 The
Fellowship French Mission is a national mission
agency that functions as a missionary arm under
the auspices of The Fellowship of Evangelical
Baptist Churches in Canada (FEBCC). The FEBCC
is a body of more than 500 evangelical Baptist
churches that stretches from coast to coast in
Canada. The FEBCC was founded in 1953, and just
five years later in 1958 the Fellowship French
Mission (FFM) was also born with the specific
mandate of helping to plant churches among francophones
within Canada.
Our History
Rev. William L. Phillips, the Fellowship French
Mission's first director, wrote a history of our
mission in a book entitled, Modern Day Missionary
Miracles. He states, "…on November
28, 1958, Dr. Morley Hall, the Fellowship Secretary
was authorized to write, 'This is to announce
the formation of a Fellowship French Missions
Committee by the Executive Council.'" When
the mission began, the missionary force numbered
12, including eight anglophones and four francophones.
The visionary leaders that started the Fellowship
French Mission believed a special mission agency
was needed to minister specifically to French
Canadians because the evangelical population of
French Canada was then, and still is now, microscopic.
For centuries, the Roman Catholic Church dominated
Quebec society (as well as the other francophone
regions of Canada) and the average French Canadian
had never had the opportunity to hear and understand
the gospel of Jesus Christ. Fellowship leaders
saw the great spiritual needs and felt the responsibility
to reach this "mission field next door."
Even today, the need continues to be very great.
Referring to the population of Quebec in the 1990's,
Brian Seim of Operation World wrote, "There
are approximately 5.5 million Francophones. Only
0.54% of these people have any affiliation with
a Protestant church, certainly not enough to be
self-sufficient in reaching this vast unreached
people group. This is the largest unreached people
group in Canada and in all probability North America."
 In
the early days of our mission, Dr. E. S. Kerr,
(an early Mission Committee Chairman) wrote, "Our
missionaries serving in French Canada are confronted
with all the opposition and problems that attend
missionaries in foreign fields." Indeed,
in the early days prior to the formal founding
of the mission, the opposition was so great that
some missionaries actually spent time in prison
because of their bold proclamation of the gospel.
God honoured their witness, and the mission grew
from a tiny band of five missionary couples and
two single missionaries in 1958, to our present
force of 33 missionary couples and two single
missionaries. Over 100 couples have served with
the French Mission over the past 48 years.
From 1958 to the present, the Fellowship Baptist
work in Quebec has grown from a tiny handful of
churches and a few score believers to a mature
body of 77 francophone churches with a total attendance
of more than 8,000 believers. We rejoice that
missionaries serving with the Fellowship French
Mission planted the vast majority of these churches.
We give God all the praise and glory for this
glorious legacy of supernatural growth!
*Prisoners for the
Gospel photo from Rev. Murray Heron's autobiography,
Footprints Across Quebec. Used by permission,
Joshua Press © 1999
In the early days of church planting in Quebec, there were very few French Canadians pastors
The growth of churches and intentional leadership training since the 1970s have produced many pastors and church planters from French Canada.
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