Marching to the Beat of a Different Drummer

A.J. Pell is rector of Christ Church in Hope, B.C., editor of the
Canadian Evangelical Review, and an instructor of Liturgy, Anglican
Studies Programme at Regent College in Vancouver, B.C.

This book traces the history of the Lakeshore Unitarian Universalist
Church on Montreal’s West Island, from its founding meeting of 36
people in a private home in 1973 to its current state of a “few
precious members” (143, who now rent space in a local United Church).
The reader is taken through the heady early years of its rapid growth,
and the 1957 purchase of 14 Cedar Avenue in Pointe Claire, a former
United Church that was Lakeshore’s home for its peak years. The
growth, however, did not continue, owing to the exodus of
English-speaking people from the region beginning in the 1970s and to
small disappointments and disagreements that resulted in people drifting
away.

The story does not follow a straight chronological path; rather, it
skips back and forth through the years as the author follows a topic or
a series of events or a group of people and their personal memories.
What emerges from these pages is a picture of a congregation of
strong-minded people with an active social conscience. But their initial
vision and vitality could not be sustained—a too-common occurrence in
post–World War II churches.