Our Lady of Victory Catholic church does not have a priest and services there are performed by a deacon. The Anglican Church of the Ascension and the Holy Cross Lutheran Church merged last year due to declining congregations and the loss of the Lutheran minister.

Yet even though the churches are going through huge changes -- some use the word revolutionary -- the changes don't mean Inuvik has lost its faith. Lay ministers, deacons and congregations themselves are taking on new responsibilities and that is changing the way people worship.

"A lot of people have responded in very heartwarming ways over the last year," says Edward Lavoie of that church's reaction to the changes occurring there.

Lavoie has conducted services at the Catholic church since Father Dowling left a year ago, and the shortage of priests for Northern parishes means there will probably not be a new priest for some time.

"It hasn't always been easy, but when you've walked down the road we've walked, there is always going to be this memory of what we've built. We've built a community."

As a deacon, Lavoie is allowed to marry and can carry out the duties of a priest, but cannot hear confession or bless the bread and wine. The church now gets visiting priests to bless bread and wine that is then stored, and holds communal confessions several times a year.

As a result, the church attracts people of other faiths who enjoy the fellowship and a non-dogmatic worship, Lavoie says, and is blazing a trail that other churches may be forced to follow due to the increasing scarcity of priests.

"The days of every small community having their own priest are coming to an end. Priests will always be there to remind us we're in something universal...but the Northern church is breaking ground that the southern church will have to walk in 50 years."

The Baptists, whose search for a new minister is being conducted by the Baptist Union of Western Canada in Edmonton, chose to suspend services until one can be found and turn over their church to a day care to pay for its upkeep.

"We were faced with closing the building or leasing it out and we chose to lease it out for a year. We look at it as a grand community service," says church member Scott Gallup.

A couple of potential ministers were identified last year but both fell through and now the congregation is waiting to hear if more have been found.

The Anglican Church of the Ascension, which absorbed the remaining parishioners of Holy Cross Lutheran when that church lost its minister in late 1996 and the congregation was too small to keep the church going, is planning an expansion.

Pastor Larry Robertson, who performs a Lutheran service once a month, says the church is in the process of buying a warehouse adjacent to its Mackenzie Drive facility and in anticipation of larger congregations, plans to turn it into a larger church.

"We're hoping," he says. "Nobody knows what the future holds, of course, but I figure Inuvik's down just about as far as it can go and I don't believe it is going to stay small for long. It's going to start growing again. There are clues."

The church currently has about 75 parishioners and can seat only about 100 in its current building. Robertson says he can see the congregation beginning to grow, especially as parents in the 30- to 40-year-old group begin bringing their children.

Robertson acknowledges it can be difficult to get ministers in the North, saying one of the main obstacles is the low pay and the high cost of living.

"We don't come up here to get rich, that's for sure," he says with a laugh.

Lavoie says churches are putting less energy into their buildings and concentrating instead on spiritual matters.

"The question is, are you going to put all your energy and efforts into buildings, or into building a congregation?"