Protestant Churches

by Lloyd Mackey

When John Morton trekked through the forests of what would become Vancouver’s West End in the 1860s, he little knew that his homesteading activity would impact for generations to come on the industrial, commercial--and spiritual--development of the new city.

One of the “Three Greenhorns,” Morton, following the gold rush, had migrated west from England via New Westminster. With little knowledge of the virgin forest, but a good deal of courage, they were carving out a new life for their families on land where highrise towers would one day sprout.

As it happens, John Morton was a Baptist. For him, settling his 200 hectares also involved putting down spiritual roots. So he became one of the early members, in the 1880s, of Vancouver’s little woodframe First Baptist Church.

The little congregation grew and, in 1911, built a towering new stone church at Nelson and Burrard, on property donated by Morton, kitty corner from the handsome tan-brick King George High School. They say that on Sunday mornings, you could clearly hear the church’s bells away over on Kitsilano Beach.

In the early twenties the church was destroyed by fire. It was rebuilt by the fledgling Dominion Construction, headed by another Baptist, Charles Bentall, whose family eventually developed the Bentall Centre, a few blocks north.

In 1930 another new church was built across the street. It, too, was stone, but it was taller and longer. Its name, St. Andrew’s-Wesley United, indicates it was a merger of two churches, one Presbyterian, the other Methodist, resulting from the formation of the United Church of Canada five years earlier.

Those West End Presbyterians who wanted no truck with the new church built themselves a small but impressive four-columned brown-brick church on the southwest corner of the St. Paul’s hospital property just south of the two bigger churches. Then, in the 1980s, when the hospital needed more space, Central Presbyterian Church was replaced with a gleaming ten-storey hospital tower. Centralites moved across the street into a warm worshipper-friendly contemporary structure.

Closer to the city centre, the Anglicans had built their little cathedral at Burrard and Georgia at about the same time as First Baptist was settling in. “Little,” we say, because it could have easily gotten lost on the altar of its mighty British 14th century forebears. But a cathedral it was, nevertheless. And some of the 1970s church pillars (of the human sort) were not about to let the younger and untaught leaders forget it. It was about that time when developers wanted to pull down the cathedral and “bury” its congregation in an underground crypt molded sleekly into a tower dedicated to the god of commerce.

Throughout the years various downtown church properties were developed for other uses. Just a few years ago, developers tore down the Arts Club Theatre’s former home at Seymour and Davie. In earlier years, it was the home of Seymour Street Gospel Hall,

As the downtown grew, a “holy huddle” developed across False Creek in the Mount Pleasant district, known in more recent years for clashes between residents and hookers. The huddle’s most obvious landmark was the silvery spire of St. Giles Presbyterian Church, which successively became St. Giles United, Evangelistic Tabernacle and now an upscale condominium development retaining its heritage facade.

Across the street was the stubby stony structure of Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church. And within a few blocks could be found Tenth Avenue Alliance Metropolitan Tabernacle, Mt. Pleasant Presbyterian and Christ Lutheran. Today both the Baptists and Presbyterian buildings have largely immigrant congregations, from the Philippines and Korea respectively.

Across from city hall the Lutherans put up seniors’ housing on their property a few years ago, incorporating their church into the housing complex design in a fashion the Anglicans had rejected in their downtown cathedral.

Various Protestant churches dotted the scene in and around Granville Street, stretching from Granville Bridge south to the Fraser River. At l2th and Hemlock stood the impressive domed Chalmers Presbyterian, later a United church and now the home of both Holy Trinity Anglican and Pacific Theatre, a Christian live drama troupe.

Redeemer Lutheran is a fifties structure in mid-Shaughnessy, A few blocks south is St. John’s (Shaughnessy) Anglican, the place where Vancouver mayor Philip Owen worships, as did his late father, Lieutenant-Governor Walter Owen. Shaughnessy Heights United, just blocks south of St. John’s and slightly to the west on 33rd, was until recently the home pulpit of Robert Smith, a brilliant orator and former United Church moderator.

