By Lloyd Mackey

“I THINK God had a plan for us all along.”

With those words, Ken Adsett concluded his talk to the Oak Bay United Church congregation April 4. It was the Sunday before they moved back into their almost-century-old sanctuary after a 17-year absence.

The congregation, which counts around 200 when everybody is there, will celebrate being ‘home again’ on the weekend of October 2 - 3. There will be an open house, two different style Sunday services and a Saturday evening concert.

Adsett, who is a past board chair of the church and has been a part of its life since 1980, recalls the day in 1993 when a report recommended demolition of the old church because of serious structural problems. The cost to fix it up was estimated to exceed the price of a new building by 25 percent. “And even then, it would not be up to code,” he recalls.

Adsett explains that “The engineers were raising alarm that the roof would cave in.”

Leakage into the timber curtain walls, constructed in 1914, was causing “ballooning” of the structure.

The congregation moved into Gardiner Hall, the gymnatorium at the side of the red brick edifice at the corner of Granite and Mitchell, three blocks southwest of picturesque Oak Bay Village.

“We worshipped for a few years [there] trying two services each Sunday and various configurations of seating orientation . . . but it never seemed just right,” Adsett said.

After two years, the congregation decided to try a joint arrangement with the Anglican Church of St. Mary the Virgin, three blocks north, across Oak Bay Avenue.

St. Mary had a fairly new building seating around 400. Adsett recalls that the Anglicans were most accommodating and congenial. The leaders of the two churches even talked about a “buy-in” joint ownership arrangement. But things did not work out, so back the congregation went to Gardiner Hall.

The status quo remained into the early 2000s.

Then, Adsett said, “some new people came in with some new ideas. We decided to take a second look. They told us that with modern technology, we could fix up the old church.”

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Adsett chaired the “magical meeting” September 24, 2006, when the congregation, voted unanimously to embark on a $3.5 million campaign to refurbish the church.

He told the congregation April 4,  “I have never conducted a congregational meeting with the kind of electric atmosphere evident here that day, and I have never had a motion at a general meeting where the congregation stood and applauded its passing.”  

Adsett has fulsome praise for the congregation, the church’s Thrift Shop and Annex and the project managers at different stages, Del Volk and Kristen Jordan.

At one stage, there was a plan to go to people and groups outside the church to raise funds, since the sanctuary would be a valued asset for all of Oak Bay. That did not work, either, but the congregation put a fair amount into it, and there were a couple of good sized bequests during that time.

Adsett notes, “I have always been a firm believer that God has things planned out for us well in advance.

“Otherwise, how can I explain some of the things that have happened in my life, unplanned and unforeseen on my part, and conversely things I thought should happen that didn’t.  We have no idea how or why, but we just have faith that all will be well.

There were times of disappointment, but Adsett says, “I remember mostly the elation in hearing that modern technology would allow us to rebuild and that this congregation was willing to undertake the costs.”

In the end, the building was not only restored but was also given a seismic upgrade, and the basement was enlarged to provide bright new educational and social rooms. The balcony was reshaped to remove a sound-dead area beneath it. A state-of-the-art sound system has been included as well.

Adsett expects the church will serve as a concert hall for the community. In making the plans for the reopening, the congregation has been connecting with Oak Bay’s many arts and cultural groups.

There was a bluegrass concert July 30, and the buzz from that concert has created a lot of interest throughout the Oak Bay and Greater Victoria area. “Someone was there from the CBC who was impressed with the acoustics,” Adsett reports.

The ministerial staff, too, is looking forward to the church’s new role in the community. Gail Miller, the senior minister, is on adoption leave, but Gaye Sharpe, the associate, has been providing pastoral leadership, along with music director Gordon Miller (no relation to Gail) and the newly appointed pastoral care minister, Joy Hunter.

October 2010