Grace Baptist Church is a community of grace, joyfully including people of different nationalities and creatively combining our differences in a glad shared fellowship with Jesus Christ.
In this, we anticipate and point toward the joy of heaven with its gathering of people from every nation to worship, adore and enjoy the Lord forever side by side.
A Sunday School that began in 1920 at the Riverview Hospital in Windsor marks the beginning of the story of Grace Baptist Church. Miss Anna Phelps came to assist in the work and during her brief ministry, a church was built on Aubin Road called the “All People’s Mission”. Only time would tell how far-reaching the vision expressed by that name would be.
Following the death of Miss Phelps two other ladies, Miss Olive Hunter and Miss Sharlett Evans came to continue the work and began a very resourceful work among the new Canadians. Soon a Romanian and a Czechoslovak group were meeting respectively at the Mission.
Begun as a fellowship in 1923 the Czechoslovak Baptist Church of Windsor was officially organized on the 9th of June 1927, with 13 charter members, and was affiliated with the Czechoslovak Baptist Convention of America and the Canadian Baptist Missionary Society of the Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec. Growth was not exactly dramatic. The church however persevered and by 1940 the Czechoslovak Baptist Church of Windsor had 18 members and a small Sunday School.
For a while it met in a store-front Church on Drouillard Rd and then for some years at Bethany Baptist on Aubin Rd. which interestingly had evolved from the All People’s Mission.
While meeting at Bethany a challenge was presented to them. Anna Phelps Memorial Baptist on Albert Road was closing and the Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec invited the Czechoslovak Baptists to take it over. The decision to make the move was made on Jan. 1, 1951. An interesting historical note records significantly, the young people were in favour of going ahead.
This step of faith set the stage for the next and greater one – to purchase land and build their own facility. Amazingly, in 1957, just 6 years later the group, perhaps now 50 in number, moved into newly constructed facilities at 3150 Tecumseh Rd. E. With sacrifice and long hours of hard labour they had built a church to hold 3 or 4 times their number.
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The congregation of Grace now had a wonderful new facility but were struggling to manage all alone. The English congregation of Bethany Baptist nearby, was in an old building and also relatively small. Despite the fact that there were deep roots of association and fellowship between the two groups, you can imagine all the arguments that might have and probably were raised against the suggestion of coming together. Visionary faith and courage however overruled them all and in 1963 the people of Bethany came over and joined with the people of Grace in a unique intermingling of streams. Significantly it was a joining and not just the logistical sharing of a building to help with expenses, and that has made a tremendous difference in the church we have become.
The challenge of being a bi-cultural church calls for patience, cooperation and sensitivity. The mutual commitment to our larger shared identity must continually be nurtured. At the same time however, a church of immigrants and longer time Canadian residents in partnership and close association with them is mindful of the challenges of coming to a new country and more apt to be welcoming to newcomers and patient with their differences. The partnership proceeded through successive decades and two further building projects.
In the late 1990’s we began to hear reports about a refugee ministry in Toronto called Matthew House. In the Fall of 1999 the director Anne Woolger came to Windsor and met with some of our Windsor Baptist pastors. She had a vision for a similar house in Windsor, due to its strategic location next to the American border. A note dates Feb. 18, 2000 expressed Anne’s infectious faith and enthusiasm.
“God is doing amazing and exciting things among refugees! As a key border crossing point, I could see your church (and others in Windsor) playing a critical role in refugees’ stories.”
On Dec. 6, 2000 twelve people including Anne Woolger met at Grace. Five CBOQ churches were represented. There was a strong sense of being led into this ministry and 8 people came forward to establish a Steering Committee which led to the establishment of Windsor Baptist Refugee Ministries. Matthew House Windsor, a short-term residence for refugee claimants officially opened in 2003.
With Matthew House up and running a stream of international people began to find their way to our church which is just a few blocks away from Matthew House. We were delighted to have a few new faces among us. Many of our people remembered their early days in Canada and the help they received and so were disposed to welcome and reach out to the internationals with kindness and help. Into the pale mix of English and European nationalities among us the Lord began to throw some wonderful dashes of colour.
In the Fall of 2007 the damn burst. As part of their UN commitment to over-crowded refugee camps on the border of Thailand and Myanmar (formerly Burma) the Canadian government resettled groups of Karen people in various places across Canada. Since 2006 over 3500 Karen have come to Canada. Perhaps 50 or more arrived in Windsor in the Fall of 2007 and there were more to come.
Interestingly, the Karens were Baptist stemming from the pioneer missionary work of Adoniram Judson beginning in 1813. Eventually Canadian Baptists were to have a share in the work through offerings forwarded to the support of Judson’s work in Burma. The Karen’s arrival in Canada may be seen as the Lord’s ways of remembering and honoring this early investment.
Many of the new Karen people in Windsor began to find their way to our church. Eventually a Karen service was organized which meets following the Sunday English service at 12:45 PM. There are now weekly services in English, Slovak, Serbo-Croatian and Karen. We have moved from being a bi-cultural to a multi-cultural congregation. This is the Lord’s doing and it is marvelous in our sight.