It all began in 1970’s…

Maranatha Church is evolved from a prayer fellowship that started in Edmonton in the 1970s. Those days this was the only Malayalam spiritual gathering in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. In 1992 Maranatha Gospel Fellowship got registered in Alberta and until December 2006, the worship was mainly on Saturday evenings. On December 09, 2006, the church took a new turn by introducing a full Malayalam service on Sunday mornings and thereby establishing its name as the FIRST AND THE OLDEST MALAYALAM PENTECOSTAL CHURCH in Edmonton.

Our first service was held at Pastor Wilson Kadavil’s house. On January 2007, the Christ Family Fellowship graciously opened their facility for our Sunday worship. On November 01, 2008 we moved into our own facility at 2411-96 Street, Edmonton and in 2009, by the grace of God, we were able to expand the existing facility.

The first service was started with five families. Even though, most of our Sunday worshippers are Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu speaking believers, we see a growth in Caucasian, Spanish and Chinese speakers in our church. Since the spiritual growth of our children is of paramount importance to us, our worships songs are multilingual. Our messages are either in English or translated to English.

For the last 10 years, Maranatha Church has been a light-house in the city of Edmonton. Many people came to know Jesus and accepted Him as their personal Lord and Savior through the ministry of this church. Almighty God has been providing us with the opportunities and means to help many needy people around the world. We were instrumental in starting the Western Pentecostal Conference (WPC) in 1988. Our prayer is that we will continue to serve the South Indian community of Edmonton, and also be a blessing to other language and ethnic groups of this city.

Maranatha, pronounced as Mar’-ah-na’-tha, is a word found in the New Testament of Aramaic origin, the language spoken by Jews at the time of Jesus. It literally means “Come, O Lord”. It is generally believed that the early church often greeted one another by saying “Maranatha”.

Christians lived in constant expectation that Lord Jesus may come any day to establish the golden ages of eternity where there will be no more sin, sorrow, death and trouble. In fact, this is something that we seem to forget in this busy world. We live as if the second coming of Jesus Christ is still far away. But if we look at the signs of our time (2 Timothy 3: 1-5), it would be clear that we must also greet one another by shouting “Maranatha – Our Lord is Coming”; hence our name Maranatha Church!