About Us

Laval Christian Fellowship is a confessional Reformed church in the Greater Montreal area called to proclaim and live out the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. We believe that God’s unmerited sovereign grace redeems all who, through faith alone, trust in the Savior, Jesus Christ. We believe that Christian life must be marked by sacrificial obedience to the Holy Triune God. As a community of Christ-followers, we are called to love one another and live peaceably with others. We believe that God has called and will call unto himself a people from every nation, who will be salt and light in this sinful world until the return of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, we are a missional congregation called to fulfill the Great Commission in our community and the whole world to the glory of God alone.

Laval Christian Fellowship is affiliated with the Christian and Missionary Alliance in Canada. Find out more about the alliance at stlawrencedistrict.org.

My parents came to saving faith when I was four years old. What I remember most about my childhood was the number of times my parents were in church. And since I was small, I, too, ended up in church. I found myself sleeping on church pews more than I would care to admit. The older I grew, the more I resented church. I felt it to be a restrictive lifestyle. Everything that I wanted to enjoy seemed to be a sin. God seemed to me as someone who was unhappy with me, and church was a dreary place.

This went on until the age of 13. While entirely disinterested in anything religious, I found myself strangely drawn to prayer. I began calling on God, asking that he reveal himself to me. The Bible no longer bored me; it was captivating. Slowly I started sharing God's word with my peers. Little did I know it, but I had been mysteriously and irresistibly drawn by God's Sovereign grace to himself.

At 22 years of age, I enrolled in the Istituto Biblico Italiano in Rome, Italy. During my stay in Rome, I came into contact with the books authored by Arthur W. Pink. The doctrines of grace and particularly the doctrine of election rattled my understanding of the gospel. At first, I resisted, but over the years, I slowly embraced the doctrines of grace. The change started with the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. It was this doctrine that freed me from the fear of losing my salvation.

It has been a long journey in my understanding of God's sovereignty. Only in 2017 did I finally embrace the last of the doctrines of grace, limited atonement. To say that this was a turning point in my life is an understatement. God has been so patient and so merciful with me. Reformed theology has been used by God to transform my ministry and my walk with the Lord in ways I never could have imagined. My heart's desire is to see many come to the full conviction of the sufficiency of Scripture and a greater understanding of the supremacy of Christ; all to the glory of God.

After serving in a sister church in Montreal, John's term as a pastor ended. He and his wife Gina spent the rest of the year prayerfully considering what the Lord would have them do next. By the end of 1994, the Lord birthed a desire in their hearts to plant a new church in Laval, Quebec. Following a meeting with a core group of 20 individuals, weekly home Bible studies began. Two home meetings were held every week - one in English and the other in Italian. They met regularly to study God's word and apply Bible principles to their lives. These were the humble beginnings of Laval Christian Fellowship.

As weekly home gatherings continued, the need for a more structured meeting emerged. In January 1995, after much prayer and waiting, God provided a church facility. Centre Évangelique de Laval (CEL) graciously granted our burgeoning group the use of their facility at no cost for 6 months. We continue to use CEL's facilities and are grateful to God for this open door.

Our first official gathering took place on Sunday, January 22, 1995, at 3:00 PM. In our early worship gatherings, we often sang acappella, not out of our own choosing, but because we had no musicians. The same volunteers who worked with the children often helped as back-up singers or even translators.

As the Lord blessed the church, the volunteers we needed (musicians, children's workers, translators, etc.) slowly trickled in. We fondly remember our humble beginnings, where individuals stayed behind after the gathering for coffee and to enjoy a time genuinely connecting with and caring for one another. Although we have grown in number, and not everybody can stay behind for coffee, one thing remains: we strive to be a transparent and caring people who are governed by grace because of the forgiveness and grace extended to us by Jesus Christ.

Since 2017, our philosophy of ministry has changed to include expository preaching, a focus on training men and women for ministry, and a comprehensive gospel-centred ministry. All of it framed within a robust reformed theological understanding of God's word.

Our desire is to bring God glory in making his name known through the diligent and faithful presentation of the gospel and to raise an army of believers who serve their Lord without hesitation.