do now, the same conversations were occurring in thousands of families.! After Cathie and I were married my father asked me when she would convert. I told him that she was a better Christian than I am so how can my religion help her? Those were fighting words but he accepted them without argument. Years later I realized that he knew I was no longer a practicing Roman Catholic. He knew that we were married in a Catholic church to pacify him. At the time I thought, we re getting

5 married in a church before God, who cares about who owns the real estate? We pray differently my father said, but God hears and loves both of us, he said to me a few weeks before he died, which is why he never pushed me to join Les Chavaliers de Colombes (Knights of Columbus) which would have been important to him.! In recent history there has been evangelism in Quebec, as noted on the Pray for Quebec website. However, as they say: After glowing reports of conversions and growth over so many years, one might assume that the percentage of Christians in Quebec has risen considerably. However, even 32,408 conversions is not a large number compared to the 8,000,000 French Canadians in Quebec and the surrounding provinces. ( PART 2: Understanding Your People! Today the Canadien Français are governed by several governments. There is the federal Government of Canada. Many live in New Brunswick and are governed by the Government of New Brunswick. Many live in Ontario which is governed by the Ontario Government and provides services in French where Numbers permit. There are French school boards. Toronto has a French board and operates schools in French, not French emersion. They serve a population of one-hundred thousand. Les Québecois are governed by the National Assembly. The professor called it a nation within a country. Québec has its own radio and television--radio Canada. They have their own music, song writers, poets, entertainers, authors, universities, and control their own immigration. They have corporations and the desire and ability to control and enforce their own culture so it does not disappear among all that English. The Francophones outside the province are becoming fiercely proud and aware of their culture and language. They have a desire to preserve their language and culture. This is much more difficult for those living outside Québec but many succeed, especially if they marry a French-Canadian spouse. Living in a community with French services and people helps.! I have been in Québec too many times to count, but it is always an experience and an opportunity to learn. When I was a boy, we had an uncle who lived in Abititi. He and my aunt had pioneered in logging camps but now had a farm. We 10 children with our parents visited them with their 15 children. How they ever survived I ll never know, but we always had fun. There was absolutely no English there.! An important truth about the language came home to me when I did the eulogy at my mother s funeral. Not being comfortable speaking French in public, I did it in English with rough notes. Everyone loved it and wanted copies, but I did not record it. The Holy Spirit must have taken control because it was eloquent and I could not reproduce it. Having seen the emotions around the church, my cousins from Québec wanted a translated copy as they were unilingual and did not understand. When I saw their disappointment I knew that I had trampled our culture. I should have struggled in French and let the Holy Spirit deal with it. I don t know if I would have pulled it off, but it would have been better than what I did.

6 ! When church-planting, never substitute English in a French congregation for your convenience. It doesn t work and you will regret it for years. At least my unilingual mother understood as I am sure she is in heaven.! When I was in school in Southern Ontario I was invited to spend a long weekend in Nitro which is a town just outside of Montreal. A few of us went with a friend who s father was an anglophone but his mother was French Canadian. We went out with a whole bunch of his friends who all spoke both languages. Some were anglophones who spoke what I call street French, similar but not as good as mine. The francophones spoke an accented English. As adults I am sure they became perfectly bilingual. I asked my friend s mother, who loved me at first sight because I spoke French to her about this, and she told me that half the homes used French as a first language and half used English. Most marriages were mixed, but went with the language of the father. As a teenager I was comfortable with this.! Cathie went to high school in the Protestant school in Shawville, which is in Pontiac County, Québec. After we were married we went there to visit her anglophone parents. The first time I went, we went to Shawville where I ordered fries in French. Why not--we were in Québec. The woman reacted in a way that I felt like she was saying how dare you speak to me in French. Cathie told me that the whole county spoke mostly English. That disgruntled woman seemed more English than the Queen. No wonder Cathie understands most of, but cannot speak French. No practice. These situations are why we often think of Québec society as having two solitudes, English and French.! Today Pontiac County is half French and half English. We still go there, as we have friends who live there. We love it. Québecois and Quebecers have a culture that lets them work hard, but they also play hard. There always seems to be something on. It might be a birthday party, church picnic, or socializing as a group. Last year we invaded a small group from their church. They tend to socialize a lot after church services, and I never forget to shoot the newest version of the potato cannon to see if it shoots further than last year. I did notice that the particular church we visited had mixed marriages, so some of them speak French. That is useful and necessary if the Québecois are ever to be evangelized.! The National Assembly passed language laws that some consider draconian. I came across this when I almost got transferred to Montreal during the nineties. Fortunately Cathie was considered an anglophone, so we could have had our son educated in English, but otherwise, it was French only. Many Québecois are unilingual and the government seems to want to keep it that way.! A directive was given to me once, to attend and manage a booth at a speech pathologist conference. I noticed that most attendees were unilingual, so falling back on English explanations was out of the question. I had to be francophone completely. After three days we were tired and over-worked, so we were slow in packing up the booth. Having missed our plane we were stuck in Montreal for a Saturday night. While walking

