Knox Presbyterian Church

Knox Presbyterian Church stands on Mill Street North in Waterdown, with its entrance and parking off Church Street. The congregation’s history, written by a member who volunteers with the Flamborough Historical Archives, dates a Presbyterian congregation in Waterdown to 1830, when the Reverend William King of Nelson established one. After the Disruption in the Church of Scotland, Waterdown had two Presbyterian congregations: a Free Church congregation, which built a stone church called Knox on Mill Street in the 1850s, and a Church of Scotland congregation, St. Andrew’s, with a frame church on Main Street. The two later united as one congregation, known since then as Knox Church.

The original stone church survives as the Gathering Hall. In 1901 a red-brick sanctuary was built onto its front; the congregation’s history records that the cornerstone was laid on 25 June 1901 and the church dedicated on 10 November, and the City’s heritage inventory names Stewart McPhie as its architect. A two-storey addition with a kitchen, offices, a library and meeting rooms was dedicated in January 1997. The inventory records that Knox became an independent charge in 1980, and its lead pastor is the Reverend Lea Wilkening.

One contemporary service is held each Sunday at 10:00 a.m., all year round, in person and on YouTube, with children’s programs during the service.

What to expect

A greeter welcomes visitors at the parking-lot entrance. The one service is contemporary, with singing, family time, prayer, scripture and preaching, and the church says to come as you are, whether in jeans and a T-shirt or a suit and tie. Children begin in worship and leave after the children's story and song for their own program in the Education Wing. Refreshments and conversation follow in the Gathering Hall.

What Presbyterians believe and how they worship