Proceeding south, we encounter barbecue pit-like Granville Chapel and Trinity Baptist. Both churches are a contemporary blending of Asian and Caucasian worshippers. Many are younger people from Hong Kong who have chosen to assimilate rather than stay in Chinese churches.

Trinity, for its part, was a fifties merger of two churches. From the west came Kerrisdale worshippers, whose building was sold to the Christian Scientists. From the east were the folk from South Hill Baptist, a structure whose tall, square tower is still visible for kilometres from the 49th and Fraser area. South Hill’s building has been subsequently occupied by two Chinese congregations, the most recent of Mennonite persuasion.

The last stop before the river is St. Stephen’s United, formed in the sixties as one of the last of that denomination’s rapid development of neighborhood congregations.

In other Vancouver neighborhoods, originally peopled mainly from British stock, Anglican, United and Presbyterian churches tended to dominate the ecclesiastical skyline. That was certainly true in Point Grey and the University area. Ryerson United, Kerrisdale Presbyterian, St. Helen’s Anglican and University Hill United were among the best known. While the others stayed put, University Hill United moved to the Vancouver School of Theology at UBC, selling its building to University Chapel, a congregation with strong links to Regent College, an evangelical UBC affiliate.

On the North Shore many large, wealthy Protestant churches serve the affluent suburbs. West Vancouver and Highlands United are notable. St. Francis-in-the-Woods Anglican, with a scenic oceanside setting in Caulfeild, has become a favorite place for weddings. And so has West Vancouver Baptist, set among the tall evergreens just south of British Properties.

New Westminster, the mainland’s oldest city, has maintained much of its British character long after other neighborhoods changed. And its churches reflected this. First Presbyterian, Queen’s Avenue United, Oliver Baptist and St. Paul’s Reformed Episcopal still have strategically located churches just uphill from the city centre, seemingly clustered around the more secular shrines, known as the Royal Towers Hotel, Douglas College and city hall.

Queen’s Avenue United, with its white, fifties post-modern style sanctuary, was the crowning achievement of Will Wilding, the architect of some 150 Western Canadian post-war churches.

One New Westminster landmark for many years was the Loyal Protestant Orphan’s Home, operated by the Orangemen of Irish Protestant fame. In due course, as the need for orphanages subsided, the site, adjacent to two large high schools, was taken over by a growing charismatic church, Royal City Christian Centre.

The civic governments of some of Vancouver’s surrounding suburbs have attempted, in more recent years, to entice congregations into what may irreverently be called “church malls.” In Burnaby, for example, Iglesia Ni Cristo (a Filipino-based group), the Evangelical Chinese Bible Church (with around 1,200 worshippers) and the Hare Krishna (with a 12-metre high statue of their master) are clustered on Marine Way. And the city’s leaders point out that there is room for more. Richmond has acted similarly adjacent to Highway 99, Where Mennonite, Greek Orthodox, Islamic and Chinese religious edifices are clustered together, with some vacant properties still looking for spiritual buyers.

Most of Vancouver’s suburbs have landmark churches--South Delta Baptist, near the highway to the ferry in Tsawwassen, Broadway Tabernacle in East Vancouver and Christian Life Assembly in Langley.

But tucked around the corners of most communities are tiny churches that development seemed to leave behind. Surrey has at least two--a Ukrainian Orthodox chapel, complete with onion-top tower, just steps from the Gateway SkyTrain station, and Christ Church Anglican in Surrey Centre. The latter is a rural congregation in south Surrey, not to be confused with Surrey City Centre, where the city’s downtown is emerging.

Many Vancouver churches began as neighborhood congregations in the twenties and thirties. Congregants either wanted to walk to church or had to because they had no cars and the streetcar service was not the best on Sunday mornings. Over time some of those neighborhood churches died, merged or grew and moved once larger and more generally accessible properties.

