AhlulBayt News Agency: A former United church in Thornton has found new life as a thriving mosque, providing a dedicated space for the area’s growing Shia Muslim community.
In May 2024, the Zainabiya Community Centre (ZCC) began renting space in the former Countryside United, which had disbanded the previous summer. Shining Waters Regional Council had asked the United Property Resource Corporation (UPRC), which helps congregations make property decisions, to manage the site.
When it disbanded, Countryside United counted between 15 and 20 regular attendees at Sunday worship. Now, the mosque serves the Shia Muslim community surrounding Thornton, including Barrie and Innisfil, drawing about 100 people on a regular basis and more during special events.
The growing Barrie-area Shia community needed a permanent space, says Rizwan Khalfan, president of the Islamic Shia Ithna-Asheri Jamaat of Toronto, which operates three more community centres in the Greater Toronto Area.
“They needed something [so] that they can feel a sense of identity,” he says. They had been renting spaces on an adhoc basis until striking an agreement to rent the Countryside United building.
But finding a long-term space was not an easy task, says Khalfan, who worked with the local group on their search. Owners of commercial spaces had reservations about renting to a community who would use the property as a place of worship. “I think most of them were worried about how much parking are you going to require, how many people are going to attend, what is the impact on the neighbourhood?”
But Countryside United was already set up for worship. Converting the space to function as a mosque involved removing the pews, laying carpet so the new congregation could worship on the floor, and installing blinds that can be drawn over the stained glass windows.
Jody Maltby, regional staff lead and communities of faith minister for Shin- ing Waters, explains that when a congregation closes, the regional council decides what will happen with the prop- erty. While selling the property was the go-to solution of the past, Shining Waters is now trying to be more creative. “We want to hold the property for the possibility of future ministry in that location,” she says.
Shelina Dhalla, who regularly attends the Zainabiya Community Centre and is the principal of Al-Mahdi Study Centre, an Islamic school housed within the mosque, likened the ZCC to Türkiye’s Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque, which was originally a Christian church but is now “a little bit of both.”
“When you walk in, you get the aura of the church as well as the mosque,” she says of the ZCC.
.................
End/ 257
Your Comment