Prairie churches stand out here on the prairies and plains of Canada and the United States. They are eclipsed by few other structures in the countryside, creating a cultural landscape like no other. Testaments to faith and community, prairie churches captured the heart of the communities and people who lived and workd in them.
These churches provide dramatic strokes upon the prairie landscape, the churches of the first settlers continue paying tribute to their founders’ heritage, their faith, their God. Although many of these country edifices have disappeared, the survivors still honor the convictions of the pioneers.
The Midnapore Church of England Society salutes those houses of worship–powerful monuments to the individual homesteaders and immigrants who determined that a spiritual life was an elementary part of their precarious existence. The enduring survival of these structures is a reminder of the central role that religious belief has played in both the private and the community life of the prairie countryside.
Prairie churches renew our admiration for the faith of our ancestors and reinforces the connection between faith and community.