Our Need

New Brunswick is a place of great beauty, deep history, and friendly people. And yet it is also a place of great need—economic hardship, social problems, and, most important of all, spiritual decline.

I. The Economic Need

The small size of New Brunswick’s population means a small government tax base, higher public debt, higher taxes, and difficulty delivering services
Unemployment at the end of 2022 was almost 8 percent, the third-highest in Canada and more than two points higher than the national average

New Brunswick’s per-capita Gross Domestic Product is lower than every U.S. state and all but two other provinces

II. The Social Need

New Brunswick’s rate of child poverty is the fourth-highest in Canada and the second-highest in the Atlantic region
New Brunswick’s domestic violence rate was the third-highest among Canadian provinces in 2019 and, worse, was increasing faster than any other province
The province had the third-highest rate of non-domestic violence

New Brunswick’s rate of gambling was the highest in the Atlantic region and higher than the national average—85% of New Brunswickers gamble at least once in a given year
The province has higher than national-average rates of depression, bipolar, GAD, tobacco and alcohol abuse, and non-cannabis drug use

New Brunswick’s population is the second-oldest in Canada, as the poor economy leads young people to seek work and educational opportunities elsewhere
The loneliness many seniors feel in our highly-mobile society is worse for many in New Brunswick, as so many younger family members live elsewhere

III. The Spiritual Need

The Prevalence of Roman Catholicism

Roman Catholicism reached New Brunswick in the 1600s with French settlers
New Brunswick has a higher proportion of Roman Catholics in the population—49%, almost half—than any province but Quebec
There is almost no evangelical presence in much of French-speaking Catholic New Brunswick—especially in the north of the province

Popularity of Heretical Theology

The United Pentecostal Churches International (UPCI), a movement that denies the Trinity, has 74 churches in the Maritimes—62 in New Brunswick, including a college in Fredericton
Prosperity (“Word of Faith”) teaching is widespread and popular in New Brunswick, taking advantage of the economic hardships of many

Abandoned Baptist church in Jemseg. Photo by Mike Tidd; used with permission.

Evangelical Decline

Especially in rural areas, dozens if not hundreds of churches have closed
The Atlantic Baptist Convention, serving all four Atlantic provinces, has declined from more than 600 churches in the 1960s to around 450 today—despite the population growing more than 25% over that period
Liberal theology is making significant inroads in evangelical denominations

IV. Case Studies in Religious Decline

Case Study #1: Roman Catholic Diocese of Saint John

In 2018, the diocese (which governs the Fredericton, Miramichi, and Saint John regions) announced it would close 9 churches in New Brunswick and merge 58 parishes into 27
5 of the 9 shuttered churches were in the Saint John area alone

Case Study #2: The Anglican Diocese of Fredericton

In 2001, the Diocese of Fredericton (governing all of New Brunswick) had 178 congregations and 8500 in regular Sunday attendance
By 2017, there were only 129 congregations and less than 4400 in attendance—an almost 50% decline

Case Study #3: Northwestern Association of Atlantic Baptists

This association serves a conservative region that has been largely stable in population
In 2002 the association had 37 churches and more than 3200 in Sunday attendance
By 2019 there were only 29 churches, 14 of them meeting only occasionally, and less than 2000 in attendance—an almost 40% decline

Case Study #4: The Wesleyan Churches of the Upper Saint John Valley

In this culturally conservative region there were once 10 churches, but there are now 8
In 2014 these churches reported 617 in membership and 838 in attendance
As of 2020, the membership was 535 and attendance was 699
This means a drop of 17% and 13% respectively in one of the area’s most conservative and evangelical denominations

V. The Bottom Line

1. There aren’t enough churches in New Brunswick.

We estimate there are roughly 300 evangelical congregations in New Brunswick (of all stripes—Baptist, Wesleyan, Pentecostal, nondenominational, etc.)

One missiological “rule of thumb” for church planting is that, for a region to be considered “saturated” with the Gospel, it needs 1 evangelical church for every 1000 urban residents, or for every 500 rural residents.

In 2021, 49% of New Brunswickers lived in rural regions and 51% in urban areas. This means there is a need for more than 400 urban churches and almost 800 rural churches—around 1200 in total.

In other words, for New Brunswick to be fully reached with the Gospel, we need about four times as many churches as we have now.

2. There are very few evangelical churches serving French-speaking New Brunswick, in particular.

There are only a handful of evangelical churches ministering to French-speaking New Brunswickers in their own language.

The roughly-one-third of New Brunswickers who speak French as their first language are overwhelmingly of a Roman Catholic background. The majority of these would be merely professing, rather than practicing, Catholics, and the proportion of Francophone New Brunswickers who decline to identify with any spiritual or religious system is growing.

In short, French-speaking New Brunswick—more than a quarter of a million souls!—is almost totally unreached by the Gospel.

3. The need is getting worse.

The population of New Brunswick continues to grow, but largely due to immigration. There are growing numbers of Filipinos, South Asians, and other groups, many of whom will need outreach and evangelism.

As the numbers already presented above show, however, New Brunswick’s evangelical community is in decline—numerically, but also theologically. Churches are closing faster than new churches are being planted, and even many of the churches that remain, especially in the half of New Brunswick that is rural, are struggling to maintain their current presence.

4. New Brunswick is being largely overlooked by church planters and revitalizers.

Below is a map demonstrating this problem. The map shows active church planting efforts across North America by SEND Network, the church-planting and -strengthening arm of the Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board. SEND is largest evangelical church planting network in the world.

Take note of the lack of work by SEND happening in New Brunswick.