As part of our spring semester, the college offered a new intensive course “World Christianity in Montreal: Migration, Secularism, and Public Space in a Changing Global City” that invited steps to step beyond the classroom and into the living reality of global Christianity. Designed to engage both heart and mind, the course invited students to encounter the rich diversity of Christian expression present in our own city.  

Over the course of a week, Montreal itself became the classroom. With invited guests in the classroom and field trips to churches and museums, students explored how faith takes shape across cultures, languages, and traditions—discovering that World Christianity is not only something to study abroad, but something to experience right here in Montreal. The course was co-taught by Jesse Zink, Principal of Montreal Dio, and Glenn Smith, director of the practical theology program at The Presbyterian College and author of the recent book, Christians in the City of Montreal (Bloomsbury, 2025), which was the core text for the course. 

Over the Saturday and Sunday of the course, students first joined Cantonese-language worship at Mission catholique chinoise in Chinatown and afterwards met the artist behind its striking depiction of Pentecost, showing the 12 apostles as east Asian figures. It was a firsthand experience of one of the course’s key themes, the cultural adaptability and translateability of Christianity. On the Sunday, the class worshipped at Mission Chrétienne Intergénérationnelle, one of Montreal’s most vibrant and diverse evangelical congregations, where multiple cultures and generations gather as one body. 

Students also visited the historic chapel of the Musée des Hospitalières de l’Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal, where they learned about the religious vision that motivated the city’s founders. This visit grounded the course in Montreal’s own Christian heritage, while also illuminating how faith takes a different place in Montreal’s “social imaginary” today in a secular age. 

One highlight was a private concert with acclaimed Montreal jazz artist Elisabeth Shepherd. Through music and conversation, students encountered the deep connections between jazz, Christianity, and the city’s cultural life. The experience opened new ways of understanding how faith is expressed creatively and contextually. The new bishop of the Diocese of Montreal, the Rt. Rev. Dr. Victor-David Mbuyi Bipungu visited the course and spoke about his vision for Christianity in Montreal, drawing on his own experience as an immigrant from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 

For the first time, the course brought together students in the college’s Master of Divinity program with students in the French-language Masters in Practical Theology program offered at The Presbyterian College. The multi-lingual community created in the classroom was, many students reflected, an instance of the unity in diversity that is meant to be a hallmark of the body of Christ. The course expanded students’ understanding of Christianity worldwide but also deepened their appreciation of the church’s diversity and unity.