Royal York Baptist Church Etobicoke ON

"Our mission is to make followers of Jesus, by loving God, by caring for one another and the local community, and by living to reach our world for Christ."

Core Values of Royal York Baptist Church

A place of Community where we value:

· hospitality · generosity · encouragement & caring · communication & trust · family · acceptance

A place of Discipleship where we value:

· teaching · training & equipping · small groups · team · leadership · followership

A place of Worship where we value:

· praise · prayer · preaching · ordinances · humility

A place of Service where we value:

· stewardship · generosity · mission & outreach · social responsibility · creativity · small groups

 

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Download Pastor Kenneth Stravens vCard

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Royal York Baptist Church is located on the west side of Royal York Road, just south of The Westway/Lawrence Avenue West intersection.  

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Royal York Baptist Church is accessible for the physically challenged person, including an elevator and washroom facilities.

RYBC is accessible for those of us who are physically challenged. We have an elevator and washroom facilities.

Please call ahead at (416) 241-0441 so the we are prepared to greet you either by the ramp on the north side of the building, or the main entrance, which have power-assisted doors.  

"This is our story, This in our song, Praising our Saviour all the day long!" It was the year 1962, when some men from a local church knocked on the door of a young believer's home, offering a good deal on bags of fertilizer. There was no invite to worship, and no mention of The Good News of God's love. This visit, with no concern shown for the spiritual welfare of the people being visited, resulted in the young man making a proposal to his home church, Runnymede Baptist, to start a new Evangelical Baptist church in Etobicoke. The church gave its blessing to group of seven young couples and their children, plus one senior lady. And with much prayer, sent them off to begin a new work. This small group gathered often in homes for prayer and to discuss finances. We each marked down privately how much we could give each week. The total was $75, which allowed $15 for rent, $5 for supplies leaving $55 weekly as salary for a pastor. (What were we thinking? Who on earth would come as pastor for that measly amount? Read on...) A search was started for a pastor while arrangements were made to rent space in a local school, and flyers announcing the start of a new church were taken door-to-door. On Sunday, September 15th, 1963, the first service of Royal York Baptist Church began at Hilltop Public School in Etobicoke. We were excited to see who the Lord would bring, and were not disappointed as a goodly number of people turned up. The search for a pastor brought a few candidates, but no pastor. However, the Lord had something better in mind. The Youth Pastor at Runnymede, John Bonham, had planned to move out west. But, when we asked, he agreed to come and be the first pastor of Royal York Baptist. As $55 weekly was too low for a family of four to live on, Pastor John worked part-time as an accountant to help make ends meet. Another $15 could not be afforded to use the school in the evening, so we met in a church member’s home. We gathered joyously in the rec room while the pianist played upstairs. Quite often, we were not in sync, but that didn’t matter - we just continued making a joyful sound unto the Lord. Strangely, opposition to the church plans came unexpectedly from another evangelical church in the community. Praise the Lord, we were able to meet with them, smooth ruffled feathers, and peace reigned. As a new church, we grew by leaps and bounds, and it became evident that we needed some property on which to build our own church building. Our Lord was way ahead of us, and soon we were directed to 2.25 acres complete with a stone house on Royal York Road. The price was $60,000, which scared us half to death! The house was built with hand-cut stone by a Scottish stonemason (Mr. Slater) and his wife. The local plaza also wanted to purchase the property to enlarge. But since they would demolish the house, our bid was favoured. We all put ourselves in hock and arranged a loan with a local bank. (Mr. Slater had no idea when he was building the house that he was really building a church.) The entire structure was built with a truss roof, which allowed us to tear out all the internal walls, leaving a large open room as sanctuary. We worked almost night and day to turn the building into a House of the Lord. When it was finally completed, steeple and all in March 1965, we had a grand celebration with Dr. Gordon Brown, Pastor of Runnymede Baptist Church, officiating. By the year 1968, we were again bursting at the seams. So we engaged Church Enterprises of Simcoe to design plans for a larger building to be attached to our existing building. It was completed in May 1970 at a cost of $350,000. Another celebration of praise and worship climaxed the completion. In the year 1993, the need to make the church facilities more accessible to mothers with tots, the elderly, and disabled persons was becoming more and more evident. Thus, Christian architects and contractors were contracted to design and build a new worshiper-friendly addition, complete with elevator. In order to keep costs down. Church members and friends, (men, women, youth, and children) gladly poured thousands of hours of sweat equity into the new addition. The cost was still well over $325,00. On October 16th, 1994, the revised facility was offered to the Lord with abundant praise and worship with many dignitaries in attendance. With all praise and glory due His name, as the church building now stands, it is completely debt-free. ALL HAIL THE POWER OF JESUS' NAME!