Mission Focus

Our Mission Groups and congregations focus on mission to love and serve our neighbourhoods. These are practices and opportunites to be “in and for our neighbourhoods.” If you feel drawn to partner with us in these initiatives please contact one of our Congregational Leaders.

 

Cobs Bread

We participate with Cobs Bread in their “End of Day Giving” program every week in some of our neighbourhoods. At the end of each day Cobs gives away all of the bread and sweets that they have left. We have a variety of volunteers that help to pick up, bag and deliver the bread to disadvantaged families in our neighbourhood.

Family Event Nights

Family Gym Nights
What could be better than a game of volleyball, dodgeball or floor hockey with some friends? We connect with our neighbours by hosting gym nights regularly in some of our congregations. They are informal evenings of games for the kids and adults-and they spark some great “get to know you” conversations!

Free Family Movie Nights
We also occasionally host free family movie nights in our communities to encourage our neighbours to get to know one another, while providing a place for families to have time together without having to spend money. We also use these evenings as a way to collect food donations for our local Food Bank.

 

Homeless Initiatives

If we are truly in and for our neighbourhoods, we need to be active in caring for those who are homeless and struggling with poverty.

We work alongside the Salvation Army in fundraising for homeless projects and by hosting weekly dinners frovided by the Salvation Army. We continue to host the Vancouver Food Bank at our Edmonds Town Centre campus as we have for over fifteen years. We’ve been involved with Surrey’s Christian street ministry, Nightshift, and we partner with the Burnaby Homeless Task Force in a weekly homeless outreach.

 

Immigrants

The greater Vancouver area is home to many immigrants – people from a vast array of places around the globe. Coming to a new country with new traditions, new customs, new food and new ways of seeing the world is hard. Our role with immigrants in our neighbourhoods is to help that transition process, offering immigrants a safe place to learn English and get acquainted with Canada through the local community.

In our Edmonds Town Centre congregation, just over half of the neighbourhood knows English as their second language. Of that number, about half are from China. Over 100 other countries are represented in the other half. We help people feel at home through connecting with Canadians who are neighbours who become friends.

 

Refugees

Some refugee families are escaping war, persecution and other difficult circumstances when they come to Canada. We are involved with Journey Home Community, who serve refugee claimant families as well as with International Teams: “Ride For Refuge,” fundraising for projects that help refugees in Metro Vancouver as well as around the world.

 

Shire Music Centre

In our Forest Grove neighbourhood a music community is being established that offers music lessons for all ages. The Shire Music Centre also facilitates local performances in the neighbourhood and is about to expand to several other neighbourhoods in the Lower Mainland.