ROCKYVIEW ALLIANCE CHURCH
Dan in front of the Douglas Harkness School

Our first Sunday at Rockyview Alliance Church in NE Calgary was November 27th, 1977.  Rockyview was a new church plant, meeting in the Douglas Harkness Elementary School, in a new area of Calgary known as The Properties.  The Properties consisted of four square miles and each square mile with its own name.  The school was in Pineridge Property, the SE corner of the foursome.

There was a good nucleus of people that made up the Rockyview Alliance Church congregation.  Many of them were young couples and young families.  As best I can remember the Sunday morning attendance was about 100 to 150.  We had the use of the school for Sunday mornings and evenings.

The Western Canadian District of the C&MA had purchased a five acre site in Pineridge Property in 1973 as a possible site for a future church.  Rockyview held its first service in The Properties  in October 1973. Gordon Fowler, the senior pastor of Foothills Alliance Church, was the speaker for that first Sunday service.  Those who met in the early beginnings were mostly folks from NE Calgary who had been attending First Alliance Church in the southern part of Calgary and Foothills Alliance Church in NW Calgary.

Pastor Norm Jamieson was the first pastor at Rockyview.  Under his ministry a building committee had been formed and plans were in the making with preliminary drawings of a proposed building on the property, which the WCD had purchased.  The Calgary officials did not approve the proposed plans.  Since the city's disapproval of proposed drawings happened several times and the plans were drawn by a draftsman in Abbotsford, which meant sending them to Abbotsford and waiting for their return, we paid him off, severing our relationship with the Abbotsford draftsman and hiring an architect in Calgary.  It is interesting that the condominium that Leona and I presently live in was designed by this Abbotsford gentleman.  I did some work for him, a narration for his Psalm 23 project.  I also had his funeral.

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