Malton Church of God

In 1977, after much prayer, a young Huel Wilson accepted the assignment to pastor a small congregation meeting at Darcel Public School in Malton, Ontario. On the day he arrived, the membership consisted of three people: Brother and Sister Somerville and their children.

What happened next is the kind of story that gets told in the household of God for generations.

They began with three members and a guitar. Within a few years, the church had baptized many, run three buses to bring people to services, and become known across the Greater Toronto Area for its powerful evangelism. In 1990 — despite an initial rejection from lenders — the congregation purchased its first permanent home at 7050 Bramalea Road, transforming an industrial unit into a sanctuary. The very first Sunday in the new building, the room was full. Within a year, the congregation had doubled.

By the late 1980s and into the 1990s, members recall the church so full that chairs had to be placed in hallways to accommodate the crowds.