evangelical growth attributable to immigration

At the recent annual meeting of the Evangelical Missiological Society in Edmonton, Feb 24, 2012, sociology prof, Dr Joel Thiessen from Ambrose University College in Calgary presented a paper entitled: "Christianity in Multicultural Canada." He had a lot of very useful data to share. One little piece he shared was this:

Among Canadian evangelicals, over 17% are foreign-born and nearly 71% of those immigrants came to Canada since 1971 (Bramadat and Seljak 2008: 440). In fact, evangelical numerical growth is not attributable to conversion as much as it is to immigration, particularly among the Chinese community in Toronto and Vancouver (Guenther 2008). This has led to a vibrant subculture of Chinese evangelicals in Chinese-specific congregations and multicultural congregations, as well as theological training aimed at Chinese evangelicals. Taken together, some may suggest that Christianity in Canada is reaping the rewards of its foreign mission movement during the 18^th and 19^th centuries. As Bramadat and Seljak (2008: 5) remind us, “To meet a first- or second-generation Canadian of African descent who is in fact a third-, fourth-, or twenty-fifth-generation Christian, reminds us of the global reach of Christianity.”