Elgin Missionary Church held its first Sunday services on October 21, 1906. The congregation has met in four locations: 35 Market Place, Second Floor, October 21, 1906 to July 3, 1927 (21 years); 122 Downie Street, July 10, 1927 to December 28, 1952 (25.5 years); 55 Charles Street, January 4, 1953 to February 24, 1985 (32 years); and currently, 4192 Perth Line 36 (Quinlan Road), since March 3, 1985.

At 35 Market Place, Second Floor, our name was Stratford City Mission of the Mennonite Brethren in Christ Church. There were no pastors. The leaders were called mission workers, or ministering sisters, always two at a time, always unmarried.

The move to 122 Downie Street in 1927 brought a change of name: Grace Chapel Mennonite Brethren in Christ Church. The congregation owned the building; the mission workers, and later the pastors and their families, lived upstairs. In 1947, while the church was still on Downie Street, the denomination name changed to United Missionary Church, and Grace Chapel became Stratford United Missionary Church.

In 1952 the sod was turned for the new church building at 55 Charles Street. On June 5, 1955 the congregation voted to change the name of Stratford United Missionary Church to Elgin Memorial United Missionary Church, Stratford, in honour of missionary Elgin Brubacher, a member of Stratford City Mission, who died in Nigeria in 1943.

When the United Missionary Church merged with the Missionary Church Association in 1969, the name of the merged denomination was the Missionary Church. The Stratford congregation started dropping the word “memorial” and the local name became Elgin Missionary Church.

In 1977, the congregation purchased 10 acres on the corner of Quinlan Road Line 36 and O’Loane Avenue Perth Road 122. In 1984, construction began on a new church building, and the new building was dedicated on September 22, 1985.

Once again, our denominational name changed when the Missionary Church in Canada merged with the Evangelical Church of Canada in 1993. At that time, we received our present denominational name, the Evangelical Missionary Church of Canada.