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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - When Yellowknife Vineyard Church members Tina and Shauna Crowe were baptized in Long Lake on Sunday, they both knew what feelings and emotions were in store for them.

Yellowknife Vineyard Church pastor Ryan Peters baptizes Shauna Crowe, 12, and her mother, Tina, in Long Lake on July 3. - photo courtesy of Lindsay McKay, Yellowknife Vineyard Church

Shauna, 12, said she saw the sun shine brighter and a cloud shaped like a dove, as peace and calm came over her - the same transformation she had seen in someone else she knows.

"He didn't believe in God at first, but after he started going to church, he started changing," Shauna explained. "He was calmer, he was happier - and he's my dad."

The peace that came over Shauna's mother, Tina, when she was also dipped into the lake by Vineyard pastor Ryan Peters, was a welcome change, she said, to the anxiety and panic she experienced before she joined the church five years ago.

"I felt an amazing calm that I never thought I could possibly have," Tina said, adding she had held off her baptism for a long time for fear of the cold water.

"Initially it was freezing, but then it warmed up," she said. "I just felt as if God had warmed the water saying 'I'm here for you and proud of you for jumping into the cold water.'"

Such poise in even the most unnerving situations is a quality that Tina saw in the women she met in a Yellowknife home-schooling group, and who would invite her to the Vineyard Church.

"They were all strong, God-loving Christian women," Tina said. "In struggles, trials, blessings, joy, whatever came, they were always at peace because they believed it was all in God's hands - I looked at them and said, I want what they got."

Tina credits the Vineyard Church for her still being in Yellowknife. She'd been homesick for Ontario after moving here and finding it difficult to meet people.

The church places great emphasis on building an authentic community, pastor Ryan Peters explained. He said the church is built on "authentics:" authentic worship, authentic discipleship and authentic compassion.

"The vision is loving God, loving people:" Peters said, adding the church's location inside the Discovery Inn Centre in downtown Yellowknife, makes it easy for people to access.

"We will take anybody, warts and all," he said. "We think it's important to make sure that people aren't isolated, especially here in the North, where so many young singles come with their profession in mind and whatnot.

"We want to reach out to them and just love them and just do the community thing."

Peters says on a good day between 100 and 120 people join in Sunday service.

The Vineyard Church is not considered a separate denomination so much as it is a conglomeration of Christian churches with common beliefs. The Vineyard movement was started in the 1970s by a woman named Carol Wimber in California. There are about 65 Vineyard congregations across Canada today.

Pastor Peters and Tina Crowe agree that the authenticity of the congregation is what draws people to the church.

"What you see is what you get," Tina said. "We're just a bunch of loving people."

Next week: Calvary Community Church.

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