Why Québec?
Visitors to Québec usually savor the fun side of life in Canada’s predominantly French-speaking province - gliding down ski slopes in winter and enjoying numerous summertime festivals and cultural events.From a Christian perspective, however, a gloomier side exists to Québec. Church attendance - an estimated 11 percent in the once staunchly Roman Catholic province - ranks as the lowest in North America.Only 0.5 percent of Québec’s 6.2 million French-speaking Québécois maintain any evangelical affiliation, a figure so low that Outreach Canada, a Canadian church-planting and church-growth ministry, has labeled French Québec as “the most unreached people group in North America.” The low percentage of evangelicals is startling, but so are the challenges and opportunities for making the gospel relevant in this society. In its 1998 study Transforming Our Nation: Empowering the Canadian Church for a Greater Harvest, Outreach Canada pointed out such factors as secularization, urbanization and ideological pluralism have marginalized Christianity in the province.From the province’s beginning in the 1600s as New France, the Roman Catholic church played the dominant role in Québec society until well into the 20th century. Although French Protestants (or Huguenots) could be found in New France, Protestant influence was squelched in Québec until increasing numbers of denominations and parachurch organizations began ministering in the early and mid-1900s.
The Quiet Revolution –the label given to the province’s social development beginning in 1960– transformed Québec’s religious landscape. Along with helping spur the Québec separatist movement, the Quiet Revolution also marked Québec’s entry into the postmodern era, which author Ernest Gellner defined as favoring relativism and hostile to the idea of “unique, exclusive, objective, external or transcendent truth.”
Postmodernism presents numerous challenges to evangelicals ministering in the province. Diminished Christian influence has created a spiritual vacuum which has encouraged other religions and cults to expand. Such events as an annual Psychic Expo in Montreal, for example, draw thousands of visitors. Québec also faces a number of disturbing social trends. According to Statistics Canada figures, the province has the highest percentages for divorce, abortion, couples living together outside marriage and out of wedlock births in Canada. Québec’s suicide rate ranks not only as the highest in Canada, but also as one of the highest in the industrialized world.
Still, Quebec’s situation cannot be considered entirely negative. French-speaking Protestant churches experienced revival from 1970 to 1985. Operation World reported the number of French evangelical congregations grew from 150 with 6,000 adherents in 1976 to nearly 400 congregations with 35,000 adherents in 1990.
In addition, several parachurch organizations, such as Campus Crusade for Christ and Athletes in Action, have instituted ministries to the French-speaking Québécois. A number of evangelical denominations have also reported a new spirit of cooperation and increased church-planting efforts. Pray for the evangelical Christians in Québec along with other believers the Lord is raising up from the rest of Canada and around the world to pray for and/or minister in the province. Pray that creative, culturally relevant ways may be discovered to reach the French-speaking Québécois and to help them become fully devoted followers of Christ.
About the French-speaking Québécois
| Population: | 6.2 million out of overall population of 7.4 million |
| Language: | French |
| Religion: | predominantly Roman Catholic |
| Occupation: | Western industrialized economy |
| Literacy: | 95 percent (Statistics Canada, for entire Canada) |
| Evangelical Christians: | 35,000 |
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