The Legacy and Influence of Ole Forseth, Man of Prayer and Planter of the First FCA Church in Canada in 1913

On November 19, 2017, Elizabeth Larson (1928 to present) was interviewed during the Sunday morning service of the Maranatha Niverville FCA Affiliate Congregation.  She told the story of the influence of her father, Ole Forseth (1887-1972) who in 1913 planted the first Fellowship of Christian Assemblies Church in Canada, the Bethel Pentecostal Church, at Buffalo Lake, Alberta (about 25 miles from Grande Prairie).

This recent interview can be heard on Maranatha Niverville’s church web-site here.  

This picture was taken of Elizabeth’s parents, Ole and Karen Forseth in 1907, while they still lived in Norway, about five years before they came to Canada in 1912 and the next year to Buffalo Lake, northern Alberta, in 1913.

Ole had just become a Christian when he came to live in Buffalo Lake, Alberta, and he started farming as a dairy farmer.  As Ole was milking the cows one day shortly after his conversion, he felt a burden in his heart that there was something that God wanted him to do in Canada. 

It seemed like God was telling him to hold church services, and to talk to people in his community of Buffalo Lake, Alberta, about the gospel.

He at first resisted the call, telling God, “Well, you know, God, I am not a preacher.  I don’t have any experience like that whatsoever,” but yet this impression about holding services kept coming to him over and over again that he needed to act on this.

Then, one day, Ole Forseth said, “OK, God, this is what I will do.  Tonight I will have a service at my house, and I will invite a few people to come.  If you will save two people in that service, then I will start holding regular services, and plant a church in this community!”

So they had a service in his house that evening, and two people received Christ as personal Lord and Saviour in the meeting that night.  This how Ole Forseth began to publicly minister the gospel message, and he ended up starting the first Fellowship of Christian Assemblies Congregation in Canada at Buffalo Lake, planting a church congregation in 1913.  That congregation is still going today in a much larger facility than the original building, with room for 250 people in a community with only a few people in it.

Prayer in the Forseth Home

This is the Forseth log house in which Elizabeth was raised and grew up in.  It was a place where she can remember relatives coming in, and they would have prayer times in their kitchen.  She recalls, even as a three-year-old (in 1931), that she would go and crawl behind the wood stove in the kitchen, and lay back there, and listen to them pray as they lifted up their voice to the Throne of Grace, calling upon the Name of Jesus!

By 1934, this “replacement” house was built as the residence for Ole and Karen Forseth’s family when Elizabeth was six years of age.  By the time that she was nine years of age, Elizabeth decided that she really wanted to accept Jesus as her personal Lord and Savior as well, and to invite Jesus to come into her heart.  She wanted to have the same type of relationship with Father God that her father and her mother role-modeled. 

When Elizabeth opened her heart to Christ, she cried so much that there was a big pool of tears by her chair.  Her mother came with a mop to mop up the pool of tears, and she can show you the exact spot in that house today where she met Jesus Christ personally and experientially as her Lord and Saviour.  By 13 years of age, Elizabeth was baptized in the Holy Spirit, and that was also a very powerful experience.

Ole Forseth’s Ministry Beyond the Home

Ole Forseth had a vision that was truly apostolic, in that not only did he plant a church in Buffalo Lake, but he also held tent meetings and started other churches in the region, and paved the way for others.  After the Sunday morning service at Buffalo Lake, he would faithfully walk every Sunday to Poplar Hill, Alberta, just 12 miles away, even if it was 45 degrees below zero.  Then he would walk the back to Buffalo Lake!

The church at Poplar Hill started out with tent meetings during summer.  One year, the response to the tent meetings was so great that the three-week tent meeting was extended to six weeks, and many people were saved, healed and delivered. He also conducted similar tent meetings in communities like Groundbirch, B. C., on highway #97 about half-way between Dawson Creek and Chetwynd.

Ole Forseth also held tent meetings at Valleyview, Alberta, where people were saved and set free.  Many of them are still going on with the Lord today.  Ole’s daughter Elizabeth and her husband Leroy eventually planted a church in Valleyview based on the relationships that Ole Forseth had already built.

