A Brief History of Dayspring

This is a brief synopsis of Dayspring's history. For a more complete account, please refer to "History of Dayspring Presbyterian Church: 25th Anniversary, June 1969 - June 1994".

Our Story: 1966 – 1991

Dayspring Church began in 1966 as the Southwest extension of the Rupert Street Presbyterian Church. The first services were held in Malmo School. The minister of Rupert Street Presbyterian Church led services in both locations for about a year. In 1969, when the Southwest extension had grown in numbers, they were constituted as a separate congregation on June 14, with the name “Dayspring Presbyterian Church.” Rupert Street Church chose to amalgamate with its daughter church on July 1, 1969.

The Rupert Street Church property was sold and the proceeds formed the financial foundation upon which a new church building was constructed on land purchased by the Presbyterian Church in Canada at the present location. An L-shaped multi-purpose building, costing $115,000, was constructed and opened in December, 1973.

The congregation grew steadily, to the extent that there was no longer room for new persons in the Sanctuary. At the 1988 Annual Meeting, a Building Committee was formed to address the need for additional space. During a three-year period, the congregation contributed $300,000 to “Expand the Vision” through renovating and expanding the existing building and creating a new Sanctuary. Phase One (Kitchen, Washroom, furnace room, classroom) was completed in 1990 at a cost of $100,000. Phase Two (Sanctuary and renovations to the offices and gathering space on the main floor and the upstairs meeting room) was completed in December 1991 at an additional cost of over $500,000. The cost of the 1990-1991 Two-Phase Project has now been paid in full.

Our Story: The 1990s

During the past several years, the congregation has grown steadily in numbers, to the extent that the Sanctuary was often full to overflowing, and the Christian Education space could not accommodate all of the children who came to Church School. The gathering space was “elbow-to-elbow” during the coffee hour and there was not enough parking space in the parking-lot.

We added four part-time staff, but did not have offices for them. Our adult learning, fellowship, and care programs and our service to the community expanded, and we have not had adequate space for these activities. We did not have a space, other than our Sanctuary, in which we could gather more than 60 people for a congregational fellowship event. Our kitchen, although it was expanded in 1990, was still quite small.

The Beginning of the Third Millennium

After more than a year of general discussion and focus groups, the Congregation voted to expand our facilities in June 1998. The Building Committee worked with an architect for 18 months, generating good ideas and a design that was responsive to the dreams of the focus groups. However, the estimated cost considerably exceeded available resources.

The Building Committee worked with the ideas generated in consultation with an architect, and produced an affordable footprint for the Building and Parking-Lot Expansion. That footprint design was approved by our denomination’s Church Architecture Committee in Fall 2000. It was further refined in Summer/Fall 2001, with the new design (doubling our square footage) receiving the approval of the Church Architecture Committee of the Presbyterian Church in Canada on January 29, 2002.

During 1999, a Building Finance Committee was formed. This committee ran a fundraising campaign (“Building to Serve”) in Fall 2000 that resulted in cash and three-year pledges. The total committed for “Building to Serve” was approximately $480,000. The balance of the nearly $1 million cost of construction and furnishing the new facilities was raised through First and Second Mortgages with the Presbyterian Church Building Corporation and the Presbyterian Church in Canada Lending Fund. At the end of 2007, the mortgage debt was approximately $214,000. We anticipate being able to retire that debt by early in the second decade of the Third Millennium.

While involved in the planning process, we learned that the present Sanctuary cannot be expanded except at great cost. It seemed that the only option available to increase our seating capacity for Sunday worship was to have two services. We tried that for a while, but it did not work for us. Now, we have one Sunday morning service at 10 a.m. and, for overflow at special services, funerals/memorials and weddings, we are able to seat persons in our Great Hall, at the rear of the Sanctuary. Strategically located doors from the Sanctuary into the Great Hall allow clear sight lines to the worship platform and our carefully designed sound system enables full participation in services.

A slideshow of some photographs of the church are available.