Joining Together
Aberdeen Baptist Church is the merger of the former Calvary Baptist Church of Aldergrove and the former Aldergrove Fellowship Baptist Church in 2018.
A group of born again believers in 1945 began to pray for a place to worship in Aldergrove. A year later the B.C. Evangelical Mission moved their building from White Rock and placed it on land donated by Jesse Throssell on the corner of 264th St. And 24th Avenue. Fred Berry from Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church became the first Sunday School Superintendent, along with Sam Derksen. From 1946-1953, Ida Bond served as a Christian lay worker followed by Hector McLeod. Bruno Miller a student from Bible College served in 1956.
The Aldergrove Mission in 1959, was accepted into Columbia Baptist Conference and Baptist General Conference. Keith Lauwers became the first Pastor of Aldergrove Baptist Church. The charter members were Pastor Keith and Lillian Lauwers, Oliver and Minnie Throssell, Mrs. E. Standen, Bruno and Ann Miller, Mr. And Mrs. J. Wytenbroek, Hans and Madge Siegrist, G. Skeet and Anne Hodgeson.
Don Carpenter was the Pastor from 1962 to 1964. In 1964 Bill Brim and family along with the George Anderson family came up from the U.S.A. to help with Sunday School and a Youth group. Meanwhile Ailie Caldwell, with help from members of Cloverdale Baptist Church, started a Sunday School work at Aldergrove Elementary School. In November of 1968, the two works merged under the sponsorship of the Convention of Regular Baptist Churches in B.C. Pastors Gerald Meller and Marvin Dunn provided leadership to April 1970.
Rod Wilkinson became Pastor in May 1970 and Cloverdale Baptist took on a Mother Church relationship in 1971. The Church building was by this time too small so all services were held in Aldergrove Elementary School and the OAP Hall, with the adult Bible class under Howard Anderson held at the Elks Hall. Aldergrove Regular Baptist Church (later called Aldergrove Fellowship Baptist Church) was recognized by the Convention in 1973.
In 1975 the Patricia property was sold, and in 1977 a previously purchased property in Aldergrove that the municipality had rendered unusable by expropriating a road allowance was also sold, and the Swensson Avenue property purchased. Construction of the current facility commenced September 21 of that year with much of the financing in the form of bonds sold to Church members. The Church Board consisted of Paul Chapman, Laurie Shuttleworth, and Rick Sutcliffe. Karl Horst was building committee chair, and there were 58 members. The first service in the new building was held June 18, 1978. Bible School averaged 95 and morning worship 90.
On September 1 1979 Rod Wilkinson resigned to resume his studies, and on December 21 1980, Sam McCallum became pastor. By 1984 membership reached 147 and attendance was close to 200 with 140 in the Bible School, so the church began a work in Abbotsford with thirty of its members under Pastor Jack Glupker. In 1985 this became Immanuel Fellowship Baptist Church.
During these years there were many baptisms and the church ran Christian Service Brigade and Pioneer Girls clubs, as well as an active seniors ministry. Despite the transfers to Immanuel, membership remained over 120.
1988 was the year Monte Vigh became pastoral Intern. Later that year, Sam McCallum resigned to join the Fellowship office staff, and Fred Davison became Interim Pastor that September. In July, Monte and Fern Vigh left to take up ministry in Merritt. On October 1, 1989, Fred's son-in-law Marshall Davis became pastor, and the following year Fred was made visitation pastor.
In the years following, many things changed in church life. Sunday Schools declined as fewer parents allowed children to go to church, and church participation generally also diminished even as the megachurch phenomenon took hold, decimating attendance at many small churches.
Robin Martens was assistant pastor for several years from 2000 and Marshall Davis remained pastor until resigning in 2008, whereupon the church called former pastor Rod Wilkinson to an interim ministry, which continued to the end of that year, as John Goulet-Jones became pastor in January of 2009. There were 58 members at the time. In subsequent years several families moved to distant places, and church attendance settled in the 60-120 range. Scott McArthur was part time Associate Pastor in 2008-2009.
John Goulet Jones continued as pastor until resigning in June 2017, and at that time AFBC undertook talks with Calvary Baptist Church of Aldergrove to merging the two churches. The two congregations began meeting together in January of 2018, and voted to join in February, at which times the two boards merged. The CBCA members joined AFBC on April 1, and the legal work and change of name to Aberdeen Baptist Church was completed on June 1 2018.