There is also a relational connection between the church in Buffalo Lake and the eventual planting of what is today one of the Canadian FCA’s largest congregations, the Christian Fellowship Assembly in Grande Prairie, Alberta which is presently pastored by Glenn Breitkreuz.  According to the CFA’s website, when this church was planted in 1951 through the ministry of Gordon Setterlund, the “Bethel Pentecostal Church in Buffalo Lake had laid the groundwork in prayer and later financial support.  They had a strong impression that a church in Grande Prairie was essential for the Peace River Region.”  Check this link.

There are many times when Ole Forseth would be called out to pray for people, even after midnight.  He would saddle up his horse, and go out at all hours of the day and night, even in the coldest of weather.  He walked to Poplar Hill, however, because there was no place to hitch a horse there. 

Whether travelling on foot or on horseback, however, Elizabeth used to pray that her father would come home safely, as he often made these trips alone at all hours under all types of weather conditions.  Yet he was not alone, because the Lord worked mightily through him, with signs, wonders and miracles following him wherever he went.

This picture, taken in Buffalo Lakes, Alberta, shows three generations of Forseth’s--1.  Ole’s father and Elizabeth Larson’s grandfather, Ingebrigt (middle),  2.  Ole’s son Bert, who is Elizabeth’s oldest brother, (left) and  3.  Ole Forseth, Elizabeth Larson’s father, on the right.

Ole Forseth at the Family Farm and in front of the house built at Buffalo Lake, Alberta, in 1934.  

Ole Forseth (centre front) with three living sons and five sons-in-law.  Back row (left to right):  Leroy Larson (Elizabeth), Bernard Liland (Lillian), Chris Benterud (Edna); Bernie Rempel (Castella).  Front row (left to right):  Bert Forseth, Thor Forseth, Ole Forseth, Marvin Forseth and Walter Sawatsky (Amy).  (Keith Forseth had previously deceased).

Karen Forseth with her five daughters:  Edna Benterud, Lillian Liland, Amy Sawatsky, Castella Rempel, and Elizabeth Larson.

Ole Forseth Brings A. W. Rasmussen to Canada in the Early 1940’s

By the early 1940’s, Ole Forseth was instrumental in bringing A. W. Rasmussen from Chicago to Buffalo Lake, Alberta, to speak at the tent meeting hosted by the Bethel Pentecostal Church.   Rasmussen saw the need for a central gathering point to rally the many small groups and congregations that were emerging in Alberta so that these groups could be connected relationally without becoming a denomination.
Elizabeth Larson can clearly remember sitting on the doorsteps of her home in Buffalo Lake, listening to A. W. Rasmussen talking to her father, Ole Forseth, as well as to another elder, Julius Liland.  She remembers Rasmussen asking these two men that if he moved from Chicago to Edmonton to start a church there as a rallying point for what was happening in the region, would they stand with him and support him?  They both promised that they would.

Ole Forseth’s Family Moved to Edmonton Around 1943 to Help with Preparations for the New Church There 

Around 1943, when Elizabeth Larson was fifteen years of age, her family moved to Edmonton to have a part in rallying these small groups and emerging churches together.  During World War II, when the U. S. army had just completed building the Alaska Highway from Dawson Creek, B. C. (Mile Zero) to Anchorage, Alaska, the U. S. Army offered Ole’s ministry two Army Huts for free.

So Ole Forseth arranged to go to Dawson Creek to disassemble these huts, and to ship them by train to Edmonton.  They were then assembled in Edmonton by 1946 when the Edmonton Gospel Temple, located at 10330 – 95^th Street, was incorporated in Alberta. The rampant philosophy of the post-World War II was highly materialistic.  Yet, at the Edmonton Gospel Temple, there was a growing and insatiable hunger and appetite for the Presence of God.

So A. W. Rasmussen moved his family from Chicago, Illinois, to Edmonton, Alberta, around 1945, and founded the Edmonton Gospel Temple, which was established and incorporated in the province of Alberta in 1946.  Rasmussen was soon joined by Thomas E. Crane, and together they founded the Temple Bible College.

