Avenue Road Church was a church located on Avenue Road in Toronto, Canada.

A number of well know preachers served in its pulpit, including its founder Charles Templeton and the famous author Aiden Wilson Tozer.

Templeton originally founded the church in 1941 as an independent congregation, but it eventually became associated with the Christian and Missionary Alliance denomination.

The building was originally a Presbyterian church. The Presbyterian congregation eventually left the building and it remained empty for 14 years. Templeton and his wife decided to rent the empty building for $100 a month, even without a congregation. Due to his dynamic preaching, the new independent congregation grew until Templeton went into dept to pay for the construction of a balcony to hold hundreds more. It was soon after the balcony was complete that the structure was severely damaged by fire. Due to donations from supporters accross Canada and the United States, the building was repaired.

During the mid-1970s, the growing congregation left the downtown area to found Bayview Glen Church north of the city in Thornhill, Ontario. During the congregation’s move, there was controversy surrounding the sale of the church building to a buyer who secretly represented a Hare Krishna group. Despite the church’s desire that the building not be sold to a group they considered to be a dangerous cult, it has since become a highly visible Hare Krishna temple.

Today, Bayview Glen Church is one of the pre-eminent evangelical churches in the Toronto area, and one of the largest Christian and Missionary Alliance congregations in Canada.

External link

http://www.bayviewglen.org