MFT: 2005 "The 10th Anniversary - Year of Jubilee and Still Going Strong!”

Congratulations to the whole MissionFest Toronto team for a decade of adventure and faith. It has been a privilege for me to have been with MFT from the beginning and to see the Lord’s blessings as the ministry has grown significantly. From the outset MFT has been a faith movement that desired to bring Christians together to not only celebrate the global work of God but to motivate a whole new generation of “sent ones” into global outreach.

Thanks to the thousands of people who have made MFT possible. May God continue to bless the current Board, staff, management teams and hundreds of dedicated volunteers who will carry the dream into the future. What follows is my attempt at a brief Decade of History.

2005 marks the tenth Anniversary of MissionFest Toronto. Back in 1993-94 a group of mission and churches leaders met to discuss introducing the MissionFest concept to the GTA. The group forged ahead, following great precedents set by both Vancouver and Edmonton Missions Fest events. This volunteer movement was Church driven but always including the mission and Christian education worlds as well.

In 1995 we began MFT in the Peoples Church, Toronto. Thomas Wang was one of our first speakers. The goal was to have a mixture of global as well as local missions at every MFT. The next event was also at Peoples with Franklin Graham as the main speaker.

The event soon outgrew Peoples Church. We took a huge step of faith by moving to the Metro Toronto Convention Center. As the event grew from about 2,000 attendees to more than 10,000 participants, the MFT organization also grew. Though still very much a volunteer movement, in 1999 we brought on Marie Lucie Spoke as a Managing Director.

MFT attained an estimated 20,000 attendance over the past few years, with speakers like Tony Campolo, Anne Graham Lotz, Loren Cunningham, Yonggi Cho. At the same time we also grew with local ministries as MFT developed a partnership with MissionGTA to encourage local pastors. MFT has developed youth, children’s, women’s, business and special language tracks. These specialist tracks meant the multiplication of programs and more volunteers (almost 600) to run them.

We are so thankful to God for all he has done.
Our collective thanks and appreciation go to Marie Lucie Spoke. Marie Lucie is a visionary and dynamic leader. I am so grateful to Jude Hodgson for accepting our invitation to be the new Executive Director of MFT on July 1st 2004.

In 2005 MissionFest Toronto was held at Queensway Cathedral, which has been a steady partner throughout the years. MFT is a church driven event and this is one way to demonstrate that fact. Our goal was to reduce the long-standing debt and to create a working fund for future events. We have excellent speakers lined up for the future so get ready. Dr John Maxwell was with us in 2006, Dr Ravi Zacharias and Franklin Graham in 2007 and James Robison came in 2008.

In 2006 we took MissionFest to the Toronto Congress Centre which is close to all the major highways, and has free parking. We have paid all outstanding debts and look forward to continuing our tradition of educating, engaging and motivating people for local and global outreach. In 2009 we will move to the International Centre so we can move the event into warmer weather and avoid the major snow storms we experienced in '07 & '08.

We need each of you to recommit to the ministry and vision of MFT. God is firmly in the very centre of MFT and as an organization we need to demonstrate a focus on faith, global mission and fiscal responsibility.  

We need only to look to all that God has done for MF’s all over Canada and here in the GTA to look to a bright future. Please pray. Please share the vision. Please encourage sponsorships and partnerships. Please mobilize your churches and organizations and as the Lord leads, become an active Partner to the ministry.

Blessings,
Dr. Bill Fietje