One of the city’s most active churches is set to celebrate its 40th anniversary this weekend. Sturgeon Valley Baptist Church has a congregation of approximately 500 but its prominence in the community comes with a chorus of praises throughout the city.
“We’re very much a community church,” explained church secretary Barbara Gushue. “We do local outreach. We do international outreach. We do missions. We do all kinds of things. In the last seven years, we’ve been doing a lot of community outreach.”
What started off as a small church with meetings in the basement of Dr. Harvey and Gail Albrecht, the first actual services commenced with almost 80 people in the gymnasium at Paul Kane High School on April 4, 1976. As the church grew over the next few years, they were able to save up enough money to buy a beautiful patch of land in 1980.
The first building was completed by the end of 1983 but construction and growth never stopped. The second phase of the building occurred more than 20 years after that. The new wing of the sanctuary is only eight years old, Gushue said, noting that the people have always been there to support it.
“It started off as a small church. This church was much smaller even though we owned all the property, the gym – what we call the gym now – used to be the sanctuary. It used to be a smaller church, but not smaller in number, just smaller in size.”
Now, there’s a 600-seat sanctuary with classrooms, professional kitchen, library, and other program rooms including a prayer room. Of course, that multi-use gymnasium is still there too. The facility even has an elevator to make it as useful and accessible to the congregation and community as possible.
“Because we’re 18,000 sq. ft. under roof, we have space for non-profits. There are groups that need space that can’t afford it. We get many, many phone calls. We service a lot of people within our own church body and within the community.”
One of the driving forces to create such a place was the lack of space in St. Albert. There are many community organizations including school and music groups that need a place to meet and practice. That, of course, includes the Sturgeon Valley Music School that was started in 1991 by former church member Marg Daly. It has 150 students.
It’s obvious that the Sturgeon Valley Baptist Church strives to make itself a place for one and for all to come. Take a look at its programming calendar and one will quickly note how the community is indeed grateful for that offering.
The celebration will take place over Saturday and Sunday with fellowships and banquets, as well as displays and a program of historical overview, not to mention the regular service. Guest speaker Terry Fossen, the Alberta Baptist Association Regional Minister, will also conduct a presentation called Looking Ahead Under God’s Leadership on Sunday evening.
Sturgeon Valley Baptist Church is located at 51 Woodlands Rd. at the intersection of Westwood Drive within eyesight of Neil M. Ross Catholic Elementary and Keenooshayo Elementary Schools.
For more information, call 780-458-3777 or visit the church’s website at www.svbc.ab.ca.
