Evangel Temple

To continue my reminiscing from the previous Ruby Foo’s post, I reiterate that the trip to and from church was a rather long one on the buses. It took us two buses to get there, and I am thinking that it probably a 40 minute trip each way. But Evangel was really the only Pentecostal church in Montreal, or at least the largest one and also the only one that we could feasibly get to. For its time, it was a pretty noteworthy edifice for a lowly Pentecostal congregation.

Evangel Temple  still sits in a prime real estate location in Montreal.

This is what the interior of the church looked like in the 1950s. There was usually a fairly large orchestra on the commodious platform. I have added a red ellipsis approximately where our little family would sit. It is quite likely that I would be in the picture if it were taken on a Sunday morning.

Modern services look a little different.

Taken from the balcony at the back.

Although it was a longish bus ride, the family had begun attending Evangel back in the day when they lived within walking distance, so we kept on going for the next five years after we moved to the suburbs.

Later, when a small Pentecostal church opened in a school, my elementary school to be precise, we ceased our marathon bus ride and walked to church. A small meeting in a school gym was very different than the big, downtown church, but I liked it. I liked them both.

I have found the Evangel Temple web page and YouTube site that confirms that the church remains an English-speaking congregation in a very French province with seemingly less of an English presence than when we lived there there until the very early sixties. 

Church was important to me until a half-life ago, when I suddenly stopped believing, but that may be another story for another time — or possibly not.