Heartland Regional Update: Before Church Anniversaries Come Church Plants

By Mark Doerksen 

Perhaps it’s a little-known fact that over my illustrious career, I did some work for a bricklayer to pay for my education. I worked for Eerdman (Ed) Esau, who was, in my opinion, not just a bricklayer, but a craftsman—and it was a great joy to watch him build his creations. My work consisted mainly of making mortar, carrying material, setting up scaffolding, and cutting every brick that needed a trim on a project. Oh, and I learned early on that when Ed yelled “Mud!” I needed to respond quickly and appropriately. One of the fallouts of such employment is that I like brickwork, and notice its applications in different settings. 

I also like reading history, and I am quite interested in the history of Manitoba. To that end, I was gifted a couple of books by Gordon Goldsborough, who does work through the Manitoba Historical Society. His first book is entitled  Abandoned Manitoba. In that book, he tells interesting tales and uses photographs to illustrate some of Manitoba’s history. He has a few pages on a particular brickwork, bricks made of concrete blocks by a farmer name Frank Thomson. These bricks were popular in certain parts of Manitoba, and he writes, “If you discover a concrete-block building somewhere in Manitoba, you can safely conclude that it was probably built between 1904 and 1913.” (p. 162) For the purposes of this article, Emerson Baptist Church is cited as a fine example of such brickwork. 

Now I raise this because Emerson Baptist Church is celebrating 150 years of existence this October. An email I received about this event states that the date of the celebration will be on October 18, which is exactly 150 years after the first worship service was held in the bar room of a local hotel. I’m not sure that the bar still exists, but I am really excited to celebrate with the congregation this fall. 

Emerson is not the only church in the Heartland experiencing a significant anniversary this year. Asquith and Weyburn are celebrating 120 years, Portage La Prairie is celebrating 145 years, Regina First Baptist is noting 135 years, and Moosomin is celebrating 140 years. In our society, it’s no small thing when a church can celebrate an anniversary, and there is much to be grateful for. 

These anniversaries, of course, would not have been possible without the faithful folks who planted the churches.  

Expressions of church are quite different now than they were then, and the receptiveness to such endeavours has certainly dwindled. Yet the impulse to plant new churches is an important one, and one that I hope we continue to emphasize as an association of churches in each of our regions.  Shannon Youell has worked tirelessly on this portfolio, and she will be missed as she retires. I hope, however, that we do not lose that impulse, and continue to find a way to encourage expressions of church in Western Canada.