They have moved three times this year: They moved their worship from a North York, Ont., banquet hall to a rented facility in a new Bible college; they moved their offices and community meeting places to a new storefront unit; and they moved from within the Presbytery of East Toronto to the Presbytery of Oak Ridges.
Celebration, constituted within the Presbyterian Church in Canada in 1997, purchased a storefront unit last year in a strip mall in Markham for $600,000, with the help of a grant from Canadian Ministries of $450,000. Since renovated, the new Celebration Centre will be used for a variety of community events, including offices for the minister Rev. Alan Goh and meeting space for the three youth groups and the seven small groups. (Some of the groups will continue to meet in homes.)
The centre is not big enough (and there may be zoning restrictions) for the 100 or more who come regularly to worship, so Celebration will be renting from the People’s Christian Academy, an independent Bible college also in Markham. With the offices and worship moved from within the boundaries of East Toronto, Celebration is now in Oak Ridges.
Celebration is comprised mostly of second- and third-generation Chinese. The congregation grew out of Toronto Chinese Presbyterian Church, with a small group that started meeting in 1996. There are about 120 members today.
The congregation would have preferred to purchase their own church building north of Toronto but did not feel they could afford to carry debt. Instead they wanted to continue their Bible and youth programs, and their commitment to the three missionary couples they support in Tanzania, Central Asia and China, plus their ongoing partnership with a First Nations community in Longlac, Ont.
“Mission is the lifeline of the church,” Goh told the Record. “It is why Jesus died to win people to his side. We are continuing to work on that priority.”
