Northside Foursquare Church

It was October 1976. I was lying in bed preparing to shut my thinking processes down for a night of rest, when I saw a mental picture. Some would call it a vision. Nehemiah simply said, “God was putting into my mind…”Regardless of our terminology, I knew God was the source.

I saw a picture of a woman giving birth to her baby. The picture was accompanied by a phrase “This is how the Church in Port Coquitlam will be born.”

A few weeks before this vision, my wife Susan and I had independently been impressed to consider pioneering a new church in the city of Port Coquitlam. Poco is a suburban community about twenty miles east of Vancouver. It has a population of under 45, 000 on its own, but is within a larger bedroom population of about 200,000 persons, in a ten mile radius.

We knew we had heard from God and were well content with obeying Him. The next day, and approximately for one or two days a week over the next several months, we began to strategize our move to Poco and our beginning of a new Foursquare Church. Before seeing the picture of the woman giving birth, I had considered about four families whom I would call together to help me with the undertaking. But now I knew the strategy would be different. I understood God to be saying that the new church would not begin with a gathering together of mature believers, but would begin by new converts. The idea scared me because I’d never considered evangelism to be a gift of mine. It was hardly even an interest of mine, shy as I was.

By January 1978, we had seemingly made no progress. I had paced our neighborhood in the dark of the night, praying for the salvation of our neighbors. We had built some strong friendships with neighbors – all part of our strategy – but with no apparent success.

I remember going to lunch one day, ready to take God to task. I sat in my car at A & W eating my teen burger and crying silently, “Lord I know I heard Your voice to come to Port Coquitlam, I know it’s Your will that I start a church and certainly You want my neighbors to know You as Savior. Why isn’t it happening?”

As clearly as I had heard His words to me before, I heard His inaudible voice asking, “How long does it take to have a baby?” (I felt that He had ended His question with the word “stupid”, but I later realized that was only how I felt and not what He called me!) My answer was quicker than it takes to say the words “nine months”. We had moved to Poco in June of 1977. Conception had taken place in the spirit realm. We simply had not yet delivered.

I charted the birthday of our first child to be a couple of months away in March of 1978 and was again at peace. My thoughts were not on maternity when my wife called about eleven o’clock two months later. “Guess what!” She exclaimed, “our new neighbor has just received Jesus as her Savior!”

I glanced at the calendar – a day early, “Thanks Jesus!”

Within the next few months, our family grew considerably. We had about six new babies (spiritual ones) and a few others who were somewhere in the birth canal! By October of 1978, we moved into phase two of our strategy – begin a home Bible study and teach the basic foundational truths of the Christian life

By May 1979, a feeling of excitement was in the air. On the 27th, we were to have our first real church service at Lincoln Elementary School. The week before that, twenty-two of us, including our children, came up to the front of the church we were attending – the pastor and congregation prayed for us and blessed us as we parted.

It was a unique experience, leading a church of approximately thirty persons who were largely ignorant of our Christian culture. Our worship services were short because they didn’t know any songs, so I taught longer and we sang less. Then we had coffee and cookies for the rest of our church time.

Over the first five years, I concentrated on laying foundations. I had big plans. I saw the large picture, but I knew that the building could only be built up according to how deep and solid the foundation was. I concentrated on the 20% who were leadership material. I believed they could help the 80% and it worked well. I didn’t visit homes of parishioners. I didn’t counsel much. I spent 80% of my time discipling leaders.

Not everything however goes according to plan.

In the Fall of 1982, we were getting pretty tired of meeting in a school – packing chairs, sound equipment and furniture back and forth was not much fun. Often there was no heat in the gym and once even no lights – there we were in the middle of winter sitting in a windowless gym with doors open for lights and coats on for heat. So we jumped at an opportunity to build our own building. A contractor offered to give us a 4,400 square foot school, if we could just move it from Burnaby to Port Coquitlam. No problem!

To abbreviate the story, we moved the building in three pieces, half way towards the site we’d purchased and preceded through trying legalities. The plan was ultimately scrapped, and so was the building, piece by piece, Saturday after Saturday. We sold the land for a $25,000 loss. Lessons learned.

A few years later, we learned some more lessons on patience and faith. A plan was developed whereby we would purchase 5 ½ acres on a major intersection, develop four acres into twenty-six housing lots, and retain 1.6 acres on highway frontage for a church building. It was a good plan, but would stretch us financially a fair ways beyond caution. We could purchase the property for $650,000, but with developing costs would be extended out well beyond 1 ½ million dollars. Our church was at about 120 people including a lot of children.

To my utter devastation, the National Board of the Foursquare Gospel Church of Canada did not grant the needed approval for our project. Submission is especially tough when your leaders don’t agree with you.

The end of the next twenty-four months miraculously saw our purchase of the same property for $250,000 less, the successful development and sale of the twenty-six lots and the commencement of construction on our new facility.

Our congregation, almost incredibly, built a 15,000 foot church at Coast Meridian and Lougheed Highway within the year following – on February 1, 1987, we celebrated our first Sunday service. By that time, we had about 180 average attendance.

By January 1992, our Port Coquitlam campus was bulging at its seams; and we began asking God for directions as to our future. His answer surprised us!

