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Café la Mosaique – Fiber Optic Ministry (6/7/2009)

Lévis, Quebec is a town where good coffee shops are few and far between. That is about to change with the launch of Café la Mosaïque. Although you’ll probably see more of Catherine Tremblay in the café setting, her brother Dominique has been with her from the inception of the dream. Along with his wife Geneviève, members of their house church, and with previous help from a small army of volunteers from The Link*, everyone is working hard to meet their June 19 opening date. The venue will offer good coffee, light meals, opportunity for local artists to display their wares, and a place for local bands or solo musicians to perform in an informal atmosphere. Best of all it will be a place where Christians can converse naturally with customers in a setting where many people talk easily with people they don’t know.

“God opened doors and we got a great facility”, says Dominique, “near offices and the tourist part of town and within 2 km of the university.”

It was in 2004 when Dominique was pastoring a church that he went to his board with his God-given dream. He wanted to take the good news of Jesus out of the church building, to meet people on their ground, to bridge the gap between people of the church and people of the world. Traditional church paradigms just do not cut it with the post modern/post religion generation. Dominique proposed a shift from ‘the church is a lighthouse and we bring people to the light’, to ‘the church is fiber optic, sending its message out of its doors to people in places where they naturally gather.’ Dominique proposed opening a coffee house downtown. Unable to gain support for this idea, he eventually left his church to pursue the dream elsewhere. He approached many churches but found none that shared his vision. He applied to social/economic programs and found support from people in the city but none from Christians.

Dominique attended a church planting conference in Toronto in November 05. There he met Pastor Lorenzo Della Foresta of River’s Edge Church in Montreal. Lorenzo offered encouragement and possibly help. Back in Lévis, three hours from Montreal, Dominique redoubled his efforts to find Christian sponsors who would help but to no avail. He finally phoned Lorenzo. In June 2008 Lorenzo introduced Dominique to Joel Zantingh, an EMCC Regional Minister. “I explained my proposal to him and he got it. I was so used to rejection that I thought he must have misunderstood so I explained it again. I didn’t need to convince him or argue or prove why it would work. This brought some healing to my cynical self that had lost trust in Christian organizations. I felt right at home with EMCC and felt I could fit right in.”

About this time, Pastor Mike Landry and the congregation at The Link were feeling the Lord’s leading to help spread the gospel in Quebec. Pastor Mike called Lorenzo… and a partnership was born. Along with funds from EMCC, The Link has been instrumental in providing finances needed to advance this project to the place where it is expected to open in mid-June. Besides the financial help, Skype meetings and prayer times, the Link sent 10 qualified people who came, took the design plans and did the renovations in four days! “The vision of Café la Mosaïque is contagious. Our team came to help with construction but every one of us caught Catherine’s and Dominique’s passion to incarnate Christ among the residents of Lévis”, said Pastor Mike, as he reflected on the team’s experience at the café.

Dominique is pastoring a church plant in Lévis and is grateful for their high level of involvement in the café and for the great team on the café’s board. “Truly without them, it would have been almost impossible to get this off the ground”, he said.

Catherine, Dominique and Geneviève are full of plans. Monthly Espresso will be discussions on topics like ‘the place of spirituality in the world’ and ‘how can I be eco-friendly?’ House Blend will be evenings of music, art classes and other activities. And always plenty of conversations in the relaxed, friendly environment people come to expect in their favorite coffee shop.

The café needs financial support. Their goal is to be self supporting by 2011. They will be a non-profit and intend to turn all profits back to the community to assist the citizens of Lévis.

“Suicide is the leading cause of death amongst the young in Quebec. There is a loss of meaning, a loss of hope.” Café la Mosaïque will spread the good news of Jesus, the Hope-giver, one person at a time, over a friendly cup of coffee.

Dominique has been brought on staff under River’s Edge Church to ignite francophone ministry, not only in Lévis but strategically throughout Quebec. “Eventually I want to start planting other coffee shops in big cities to multiply the vision in other communities”, says Dominique.

Café la Mosaïque is one of EMCC’s Pentecost projects this year. To help this ministry, click this link to donate.

*The Link is a full member church of the EMCC in Medicine Hat, Alberta and exists to be an Acts 2 church within our post Christian city and nation.

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