During the time shortly after Ole Forseth and his family moved to Edmonton, between 1943 and 1946, when Elizabeth was between 15 and 18 years of age, she worked for an insurance company, and when she was finished work, she would rush to the church and have an evening lunch, following which they would have prayer.  Sometimes these prayer services would go on until 2:00 and 3:00 in the morning!

Of course, by then, the street cars in Edmonton had quit running, so she had no ride to get home from there.  However, there was one student from Temple Bible College who had a car, and so it was great to have a ride offered at 2:00 or 3:00 a.m.  This is how she started dating Leroy Larson in the midst of daily prayer meetings that went into the wee hours of the morning!  She gratefully accepted his offer of a ride home!

Then, after arriving home, she would need to be up by 7:00 a.m. the next morning in order to walk four blocks to a street car which took her back to work again.  It didn’t seem like they even got tired, so she kept doing it day after day.  There were a lot of miraculous things that took place during those prayer services.  They were never bored in church. 

They always wanted to be there, because they didn’t want to miss out on anything.  Elizabeth Larson states that she thoroughly enjoyed this time, and really felt herself growing in God, and having a vital relationship and daily meeting with Him.  By 1946, when Elizabeth was 18 years of age, she married Leroy Larson in Edmonton.  This was a relationship that was literally birthed in prayer!

The Latter Rain Movement Comes to the Edmonton Gospel Temple in October, 1948

The Edmonton Gospel Temple, at that time, hosted two Conventions annually.  From October 24-31, 1948, they hosted a Latter Rain Convention, just a few months after this movement started in North Battleford, Saskatchewan.  At that time, the church was pastored by A. W. Rasmussen and Thomas E. Crane.  Ern Baxter said of that convention:  “I never saw such a concentration of the power of God!”

Richard M. Riss in his book, Latter Rain, The Latter Rain movement of 1948 and the Mid-Twentieth Century Evangelical Awakening, has documented some of the outstanding features of the Edmonton meetings in October of 1948, one of them being “the heavenly choir,” which was described by James Watt as follows:

“…Heaven’s very strains filled the whole church.  It was as a mighty organ, with great swelling chords, and solo parts weaving in and out, yet with perfect harmony.  Those who heard it some blocks away said that it did something to their souls that no power on earth had previously touched.

“Special healings were wrought: deaf heard, blind saw, cancers were healed, and sick bodies were made whole.  Sinners were saved, and the precious blood of Jesus availed in it all.”

The Latter Rain Movement of 1948 to 1950 restored things like singing in the Spirit, the prophetic song of the Lord, the gifts of the Spirit (especially the word of prophecy), and the restoration of five-fold ministry gifts.  This was a precursor to the charismatic renewal of the late 1960’s and 1970’s.  By the late 1970’s and early 1980’s the FCA’s Full Gospel Chapel in Steinbach, pastored by Glen Forsberg (with assistant pastor Dave Larson, a son of Leroy and Elizabeth Larson), helped to give birth to a number of present FCA churches in southern Manitoba, including Ste. Anne, Oakbank, Grunthal, Landmark and Maranatha Niverville which was established in 1978.  Further, another son, Dennis Larson, is a valued part of the FCA Family of ministers in southern Manitoba to this day!

It should also be noted that there is a relational connection between Glen Forsberg and the Forseth family inasmuch as Glen’s mother, Cora Forsberg, was a double cousin to Elizabeth Larson.  The mothers of Cora and Elizabeth were sisters and their fathers were brothers. 

Further, it was Cora’s parents (Glen Forsberg’s grandparents), Peter and Margaret Forseth who were the two people who got saved at Ole’s first Bible Study in 1913 at Buffalo Lake, Alberta, on the occasion where Ole had asked for a sign that two people get saved at his first service before he would continue to hold services!  That was the turning point at which Ole Forseth started pastoring churches in his home community of Buffalo Lake, Alberta, as well as some of the neighboring communities.

I cannot help but believe that there is a relational connection between the roots of the FCA in Canada in places like Buffalo Lake and Edmonton, Alberta, and the present-day FCA churches in Manitoba who have a deep hunger and appetite for God’s Presence as they organize the FCA International Convergence in Winnipeg from May 1 to 4, 2018.

