Assemblee Evangelique de Sainte-Foy, QC
Contents
History
Assemblée évangélique de Sainte-Foy is a French open brethren assembly that evolved from the Salle Evangélique Belvédère in Quebec City, Quebec. Jean-Paul Berney, instrumental in its beginnings, was born in 1926 in Lausanne, Switzerland. He passed away in 2011. Mr. Berney also founded Assemblée Chrétienne Cartier Avenue in 1951 that met until morphing into the current assembly in 1960.
Assemblée évangélique de Sainte-Foy has roots in the activity of workers who arrived following World War II. At that time the city was visited at odd times by pioneer workers John Spreeman, Paul Boëda, Howard Forbes and others. In spite of the fact that these workers had charges elsewhere and were unable to devote much of their time to the city.
Though occupying its current facilities since 1974, at which time there were some sixty believers in attendance, the present assembly had been functioning prior to that date. For three years, following the sale of an earlier building in 1969, meetings were held in the local YWCA; later on, the saints gathered in homes. One recalls attending meetings in the early 1970s in the home of Jean-Paul Berney, whose leadership in this assembly carried on from well before his commendation in 1963 until his homecall in 2011.
Quebec City with its suburb of Sainte-Foy was one of the first places touched by the spirit of revival that affected a number of centres throughout the Province in the seventies and early eighties. The work grew considerably and the assembly was then faced with the question of whether their building should be extended or whether it would be better to launch another assembly. With the blessing of the leadership, a second assembly was begun across the Saint Lawrence River in 1983. The present building in Sainte-Foy was eventually expanded to accommodate the still growing numbers.
Early in the present century there were approximately eighty believers in fellowship with about one hundred and twenty in all attending regularly. Today, attendance is pretty much the same, in the vicinity of one hundred. The numbers illustrate a “levelling off” phenomenon which has marked much of the evangelical work in the province since before the turn of the century.
AKA
- Salle Evangelique Belvedere +1954
- Chapelle Evangelique 1955-1959
- Salle Evangelique Belvedere 1960-1965+
- Chapelle Evangelique Belvedere Avenue 1966-1969
- Quebec City French Christian Assembly 1970-1987+
Location
- 2 Belvedere Ave. +1954-1959
- 610 Belvedere Ave. 1960-1969
- YMCA @ 855 Holland Ave. 1970-1974
- 3033 Place Dompierre, Ste-Foy 1975-2020+
Correspondents
- Jean-Paul Berney (b. 1926 Lausanne, Switzerland - d. 2014) +1954;
- (Samuel Bruce Sommacal?) Bruce Sommacal (? d. 2004 St. Augustin des Maures, QC) 1955-1959
- Jean-Paul Berney @ St. Foy 1960-2008;
- Jean-Paul Gosselin 2009-2020+;
Alumni
Sources
- Walterick Publishing Assembly Address Books: 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, Spring 2020
- Ancestry.com