The congregation of St. Andrew’s Anglican Church may have lost their home, but they haven’t lost each other.
A fire that ripped through the 26-year-old building early Sunday morning has displaced Anglican churchgoers and hundreds of other who attend ministry programs through The Father’s House, formerly the Morinville Christian Fellowship Church.
“This has been a sad thing,” said Dora Legge, a parishioner of St. Andrew’s since 2002 when she moved to Morinville from Newfoundland. “But no one was injured, no one was killed and we are still a church family.”
Standing amid the scorched rubble of a building where baptisms and weddings were once celebrated, parishioners gathered at the site of St. Andrew’s on Sunday to pray.
Ron Horst, Rector of St. Andrew’s, said that despite the material loss of worship books, vestments and office equipment, his faith has not been tested.
“We lost pretty much everything,” he admitted, “But I’m very proud of the people in the church because we understand that our church life is the people together and the Lord’s presence among us.”
Horst was able to salvage few things from the debris, but was able to find record books – albeit waterlogged - containing the history of some of the services done at the church.
The Father’s House wasn’t so lucky.
They ran several ministry programs in the building at least six days a week, including daily prayer meetings, counselling and youth groups which would attract 50 to 100 young adults.
The Father’s House also lost office space and administrative equipment – used to run the multi-site church in Morinville, Rochester and Bon Accord – which they are currently in the process of recovering and restoring.
Greg Fraser, pastor for The Father’s House, said the fire displaced a couple hundred people per week, but staff are sorting out temporary spaces the ministries can utilize.
“We’re people that are used to being bounced around a little bit, I think we’ll adapt and overcome,” he said, adding he announced the site of a new church coincidently on the same day St. Andrew’s burnt down.
“Now we’re breaking ground on our site, so this puts the pressure on us to get things done as fast as we can,” added Fraser.
The new church will be located west of Morinville by Heritage Lake and is slated for completion in 2015.
Like the members of The Father’s House, the Anglican community has banded together to welcome the parishioners from St. Andrew’s to services at Emmanuel Anglican Church in Gibbons and Holy Trinity Church in Bon Accord.
“We have a strong faith and that will hold us together,” added Legge. “We will meet somewhere.”
Firefighters from Morinville and Legal responded to the church fire at 2:20 a.m. on Sunday, initially discovering smoke coming from the roof at the back of the building. Flames soon burst through the roof, ultimately engulfing the entire structure.
Witnesses on scene reported hearing explosions prior to seeing smoke, but as of Tuesday morning, Morinville RCMP said the cause of the fire is still under investigation.
Church officials said it’s hard to pinpoint a dollar figure in damages since the entire building and virtually all the contents in it were destroyed.
“It’s very early days,” said Alan Perry, Executive Archdeacon with the Anglican Diocese of Edmonton. “We’re just gathering information on what the insurance coverage is exactly and looking at what we’ll do next.”
This is the second church fire in Morinville in the last year; an electrical fire destroyed Morinville Baptist Church in September 2012.
