WEEK OF PRAYER: Church plant led by former Muslim bringing Gospel to unreached city

5 min read
04 Mar 2026
By Tony Hudson

MONTREAL –– “The beginning of the story is good. But the ending is even better.”

That’s Andrew Mark Adil’s opening line when people ask how such an unlikely man ended up in such an unlikely place doing such an unlikely thing.

Born in the Middle East and raised in a strict Sunni Muslim household—”By the time I was 14, I’d memorized two-thirds of the Quran,” he says—Adil and his family emigrated to Canada, where a childhood friend introduced him to Jesus.

When Andrew Mark Adil planted Christ Covenant Church in Montreal, one of the most unchurched cities in North America, he had expectations, and God has far exceeded them all. “We doubled in number in our first two years,” he says. “In a place like this, that’s unheard of. Only God can do such amazing things.” (NAMB photo by Ben Rollins)

“I’d never, ever been to a Christian church, not until he invited me,” Adil says. “The people at that church gave me my first ever Bible, and I still remember the exact moment I was reading the Gospel of Matthew and understood that Jesus was crucified for my sins.”

Years later, after returning to his home country, a place that was closed to most overt forms of Christian

Between them all, they speak four languages. Andrew Mark Adil is fluent in Arabic because he is originally from the Middle East. His wife, Petra, is from Eastern Europe and grew up speaking Slovak. And because the Adils are now planting a church in Montreal, their children speak English and French. That makes them ideally suited to make Jesus known in a place where people from all over the world are coming to live. (NAMB photo by Ben Rollins)

witness, Adil was discipled by International Mission Board missionaries—”They were the ones who really helped me understand the gospel”—and he met Petra, a Slovakian flight attendant.

“At first,” she says, “I thought he was a little crazy. Every time we had a date, we’d end up watching sermon videos.”

Adil led Petra to Christ. They got married. And then they decided to return to Canada and plant a church in Montreal, one of the most unreached cities in North America.

“Montreal is in the province of Quebec, and Quebec was once a Roman Catholic stronghold,” Adil says. “But in the ’60s and ’70s, people here rebelled against the church. It’s what’s known now as the Quiet Revolution. Pretty much everyone turned their backs on anything having to do with religion, and now three generations later––God, Jesus, the Bible––those are completely foreign concepts to people here.”

Today, less than one percent of Quebec’s population identifies as evangelical.

“When you come here, you are truly coming into an unreached people group,” Adil says. “Maybe that’s why it seemed to us there was no better place than this to plant a church.”

That’s the beginning of Adil’s story. But, as he says, the ending is even better.

In 2023, Grace Church in Verdun, Quebec, sent Adil, Petra, and a team of 24 others to downtown Montreal to plant a new work.

“Having a Sending Church and a core team around us was huge,” Adil says. “It meant we were able to hit the ground running on day one.”

When Andrew Mark Adil and his evangelism team go out on the streets of Montreal to share Christ, they meet immigrants from multiple countries. “That’s perfect for us,” Andrew Mark says. “We have people in our church plant from all over the world, so no matter what language or belief system we encounter, we have someone who can engage them with the gospel.” (NAMB photo by Ben Rollins)

For Adil and his brand new church plant evangelism team—”and when I say team,” he says, “I mean the whole church”—hit the ground running on day one.

They set up shop every Friday night, rain or shine, on a busy downtown Montreal street corner amid the shops, restaurants, and office buildings and struck up surprisingly deep and lengthy gospel conversations with passersby. It’s an evangelism approach they continue to practice.

“When we started talking to people here, we learned they were genuinely curious,” Adil says. “Lots of our conversations weren’t just, ‘Here’s a tract, have a nice day.’ People would actually ask all kinds of questions like, ‘How can I know the Bible is true?’ or ‘What’s the difference between your God and my god?’

“We were able to go really deep with all kinds of people.”

Ten baptisms in one year is “unheard of in a place like Montreal,” says Andrew Mark Adil. Several years ago, Andrew Mark planted a church in one of the most unchurched cities in North America. “Since then, we’ve seen results that are nothing short of miraculous,” he says. (NAMB photo by Ben Rollins)

Since immigrants make up almost 25 percent of Montreal’s population, Adil and his internationally eclectic core team were ideally suited to do street evangelism there.

“We met people who had all different kinds of belief systems and who came from all over the world,” he says. “That was perfect for us, because we had team members from the Middle East, like me, and we had Latinos, Slavs, Haitians, Africans—no matter what language people spoke, we always had someone who could share with them in their heart language.”

In 2023, Adil and his team launched Christ Covenant Church, a congregation full of recently reached people in a still very unreached place.

Before he came to Christ, Andrew Mark Adil was raised in a strict Sunni Muslim household. It turns out that makes him uniquely and unexpectedly qualified to plant what is now a growing church in Montreal. “So many of our people are new believers,” he says. “With my journey out of Islam, I can show them that counting the cost, leaving your old life behind, and following Christ—it’s all worth it.” (NAMB photo by Ben Rollins)

“I love what God has made us into,” he says. “So many of our people are new believers, and with my journey out of Islam, I can show them that counting the cost, leaving your old life behind, and following Christ—it’s all worth it.”

As Adil says, the beginning of his story was good. But now, the ending is even better.

“What’s happened since we started this journey is nothing short of miraculous,” he says. “We baptized ten people in one year, and we doubled in number after two years. In a hard place like Montreal, those things are unheard of. From the beginning until now, it’s crazy how we ended up here. Only God can do such amazing things.”

The Annie Armstrong Easter Offering^® provides half of NAMB’s annual budget, and 100 percent of the proceeds go to the mission field in North America. The offering is used for training, support and care for missionaries, like Andrew Mark and Petra Adil, and for evangelism resources.