Street Church court case set for March 1st

Street Church court case set for March 1st

 

by John Syratt

 

The court date for Calgary’s Street Church to address the injunction they received from city officials to stop holding their meetings in a downtown park has been moved up to March 1 st.

 

Street Church pastor Art Pawlowski told eLN he wants to fill the courtroom up with believers as a statement to the media. The issue is over the use of amplified sound equipment in the park adjacent to the Calgary Drop-In Centre along the Bow River.

 

The church group, in or-der to preach to the home-less who make up a majority of their congregation, needs to use amplifiers to get above the din of the constant stream of motorists driving over the bridge beside the park.

 

"Every time we’ve talked with the city officials," Pawlowski said, "we’ve tried to work with them, but the whole deal is they want to shut us down complete¬ly. We’re trying to work with them anyway." ‘We had a battle with the Health Department because we were feeding the street people and they told us to stop," he continued. "1 told them Jesus commanded us to feed the poor and that my wife is the one doing the cooking and my children are eating with us." "They said we needed to take a two-day course and they would give us a certificate to enable us to do what we’re doing," he added. "So that’s what we’re doing, if that will make them happy. To me it’s just a waste of our time."

 

Pawlowski believes the leaders of Street Church have done everything they can to comply. "We’re not backing down," he noted. "This country needs to stand up or we’ll lose our freedoms."

 

The court case is sched-uled for 2pm at the Court of Queen’s Bench in down¬town Calgary.

 

For more information visit www.streetchurch.ca.