MISSION CANADA URBAN WORKER
Ministry Location: East Vancouver, BC
Ministry Focus: Urban Ministry
After serving on the pastoral staff at a large Vancouver church for 21 years, this Mission Canada worker moved into an East Vancouver neighbourhood to live out the ways of Jesus in a neighbourhood fairly antagonist to the church. In this lonely and isolated urban context, this worker has rooted themselves into their community, taking serious that to love God is to love you neighbour. This worker has built a web of care and connection one by one, spurred by a vision to see the neighbourhood one day functioning like a healthy extended family. This worker embodies their faith in a lifestyle of generous and inclusive hospitality to the stranger and is continually amazed at what God sets up in the ordinary of daily life lived with attention and availability. Rooting in deeply into a place enables an integrated way of living and being that is deceptively simple but has the potential to be staggering in its scope.
When this worker started in 2010, they moved into a six-bedroom 100 year old house to form an inter-generational Christian community house where all of life is shared, seeking to embody the gospel in their life together. Neighbours are welcomed as friends and a lifestyle of radical hospitality to the stranger is practiced as the way of Jesus. They have worked with other pastors to develop a network in the city on shared-living and to mentor leaders in the art of neighbouring. This worker organized their neighbours to sponsor and welcome three Syrian families. By living an alternative narrative in our daily life instead of the dominant culture of scarcity and fear, we live good news and make the kingdom tangible. God and His way of love are seen in the sacred ordinariness of everyday life. This worker is rooted in this community to be a faithful presence for the rest of their life, joining what God is doing in bringing His kingdom to come in this place...as it is in heaven.
