A generation unfamiliar with God is finding faith and fun in, of all places, the West Edmonton Mall.The Lovedmonton Chapel started 37 years ago to represent a faith two millenia old. And yet, teens and those older continue to discover the place and the faith for the first time.Ali Takahashi, 18, plays a keyboard in one of the chapel’s few closed spaces. The daughter of nominal Catholics said once she discovered the chapel, it became a regular part of her life.“I only saw it but then I never knew what it was. I had my friends explain it to me. They're like, ‘This place, you can check it out.’ And I came here. I found out it's amazing,” she said.Takahashi said she spends four days a week hanging out at the chapel, sometimes to study her homework and other times the Bible.“II's really calm. And you really find your relationship with God here and it's not just like a religion, it's a relationship that helps you through life. When I come here, it just gets my stress out of this place,” she said.“It just helped me a lot mentally and physically too. The people here are so nice, the community here, it's just so kind and amazing. And it just helps you relax. It feels like it's a place out of the world.”A.J. Nesbitt, a grade 11 student, likes the space and is usually there at least three times a week.“It's just like, a really chill area. And a lot of fun people here. Most of the time, it's just like normal conversations with friends. But sometimes, there's the occasional talk about God and the Bible and just questions about it and whatnot,” he said.“What keeps me coming back is the really good people here and the workers and how open they are to whatever you want to say and whatnot. They're genuinely really nice. And if you ask for a prayer or something, they'll give it to you.”The location is open seven days a week thanks to pastors, volunteers and participating donors and churches. The chapel has an open area flanked by booths. On the weekday afternoon the reporter was present, Asian teens were talking and laughing at one booth. At the next, another played guitar. .Braden Brodeur, a pastor at the chapel for the past year-and-a-half, says Asians, Buddhists, and atheists are often part of the crowd hanging out, as it was during our interview.“One thing I've really realized while being here is that no one knows much about Christianity anymore. Like most of the teenagers who come here, this is the first time anyone's ever prayed with them or anyone's ever asked them about God or faith or, ‘Who is Jesus?’” he said.“There's been so many times people will come in, and you're like, 'Can I pray for you?' And they're like, 'What is prayer?' It's something that's foreign to them entirely.”Brodeur said his recent habit of going to the gym at the mall has only led to more opportunities.“A kid comes up to me in the middle of a bench press. And he's like, 'Are you the mall priest?' and I was like, 'Close enough.' So I ended up talking with him in the gym, got to pray with him, came back to the chapel, got him a Bible. And then every week, I’d just see him at the gym, chat and catch up,” Brodeur recalled.Brodeur didn’t see the teenager for three weeks during the Christmas break, only to get surprising news at their next reunion.“He says, 'Brayden, over Christmas. I gave my heart to Jesus, I decided that it was the true and right thing,’” he said.“The wonder of this chapel is that we meet people where they're at, we meet them in the gyms, we meet them in the coffee shops. And we just share that gospel message that God has a plan and a purpose for your life, if you lay down and you repent, you come to Christ.”Although there are programs in the evenings, such as the Alpha course, Bible studies and worship services, Brodeur says many more things happen informally.“One of the teens here, you can see him sitting over there. He brought a friend to me in the gym. He's like, Braden, ‘This my friend Tristan. So, Tristan wants to convert to Christianity,’” Brodeur recalled.Brodeur met with Tristan at a Vietnamese restaurant, a teen he discovered had one parent who was a Japanese Buddhist and another who was a white atheist. Brodeur asked Tristan what he knew of God and the Bible.“He's like, ‘Just what I've seen on TV.’ So then I said, 'Why Jesus' and he said, it just seems right. So, God is drawing the next generation. We just have to be out and just say, 'Yeah, let me point you towards the Bible, let me point you towards the cross.’”Brodeur said Tristan has regularly attended a discipleship group at the chapel and that five teens have found faith in the past month. He said pastors and volunteers try to get newcomers connected to believers in regular churches, but his own Sunday morning church may not be a good fit.“I'm also a pastor of a church called Edmonton Father's House downtown. It's with the homeless a lot. It's a little bit more ghetto. So it's hard to get kids from West Edmonton Mall into Chinatown where you're stepping over people smoking crack to get in the church building.”Nineteen-year-old Ahron Tapaoan has made it a regular practice to volunteer at the chapel.“Everyone is just family here. It's just so great. With the youth, especially, some say they're atheists, but they pray to God, and they lay hands on people while they're praying. They're coming to faith, but they just don't realize it. It's funny,” he said.“It's a good place. It's fun. It's fun here, it's chill here. Very loud, at times, very quiet at times. But it's different every day.”Tapaoan said earlier in the day, a woman of his parents’ generation found help.“She had some deep problems and I was able to talk with her. She was very distressed. You could see her shaking and stuff like that. But at the end of it, after a prayer, after giving it all to God, she just came out refreshed. She got renewed strength from the Lord. So, it’s just all glory to God,” he said.Tapaoan, who studies social work at Grant McEwan University, says people have spiritual needs that mere secular tools can’t reach. He is especially glad the place exists for his peers and those younger.“It's a way for the youth nowadays to know who Christ is, because obviously, with the world we live in, TikTok, Instagram, they have some stuff that are not supposed to be shown to children, right?“So a chapel is a good way, a good outreach, especially at a mall with lots of kids, for people to know who Christ is and just have fun.”
