Toronto is the 5th most populous city in North America and the most diverse, with more than half of its 6 million residents immigrating from another nation.
Source: Statistics Canada
By Adam Miller
Sprawling between the Bering Sea and Greenland, stretching from Arctic climates to temperate rainforests, the land of Canada is both idyllic for living and uninhabitable. It is a place of great religious roots, but that tree has branched into all directions of belief and unbelief.
The country was established in religious fervor, but many of its more than 33 million inhabitants now dismiss religious institutions as cold and controlling.
Canada has become the land of opportunity for church planters who have the patience, persistence and the faith that God has called them to a field white for harvest.
More than 25 million of Canada’s residents live in its urban areas, and because of milder climates and ease of trade 75 percent of Canadians live within 100 miles of the Canada-U.S. border in places like Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal.
The front lines of church planting efforts in Canada are marked by great diversity of ethnicity and world view. Vancouver and Toronto, the nation’s largest cities, are nearly half-filled (40 and 46 percent respectively) with immigrant populations; the majority being Asian. More than a quarter of residents in British Columbia and Ontario are from other nations.
The Vancouver Sun recently reported 1,700 immigrants arrive in the city monthly. Statistics Canada reported in 2006 that by 2030 immigration will be the sole source of population growth in the nation.
Equally unrelenting is the country’s secularization. Beginning in the 1960s with the Quiet Revolution, the Quebecois wrested ruling power from the Roman Catholics. In places like Vancouver during the 1970s, Canadians became equally distrustful of the powerful Anglican church, which fell prey to immorality among its priests.
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