COVER SECTION
GETTING THE REAL SCOOP ON CHURCH PLANTING IN VANCOUVER
Kids often ask the best questions. That’s why On Mission magazine invited 9-year-old Anna Im to interview Jeff and Sara Phillips, North American Mission Board (NAMB) church planters working in downtown Vancouver, British Columbia. In 2010 Jeff and Sara started a church called The Crossings. Here’s what Anna found out about the work of church planters in one of the world’s most diverse and least Christian cities.


ANNA IM: My first question is why did you guys choose to plant a church in Vancouver?


JEFF AND SARA: We were part of a conference in Vancouver called Passion Ministries. While we were there, we got a chance to walk around the city. One of the first things we noticed was there were no churches. Down south, where we lived, the tall buildings were for offices and businesses. In Vancouver, though, more than half of the tall buildings are where people live, but they had nowhere to go to church. We learned that in one particular section of downtown more than 85,000 people lived within two miles. We met people from every nation you could think of. So we asked one of our friends “Where do people go to church?” He said he didn’t think they went to church. That stuck in our minds, so when we came back home we decided that God wanted us to take His light to a place that doesn’t have much light. That was 2008. It took all of 2009 to raise funds, because Vancouver is the second most expensive city to live in in North America. We have several churches supporting us as well as NAMB.


ON MISSION • Fall 2011 25

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