A century of service locally and around the world will be celebrated by Williamstown Gospel Mission Church at a thanksgiving service this Sunday.
The small independent evangelical church began its work on May 19, 1916, originally meeting in the schoolrooms of a house at Pasco Street.
As numbers grew, the congregation moved to the nearby Oddfellows Hall, also in Pasco Street and became the Williamstown Gospel Mission.
In 1922, parishioners started a building fund and in 1928 bought a block at 8-10 Electra Street, where the church stands today.
Pastor Nick Holod said the church’s driving force had been its missionary work.
“We’ve supported missionaries local, interstate and overseas,” he said.
“Many of our own people have gone out to those mission fields – Aboriginal work, European work, Japanese, Borneo, South-East Asia … I could go on.
“In the 1920s, the church conducted out-reach work in south Williamstown, Fisherman’s Bend, Port Melbourne and Werribee.”
A big focus of the church today is a fortnightly men’s group it calls the Men’s Support Mission.
“This group helps men, and their families, that are going through various difficult issues such as divorce and separation, depression, anger issues, various addictions and loneliness,” Mr Holod said.
“It’s not churchy churchy – we’re talking about real facts and figures … what’s going on in our local community and what we can do about it, how we’re going to help people.
“We’ve seen lives change for the better through this group.”
Mr Holod is also involved with Prison Fellowship Victoria, which organises concerts and programs at local prisons.
