Christian Community La Promesse, Sherbrooke, QC
From BrethrenPedia
History
Communauté Chrétienne La Promesse, Sherbrooke, Estrie, Southeast Québec, Canada is a French open brethren assembly founded in 1946.
Communauté chrétienne La Promesse, formerly Assemblée chrétienne de Sherbrooke. was the fifth French assembly to be established in the province. It began in 1946, the first official meeting being held on January 6th in a private home. Meetings were soon moved to the basement of Grace Chapel in Sherbrooke’s north ward.
Arnold Reynolds was instrumental from the outset and for many years. He arrived from Montréal in 1939 and immediately began following up requests for New Testaments that had come in as a result of a postal tract distribution effort on the part of English assemblies in Ontario. Absent during the war years while serving in the RAF, his efforts were furthered by John Spreeman who spent significant time in the area, particularly in the final year of the war. About the same time, Emmanuel Laganière, together with his family, came from Montréal and settled in Sherbrooke to give a helping hand, visiting homes throughout the area. A stall set up by Grace Chapel at the local fair, at which he had participated, had initially attracted his attention.
Following the war, Arnold Reynolds returned to Sherbrooke and was soon joined by Norman Buchanan, recently arrived from Ontario. Norman took employment as an engineer with Ingersoll Rand and soon married Marion Thomas, already serving the Lord in Quebec. Later they would join the staff of Bethel Bible School.
In the fall of 1946 a gospel radio program, with Arnold Reynolds at the microphone, was launched. This was the first of its kind in the French language anywhere in the province. It was carried over the local station CHLT in Sherbrooke and continued for three and a half years until the program was ejected from the air in the spring of 1950 under pressure from the religious authorities.
In February 1951, the assembly moved into rented quarters at 23 rue King ouest, a busy Sherbrooke thoroughfare with high hopes that their greater visibility would draw more visitors to their doors. This proved not to be the case and, when two years later the landlord requested them to move to another and smaller room in the same building, they declined. For the next several months, until October, the assembly met at Bethel Bible School. This arrangement proved to be impractical due to the school being located too far from the centre of town.
When another store front facility became available on rue Belvédère, the assembly moved again, in November 1952, to a new downtown location. This had a good window which could be used for gospel displays. It proved to be in one of the very best locations in town, a place where hundreds of people passed daily on foot on their way to work.
In January 1956, the assembly made a final and permanent move to its newly-constructed chapel on Désormeaux Street in the eastern part of the city. Most of the construction work had been done by members of the assembly under the watchful eye of Norman Buchanan, with financial help being secured through a loan from Stewards Foundation.
Over the years, the assembly experienced its proverbial “ups and downs.” One of the high points came in the late 70s and early 80s following on the heels of Quebec’s Quiet Revolution. Attendance at the chapel increased dramatically, thanks in part to a Coffee House activity carried on in downtown Sherbrooke. Many came to know the Lord through this effort, some eventually going on to become leaders in the French work elsewhere in the province.
In response to increasing pastoral responsibilities, Claude Quéval and his wife Muriel were commended to the work at the chapel in October 1979. The facilities were expanded in 1983 to meet the needs of a growing assembly. Five years later a sister assembly, Source de Vie (now Église du Mont-Bellevue), was begun in nearby Lennoxville to further relieve the problem of overcrowding. By 1995 the Quévals moved on. Since then, this elder-led assembly has again carried on without a full-time commended worker.
With the passing of Norman Buchanan (1996) and Arnold Reynolds (2004) as well as other early participants, new leadership has continued to come on the scene. In 2006, a sixtieth anniversary celebration brought together many who had, at one time or another, been part of this local assembly.
AKA
- Assemblée Chrétienne de Sherbrooke 1946-2021+
Locations
- 23 King Ouest +1951-1952
- Institut biblique Béthel
- 715 rue Désormeaux 1956-2021+
Correspondents
- Arnold John Myers Reynolds @ Lennoxville 1946-1958, 1965-1986
- b. 1917 Montreal, QC - d. 2004 Sherbrooke, QC
- M.A. Thiffault 1959-1963
- "Arthur" Millrite Thiffault? (b. Tite, Papua, Indonesia - d. 1966 Sherbrooke, QC)
- Claude Queval +1987-1995
- Pierre Pellerin @ Canton d'Ascot 1998-2000+
- Michel Corcoran +2003+
- Denis Grenier +2006-2021+
Alumni
Sources
- Walterick Publishers Assembly Address Books: 1943, 1948, 1950, 1954-1956, 1958-1980, 1982-1983, 1985-1987, 1989-2000, 2003-2004, 2006-2008
- ECS Ministries (Emmaus International) Assembly Address Books: 2009-2010, 2013-2014, 2016, 2018, 2020
- News of Quebec
- Ancestry.com
