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By Lloyd Mackey
NORTHGATE Foursquare Church is something old and
something new on northern Vancouver Island.
The three-site church, with services each week in
Courtenay, Campbell River and Gold River, has possessed the
‘Northgate’ moniker for less than three years. Before that, it
was known as Courtenay Foursquare, and had served the Comox Valley for 65
years.
Today, the Courtenay congregation of 300 is the base
for two more worship sites, each of which draws 50 people or more weekly in
the two main cities north of Courtenay.
 Scott and Naomi Gaglardi serve as senior pastor couple
of Northgate. Married for 17 years, they have three children: Mercedes,
Emerson and Hudson. Scott says it is strictly coincidental that they all
have ‘car’ names.)
The couple honour those who went before in Courtenay.
“During the first 30 years, there were 28
pastors,” says Scott.
“Then for the next 25, Ross Fox served. He was
well known in the community as a faithful, loving and caring pastor. And
the church sustained a ‘season of growth’ for six years, after
that, through the leadership of George Donavan.”
Scott’s parents, Ken and Eunice Gaglardi serve as
associate pastor couple. Ken was a professor for many years at Kwantlen
University College in Langley, and served as a pastor in Fort Langley. The
couple also served in mission roles in Liberia for several years.
And, yes, they are related to the late ‘Flying
Phil’ Gaglardi, the Pentecostal minister who became W.A.C.
Bennett’s colourful road-building highways minister in the 50s, 60s
and early 70s. Ken and Scott are his nephew and great-nephew.
“And the Gaglardi family remains pretty tight. We
have regular reunions and keep in contact with Phil’s sons,”
Scott says, referring to those in the family who built a strong regional
hotel and real estate empire.
Most of the activity of this branch of the family has
been in church development. That has meant taking on some cutting edge
approaches to serving community needs.
“We couldn’t do it without the team of
people from each of the communities, who let us know that there was a need
for a worship site there,” Gaglardi says. He makes that statement by
way of emphasis that they did not come in with a “master plan”
for planting church sites.
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Corey and Janice Klassen are the pastor couple
associates at Campbell River, one hour north of Courtenay. And Darla and
Romeo Gaiga fill the same role in Gold River.
“If there were other people in other North Island
communities, with the leadership and commitment qualities of these people,
we could easily develop three more sites,” Gaglardi suggests.
Craig and Shanda Millar are the other associates and
Matt Delblanc is the children’s pastor. They help as liaisons between
the three campuses.
Asked if the multi-site approach was inspired by
similarly-named four-campus Northside Foursquare Church in the Tri-Cities
area on the north side of the Fraser River, Gaglardi answered “yes
and no.” The Northside campuses, he pointed out, are relatively close
to each other.
But it is true that the Foursquare denomination (a
branch of Pentecostalism founded almost a century ago by famed evangelist
Aimee Semple McPherson) is encouraging multi-site church development.
Sermon videos from the Courtenay campus are passed on
to the Campbell River and Gold River sites, and worship teams are being
developed for both places. “It is how we want to express the
kingdom,” notes Gaglardi.
Family is pretty important in the Northgate development
philosophy, as expressed in the materials offered to visitors:
• A worshipping family – experiencing
liberty, joy and an awareness of God’s presence.
• A loving family – extending grace,
acceptance and forgiveness to others and receiving them in return.
• A serving family – involving ourselves in
service and ministry according to our God given gifts and abilities.
• A giving family – giving sacrificially and
generously of the resources God has given to us.
• A praying family – seeking
God’s Kingdom with a confidence that God is moving, and knowing that
Spirit-directed prayers always bring about God’s goodness (Romans 8:
28).
• A growing family – becoming more like
Jesus Christ in our character, passions and priorities.
Contact: www.ngate.ca.
October 2008
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