Grant Memorial Baptist Church

October 19, 2008 11:00 am
Grant Memorial Baptist Church, 877 Wilkes ave. Winnipeg
Pastor Tom Castor

After a brief hiatus to extract teeth from my head, I'm back on schedule. Today's church was Grant Memorial Baptist Church, a huge church just off of Waverley. Once again it was my first time experiencing a Baptist service, and I must say it was extremely interesting. There was a 9:30 service that I slept through so I attended the later 11:00 service.

Upon walking in I was greeted immediately by a "Host" and proceeded to spend several minutes walking around looking lost. There were probably two hundred people milling about in the foyer, so it's no wonder that despite several wandering "Hosts" (or ushers), I was wanting of a conversation.

To put it lightly, the sanctuary was FULL. My guesstimate was about 600 people, maybe more because I didn't count the balcony. It was a pleasant, open space with a large wooden cross in the center and, inexplicably, a huge purple gorilla in the far left corner across from the pine tree. A band (bass, sax, drums, piano, voice) did the prelude remarkably well and we were off.

This was a baptismal service which was particularly exciting for me as it was my first time witnessing a full-submersion (immersion?) baptism. Three people were baptized, and we watched their videotaped confessions of faith on two large monitors. One by one they were immersed in the hottub-sized pool at the front, after a single "i do" style question from Joe Welty (who apparently wasn't Pastor Castor, whose name rolls off the tongue almost too nicely).

The singing was great; a bit too pop for my tastes, but well done. The woman leading singing had a huge voice disproportionate to her small stature, and at times I wished that she would throw in a few less flashy vocal ornaments, which just served to make it harder to sing along. She did have a great voice though.

Pastor Castor's sermon was interesting if a bit too much of a history lesson: he spoke (apparently continuing a series) about King David and the early days of his reign when he made the decision to bring the Ark back to Jerusalem. Pastor Castor compared these events to everything from the Canadian election to our own personal faith journeys and while he was a decent speaker, I wasn't compelled to follow along as I would have liked to be.

I guess my general opinion of this church was that it has the most "pop" appeal of any church I've yet visited. The youth/young adult/young family demographic was HUGE; for the first time the forty and under population seemed to rule the roost. I liked Grant Memorial as an engaging and uplifting experience, but it seemed to lack the substance and the close-knit community that I would require from a home church.

http://www.grantmemorial.mb.ca/