Consider the eastward migration of the Pentecostals. An enthusiastic and assertive Christian spinoff, the group had two neighborhood churches in Kitsilano, one at 4th and MacDonald, which was eventually replaced by a pub, the other at 6th and Fir, which gave way to an office building.

As more people took their cars to church, Broadway Tabernacle grew up. The church then moved south to Marine. Having moved, the tabernacle became, simply, Broadway Church. In the early nineties it outgrew its “new” 1,000 seat church and replaced it, across the street, with one holding 2,500 people.

Another different kind of Pentecostal church--Glad Tidings--was originally downtown, wedged between where the Queen Elizabeth Theatre and General Motors Place are now located. When it burned down in the fifties, its worshippers congregated for a while in a theatre near Joyce Street, then built a 1,000-seat edifrce on Fraser, just south of Kingsway. Outgrowing that, too, they added a 2,500 seat high-tech worship centre, with the help of a $1 million contribution from their most famous member, businessman Jimmy Pattison.

South Hill Baptist Church’s tall tower dominated a neighborhood that changed dramatically twice after World War II. The first change came when Henry and Arthur Block formed Block Brothers Realty, in part to sell houses being built by Mennonite developers in the south slopes areas. Many of those homes were bought by Mennonites and others whose mother tongue was German--some Baptist, others Lutheran. Churches of those denominations multiplied. The Mennonite congregations included First, Fraserview and Killarney Park; the Baptists included Ebenezer, Bethany and Immanuel; and the Lutherans included First, Killarney Park and Prince of Peace. Large numbers of them came from Europe via the prairies or the Fraser Valley. The Blocks, themselves, grew up in Yarrow, a Mennonite community southwest of Chilliwack.

As more Asian people--both of Chinese and East Indian extraction--moved into those areas, the German-speakers scattered, many returning to the more distant suburbs close to the rural roots inhabited by their forebears.

Fraserview Mennonite Brethren, for example, moved across the Fraser into Richmond, where its cross-topped structure can be easily seen from Highway 99. Arthur, one of the Block brothers, still worships there. Its former south slope home became a Chinese Baptist church. While most of those Germanic-background churches have stayed put, some will move with time. Bethany Baptist, for example, has a new high-profile site between Queensborough and Alex Fraser bridges in east Richmond.

A more obvious example of the in-migration--and transformation--of the Fraser Valley Mennonite influence is Willingdon Church, just south of the B.C. Institute of Technology in Burnaby. WiIlingdon began as an ethnic Mennonite Brethren congregation of about 300 people in the fifties. It drew many of its members from the new subdivisions which sprouted at that time in west Burnaby and East Vancouver.

Its leadership determined to let it grow beyond its ethnic origins, however. It became attractive to people looking for a fair mix of evangelical belief and progressive educational programs, and has grown to a community of close to 3,000 people. Among them is a healthy Hispanic contingent of 300 and a singles organization of 50.

One family recalls being impressed by watching the Crystal Cathedral on television, then looking for a church like it in their neighborhood, Willingdon was their choice.

In the Fraser Valley’s Bible Belt, churches often “hived off” as second and third generation worshippers looked for new ways of doing things. In Abbotsford the Mennonite Brethren and Christian Reformed churches (the latter of Dutch extraction) followed those modes. The first- generation immigrants were farmers and stayed in the original churches, while, in many cases, just down the street and around the corner, the younger teachers and business people developed new, more sophisticated churches. They did so while retaining their connections with the “mother churches.”

Greater Vancouver’s churches have sprung from many traditions. Vancouver is noted as being one of the most secular cities in North America, although the Fraser Valley Bible Belt provides a counter-balancing reputation.

It can be said of both Vancouver and the valley, however, that their churches are generally vibrant and outward looking, rather than being so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good.

(1)

Excellent Good Average Not that good Poor