Sharbot Lake Pentecostal Church Anniversary - 1925-2025

Gilbert Whan | Sep 11, 2025

Sharbot Lake Pentecostal Church celebrates it’s 100^th anniversary this year.  Because I am one of the older lifetime members of the church, I have been asked to share some of my memories as well as some of the early history of the church.

Information about the early years, I gleaned from my father, Edward Whan, who was among the founding members and was on the first board of stewards.  Also, my mother and grandfather and several original church members provided additional information.

My dad grew up in Olden Township, about 2½ miles from Sharbot Lake village.  He was the third youngest of 10 children; his mother died when he was young, and his father worked harvesting forestry products.  His older siblings had married, so that left he and the younger siblings to care for themselves much of the time.

Reaching his teenage years in the early 1920’s, he began to search for a better way of living; so, he visited 2 of the existing churches in the area, but did not connect with them.  Then someone told him about a man named Ernest Benn, who was holding tent meetings at Sharbot Lake.  He attended, and this was a life-changing decision that would shape his future.  Evangelist Benn was preaching from the Gospel of John chapter 3, and using terms such as our “need for repentance” and “salvation”, and quoting the verse, “unless a person is born again, they will not see the kingdom of Heaven.”   Mr. Benn’s prayers were passionate and personal; he prayed for the sick and miracles were happening.  My father’s sister-in-law was instantly healed of a severe migraine headache, and my father was healed of a severely injured finger.  This was the first of many miracles he would receive over the remaining years of his lifetime.

After a period of time, Evangelist Benn moved his tent to another village, leaving behind quite a large group of converts in Sharbot Lake.  Unfortunately, Mr. Benn’s straightforward preaching was not well received in his new location, as it condemned the lifestyle some were living; so they burned his stent and its furnishings, and stole his travel trunk containing his personal belongings.  After the fire, Mr. Benn went to my grandfather’s sister’s home, asking for a place to pray that God would show him where his trunk was.  After a time of prayer, he asked for the help of her 2 teenage sons, who went with him up a hill in a nearby woods and came back carrying the trunk!

With no place to hold his meetings, Mr. Benn left the area and was last heard to be living in the Tamworth area.  However, the Sharbot Lake group remained strong and continued to grow under the leadership of Mrs. Carolyn Fair.  She and her husband, Jim, lived across the road from the present Pentecostal parsonage; he ran a car dealership and she ran a shoe store.  Mrs. Fair organized church meetings in various homes and she arranged for Bible College students to pastor during the summer months when they were not in school.  With the group’s permission, Mrs. Fair arranged for the church to join the charitable organization called “The Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada”, which held to similar Biblical beliefs, and the church has remained under their constitutional guidelines over the years, eventually adopting the name “Sharbot Lake Pentecostal Church”, to comply with government regulations for charitable organizations. 

As their numbers grew, it soon became obvious that a church building was needed, so they began to make plans to build.  Mr. and Mrs. Fair donated the land, for the price of one dollar, and a shallow basement was dug out with hand shovels.  The head carpenter was William Loucks.  A 20-inch-thick fieldstone reinforced poured concrete foundation was built.  Several members of the group owned property with standing timber that would make good logs, which they donated.  Volunteer work crews were organized, logs were cut and loaded onto horse-drawn wagons and were hauled to a water-powered sawmill in Maberly, to be made into the material needed to frame the church.  The outside of the building was clad in pine siding and the inside walls were covered with various widths of v-joint fir, which was commonly used in churches built in that era.  The windows were factory-made.  The first full-time pastor came while the church was being built; his name was George Griffin and he was 18 years old.  I was told that, as he nailed the last piece of siding on the church, he said, “May there always be a shout of praise in this church!”

There was a platform and 2 small rooms at the front of the sanctuary; 1 room served as a bedroom and the other as a kitchen for the pastor, until the original parsonage was built around 1930.  The church was heated by a wood furnace in the basement, and the lighting was provided by several kerosene lamps mounted on black metal brackets along each side wall.  The only colourful stained glass window was on the east end of the building, next to Road 38.  The earliest pews I remember were made of hardwood, a factory-built bench type with carved armrests on the end supports and hymn book racks and communion cup holders on the back.  Later, new pews, made of pine and plywood, were built by Perth Planing Mill; after many years, 2 generous church members had these pews covered with foam padding and red velvet, making them much more comfortable to sit on. 

Over the years, several additions and renovations have been made.  A prayer room was built on the west end of the church, the inside walls of the church were painted light green, and the ceiling was painted white.  Electric lights were installed.  Later, the west end of the church was opened up, allowing the platform to be moved forward to enlarge the sanctuary.  During the 1960’s and 1970’s, our emphasis was to try to increase Sunday School attendance.  During that time, we saw our Sunday School attendance grow from about 40 to nearly 200 weekly; the highest number we had was 221 on an Easter Sunday morning. 

The Bonner property, next to the church, was purchased and used as a parking lot and parsonage; the former parsonage was then used for Sunday School classrooms.  A much-needed addition to the church was built on the south side of the church building, consisting of a hallway, office space, a washroom, and a classroom, along with a new entrance with a ramp.  Around 2010, the old room on the west end of the church was torn down and a new extension was built to allow more platform and altar space; the entire roof was replaced with steel roofing.

During the 1970’s, during the summer months, the church was able to have drive-in-church on Sunday evenings, for 7 years.  Then in the 1990’s, we began a series of gospel music concerts at Oso beach Sunday evenings each summer, for 15 years.  In 1991 we were blessed with several talented musicians in our church and we formed a group called Country Church Band.  Various forms of this group continued their ministry for 22 years, doing over 700 concerts all over Eastern Ontario.  Any profits received by this group were donated to our church building fund and to purchase a new sound board and microphones for the church.

Sadly, we have seen a decline in church attendance over the last few years, but we are thankful to have had several new families join us.  Our prayer for the future is that God will enable us to live up to our motto, which is to be a lighthouse in our community, guiding people to the way of salvation and eternal life in Heaven.  We give thanks to God for His faithfulness over the past 100 years!  “The Lord’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.” Lamentations 3:22-23.