God Comes Through (Like Usual)

“No no no no, wait! This is Christmas, the season of perpetual hope!” I couldn’t help but hear Kate McCallister’s frantic declaration in her desperate attempt to figure out how she was going to get home to her 8-year-old son as I thought about our location-situation. 

In the past month since our last newsletter, we’ve been praying like crazy, and asking as many people as possible to be praying along-side us, for God to come through and provide a Sunday location for us in the New Year.

Since we started our September beta services, we’ve been planning on being able to begin our full public services in January. However, as you might remember from our last newsletter, the options were few and far between.

As the days went by, the window of opportunity to send out flyers and announcements before January was shrinking, and it was feeling more and more desperate. Not only were we widening our search: emailing as many churches, community centres, and business owners as we could find that might remotely fit the bill; we also decided to look back through old emails to see if there were any people we could reach out to again, who maybe hadn’t responded to the first few emails we’d sent.

The next thing we know, hope emerged and we had booked meetings with what seemed like two pretty good options: One was a church looking to rent out their space in the afternoons, and the other was a community centre which just so happened to potentially have Sunday mornings available - but the biggest downside was that they already had 5 weeks booked for the summer, which would mean we couldn’t use the space then. (If memory serves, which it doesn’t always, we may have ruled out that community centre location initially because we could see on their website calendar that they already had quite a few bookings on Sundays in the summer). 

After meeting with the one church, we felt like it was a definite possibility. There was a lot about it that was great, but a few things about the specific area of the city weren’t ideal for us. However, at this point, it felt like beggars can’t be choosers. And if they were open to it, it might be a good fit to use the space in the afternoons. It didn’t hurt, either, that the pastor was good friends with my (Clay’s) uncle, and he actually thought quite highly of my extended family.

But the more we thought and prayed about it, the less settled we felt. Not that it was a bad space, but it just didn’t quite feel like it was our space. 

In the meantime, though, we had a meeting with the community centre to look forward to. The thing is, we didn’t really know what to think going into it. Our last meeting at one of the previous community centres left us with a bit of a sour taste. After thinking we got along well with the building manager, once the board had their say, it was revealed that there wasn’t really a desire for a church to be there. 

But we had to remind ourselves that not all community leagues are the same. We decided to pray and trust that God had a plan and a purpose, because at the very least, it felt good to at least have potential options again. There’s hope, right? 

As we walked into the building, it felt nice. It was clean, it was cozy, and even though it wasn’t brand-new or recently renovated, it felt welcoming and inviting. And unlike some of the other spaces we’d visited, it actually sounded really good, acoustically. Dana, the building manager who showed us around, was very helpful and supportive, and seemed very positive and supportive of our hopes to use the space for our church.

She told us that we’d have to write a formal letter to the board with the request for an ongoing-rental, which we did as soon as we got back after the meeting. 

And once again, we had not much more to do than pray and wait. Aside from a real-estate listing that popped up with a building zoned for church-use (which was about $1.5 million outside our budget), all of our prospects outside these two options had dried up again.

After a few back-and-forth emails confirming a few details, we finally heard back from the chair of the board of the community centre, who responded with, “The board has spoken, and it looks like an overwhelming yes.”

It’s a go! The space we had been praying for was finally revealed. And not only is it a space we can use on Sundays in general, but it’s a space we can use on Sunday mornings! Aside from those 5 aforementioned weeks in the summer, once all the final paperwork settles, we should have access on Sunday mornings to the Belmead Community Centre starting in January. 

We are beyond excited and thankful that, as usual, God provided. From our perspective it seems like things often happen last minute, and this was no exception. But according to God’s plans, it was right on time. This meant that we still had (just enough) time to design and order door-hangers and postcards to deliver to the neighborhood, announcing our Sunday morning services in the Belmead neighborhood.

So, between Christmas and New Year’s, our core team will be out hanging door-hangers and inviting neighbors to join us on Sundays to learn what it looks like to love Jesus, love people, and help people love Jesus.

We’ve been so thankful over this past year for our church partners who have come alongside us to see our little church plant take off. Thanks to West Edmonton Baptist and Fellowship Baptist especially, for allowing us to use their spaces during our beta period.

We have two Sundays left to go in the book of Philippians, which we’ll finish on the next two Sunday afternoons at West Edmonton Baptist’s building (17821 98 Avenue NW, Edmonton, AB), but we’re really looking forward to starting a new series in January as we launch our gatherings publicly in the Belmead Community League Hall.

In the meantime, however, if you’re Edmonton, and you’re excited to see what God is going to do next through Grace Edmonton, we’d love to take you for coffee or see you at one of our gatherings. 

It’s amazing to be able to reflect on our God of Hope. Whether we found a space or not, we know that he is still good, and our hope doesn’t lie in having a space to meet. Our hope rests in the finished work of Jesus on our behalf - reconciling sinners like us to the perfect God of peace. Our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ love and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly trust in Jesus’ name. And so I can remember once again this Christmas, that if we are in Christ, we actually get to live all-year-long in perpetual hope.

If you’re able to join us for our public launch, we’d love to have you join us at 10AM on January 4th, 2026 at Belmead Community Centre, 9109 182 St NW, Edmonton, AB. 

Thanks for praying for us and sticking with us. 

If you would like to contribute at all to any of our expenses or the ongoing cost of serving in these roles of missionary-church-planters, you can do so at https://graceyeg.com and click the “Connect” link on the top left.

If you'd like to read previous editions of the newsletter, you can do so here: https://graceyeg.beehiiv.com/

On behalf of our families,

Clay Bitner and Jared Klassen