Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
Welcome to Philoxenia/Hospitality Ministry’s first website!
For those of you new to the Ministry, Philoxenia/Hospitality Ministry (hereafter, “the Ministry”) is a listed service organization of Lutheran Church-Canada which operates in the Eastern Region of Lutheran Church-Canada. The Ministry has also historically co-operated with the English District of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, as our founding pastor, the late Rev. Dr. Ernest Hahn, was a life-long Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod pastor who belonged to the English District in Ontario in the later part of his life. The Ministry has co-operated more recently with the SELC district of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod due to their congregation in Montreal, Quebec.
The word “Philoxenia” is a New Testament Greek word which means “friendship to strangers.” The mission and purpose of the Ministry is evangelism: to share the saving Gospel of Christ with people of all cultures and religions, with a special focus on sharing the Gospel of Christ with Muslims. To this end the Ministry seeks to financially support confessional Lutheran pastors and/or evangelists to engage in cross-cultural and Muslim ministry and to educate congregations and church workers in cross-cultural and especially Muslim ministry. The Ministry is a listed charitable organization with Revenue Canada (Registration No. 891812786 RR 0001) and is entirely dependent on donations from the Ministry’s supporters for its operations.
Beginning in 2023/2024, the board of directors has worked to rejuvenate the ministry by seeking to sponsor and deploy an evangelist to Muslims in Canada. This has not happened since the Ministry provided partial funding for the cross cultural outreach work of Rev. Dr. Joshua Hollmann in Montreal in the late 2000s. Now we are proud to announce that we are providing partial funding to sponsor a lay evangelist for Muslims. This work is in partnership with Lutheran Church Canada and a synodically placed part-time lay missionary working out of one of our circuits in the Eastern Region.
At the Ministry’s 2025 annual general meeting the decision was made to take a leap of faith and continue our 2025 financial support for this missionary to the tune of $750 of per month into 2026. As a listed service organization of Lutheran Church Canada we rely solely on you our generous donors to fund this needed ministry. Please prayerfully consider making a donation to support Muslim ministry in Canada. Also, please suggest at your fall congregational budget meeting to have your congregation add the Ministry in your budget for any planned evangelism giving she may make in 2026. With a total 2026 budget of around $11000 the Ministry supports essential evangelism among Muslims in Canada at a very modest cost. A few dedicated individuals and congregations can solidify the Ministry’s financial position now and into 2026 and even allow the board of directors to propose to expand our work in 2027. There are many possibilities of expansion including turning our part-time evangelist into a full-time evangelist, training and deploying a vicar for Muslim ministry, or even in the future once again deploying a full-time ordained missionary-at-large for Muslim ministry. There are so many possibilities and open doors for our work and with your support we can make more of them become reality to the glory of God.
The board of director’s purpose for producing this website is to provide a link between the Ministry and her supporters so that our supporters will be informed of new and developing mission work the Ministry is engaged in or planning, ask for the prayers of the Ministry’s supporters for the work of the Ministry, and provide an online tool to receive electronic donations to financially support the work of the Ministry.
We hope the content and mission work projects you find on this website will excite you, cause you to give thanks to God for outreach toward Muslims, and motivate those who learn of our work to desire to become new supporters of the Ministry. Please take the time to explore the website content and feel free to contact us with any questions or comments you may have.
Yours in Christ,
Rev. Robin Korsch, S.T.M.
President of Philoxenia/Hospitality Ministry