Top: People wait in a line for the food bank at St. Luke’s. Bottom: Drawings of the proposed redevelopment.KPMB ARCHITECTS/KINDRED WORKS/HANDOUT
I served St. Andrew's United Church in downtown Sudbury for eleven years from 1988 to 1999, a demanding and rewarding phase of ministry in a very active congregation. One aspect of the challenge was that we were in a building which was the first of its kind in Canada, with a combination of worship space, commercial enterprises at street level, and seniors housing stretching upward. Many of these elders were not officially part of our congregation but saw me as their chaplain, including one delightful Jewish woman who confounded her family by stipulating that I preside at her funeral, in our sanctuary. I figure my hair loss was accelerated by the balancing act between congregational ministry and the demands of St. Andrew's Place.
Providing affordable housing for the elderly was a forward-thinking goal of the minister in the 1970's and a congregation which lived through the demolition of its imposing traditional structure to create this original space. My final congregation here in Belleville still owns a building downtown which again was constructed to provide reasonably priced housing for seniors.
My eyebrows shot up yesterday at the news that the United Church is launching Kindred Works, an independent company which will work with congregations to redevelop what is one of our most valuable assets, property. So often congregations fade away, grimly holding on to decaying buildings which were constructed for a different era. This is an initiative to reimagine the future of development for churches, addressing the housing crisis in Canada by providing mixed-income homes with the goal of housing 34,000 people over the next 15 years.
This makes a great deal of sense to me, a visionary plan which is faithful stewardship addressing a pressing need in this country. I hope it is embraced by communities of faith whose buildings are now millstones dragging them under.
While the goal is to work with congregations across the country this is more than "pie in the sky." The Kindred Works projects already in development are:
- St Luke's United Church, Toronto
- Church of the Master United Church, Toronto
- Wexford Heights United Church, Toronto
- Wilmar Heights United Church, Toronto
- Queenswood United Church, Ottawa
- Regent Park United Church, Orillia
- Westminster United Church, St. Catharines
- Portland United Church, Saint John NB
St. Andrew's United Church, Sudbury Ontario
2 comments:
A very good idea, indeed ! It is poor stewardship to hang onto a building, with few people to support it !
Here's the church, and there's the steeple, open the doors and...where are the people?! Agreed Judy.
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