The local Lord of Glory Lutheran Church’ s congregation has been without a home for years - and they might lose their temporary space any day now.
The local Lord of Glory Lutheran Church’ s congregation has been without a home for years - and they might lose their temporary space any day now.
The congregation has been hopping between renting space from two other churches, a brief stint in hotel conference space, and they now borrow the out-of-use facilities at Key-Way-Tin Bible Institute. But Key-Way-Tin is looking to sell their property soon, and if they do the church will need to move again.
The local church owns a lot across from the Birchwood apartment block which was originally purchased by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada’ s national organization. The local congregation hopes to build a church there someday, but don’ t currently have the funds.
“We’ re kind of in the preliminary stages, but we’ re hopeful,” said Calvin Skriver, the church’ s pastor. “We’ re hoping we can start building in the spring, but there isn’ t any timeline put down.”
The local church has been in Lac La Biche for over 20 years and has a local congregation of about 30 people, says Skriver, adding that the group hasn’ t done a strong fundraising push yet, but they hope to do one soon.
He estimates building a 4,000-square-foot church on the lot could cost at least $800,000.
They’ ve been able to use space at the Key-Way-Tin Bible Institute on Lakeland Drive since January, as the institute closed down last year. But the property’ s owner, the Northern Canadian Evangelical Mission, is hoping to sell the property as soon as possible to another church to again operate a religious school.
The 40-acre lakeside Key-Way-Tin property contains about 20 buildings, including student housing, classrooms, a cafeteria, a gym, camp cabins and a church. The Northern Canada Evangelical Mission operated the school for over 40 years as a multi-year adult Bible college aimed primarily at aboriginal students, but mission general director Albert Heal said they had to close down last year due to lack of staff.
Also, student numbers had declined to about 10 students last year from classes of up to 50 in peak years.
Skriver’ s Evangelical Lutheran congregation currently rents the campus’ church building for Sunday services, but Heal said they would no longer be able to use the facility if it is purchased by another church group.
Presently, the Northern Canada Evangelical Mission is looking for a religious organization with similar beliefs to purchase the property and operate a Bible school there, but Heal says if they aren’ t able to sell it soon they may open it up to other buyers.
As well as his Evangelical Lutheran congregation, Skriver leads a nonreligious men’ s support group in Lac La Biche, and he hopes to move the group’ s meetings to the Lord of Glory church building if and when it’ s built.
