Ontario Church Grateful For 150 Years of Christian Heritage

Mount Hope (Ont.) Community Christian Reformed Church celebrated 150 years of gospel proclamation in its location at the end of May, even though only eight of those years were as Mount Hope Community CRC.

The congregation, formed in 1952, used to be known as Mount Hamilton Christian Reformed Church and was located about 7 km (just under four and a half miles) northeast in Hamilton, Ont., but had the opportunity in 2018 to move its small congregation to the smaller village of Mount Hope. There, a declining United Church shut its doors to see its very small congregation dispersed to two other nearby United Church congregations. It’s that heritage that Mount Hope Community CRC celebrated on May 24.

“A couple came who had been married here in 1990 and had all their children christened here,” said Trish Demik, a Mount Hope Community church regular. The church had hoped to welcome community members and any past church members to the open house coffee hour after Sunday worship. About 50 people attended the service.

Rhonda Singh, who has been attending the church with her husband, Greg, for about four months, visited the Glanbrook Heritage Society to gather historical documents, which church administrator Marlene arranged around the church’s fellowship hall in a kind of timeline from 1876 to the present. Singh had honed her historical research skills doing family genealogy as a hobby and offered to help the church prepare for the celebration.

She learned, unexpectedly, that her own family had ties to the historic church. “I knew my family had been farming in Glanford and it turns out that the cemetery with the family plot (not far down the road) is linked to this parish,” Singh said. “I’m back 100-something years later.”

Singh and her husband found the church when looking for a quiet, candlelight service on Christmas Eve 2025, and she said the welcome and community presence have encouraged them. “We’re amazed with such a small congregation how much you guys do for the community,” Singh shared with her friend Christine Demik at the anniversary coffee time.

The maps and some artifacts, such as a 1954 church birthday calendar from the heritage society and framed photographs of historic Mount Hope borrowed from a long-lived auto shop next door, showed the church visitors and regulars what the building and surroundings looked like in decades past.

The former Mount Hamilton CRC building was sold to Wellingstone Christian Home for the expansion of its seniors’ residences, purposefully constructed next to the church in the 1970s.

Pastor Joel Bootsma, who has served Mount Hope Community CRC since 2021, led the service noting the hymns chosen—composed in 1896, 1923, 1938, 1974, and the late 1980s—represented several eras. It being Pentecost Sunday, Bootsma preached from Acts 2, saying it was fitting that they were celebrating a milestone for this one church on what’s often thought of as “the birthday of the church.”