NORTHSIDE FOURSQUARE CHURCH COQUITLAM CAMPUS

Northside Foursquare Church in Coquitlam dates back about 100 years. Although its name has changed five times (Blue Mountain Union Church to Union Church of the Foursquare Gospel to Coquitlam Foursquare Church to Life Centre to Northside Foursquare Church) and its location has changed four times (it began around 1900 on North Road where Denny’s sits today, to 1933 Como Lake Avenue, to Hillcrest School, to its present location) and it has had several pastors, the church’s purpose and vision have never changed, - to reach the municipality of Coquitlam and the surrounding area with the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to see believers mature and reproduce.

When Coquitlam was simply a farming area outside the New Westminster, some settlers determined a protestant church was needed and founded the Blue Mountain Union church. The men who owned the land where the Cariboo Shopping Centre is today donated a small piece of property. The church existed down through the years, never having a resident pastor. Someone from New Westminster or Vancouver would come out each Sunday to conduct the services. Although the church never grew to any size, the members remained faithful. Former Foursquare pastors Steve and Lorna Kredba were leading the Sunday service when they heard that Dr. Roy Hicks was planning to plant a Foursquare Church in Coquitlam. They asked if the new pastors, Mitch and Rose Belobaba, would be willing to continue the ministry at the Blue Mountain Union Church and marry it into the new Foursquare Church. So they did – the eleven elderly members became the foundation stones of the Coquitlam Foursquare Church. That was July 1, 1967.

Under Mitch Belobaba, construction of the new sight at 1933 Como Lake Avenue began in September of that year. The old church property was sold for $20,000 and $10,000 of it paid for the basement of the new building (the first plans did not call for a basement). The other $10,000.00 was donated to the Salvation Army and other charities. In consideration of the gift the new church was called the Union Church of the Foursquare Gospel.

Opening services were held at the new facility on the second week of March 1968. Aside from the vision of reaching the surrounding community for Jesus, the inclusion of the word Union in the name marked the goal of making this church a place where all people, of various backgrounds cultures and denominations, would be openly welcomed and made to feel at home.

In June of 1971, Mitch and Rose Belobaba went to Nigeria as missionaries and Dr. Walter Mussen was called as the new pastor. Barry Buzza had just graduated from Life Bible College and became the new youth pastor. In June 1973, John Schmidt was appointed pastor.

Under John’s ministry of seventeen years, the church, now called Life Centre, prospered and grew to about 250 adherents. Rob Buzza, Dave Davies, Bryon Pesut and Bev Miller all worked with John as staff over the seventeen years.

Three underlining reasons led to the final decision to move the church, which opened on March 19, 1989, about five miles due North. Firstly, there was no more room in the facility on Como Lake. The church had gone to two services, and was bulging at the seams. They realized then that their growth had been restricted because of lack of space. The lobby, sanctuary, Christian Education and parking lot were packed regularly. Secondly, Coquitlam was moving north. With accurate foresight, the leaders in the church saw that the greatest growth potential was on the burgeoning north side. Thirdly, God gave Pastor John a larger vision. Unlike the bug in the rug, God gave John a higher, wider view and he saw the Coquitlam Foursquare Church as a lighthouse which would not only bring light to the Northside of Coquitlam, but ultimately to a much broader place.

With great zeal and foresight, the property at Lansdowne and David was purchased. A building committee was formed in 1985 and worked diligently through many stressful circumstances, to secure the property at 1460 Lansdowne. A series of miracles affirmed the direction of the church and the new 18,600 square foot facility was completed and dedicated on March 19, 1989. What a great celebration the church enjoyed that day!

Storms brewed on the horizon, and in the next two dark and difficult years, the church floundered on a turbulent sea. In that time, Pastor John resigned in February of 1990, Ross Tegart served as interim pastor and finally in September of 1990, Pastor Scott Falk was installed. From 1989 – 1992 Scott successfully brought the receding congregation to place where they were ready to move ahead with God’s plan for the church.

On March 31, 1992, when the Northside Chapel congregation was looking for room to expand, Pastor Barry and Pastor Scott began conversations about uniting the two churches. Both were sister congregations sharing the same vision for the expansion of God’s Kingdom on the Northside. Together, they had resources, staff, people and enthusiasm to accomplish the larger vision. The vision God gave at that time was of a large jigsaw puzzle. Each of us was putting our own parts together, but we were working on the same puzzle. Finally the missing link was placed and the two sections were bridged – we were now one. As of July 12, 1992, we were united to become Northside Foursquare Church, with two campuses.

Blending two churches was more challenging than we had naively imagined. With the help of Associate Pastor Wes Wray, we counseled and cared for a good number of people who’d been hurt by the loss of their church family. It took about two years before both Coquitlam and Port Coquitlam campuses began seeing themselves as one healthy church, but as that happened and as we added staff to meet our expanding congregation, we continued to grow in a new symbiotic way.

In 1992, we began with three morning services to accommodate our church family. Since then, we’ve added a Saturday Evening service which emphasizes helping those who’ve come form a difficult or addictive background (that service is called Higher Ground or God Rock); a Wednesday Evening service which is geared toward non singing worship and Bible exposition. The entire congregation is pastored by several pastors with different gifts and experiences. Some are full time, but most are part time and work primarily from their homes. But more important than any of us who serve as staff are the 450 plus volunteers who make the work of the church happen!

In April of 2002, with great enthusiasm, we made the public proclamation that all of our debts and mortgages were now paid in full. In that summer, the Lord began preparing us for a new level of ministry expansion and subsequent growth!

In May of 2004, we celebrated the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of Northside Church. Our theme “Invest Yourself” was underscored with the silver dollar memorials that we gave to everyone at the service.