University Chapel at Quadra, Victoria, BC

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[edit] History

In the early 1950s, Harry Penman, living in the Gordon Head area of Victoria, began a Sunday School work in the Gordon Head Community Hall on Tyndall Avenue. In this he had the blessing of the elders at Oaklands Chapel, where he was in fellowship. John Jenner helped him, and later took over the work. This ministry was carried out until the mid 1960s.

In about 1964, five couples from Oaklands Chapel felt it was time to expand this ministry into a full church ministry, with an outreach to the adults and families of the growing Gordon Head area. In 1965 they rented a small building on the corner of Hawthorne and Majestic in Victoria and began to meet regularly as University Chapel.

In 1969, the Christians bought property on Feltham Road in Victoria, and at about the same time invited John Williams from Detroit to full-time ministry at the assembly. During this period, the assembly at University Chapel moved from their rented quarters and merged with Quadra Bible Chapel which had started in March 1953 in a new building. The name of the merged assemblies was University Chapel at Quadra.

Construction on the Feltham Road property began in 1973, and the finished building was occupied later that year. The assembly then called itself Lambrick Park Church. Growth was rapid and in 1978, a group hived off to establish Saanichton Bible Fellowship. John Williams moved to Vancouver in 1979, and Dennis Clark and Stan Kelly, both of them elders and retired missionaries, shared the full-time responsibility for the teaching and preaching ministry for the next two years. In 1981, Tom Cowan was brought on as a full-time worker.

Average Sunday morning attendance is about 1700 between two morning services and an evening service for young adults. Located about five minutes from the University of Victoria, the church has many students. Children’s ministries is an important part of the church. Lambrick Park Church has several full-time staff.