Our Story

Lakeview Church has had a few different names and called a few different parts of Saskatoon home. Our story started in Nutana, and had a home in Greystone Heights and Lakeview before finding our way to our current location on Glazier Road.

But the story begins with a teenage girl who believed Saskatoon needed a Free Methodist church.

It Started With Sarah

In the early 1900s, Free Methodist churches were beginning to appear across the Canadian Prairies. One of the people caught up in that movement was Sarah Boyes, a high school student who had attended Free Methodist evangelistic meetings and become convinced that a church should be established in Saskatoon.

Sarah wrote to district leader R.H. Hamilton asking when the Free Methodists were going to begin work in the city. She had found a brick storefront on Broadway Avenue that could be used rent-free for two months. Her message was straightforward: God wanted a Free Methodist church in Saskatoon. In 1921 a small group of people started meeting at 725 Broadway Ave (current day Calories restaurant).

Our story had begun.

Putting Down Roots

The young congregation's first pastors were also noteworthy. Two young women named Hazel Smith and Ethel Fletcher served as supply pastors during the church's first two years.

The Broadway mission eventually gave way to something more permanent. In 1928, the congregation built a church at Eastlake Avenue and Main Street at a cost of approximately $8,000. A stained-glass window from that building survives today, a physical reminder of those early years.

For the next several decades, the church became home to generations of Saskatoon families. The church was small, but the memories recorded by those who were part of it describe something significant: a deeply committed, intergenerational community where people were known and cared for.

That sense of community would remain an important part of our identity even as the congregation started to grow.

Following Saskatoon as the City Grew

By the early 1960s, Saskatoon was changing.

New neighbourhoods were appearing and the congregation at Eastlake and Main was growing. Church leadership began looking toward Greystone Heights, a developing neighbourhood that did not yet have a church.

Rather than waiting for people to come to them, they went to the neighbourhood. Beginning in 1961, Sunday school and morning worship were held at Greystone Heights School, while evening services and weekly activities continued at Eastlake and Main.

In 1963, property became available at Bateman Crescent and Main Street. Plans were drawn up and members of the congregation supplied much of the labour themselves. The new building was completed in late 1964 and the congregation took a new name: Greystone Heights Free Methodist Church.

It wouldn't be the last time the church followed Saskatoon into a new neighbourhood.

From Greystone Heights to Lakeview

In the 1970s the church had an increased emphasis on discipleship and community. Adult classes and small groups were established. Wednesday evenings became family nights, beginning with a shared meal followed by activities for children and choir rehearsals that sometimes included 30 or 40 adults.

Once again, the congregation began asking where it should go next. This time, attention turned toward the new community of Lakeview. It was an ambitious idea. The congregation numbered only about 175 people, yet plans called for a church capable of holding approximately 350.

They went ahead. The new building opened in the early 1980s at 130 Kingsmere Place, tripling the congregation's available space. With the move came another new name: Lakeview Free Methodist Church.

The congregation that had started in a borrowed storefront on Broadway had now moved for the third time in an effort to meet Saskatoon where the city was growing.

A Church Willing to Try Something Different

During the 1980s and early 1990s, Lakeview began experimenting with new ways of connecting with people who might never consider attending a traditional church.

Music became more contemporary. Drama became a regular part of Sunday services. Messages were designed to connect biblical teaching with everyday life. Small groups continued to grow, while youth rallies, mission trips, and expanded children's ministries introduced another generation to the church.

Lakeview had developed a reputation as a church where you didn't necessarily know what was going to happen when you walked through the doors on Sunday morning.

That was intentional. The methods were changing, but the reason behind them was familiar: reach people who weren't already being reached.

Growing Faster Than the Building

The congregation grew rapidly. Music and drama continued. Small groups provided community and biblical teaching throughout the week. Staff expanded and large numbers of volunteers served in children's, junior high, senior high and college ministries.

Eventually there simply wasn't enough room. Lakeview reached the point of holding five services every week: one on Saturday evening, three on Sunday morning and another worship service on Wednesday evening.

Something had to change.

Another Big Step of Faith

By 2001, Lakeview had begun seriously planning for another facility.

The scale of the proposed move was unlike anything Lakeview had attempted before. The proposed 60,000-square-foot facility would provide dedicated children's and youth spaces, a full size gymnasium, a café, bookstore, and an auditorium with theatre seating for more than 700 people. In 2006, Lakeview moved into its new home at 19 Glazier Road.

A Place for Community to Gather

Over the past 20 years Lakeview Church has settled into our home on Glazier Road, and our facility has become a place for our congregation, along with the broader community, to gather. Our church makes use of the facility for a wide range of ministries including programming for kids, youth, young adults, women, men, and seniors. Beyond our weekly worship gatherings on Sunday mornings, we also host monthly Red Room worship nights in collaboration with several other churches in the region. In 2025 we launched the Lakeview Early Learning Centre - a licensed childcare program with space for 40 children.

Beyond our own programs, our facility hosts a wide range of events. When this facility was constructed there was a vision that it would serve as hub for the surrounding community. We regularly host sporting events, dance competitions, educational conferences, seniors programs, cultural celebrations, weddings, funerals, and many more groups who are looking for a space to gather.

More Than a Century Later

Over the past 100+ years we have gathered at five different locations in Saskatoon. Along the way, we regularly remind ourselves that our facility is not our church. The church is the body of Christ - the followers of Jesus who are part of this community together. We love our home on Glazier road, but we want to be part of what God is doing throughout Saskatoon.

Our Mission is Joining God in the Renewal of all Things - and this compels us to stay alert and watch for the ways that God is on the move, and join in however we can.

Our Postures help orient us collectively towards that mission:

Backward: locating ourselves in God’s story.
Inward: Creating sacred space to encounter God.
Forward: Anticipating God’s movements.
Outward: Collaborating with God locally & globally.

Our Movements describe how we actually live that out, the rhythms and practices that shape us and send us into the world.

Live in Community. Grow Spiritually. Be Faithfully Present.

In many ways, it sounds very different from a three-week revival campaign held in Saskatoon in 1921.

In another way, it doesn't.

Sarah Boyes looked at her city and believed there should be a community where people could encounter Jesus.

People gathered in a storefront.

When that wasn't enough, we built.

When Saskatoon grew, we moved.

When traditional approaches stopped connecting with people, we tried new ones.

When our buildings became too small, we made room.

More than a century later, Lakeview's story is still being written.

The buildings have changed. The neighbourhoods have changed. Generations of pastors, staff members, volunteers and families have come and gone. The methods have changed many times.

But perhaps that willingness to keep moving, while remaining rooted in Jesus, is one of the threads that has been there from the beginning.

From a teenage girl's vision and a storefront on Broadway Avenue to a church community serving Saskatoon more than 100 years later, Lakeview's history is ultimately a story of ordinary people repeatedly asking the same question:

Where is God at work, and how can we join in?