Aaron Weiss

Aaron Weiss is the Lead Pastor at Mission Hill Church that meets at the Riverbend Community Centre. And while the church has tripled in size over the past three years, its goal has always been to be a good neighbour and to help meet the needs of the community.

From minor projects like painting walls in the hall, or providing manpower to help run community events, to bigger projects like upgrading the community centre’s technology, Aaron said his main hope is that the church can come alongside the community to help enhance the area.

“We want to treat it like it’s our home because the community centre is, but it’s not just for us… we want to show the love of Jesus with what we do, and so we really just want to help make the community better, and that way we are in alliance with the community association.”

A born and raised Calgarian, Aaron, began his career in landscaping that bloomed from when, as a teenager, Aaron and his brother went around the neighbourhood with lawn mowers which led to a small lawn-maintenance and landscaping business that Aaron carried for 12 years. The flexibility of that job allowed Aaron to find his passion in the church. He’s been in full-time ministry for 12 years now.

When asked why Mission Hill chose Riverbend to be its home, Aaron said he noticed that there was no church within the communities of Riverbend, Douglasdale, or Quarry Park. And while people could commute elsewhere, there seemed to be no churches nearby that could serve these communities specifically.

Aaron, along with his wife Rachael and their twin daughters, has a passion to serve the Riverbend community. Aaron says he desires Mission Hill to be more than just the church that meets in Riverbend.

“A community church aims to make its community better by pouring itself out into the community,” he said.

In addition to organizing events such as the Family Skate days, the church also puts on a movie nights and hosts the Alpha course. Long term the church would like to create more kids programming for the community, supports for new moms, and desires to do so alongside the community association.

“We don’t want to do be competing when we can do it better together,” said Aaron. “We love the fact that we have a good relationship with the community.”