Even though parts of the Latter Rain Movement did get side-tracked along the lines of human control with some individuals seeing themselves as the exclusive “custodians” of the renewal, the fact remains that this movement in which the Edmonton Gospel Temple was a catalyst had a global impact that still affects the Body of Christ worldwide today wherever there is freedom in praise and worship, and freedom for the gifts of the Spirit to operate unto edification.

This is still a part of the FCA legacy in Canada, a legacy of a family of churches that steer clear of centralized control in favour of relational governance and accountability.  Spiritual authority is recognized within the context of spiritual fathers and mothers, leaders whose heart is to edify and to build up others and to release the next generation to go further rather than rather than to move in non-relational control.

As Dr. Ernest Wright wrote in his book, The Rule of God:

“God through the work of the Spirit, has always been at war with human institutionalism, because the institution becomes idolatrous, self-perpetuating, and self-worshipping…because man tries to make the Spirit follow law.  Christian history has a way of breaking out of all bounds, of achieving the unexpected, and of violating institutional proprieties.”

Leroy and Elizabeth Larson’s Ministry since 1954

Leroy and Elizabeth Larson, building on the legacy of prayer role-modelled by her father Ole Forseth, certainly went on to leave an exemplary legacy in the Kingdom where they did not “lord it over the flock,” or exceed their recognized sphere of spiritual authority, or cause church splits or carnal divisions.  Between 1954 and 1959, based upon the legacy of Ole’s tent meetings in Valleyview, Alberta, Leroy and Elizabeth planted a local church in that community in which they saw many salvations, healings, and amazing miracles to the glory of God.

That church is still going on today, and is being pastored by a man that Elizabeth mentored and taught as a boy in Sunday School.  So they, in turn, have now passed a legacy along to the next generation.

Between 1959 and 1966, Leroy and Elizabeth Larson pastored a church in Weldon, Saskatchewan, a church that Roger and Marge Armbruster also pastored between 1980 and 1982.  Again, they started ministry there when the church was small, but they left the congregation stronger, and with a bigger church building and a parsonage that Roger and Marge were privileged to live in during the early 1980’s.

From 1966 to 1975, Leroy and Elizabeth moved to Fort McMurray where they also gave leadership to a struggling church at the time, but left it better off with increase and a greater level of spiritual vitality.  This was and is all directly related to a legacy of prayer that wherever the Larson’s went, they edified, strengthened and increased the spiritual vitality of churches with God working many mighty acts and awesome works in every place they went.

Leroy and Elizabeth continued to stay on at Fort McMurray until June of 1976 so as to make for a smooth transition with the new pastor that came to Fort McMurray at that time—Darrel Nelson.  In the Fall of 1981, I (Roger Armbruster), while pastoring at Weldon, was privileged to be one of the speakers at the FCA Annual Convention that was held at Fort McMurray while Darrel Nelson was still pastoring there.

In June of 1976, the Larsons moved back to Edmonton where their marriage and ministry had been birthed amid a prayer movement at the Edmonton Gospel Temple in the 1940’s.  After their return to Edmonton, Leroy became the construction superintendent of the Edmonton Gospel Temple which was undergoing a new building project at a new location.

In the FCA National Convention in 1983, Leroy and Elizabeth Larson were honored by the FCA Heritage Awards Committee for the legacy of faith that they had inherited from Ole and Karen Forseth who planted the first FCA church in Canada in 1913, and for the legacy that they in turn have passed on to the next generation.

Leroy Larson passed away at the age of 82 on December 10, 2002, with the funeral being held at the Richfield Christian Fellowship, the new name of what was formerly the Edmonton Gospel Temple, and which is now located at 3715- 85^th Street.

During the interview that Elizabeth Larson gave, at age 89, on November 19, 2017, at the Maranatha Niverville congregation,  she stated that she believes that there is an even greater movement of prayer and of manifestations of the Holy Spirit in the coming days of the church than what she saw in a previous generation.  She is not just talking about “the good old days” and how good that it used to be, but she sees something greater coming in the next generation, a greater glory to come.

Maranatha!  The Lord is Coming!