The Bible is full of stories, starting with Genesis, that show the sovereignty of God at work as he moves the chess pieces of human history to position individuals, families, clans, and sometimes entire people groups in new geographic locations to expose them to the good news of his kingdom and invite them into it. The Old and New Testaments abound with examples of people group migrations resulting in diasporas, both willing and forced. These migrations and displacements have led directly to urbanization and a phenomenon that we in Canada call global gateway cities.
The gateway phenomenon is not a historic anomaly, but rather a recovered understanding of Scripture, church history, and the contemporary motus Dei. In this article, adapted from a chapter in Tides of Opportunity, the Global Gates Network of Canada (GGNC) shares a case study to capture both the broad and specific elements of the missiological reality known as gateways and its strategic mission importance.

People Movements to Cities

Globally, over 272 million people currently live away from their home country,1 but the numbers are even larger when you add the children of immigrants, those who lived abroad and then returned home, and those who have internally migrated within their own countries. GGNC is focusing on a newly recovered era of mission (in reality, an ancient one) aimed at reaching a world already connected through global diaspora relationships, in key cities throughout Canada.

A Kairos Moment

As a primary destination for global immigration, Canada has become the global epicenter for diaspora people group migration into our gateway cities. God is dropping a kingdom–mission gift into our laps; will we recognize it and seize the day? Will we move in obedience to mobilize and train more Jesus followers? Will we share the good news and make disciples of individuals from the least–reached people groups who continue to surge into Canadian gateways, all at the invitation of Canada’s secular government? We do not know how long this window and season of opportunity will remain open to us. For now, it appears that for at least several more years, the Canadian government aims to allow upwards of 450,000 immigrants and refugees to ensure the ongoing demographic and economic stability of the country, due to the aging population of North American Caucasians like myself, who will increasingly move into minority Canadian population status in coming years.2

Case Study: Toronto

The Greater Toronto Area (GTA) has more than 250 nationalities and 170 languages represented within its geography3 and is the most multiethnic and multicultural gateway metro in the world. While not all global cities are necessarily (or even ontologically) gateway cities, the gateway cities GGNC has defined, including the GTA, are global cities. As CIC News noted in May 2022:

The unmitigated size of the Greater Toronto Area is a challenge for mission efforts among diaspora LPGs, especially in light of COVID-19 and the attendant restrictions at provincial and municipal levels, which contributed to further urbanized migration and the maturing and/or creation of ethnoburbs. During especially heavy rush-hour traffic, it easily can take two hours or more (if driving) to traverse the metro. This has time, distance, travel, human resource, and cost implications for planning and implementing evangelism and training events, strategic planning and team meetings, defining event and meeting locations, etc.4

In late 2020, GGNC missionary Seth Beebe shared with me his concerns about some of the difficulties of diaspora gateway mission:

The greatest challenge in Toronto with sustainable ministry seems to be the transitional nature of the lifestyles of people in the city. As you move into the city and engage newcomers (international students, refugees, or migrant/skilled workers), especially in the center of Toronto rather than in suburban areas, there is a high transition rate of people from living in one place to another, of changing jobs with their assimilation process, and general time constraint issues with people taking public transportation. I believe church formation becomes more fluid in such a context. Disciple-making and discipleship relationships are more secure. People cannot always commit to the same groups throughout the year due to the many transitions of the city. A model of evangelism, follow-up, long-term evangelism, short- and long-term discipleship, and reproducible church formation are all impacted and need to be adjusted. The only other option would be to restrict these movements or demand for a more institutional kind of gathering, where people are forced to choose to come to a specific location or choose another ministry.5

In Canadian gateway cities with burgeoning and ever-growing international student and diaspora populations that are transitory, we typically have a two- or three-year window of opportunity to connect with people before they return to their country of origin. This fact is especially true if they are not seeking permanent residency status. We do as much as we can to connect them to Jesus and train them for evangelism and disciple–making. This is often the best we can do given the hybrid/vaporous nature of large gateways such as Montreal, Vancouver, the GTA, etc. But if new immigrants, refugees, and international students remain in the gateway or a suburb of it and settle down, prospects for multiplying disciples can skyrocket. Because of the hybridity of relationships within a gateway setting like the GTA, at times cross-cultural mission practitioners struggle with the temptations of attractionalism and extractionalism, rather than focusing more on incarnation and representation of the good news and the kingdom, knowing that often the time they have with international LPG students, as well as an increasing number of new immigrants, may well be short.

WIGTAKE: What’s It Going to Take?

WIGTAKE stands for “What’s It Going to Take?” This question embodies the spirit of partnership, collaboration, intentional networking, and kingdom-minded thinking necessary to motivate and mobilize the entire Body of Christ into the Lord’s mission. No one church, denomination, confession, network, convention, sending agency, organization, or group of people can accomplish the multiplicative evangelism, disciple-making, and church-planting efforts needed to address the lostness of LPGs in gateway cities such as those in Canada. We must find ways to increase and exponentially multiply concerted efforts together in this regard and not concern ourselves with who gets the credit or attention outside of God alone.

Gateway Cities with Significant Diaspora Populations

There are a multiplicity of gateway cities with significant diaspora presence. For example, in 2007, the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and Vancouver represented Canada on a list of the 25 global locales having the highest number of immigrants, with immigrants making up at least 9.5 % of each locale’s population of over 1 million. The diaspora immigration numbers for both the GTA and Montreal have increased rapidly over the past few years, meaning Montreal is by now a clear candidate to be on the list in the near future, if not included already. The list of cities, starting with the highest percentage of diaspora immigrants in 2007, included Dubai, the Greater Toronto Area, Muscat, Hong Kong, Vancouver, Jeddah, Miami, Tel Aviv-Yafo, San Jose, Los Angeles, Singapore, Auckland, Perth, Riyadh, Sydney, Jerusalem, Mecca, San Francisco, Melbourne, Amsterdam, Medina, New York City, Frankfurt, Tbilisi, and London.
I include the list below6 to emphasize the importance of significant diaspora presence in Canadian and North American gateways in order to create and foment a “holy discomfort” among North American Jesus followers so that they seek ways to engage the diaspora with the good news and “wake up” to the Acts 17:24–28 phenomenon of diaspora migration in our midst and the kingdom mission implications of that reality.