When Murray McLellan grew up in Saskatchewan, he didn’t go to a Bible-believing church. In fact, there were no Bible-believing churches near where he lived. His family wasn’t Christian, and he never heard the gospel.
When he became a physical education teacher in Leask, a village an hour north of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, a student’s father asked him, “If this bus was to crash and you were to die, what would happen to you?” Three weeks later, Murray met a church planter. God used that planter to open his eyes to open his eyes to who Jesus is. Murray became a Christian and joined the small church.
Three months after coming to Christ, the church planter asked Murray to meet with him every Saturday morning to be equipped in his faith. They met in the planter’s home every Saturday for an hour of systematic theology, an hour studying a book of the Bible, and an hour of Greek.
Murray moved to Alberta but eventually returned to Leask. His wife Cheryl came to faith in Jesus too.
From Teacher to Planter
Murray continued to teach but also began to pastor the church in Leask. He figured he’d continue as a teacher and part-time pastor until he retired.
But Murray also had a burden for evangelism. “I think part of that comes up from not growing up in the church, not growing up knowing the gospel,” he says. He began a number of initiatives, including an Evening of Theology at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon.
A number of students made professions of faith. Murray sent them to good churches in the area, but the students had a hard time getting connected, so Murray drove to Saskatoon on Sunday nights to disciple them. He began to pray that God would send a church planter to start a new church.
Eventually, the group of new believers in Saskatoon grew larger than the church in Leask. “The Lord was doing something, and I was just trying to hold on for dear life and see what he might do,” Murray recalls. “We began to realize that with this group of new disciples that we had a church beginning. And so that’s when we got intentional and just decided we have to shift into what God is doing here. But it was definitely an accidental plant.”
In 2007, Murray sold his home and moved to Saskatoon to plan the church. They aimed to establish a solid core of two dozen people. Although they saw people come to Christ, growth was slow, and people would often move away. “It was a very slow process, but we just felt committed to making disciples, to be faithful to the Scriptures. We wanted to make much of Jesus to centre on the gospel and just trust God.”
Murray, then in his fifties, felt old to be a church planter. “Sometimes I’d be the oldest person in a room of church planters,” he says. “But for me, I knew that I could not have planted before then. God had to take me through a lot of things to humble me, to give me enough experiences and suffering to be in the place where I could plant.”
In 2008, Clay Bitner, an aspiring church planter, contacted Murray for advice. Murray encouraged Clay to stay in his church, but Clay pressed Murray on how to get the training he needed. Eventually, with his church’s blessing, Clay and his wife Kim moved to Saskatoon to learn from Murray.
Sam Whitehawk, an indigenous man, also heard about Murray when the group in Saskatoon had about 16 people, and began to train under him. “He gave us basically a free seminary education, gave us all the books to read, papers to write. And it was incredible,” Clay says.
Lowest of Lows
In 2010, the fledgling church decided to begin holding services in a downtown movie theatre in order to reach more unbelievers. Some key people opposed this decision and decided to leave the church.
Murray and the leaders prayed and concluded that God was calling them to take that step despite the opposition. They launched their first service on January 9, 2011 in the Galaxy Theatre (currently known as Scotiabank Theatre) in Downtown Saskatoon.
They launched with just a handful of people. Soon after they started, another key leader left with his family and friends. Renting the theatre cost $1,500 month split between just three families. Murray also faced the pressure of continuing to teach in Leask while pastoring this young church.
“We were at the lowest of lows, and by any earthly standards, there was no way through. We weren’t going to make it,” remembers Sam Whitehawk. “But we prayed and sensed the Lord was going to bring us through. From a very early on as a newborn church plant, we learn to be dependent on the spirit of God and the grace of God to us through. Having that as a foundation of our ministry, not Murray’s charisma or our abilities, produced more long term fruit and helped us weather future storms.”
Murray realized that if the worst happened, and the new church never grew, they would still be able to study Scripture together and encourage each other. “If that’s just what it’s going to be until we die, how bad would that be? That wouldn’t be so bad, because we haven’t lost anything we have in Jesus.” Murray believes that God used this period to expose pride and reveal idols of the heart.