7 Rue Sainte Catherine, it seemed to me that it was like being in Europe. It was as if everyone was there. They love to go out. One can always eat French Canadian food in old Montreal, or Québec city itself. We have done that too. It is a culture with its own food. PART 3: Mobilizing the Needed Missionaries! Ministering to this people group would be E-2 evangelism, because they are of a different, but similar culture to ourselves. Pretty well any role would be available or workable (in Tentmaking or Business as Mission enterprises, for example). Since 80% of the population live in urban centres, various ways of urban ministry should be explored.! Language is a fairly large barrier, because of political tensions in the past, as well as the present. There might be a temptation not to focus on the language, because of the availability of English, as well as the prevalence of francophones who would understand English; but communicating in Canadian French is necessary for opening up the francophone heart, to hear the message of the gospel.! A large number of francophones have been deeply hurt by the church, i.e., Roman Catholocism; and they have therefore rejected any belief in God or Jesus. As well as knowing the language, it would be vitally important to understand the history and beliefs of the Roman Catholic church in Quebec, which is now seeing a huge decline.! With all of this in mind, one mode of evangelizing might be to set up something like a coffee house environment, in the city. This would probably start with one sociopeople group, likely those in the 20+ age range, and would need something to attract: free coffee, a bit of relaxed entertainment, etc. It should be a place where people would come initially just to hang out and get to know each other, but where they would eventually feel comfortable about sharing their deeper selves. The people who come would likely have many burning questions about God, the Bible, etc.; and even though we don t need to argue to prove God, their questions should not be rejected; rather, answered in all honesty. PART 4: Development and Resource Mobilization! Part of the Christian s mandate is reconciliation. The tensions of history and language have separated the French and English, and Quebec from the rest of Canada. It is truly time that we stopped ignoring our neighbours, and started loving them! It is surprising that some of the current missionaries to Quebec, are actually Americans (see Rob Karch, The ranting of an American church planter in Quebec, robertkarch.com). Perhaps Canadian Christians need to be awakened to the fact that we do have an unreached people group, right among us. So that would be the first step: provide information about the need, and pray for eyes to be opened.

