A Brief History of Impact
Prior to 2000, Robert Pinkston and his family served as missionaries in Mali, West Africa. In 2000, they felt led by God to move to Montreal to work with unreached students.  Robert was an appointed missionary of the International Mission Board (IMB)  working with the Canadian National Baptist Convention to impact Canada for Jesus Christ.  He began immediately to work closely with athletes at McGill college, and together, they formed an Athletes in Action Association (AIA) on the campus.  So, initially, Impact’s congregation consisted mainly of athletes. However, the foremost interest was to establish a new “spiritual home” for all Montreal students and adults.

From the beginning, Pinkston and his team had a clear vision for Impact: that its young worshipers be united and committed to growing together to be disciples of Jesus Christ. To this end, a loving community where people felt compelled to make Christ a personal point of reference began to develop in the Montreal’s downtown core. The pursuit of truth, reality, creativity, and mercy in community defined Impact’s root principles and precepts. Above all, Impact existed and exists to make others feel accepted and loved. Furthermore, Impact seeks to challenge others to seek out actively what life is all about; more specifically, to have the chance to say “yes” to the Good News of the Gospel-the chance for a personal and intimate relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

There have been many faces to Impact from the time of its birth. Members of its community change from one semester to the next owing to the undulation of student life in Montreal. Additionally, it should be noted that Impact is a bilingual church, and has a history of reaching both French and English persons. Supporting Pinkston, in 2002, Chantal Vallee oversaw the coming and infancy of Impact’s Francophone membership for one year, working closely with Luc Aube and Matt Jarry. Danny Moore and Mike Fotheringham, under the supervision of Pinkston on the other hand, cultivated Impact’s Anglophone twin from 2003 to 2004. The fusion of Impact’s members occurred in 2005 when Luc took on the position of senior pastor for both French and English Impact.

In October 2006, Luc moved on to plant a church in Vancouver, and intern David Ritz from Briercrest College became interim pastor until Impact’s current pastor, Lon Vining, arrived with his family in July, 2007.  Lon attended university with Robert Pinkston, and learned of the need for a new pastor through him. The rest is history in the making.  Lon loves student work, sharing Christ, and church planting, and feels especially called to serve where there is greater spiritual need (Romans fifteen 20).  He has served on the foreign mission field in Tanzania, E. Africa through the IMB, and has planted two student churches in the U.S.  He is married to wife Amanda, who grew up in Tanzania the daughter of IMB missionaries, and has four children: Kaleb, Abigail, Noah and Isaiah.

A desire to reach out and communicate to others the hope that comes in knowing Christ has also been in the core mandate of Impact over the years. Small groups have been established in connection with the church to serve the needs of the local constituencies. But, beyond Montreal’s borders, there have been those from Impact who have traveled afar. Since 2003, Impact members have traveled to Mali, Turkey, Vietnam, East Asia, Tajikistan, Vancouver, Tanzania, Kenya, India, Rwanda, England and France. What an incredible opportunity God gives people: sent out by a tiny church like Impact to bring the liberating message of His desire love and salvation for mankind.  Today, a decade later, Impact meets in it’s third space, at the YWCA at the corner of Rene-Levesque and Crescent in downtown Montreal.  But more than worship spaces, Impact is now embracing a new vision to be a “church without walls” that will fill Montreal with the hope of Christ one home, apartment, coffee shop and dorm room at a time.

Admittedly Impact is a motley crew: Some members of the community have gone to church their entire lives, while others only a couple of weeks, and still others walk in for the first time uncertain about church altogether. If you are someone who is personally committed to investigating Jesus Christ, we believe the process to be worth the time and effort.  Should you find the vision for Impact described in this document to resonate with you, take the next step and ask the key question “how can you go beyond just learning about, to becoming an active part of Impact?”