Now, don't get your panties in a knot over that title and just listen.
I learned a lot about the spiritual culture in Quebec while I was there. It's a sad state of affairs. There was a whole lot of church growth in the 60s and 70s there and now it has died off in the worst was. The Catholic church bears much of the blame for this. Did you know that they required women to bear a child every year or risk being cut from the church? Me thinks they took the verse, "women will be saved through childbirth" a little seriously.
In light of the harshness of the church, many people want nothing to do with religion of any kind. If you mention Jesus to them, they run, literally run, the other direction. Evangelism is challenging in a place like this. We met a couple who have started a "church" in their back alley. They do church without mentioning Jesus. Basically they're a presence in the poorest French community in Montreal.
On the second night of the convention we convened on the top of Mount Royal, which overlooks Montrel, for a worship time. This is not a private place; we were not the only ones there. I didn't participate in the small group prayer time so I was able to observe some of the locals. There was a group of three girls, drinkning wine from bottles, who were watching all that was taking place. No, not just watching, they were mocking. The stood beside a group of people praying, wrapped their arms around each other and pretended to pray as well, while their friend snapped a picture. Many more imitations and pictures later, they broke out into the Hallelujah chorus.
They really were being quite ignorant, yet I felt absolutely no anger. Just compassion and profound profound sadness. They just don't have any idea. Oh, my heart just broke for them.
The whole experience atop Mount Royal was...surreal. Now, we all know that I am no evangelist. Not in the slightest. I prefer to live my faith and I am the last person you will find preaching from a street corner. I also try to be sensitive to the needs and opinions of others. So a public worship service atop a mountain in a very anti-Christian community is not going to be my cup of tea. And then to ask me to "yell for Jesus." Now you're just begging me to roll my eyes at you.
How do you think those people felt as we yelled about "the harvest being ripe" (no, I'm not joking, they did) and other Christian slogans. We might as well have been screaming obsenities at them. In their culture, we basically were.
Quebec needs Jesus. I am convinced of that, don't get me wrong. The MB Conference needs people to go and do that work. The way we did it last weekend was not the right way.
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