Covenant Canadian Reformed Church

Covenant Canadian Reformed Church was instituted on 12 August 2001 by members of the Canadian Reformed congregations at Smithville and Lincoln. It met in Smithville at first, and in late 2006 its own church was completed on Woolverton Road in the hamlet of Grassie, at the edge of the Niagara Escarpment inside the Town of Grimsby. The congregation describes itself as roughly 450 members of all ages. It belongs to Classis Niagara, and its minister is Rev. John Louwerse, who accepted its call in November 2023.

Worship is held twice each Sunday, at 9:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. The morning sermon expounds a passage of Scripture and the afternoon sermon often works through the Heidelberg Catechism. The church is governed by a consistory of the minister, elders and deacons under the Church Order of the Canadian Reformed Churches.

The congregation keeps a community garden on its property and gives the produce to the Grimsby Benevolent Fund. With Smithville Canadian Reformed Church it supports the work of Rev. Edwer Dethan in West Timor, Indonesia, where he plants churches, runs a seminary and an orphanage. Grimsby’s second Canadian Reformed congregation, Living Light, was instituted in Covenant’s building on 12 September 2021.

What to expect

Worship is held twice each Sunday. The congregation sings from the Book of Praise, the Anglo-Genevan Psalter, and Scripture is read from the English Standard Version, with copies in each pew. Believing adults and the infants of members are baptized, and the Lord's Supper is celebrated every two months for members and visitors who confess the faith.

What Canadian Reformed Christians believe and how they worship