Apostolic Church

The first recorded meeting of any size was held in an elm and maple bluff one-half mile from Trossachs in the summer of 1914, with Miss Peden and Miss Andrews as evangelists, and Frank Small, later the founder of the Apostolic Churches of Canada, as coordinator. For up to three weeks, people gathered there for two hours of teaching in the morning, two more in the afternoon, and an evening service. It is reported that thousands were in attendance on Sunday evenings. Around the same time, a young man named O.J. Lovick moved from Minnesota to Hanley, Saskatchewan, where he became a lay preacher while working for a local farmer. After studying at the Rochester Bible Training School he returned to the Swift Current area, where he attracted crowds of 500 in the Methodist Church building with his preaching and healing—the most notable of which was curing a woman diagnosed by the Mayo clinic with untreatable cancer. A church was formed with its successor, the Full Gospel Church, still existing in Swift Current.

Lovick continued his work in Regina, starting in a hall that seated 500 but soon moving to the Grand Theatre, which seated 1,200. When the Grand Theatre was no longer available, the Rex Theatre, seating only 800, was rented to continue the revival. The congregation that began from these meetings had Rev. E.W. Storie as its pastor from 1924 until 1950; it later became known as the Regina Apostolic Church, still in existence today. Lovick moved on to Moose Jaw, where in his first healing service a blind woman and a paralyzed woman also blind in one eye were healed of their blindness immediately, with the paralysis disappearing within a week. This was reported on the front page of the Moose Jaw Evening Times and it was soon necessary to rent the Capital Theatre to accommodate the capacity crowds. This revival lasted three months, resulting in a church which continues today as the Hillcrest Apostolic Church.

Lovick’s success continued in Yorkton, where despite -25° temperatures, crowds of 500 showed up in a poorly heated building every night for three weeks. Rev. Joe Erickson took over the care of that congregation, which continues today as the Family Worship Centre. A similar series of events occurred in Saskatoon and resulted in the Saskatoon Full Gospel Church. Currently, there are thirty-one Apostolic Churches in Saskatchewan, affiliated with the Apostolic Church of Pentecost of Canada, its head office in Calgary.

M.A. Switzer