“Murray would just focus on teaching the Bible, living out what it means to be Christians,” Clay recalls. “We focused on being a true gospel community of God together. We’re going to grow in our faith. We’re going to grow in our love for Jesus, and then we’ll let him do the work. We’re going to reach out to people. Murray definitely led the way in that for us to just see, what does this look like when you go through hard times and need to persevere.”
Multiplication
As the church slowly grew, Murray talked about his desire to raise up other leaders and plant churches. They focused on training and multiplying leaders.
“He took a group of guys, young guys, and started really early on to mentor them in how to do ministry,” says Sean Rice, a man who attended Grace Fellowship and now pastors Heritage Fellowship Baptist Church in Ancaster, Ontario. “He handed responsibility and decision-making power off to us even when we had really no business making some of those decisions.”
In 2015, four years after Grace Fellowship started, the church decided to send Clay and Kim Bitner and another couple to plant a church in Warman, a city 20 kilometres north. “They sent out a group of 30 people and grew by 60,” says Clay.
In September 2019, they sent Sam and Allison Whitehawk to plant a church in Evergreen, a new, unchurched, and culturally diverse area of Saskatoon.
In July 2024, after 9 years in Warman, Clay and Kim Bitner moved to Edmonton to start Grace Edmonton, Grace Fellowship’s first granddaughter church. Grace Fellowship now functions as a family of churches in three locations, as well as a Bible study in Battlesfords.
“We can share resources, we can be there for one another. But each church is an autonomous part of the family with its own plurality of elders and leaders.”
Faithfully Plugging Away
Sam says he appreciates Murray’s consistency. “He just shows up every day, and you know what to expect with him. He’s going to point you to Jesus. He’s going to treat you the same way that he treats anyone else that comes into the room. And you know he’s going to do that today and tomorrow and the next day. There’s something about having a leader who, first and foremost, loves Jesus and walks with him closely, and then extends that grace and that love to other people.”
Clay believes that if Murray served in the States that he would be much better known. He’s written a discipleship curriculum, commentaries, books, ministry resources, and has also written and hosted a 9-part video series and illustrated study guide on the story of the Bible.
“Murray’s a phenomenal writer. He’s a phenomenal preacher. And yet he’s in this little city in Saskatchewan, plugging away.”
“He’s the guy that he’s going to pour himself out for the sake of the gospel,” says Clay. “Is he tired? Yes. Does he care? No. He’s going to run the race. He’s going to sprint to the finish line. Whether he’s a lead pastor or he’s just there on the sidelines cheering on the lead guy, he’s going to pour himself out for the sake of the mission and let Jesus do with him as he pleases.”
“I don’t usually have a detailed five-year plan,” says Murray. “It’s just a desire: Lord, help me be faithful. Help us to keep on the mission what you’ve called us to. I totally trust you, or whatever the results will be. We may shrink. I’m not worried about success or failure or numbers or anything else. My success is about the condition of my heart, and my faithfulness to what he calls us to be as his church.”
Murray believes his greatest challenge is himself. “That’s my greatest battle: my own repentance and faith — continuing to change my mind; correcting myself; moving from idols to the reality who Jesus is; moving from lies to truth; trying to line up my thinking with what Scripture actually reveals who God actually is. It’s just continuing to see who Jesus is, and continuing to have the gospel pressed into my heart.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever aspired to have some platform or to get to a particular size or anything like that. In fact, that’s more scared me than anything. We were happy to stay in a little rural church. I want people to know Jesus for who is, but it doesn’t have to be through me, and I don’t have to lead anything.”
“Should I quit? No. Retire? No. Press on? Yes. The goal I’ve always had is I want to hit the finish line running. When you see the finish line, you sprint. You don’t move off to the side, you don’t slow down, you don’t walk to the finish line. As long as I have faculties to do so, I want to be able to continue press on, and especially pour into young men, and to help them just continue to grow and to thrive.”
“There are other places in this city, new areas of the city, where there’s maybe 30,000 people in a community with no gospel-centred church,” Murray says.
“The needs here in our province are great, and we know we can’t do everything, but we can continue to just keep being faithful, teaching the word, making disciples, and hopefully, continuing to reproduce and multiply for the fame and glory of the One who has given himself for us.”
“If I’m here, if I still get life and breath, it’s for his purpose. It’s to seek first the kingdom of heaven. It’s his priorities, and that’s what I still want to be about.”
