by Tony & Janet Ens
Learning, Growing & Maturing
WHITEHORSE, YT
In September of 2016, Janet and I received an email from a young man named Harrison Kwok. He was inviting us to join a prayer group that was seeking God regarding planting a church in Whitehorse. We had been wondering for a few months if God might have us involved in a church plant. We realized that it usually takes a team, and God’s help, to make that happen. Was God already forming a team for us to join?
After attending a few meetings and seeking God in prayer, we agreed we would help in this church plant effort. On April 8, 2018, we had our first service, using the facilities at a Baptist church that would be our sponsoring or mother church for the first nine months. We averaged about 17 people during our time there and had the joy of baptizing two or three believers.
The Francophone Centre housed the Whitehorse church plant for a short period beginning January 2019, after which church attendance nearly doubled.
January 2019 brought a new year and a new venue, the Francophone Centre. This was closer to the downtown core, food bank, and the emergency shelter. We immediately saw our attendance nearly double. By the end of 2019, we averaged in the mid-30s, sometimes breaking over 50. We were close to the building’s capacity on several occasions.
March of 2020 brought Covid-19 and the suspension of services. We began pre-recording services and broadcasting them on Facebook Live. In June, we began to meet outdoors under a large gazebo at Shipyard’s Park. While our numbers dropped overall, a few people would join us out of curiosity as they were walking by.
During this time, we were praying for yet another venue. With the talk of physical distancing and one-third capacity limits, the Francophone Centre would be too small to go back to. The Lord answered that prayer through a rental agreement with the Salvation Army. It was also in the downtown core, had larger rooms for our church service and children’s ministry, plus an overflow area if we exceeded our capacity limits for either room. We began to average over 40.
In answer to prayer, the Lord provided use of the Salvation Army building which had a good location and larger rooms.
In January of 2021, we officially became our own church. In April 2021, we had our first Annual General Meeting, where we had our first election of elders. In summer we began a Bible college outpost called Yukon Bible College. In September, our first student began classes. We are supporting church plant efforts in the community of Carcross.
We have had challenges as Covid outbreaks have brought changes in restrictions, sometimes causing us to go back to using Facebook Live for online services. But we’ve seen that it is not easy to have true fellowship through a computer or phone.
Through this journey, it’s been exciting to see who the Lord brings into the church. While we are not a dedicated First Nations church plant, some First Nations people regularly attend. Some of Asian and African descent join us as well. And as you might have guessed, Pastor Harrison Kwok is Chinese Canadian.
We have also made a number of mistakes in this journey, making decisions that caused some to withdraw their membership. But we are learning and, we trust, growing and maturing as a church as well. May the Lord Jesus continue to build His Church here in Whitehorse and around the world! •
The gazebo in Shipyard’s Park.
(from Northern Lights issue #559)