Our History

The Gathering Church was planted in the Williamsburg community in Kitchener in the year 2004 by Pastor Jim Loepp Thiessen and a small group of faithful and hopeful people.

The desire of The Gathering was to create a church community that would become a part of the community through vibrant worship, contemporary themes and biblical teaching, community building activities and through serving others. For our first 11 years we met for Sunday morning worship in the gym of W.T. Townshend Public School. In 2009 we leased an office/gathering space in a strip mall in the community. The early years saw The Gathering hosting free Neighbourhood Parties, Pancake Breakfasts, Easter Egg Hunts and Easter Brunch and hosting a weekly recreational program for children for June, July and August called Tuesdays in the Park.

In the spring of 2013 through a meeting with a resource worker with the House of Friendship, The Gathering was invited to serve those in need of food security in the Chandler Mowat community in Kitchener. The church started by providing food for special food distributions and hats and mitts for winter. The church saw that children in the community were often without healthy breakfast and lunches and so we began our Build-A-Lunch program, a weekly program formed in partnership with the City of Kitchener and The House Of Friendship, where children come to the community centre for breakfast and relationship building and head to school with a nutritious lunch. Each Wednesday morning we serve between 70 and 90 children.

In September 2015 a 'work-to-rule' job action meant we could not meet in the school gym for our Sunday worship services. We moved to Chandler Mowat Community Centre (CMCC) for what we thought would be our temporary worship space. After six months our faith community believed that God was calling us to make CMCC our new church home. We now meet for Sunday worship and midweek groups at CMCC. In the Fall of 2016 we began hosting monthly community suppers to provide a hot and healthy meal and to build relationships with our neighbours. Many times we have seen guests from the dinner join us for Sunday morning worship and small groups.

Today The Gathering is an authentic, young, welcoming, contemporary church that desires to seek God, driven by the Holy Spirit. We desire to make Jesus real to people by building relationships and being the hands and feet of Christ. Our average Sunday attendance is 100 people. We have an abundance of children under the age of 10 and many young adults and families with young children.

Our current mission is Making Jesus real to people and inviting them to follow. We seek to do this by serving others, learning and developing in faith together and by being a welcoming faith community.