About Us
Calvary Christian Reformed Church Ottawa East
How did it all begin?
In 1958, our congregation was established and located in Navan. Our church building, at its current location, was finished in 1968, with additional renovations completed around 2010. As is still the case, some of our members live in Ottawa, but many others live in a large area to the South-East of the city. We are not a city church based in Ottawa, but a regional congregation.
What does it mean to be Reformed Christians?
To our congregation, being Reformed is an active state. Guided by the Holy Word, we must constantly examine and be alert to the spiritual needs of both our church, and the world as a whole, assessing how we are to live, and taking that out into the community in our daily lives.
How has Calvary served over the years?
Over the last 20 years we have been invovled in the sponorship of refugees, including:
1980: a Vietnamese family of four;
1999: a Kosovo family of six;
2003: three young persons from Burundi;
2016: a Syrian family of five;
2018: a Syrian family of seven; and
2019: an Iranian family of four.
We are still in touch with most of these persons. The Iranian family had been active in evangelism in Iran, and in June ’22, this family, with Vision Ministries Canada, formed the Ottawa Persian Church, the first Persian language church in Ottawa. We now, as a congregation, support this ministry.
Several couples of our congregation have gone on Disaster Response Services teams through World Renew to Texas, New Jersey, North Carolina, New Orleans, Mississippi, New York, Indiana, and Alberta. A larger group of our members went to the Dominican Republic to help build a school.
Teams of young people and adults have also gone on intergenerational mission trips to Mexico, Texas, Mississippi, North Carolina and New York. One of our retired teachers has volunteered at Rehoboth Christian School in New Mexico.
Our Hands On women’s group, as part of a national reconciliation effort to bring healing in the pain and harm inflicted on children in residential schools, have sewn nine colourful quilts for Indigenous women.
Since 2010 several Calvary ladies have been challenging the congregation each year to buy gifts for Christmas through World Renew. Each gift is acknowledged by a tag on a Christmas tree beside the pulpit. Gifts of the year vary from sheep to goats to chickens to food for a family for a month, through World Renew and International Disaster Relief for refugees where needed. The congregation of Calvary responds from the heart: in 2021 we donated 191 gift baskets. The various collections for World Renew (World Hunger, Refugee Sunday, and especially those using the Canadian Foodgrains Bank) are well supported financially. For two years now a family of our congregation have made available 10 acres of land to grow crops of soybeans and corn for the Canadian Foodgrains Bank. Our farmers have provided equipment and seeds to plant and harvest these crops.