8 ! There are a few prayer groups already on the internet (see Pray for Quebec/ Priez Pour Quebec, which would be good to join. Current and continuing information is always important for informing people s prayers, as well as information about the people s history and culture. Once there was a base of people sharing a concern for Quebec, they could meet together--once in awhile at first, and more regularly as the group grows--to share this information, and of course to pray.! Our church, Good Shepherd Community Church in Toronto (gscc.ca), ran the Alpha program for over 10 years. ( It attracted many Chinese immigrants who have a desire to learn and improve their English. Like French Canadians, the Chinese are a social group. They kept inviting their friends, so we were able to hold 2 Alphas a year.! Our research tells us that the Catholic church Sainte-Anne de Beaupré created a French Alpha and they have been running in Québec for more than 10 years. They have put over 600 people through their program. Our one church here, put almost as many people through the Alpha program as the whole province of Québec, so this is not impressive. Currently there are only 2 Alpha s running, an English and a French.! This might be a way that the English-speaking churches could themselves grow and help or create French-speaking congregations. An English congregation could run Alpha in English to familiarize themselves with the program and even attract new members. The French version of Alpha could be evaluated for appropriateness and suitability. If it is not acceptable, it could easily be recreated by a French Canadian pastor.! Alpha requires a lot of volunteer power to run. French-speaking spouses could be discussion leaders and English speaking members could work in the background preparing and serving the meal. Perhaps an English-speaking congregation could work with a French-speaking congregation and 2 Alpha programs could be run simultaneously. It depends on the area of Québec. It could also be run as a coffee house.! The Québecois are familiar with God, but if it is left too long the generations will forget. Alpha is the perfect program for getting reacquainted with our Saviour Jesus Christ. There is an explosion, a revival going on in the Chinese churches in Toronto. I fervently pray for this to happen among my people, les Canadien Français. PART 5: Envisioning a Multiplying Church Planting Movement! There are various ways that new churches among Quebecois might purposely differ from the one we presently attend.

9 ! Because French-Canadians enjoy getting together for fun more often, it would be easier to run events. They are generally used to hard work, and would be willing to help out with these events, and contribute to them. Another thing is that liturgy in the worship services should have less emphasis, allowing for a more free-flowing spirit. This is because so many of them have been turned off by the many routines and practices they ve grown up with in the Catholic church.! A third item of importance (though it s perhaps not that different from our own church): we ve noticed that people with a Roman Catholic background often have an inquisitiveness about everything in scripture. This is a good thing that can be made use of; for example: having discussion groups on specific subjects, or books of the Bible.! Of course, as we ve stated already, it would be very important for most things to be run in French. And since many of our hymns and spiritual songs have a very English base, it would be better to write whole new ones, perhaps using lively French-Canadian melodies.! Missionaries to Quebec have suffered in the past--being called heretics, denounced in the Roman Catholic church, had laws changed to prevent their preaching on the streets, and they ve even been thrown into prison for seven days (See the website for Pray for Quebec ). However, Quebec seems to be more accepting of missionaries currently, and there is at least one church planting movement around Montreal. (See Rob Karch s blog.) Conclusion! This is partly my story, and a bit of testimony, but it is more the story of a people fighting for survival. They have lost their church along the way because of abuse, but more tragic, they lost their trust in God. When I listen to or read the news and read about the Charbonneau commission and the resignation of all those mayors because of corruption, I know my people need their trust in God to return. If you can do nothing else, please pray for them that they will open up to the gospel. As it says in part of the Rosary, Let us glorify God: glory be to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end.

10 Alpha Ministries Canada References Cited World Wide Web 2012 Alpha Canada (21 January 2013) Auger, Jean-Philippe 29 May 2004 ALPHA A new catechesis awakening to faith for adults Diocese de Quebec Mini report: 29 May %3DAlpha%2Bin%2BQuebec%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26hs %3D6wk%26tbo%3Dd%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en- US:official&sa=X&ei=GLP9UKO_DcGSrAHuhYDoAw&ved=0CDYQ7gEwAA (21 January 2013) John, Daniel 2008 Why Québec? : Pray For Quebec - Priez Pour Quebec. Pray for Quebec - Priez pour Quebec. (21 January 2013) Karch, Rob Rob Karch, The ranting of an American church planter in Québec (21 January 2013) Marianopolis College 2005 Treaty of Utrecht (1713). L Encyclopédie de l histoire du Québec / The Quebec History Encyclopedia TreatyofUtrecht1713-QuebecHistory.htm (21 January 2013)

11 U.S. Center for World Mission French-Canadian of Canada Ethnic People Profile. Joshua Project. (21 January 2013) Wikipedia 19 January 2013 Fortress of Louisbourg. Wikipedia the Free Encyclopedia. 19 January (21 January 2013) Wikipedia 02 December 2012 Quebec Act. Wikipedia the Free Encyclopedia. 02 December (21 January 2013). Wikipedia 18 January 2013 Treaty of Paris (1783). Wikipedia the Free Encyclopedia. 18 January (21 January 2013)