The newest church in Manitoba's northern wilderness has been planted by a pastor from Winnipeg.

Pastor Paul Winter, from Living Word Temple, has been passionate about church planting for as long as he can remember.

Winter says, "I've had a heart for church planting - since I became a Christian - for about 20 years."

Having been in full-time ministry for 12 years, Winter says his heart for church planting, "came from a place of wanting everyone to have somewhere to find Jesus and somewhere to have a healthy community to study who He is and how to follow Him."

Winter has been a part of church plants in Winnipeg's North End, the Dominican Republic, Peru, Colombia, and Russia. This project of planting a church "in the bush" is a new experience for Winter.

Where to go?

In his congregation at Living Word Temple, Winters says there about 30 to 40 First Nations communities represented. "Often they ask us to go to their home community and help them start what we call a healing circle, faith circle, or church," says Winter.

The next step, Winter says while referencing Luke 10:2, is to, "pray always that God will send us workers and bring us to fields that are ready to be harvested."

For this church plant, Winter and the families travelled north to find land where they could physically build a place, near Pukatawagon, where people could worship. The spot?  In the dense bush on the lake.

"It's the first time I've been asked to plant a church and bring a gun," says Winter. "Sure enough, there were bears."

 "We walked and prayed for the land."

Winter spent seven days up north for his part of the process in breaking ground for this new place of worship. Winter says, "It was a longer process. It took a few days of walking quite a few miles, of walking through brush and bush, just looking for where a good spot would be."

Why go?

Planting a church in such a place as Manitoba's north has many benefits and blessings. By partnering with local Indigenous leaders and community members, talks of a self-determining church and reconciliation can happen.

Winter says, "We brought families with us. It was also important to have other families there and talking about reconciliation at the same time as talking about a new circle being formed. Usually, those go hand-in-hand, where there's a community that wants to find reconciliation within themselves and within the greater country."

"There is nobody there yet," says Winter. In his past experience, he has been the one to gather people and invite them to the community's newest church.

Winter says this church plant does not require the same approach: "They have to do the work, they have to talk to families and see who wants to come. So it is very hands-off this time."

This new church is also hoped to galvanize the Indigenous members' plans to leave other reserves and communities and to build an all-new community together around the place of worship.

Winter says, "It will be a place where families can have a new start. ... Sometimes people need to have a brand new start where there is less temptation to do things that they really don't want to do." 

What do we do?

"Jesus is really clear that he wants us to go out and make disciples," says Winter. No matter where you are, Winter believes the people around you need a place to learn about Jesus.

Currently, there are not enough churches says Winter: "Per capita, we just don't have enough church plants to reach everybody in Canada."

If everybody knew Jesus, they wouldn't have a church to go to and, Winter says, as Christians, there needs to be an urgency to build communities of worshippers.

Winter says that not everybody needs to go to Manitoba's north to plant a church. Christians in southern Manitoba can start a church in a new neighbourhood or a home church wherever they think more people need more Jesus.

"I think it is part of what we are all supposed to be doing," says Winter.

"We are all the Church, right? It's not necessarily a building. It's more about forming groups of people that follow Jesus."

(Supplied)