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Every month we will spotlight a church that is reaching its neighbourhood with the good news of the Kingdom of God. Canada is a unique country and instead of always looking to the south for our stories and our voices, we need to be telling the stories about what God is doing in our land. This month we're in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and will tell the story of Jeff Christopherson and the community of Christ followers called "The Sanctuary."
MV: Jeff, thanks for taking the time to tell us your story and about what God is doing at The Sanctuary. Tell us how long you have been at The Sanctuary and why you decided to go there.
JC: We moved to Oakville (just west of Toronto) in 2000 to begin the ‘prenatal work' and officially launched in September 2001. We moved here because we sensed a need for our country to have a spiritual awakening and we wanted to move to an area where we could have the greatest impact on the Canadian scene.
MV: What were some of the key factors in shaping your vision for the church?
JC: When we were starting The Sanctuary, the largest church in Canada was at about 4,000 people. We knew that even if we planted a church twice that size that it would be "spit" compared to the needs of the GTA (with a population of about 5 million). So, from the beginning, we were trying to resist some of the impulses of the church growth movement and move more into things that looked like multiplication than addition. Instead of keeping ourselves and gathering in one place we were really fascinated with the principle of giving ourselves away and seeing things multiply. Mark 8:35 shows the attitude Jesus asks his followers to assume. "For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it."
MV: What events or circumstances have shaped the church over the years?
JC: Organizationally, we've seen some changes. We started with a mother/daughter church model that saw us releasing church plants quite quickly to be autonomous. This was not always healthy for the new church plants so we moved to a multi-site model where we maintained a higher degree of control. However, we began to notice that this allowed less possibility for quick, local decisions because of bureaucracy. So, we struck a halfway balance. Now we see us as an incubator. There is a high degree of hands-on in early stages of the plant, but we aim to set them free within two years so they are autonomous, financially and in other ways.
Our goal was to plant 25 churches in GTA by 2020. We are well on the way to far outstrip that, so now are aiming for 250 by 2020. We are building systems to work backwards from that goal to see it a reality. For example, I now work as Network Pastor. In that role I am looking for apostolic leaders from many different ethnic backgrounds represented in the GTA; and we are finding them all over the place. These leaders do not just want to plant individual churches, they want to reach their people groups. We are serving as a catalyzing agent, drawing these leaders into the Sanctuary network and finding resources and coaching for them.
MV: Part of being a missional church is learning to live incarnationally. What is The Sanctuary doing in the neighbourhoods in which it is a part?
JC: This is an area in which we are growing. Traditionally, I saw the endgame as planting churches. As a result we saw success as having an "outpost" with our name on it. But recently, the Holy Spirit has been teaching us and others that the Church is not the end goal. Rather, the Church is a tool to build the Kingdom of God. We now see the church as a tool for community transformation. And so when we work with a leader in planting a church, we look for agreement and accountability on two key factors: 1) Reproduction - that this will be a church that seeks to give itself away and multiply and 2) Community transformation - which is what you are asking about here.
We're asking the leaders to figure out their communities; what the needs are, and then to just go after meeting those needs. Our three most recent plants have been very effective in this area. In Pickering, east of Toronto, our leaders went to the toughest place in town and offered a free 10-week summer camp for kids who can't afford camp. They have also found persons with AIDS who needed help; they have cleaned and painted their houses. In our Mississauga plant, the leaders went to the mayor and asked, "Where is the most difficult part of the city?" and planted their church there. Again, they have rolled up their sleeves and have got into the lives of the people in that neighbourhood. A third example is in Oakland. This plant is only a few kilometres from our original plant, but a world away as far as the people who live there; those people would never go to Sanctuary Oakville. So we have gone to them. We use a bar as a base of operation. It's a very relational plant. The leaders, a couple, cook a lot of meals and build relationships that way.
MV: What drives you as a community to be involved in this way?
JC: When we were involved in church planting through sending out flyers and marketing we'd see some results; that is, we'd see some come to Christ. But it's a whole new level when we walk with somebody from the beginning - when they've not just shown up on our doorstep, but we went and found them. We walk with them through whatever they are going through and we see their lives turning around to Christ; then we watch them being baptized and we hear their testimony - that's a whole new level of excitement. That's what drives us into the community.
MV: Is there a story where you see God at work presently in the neighbourhoods in which you are involved?
JC: In our Brampton plant we are working with a wonderful Pakistani couple that are missionaries just naturally. The man is from a well-respected clan in Pakistan and when people hear his name they want to invite them into their home. So he has open doors into this community. He probably does four to five meals a week in people's homes, by invitation. He doesn't tell anyone he is a Christian. But he always asks if he can pray at the beginning of the meal, and he prays in the name of Christ. Of course, this leads to lots of discussion. Out of these friendships formed over meals has developed gatherings of 50 to 80 people coming together - Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs - to explore Christ.
MV: What are the values of the church?
JC: To answer that I'll start with our mission statement: "A growing group of friends giving ourselves away, building the Kingdom of God." Each one of those statements has values attached to them. Lately, we've become a little more explicit in terms of stating two additional values that I mentioned above: 1) Reproduction - that this will be a church that seeks to give itself away and multiply and 2) Community transformation. I would also add to that "Celebration" - helping all the parts of The Sanctuary be aware of and contribute to the work that is going on in all our campuses.
MV: Would you consider yourself to be a missional church?
JC: Our missional strategy asks two questions: First, "What are the needs in our community that Christ wants us to meet?" Second, "Who are the people in our community who are outside of relationship with Christ, but who would like to join us in meeting those needs?"
We find that there are secular people, who are "Kingdom seekers," who want to "do good." But they don't have "gas in their tanks" to do it because they don't have the Holy Spirit living in their lives. But they are really impressed with churches that consistently go after the needs in a community. They begin to ask us, "tell us the reason for the hope you have." And you tell them and they come to Christ. And they are relationally connected to others who don't know Christ. And you watch thing moving again and again.
MV: Have there been any changes in your philosophy over the past 8 years or so?
JC: I once saw church planting as the end; now I see it as the means to the end of building the Kingdom of God. I still think church planting is the best tool for missional engagement. Often, however, church planters think that they can only meet the needs of the community after the church is established with its salaries and programs, etc. How much better would it be if from "day one" we made it our priority to serve the community? Then, the people you bring with you on that journey - who aren't even Christ followers yet - will learn the true meaning of mission. They would already have the right DNA because they have watched you engage in mission from the start.
MV: Thank you Jeff. May God continue to bless you and The Sanctuary as you live missionally in your communities.
*For more information on The Sanctuary and the great work they are doing to see neighbourhood transformation, please check out their website at www.thesanctuary.ca.
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