A storefront to the gospel

In one wing of the vast West Edmonton Mall, a tiny chapel has stood for 40 years, tucked away by the Fantasyland Hotel and near the replica of the Santa Maria. Despite its long tenure, some people are still surprised to learn it is there.

“You get to the other side of the mall, they’re like, ‘There’s a chapel?’” says Tammy Saunders, the chapel’s executive director. “It’s like a different part of the city. The mission there is – it’s not about pushing our religion or our faith, but it’s to say, ‘We do exist. And if you need us, we are here.’”

Rebranded from Marketplace Chapel to LoveEdmonton Chapel in 2017, the chapel works to serve city locals, tourists and employees of the mall. I was aware of a chapel in West Edmonton Mall, since I’ve visited the mall all my life. But I didn’t know about its activities until my former church started a Bible study there. Every Friday night, we would troop out, never knowing who would walk by and join in. The atmosphere was a bit different with the echo-y sounds of shoppers just outside our circle.

Where the youth are

The mall itself has over 800 stores and about 24,000 employees, which make up one large audience for the chapel to serve. In addition, about 30-32 million people visit the mall every year.
“This is the mission,” Saunders explained to me. “Not Edmonton per se, but West Edmonton Mall. Edmonton enters the mall, but we don’t leave the mall.”

They strive to be a blessing to those in the mall. For example, during the Christmas season volunteers deliver cookies to every store, and they’ve just started doing a similar thing during the Easter season with chocolates.

Youth in particular are regulars at the chapel, since the mall is a big draw for teenagers. In Edmonton, there have always been stories about the “mall rats,” who lived in the mall’s labyrinthine passageways. While this no longer happens, the mall is still an easy place for teenagers to gather. Thursdays are the scheduled Youth Drop-In, but they show up every day to do their homework, have conversations with the staff, and just hang out. Through the years, staff have attended their graduations and helped some of them find churches to attend, watching as young people who didn’t want anything to do with God grow into strong believers.

Saunders describes one young woman from a Muslim background who came to the chapel with a friend and decided she wasn’t coming back. But as she was leaving, someone offered to pray for her and took her hand. “She said she felt a warmth she’d never felt before,” says Saunders. “And she knew that she was cared for and loved . . . She started coming back. She came into relationship with the Lord.”

Other activities at the chapel include giving out hundreds of Bibles. They are one of the largest distributors of the Our Daily Bread devotional pamphlets, and each day, many mall employees stop by to get the next devotional. They also run a 24/7 prayer line, which connects to volunteers at a local church.

Nelson Wolf’s vision

In 1982, when the second phase of the mall was being built and the third phase was being discussed, a young man named Nelson Wolf had a vision. He felt God telling him, “This monument is being built to man, but what about a monument to God?” He set about convincing the Ghermezian family, who owned the mall, to let him open a chapel there. They agreed.
Wolf then reached out to local churches for support in his mission. There was a lot of pushback from Christians who couldn’t understand why he would establish a church in such a consumerist place, but he held on firmly to his vision.

“If Jesus were in Edmonton, I believe he would come here because this is where the people are,” he is quoted as saying in the Edmonton Journal in February 1986. “He came into the marketplace to heal people and he caught a lot of flak for it. But he came because he cared about the inner man.”

Over the years, the look of the chapel has changed quite a bit. Originally, it looked more like a church, with a door separating it from the mall. But now it has been renovated to be a flexible space with cozy booths along the sides where people can chat, an open space ready for worship or services or other activities, and long tables where students can do homework or people can gather for Bible study.

Unique challenges

Is this a model that other ministries in Canada or around the world should follow? Saunders says that is the ultimate dream. But she emphasizes that not every mall in Canada has the traffic to support such an outreach. West Edmonton Mall receives a lot of traffic.

The mall environment itself provides some tension too. The chapel is a tenant like any other store, and the mall has strict rules about proselytizing, so the staff and volunteers are very careful about demonstrating they’re there to serve the people. There’s also the very public nature of doing ministry in a mall where everyone can see what’s happening inside the chapel. And, of course, there’s the atmosphere of materialism in the location that makes an odd partner for ministry.

“When I get here and I want a tea – I walk down to Tim Horton’s as a habit – I’m praying while I’m walking down there: ‘Let the light of Christ roll from this place through the mall,’” says Saunders. She remembers violent events and criminal activity that have happened in the mall in the past and sees the need for God’s light to shine.

The chapel could always use more volunteers, and for people to partner with them to support its work and provide things like Bibles. And they’d love for people to stop by and visit.

40 years is a long time. Not many of the original stores in the mall are still around, but the chapel is. “I feel incredibly blessed that the Lord led me here and this is where I serve him,” concludes Saunders. “It’s incredibly unique.”