The above service was held at the close of our midweek
prayer meeting with our pastor Brother Litch in the chair.
Brother Vansickle, Superintendent of Missions for Vancouver & Westminster then gave an interesting address on the opening of the church; in which he stated that he first came here to visit Mr. Black & seeing no church in the neighbourhood he enquired if there were any Baptists here & after some visiting found about sixteen. The first meeting to consider the work was held at Bro. O.J. Benedict’s house.
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Our Pastor then read the following address on “Events leading to Organization”. This work was opened by the Rev. M. Vansickle, Superintendent of the Baptist Churches in, and in the vicinity of Vancouver & New Westminster. On August 13, 1911 a Sunday School was organized with an attendance of twenty nine. Bro. O.J. Benedict was appointed Superintendent. That same evening a public service was held in a store on the corner of 28th & Prince Albert St. (Rev. M. Black of Hastings Townsite preached for Bro. Vansickle.) After two Sundays the store was needed for business & the next two Sundays, services were held in a new house opposite present site on 27th Ave lent to us by bro. E. Eward. After this, services were held in a house owned & being built by Bro. Geo. H. Thompson opposite present location on Prince Albert St. Here through the generosity of our Brother services were held for five months. In the middle of February 1912 a tent was secured & erected on the present site, which had been purchased & donated by the Extension Society. Rev. A.A. McLeod our foreign missionary conducted the first service in the tent.
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The first prayer meeting was held the first Wednesday in April, when Organization was proposed. The question was considered fully the following week at prayer meeting, when Bro. Geo. H. Thompson moved & Bro. O.W. Benedict seconded that two weeks from tonight on April 24 we meet to organize ourselves into a regular Baptist Church. This was carried unanimously. Meanwhile the following in number sixty five signed their names expressing their desire to become charter members of the new church.
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The meeting closed with singing the
Doxology & prayer by Bro. Reece.
J. Willard Litch B.M Colwell
Chairman Clerk
In the future I hope to scan all the documents, as the handwriting is a joy to read, but for now you can view them as Word documents on the Our History page .
PS: The future has come - a PDF document of the scanned files is now available on the Our History page. The size is a bit odd at 10"x14" but I the comments in the margins are a treat.