CALGARY, AB—The senior pastor of one of Canada’s largest evangelical congregations says successful ministry has more to do with brokenness than brilliance.

Speaking to a meeting of this city’s evangelical ministerial, Henry Schorr of Centre Street Church (CSC) referred to two personal bouts with cancer as he said, “God works far more through brokenness than through brilliance.”

CSC attracts close to 3,000 worshippers on weekends and recently moved into a spacious new facility a couple of blocks from its former home that now serves as CSC’s West Campus. The new worship centre and the land on which it sits on are valued at close to $20 million.

CSC was planted by Salem Church, a congregation near downtown Calgary in 1958.

Gordon Elhard, an original member and retired public school superintendent, recounts how the new congregation struggled in its early years.

“When our first pastor passed away after a tenure of 10 years,” he says, “the next dozen years were tough. We hovered around 200 people and experienced the pain of people coming and going. In the mid-’70s a young guy named Dave Currie—now with Campus Crusade Canada—arrived and drove everybody nuts by causing a stir among the young people. Looking back, that’s when God began doing something special here.

“When we appointed Henry senior pastor in 1986,” Elhard says, “it was with the belief that if God could do something significant among our young people, why couldn’t this happen in the whole church?

“How do you explain what’s taken place here in recent years?” Elhard asks. “I haven’t the foggiest. But when I think of the 600 children and the close to 700 youth that gather each week, there’s a verse in the Old Testament that comes to mind. It says, “God has done a thing in Israel.” And God, in His wisdom, has similarly decided to do a thing at CSC.”

Schorr says CSC has come through three “eras.” The first was the era of grounding when a solid core of people devoted to Scripture and prayer stepped out in faith to plant a new congregation.

That period was followed by an era of growth Schorr refers to as “a move of God that’s left us in awe.

“In response to spiritual stagnancy the leaders of CSC called the people to prayer,” says Schorr. “Prayer time was initiated every Sunday before services where it became obvious that when spiritual leaders humble themselves to seek God’s face, He responds.

“God prepared me in a unique way,” he adds. “Three years before coming to CSC I was informed I had life-threatening cancer. God revealed there was too much of me in me and enrolled me in the graduate school of suffering.”

When the cancer returned shortly after Schorr became CSC’s senior pastor, “God taught me to number my days," he says. A spontaneous prayer meeting occurred at the church when news broke of the cancer’s recurrence; the beginning of CSC’s transition from a relationally cold group to a praying, caring congregation.

In identifying the era of generosity the church has now entered—including church plants in Montreal, Romania, Ukraine and Mexico—Schorr reminds his ministerial colleagues it is not a pastor’s job to build the church.

“The Lord’s given Jesus that responsibility,” he says. “God’s called us to have a relationship with Him and to lead our people in having a relationship with Him.”