Administrative History

The Christian Family Center (CFC), Winnipeg, Manitoba, was a congregation formed in the year 2000.  The congregation originally formed out of the Spanish MB church, when then pastor of said congregation, Elton DaSilva, began to lead services in English with roughly a dozen others in a separate room at 81 Henderson Highway.  Elton’s father, Elizeu DaSilva, joined to provide additional leadership to the infant and emerging congregation.

The congregation grew quickly and became registered as a charitable organization in 2002. Later, in 2004, CFC joined the Manitoba MB conference.  Buses were purchased to pick up children in the Elmwood area for children’s programs on Sunday mornings, youth programs were run on the weekend, and approximately 140 people were attending Sunday morning services, including the approximate 50 children that were present for Sunday school programming.

During the church’s early years, leadership responsibilities were overseen by Elton, Elizeu, and Ana DaSilva (pastor Elton’s wife).  However, the leadership team began to expand quickly between 2004 and 2005 upon the arrival of Cynthia Frazer, Fred and Jolene Stoesz, and Adolf and Lina Neufeld, and the additional arrival of George and Aileen Klassen in 2006.  It was at this time that SOUL (School of Urban Leadership), began conducting classes out of Christian Family Center with George Klassen serving as director (click here to see the CMBS collection for SOUL).

In 2010, the congregation celebrated its 10-year anniversary and held an appreciation service for the DaSilvas for the work they had contributed to Christian Family Center.  Later that year, Pastor Elton accepted the position of executive director of the Manitoba MB Conference. This led to the need to search for a new lead pastor. During this time, the church also experienced some decline in attendance.  In 2011, Edgar French took over the role of pastor. While there were new people coming to Christian Family Center, the overall numbers and giving of the congregation continued to decline.

In 2013, the leadership team began to discuss the viability of the congregation.  This led the leadership team to open discussions about a potential church merger with Elmwood MB; however, the decision was made not to pursue said merger in 2015.  After more key leaders left the congregation, Sunday school classes were forced to come to an end.  A preliminary conversation about becoming a satellite church of The Meeting Place occurred later that fall, but this proposal was also rejected. The church decided to close and held a legacy celebration service as its final official gathering on January 17, 2016.

The leaders of the congregation were Elton DaSilva (2000–2010) and Edgar French (2011–2016).

The language of worship was English.

Note: The source of this administrative history is “The Story of CFC” found in vol. 1519, fld. 46.