THE STORY OF THE PIONEER PARK CHURCH

AFFILIATION: Pioneer Park Church is part of the Church of God with U.S.A. offices in Anderson, Indiana which began in 1881 as a movement emphasizing the unity of God's people and holy living. Read More...

The Pioneer Park Church has been in the Kitchener/Waterloo area for more than 50 years – but we pick up the journey in 1971 when a group of around 100 believers began fellowshipping together in Sunnyside Senior Public School. This group’s desire was to serve the Lord and share His love in the community.

In need of a full time pastor, the church invited Pastor Karl Kaefer and his family from Germany to as pastor. Pastor Karl gave leadership from 1972 to 1981.

There was much excitement in 1974 when it was decided that a plot of land on Old Carriage Drive was to be the location of the new church building. Many people gave sacrificially of their time, talents and resources to keep the building costs down. By God’s grace the building was dedicated on the 8th of June, 1975.

All services for adults, youth and children were held in German at this time. Eventually families realized that it was necessary for a transition to be made to English services. At first, the services were translated from German to English by way of headsets. The next step was to translate from English to German. By the beginning of the 1990’s everything was in English except for one adult Sunday school class. This was such a blessing to those seniors who understood and supported the need to change, but yet found it so much easier to fellowship in their first language.

Pastor Sieg Pudel pastored the church until 1992 when he sensed God’s call to plant a church in Brampton, Ontario. While the congregation was waiting for a new pastor, an addition consisting of the nursery, larger foyer, additional Sunday school rooms and upstairs offices were added. During the period between 1992 and 1996 the church was led by Pastor Don Coleman (92 – 94) and Pastor Steve Mason (95 – 96). Both of these men and their families were from the United States and eventually returned to their homeland. In December of 1996 Pastor Stan Desjardine began to pastor the Pioneer Park congregation. Chris Pudel was installed as Associate Pastor in 2004. Pastor Desjardine retired from ministry at Pioneer Park in 2009 and Margaret Lennox took on the role of Interim Pastor. In April of 2011, Pastor Craig Arbon began serving as Lead Pastor. Both Craig and Chris continued to serve in pastoral ministry at Pioneer Park until September, 2013 when Pastor Chris his wife Vicki and their 2 sons moved to take on the role of lead pastor of a church in Saskatoon, SK.

In December 2011 we began a Food Cupboard Program affiliated with the Food Bank of Waterloo Region, read more about that here

And what does the future hold? We believe God has a plan and a future for the church as we endeavour to impact the Doon/Pioneer Park area with the love of Jesus Christ.