Who Is Our Community?

I have been thinking a lot about community lately.

Not the abstract kind. Not the polished kind we put in mission statements. The real kind. The kind that smells like fried fish and sea air. The kind where children play across the street, goats wander nearby, stray dogs circle hopefully, and people gather because this is just where people gather.

While we were in St. Vincent, we visited a small local restaurant. The kind of place where people don’t really sit inside, so the inside becomes a mix of restaurant and storage. A couple of tables on the porch. A few picnic tables in the parking lot. The menu was simple: catch of the day or blackfish, served with provisions.

And yet, there it was.

Community.

At one table sat about eight women of different ages. One of them asked me how I was and seemed to actually want to know. Not the polite kind of question. The kind where your answer matters.

Nearby, another group gathered around a picnic table, drinking beer, talking, laughing, eating, enjoying life.

It made me wonder whether community is much simpler than we make it out to be.

People need a place to gather.
People need food.
People need to be noticed.
People need to belong before they ever sign up, join, or believe the right things.

And I have been thinking about Parkdale.

On Sunday mornings, we think we know who our community is. But what if that has always been too small a definition?

Yes, our community includes the people who worship here.
Yes, it includes the 500 people who come and go through our building each week.
The children in the preschool.
The people in recovery groups.
The musicians.
The renters.
The parents waiting in the hallway.

They are not just passing through.

They are part of us.

But maybe that is only the beginning.

Maybe community is not something we define by who comes into our space.

Maybe community is something that calls us outward.

Beyond our walls.
Beyond our comfort.
Beyond the familiar faces.

Because our community is also Parkdale.
And Montgomery.
And Bowness.
And the city stretching out beyond what we can see from our front steps.

A city where need is not always obvious, but it is real.
Hunger. Isolation. Quiet struggle.
People who would never walk into a church, but still long for connection, dignity, and care.

Last year, when we made sandwiches and went downtown, it mattered.

It mattered because we stepped outside ourselves.

But I am wondering if the invitation is even closer than we think.

To notice what is happening just beyond our doors.
To listen for where love is already needed.
To show up not as saviours, but as neighbours.

Maybe our call is twofold.

To see every person who enters our building as part of our community.
And to understand that our community does not end at our doors.

To move outward.
To build relationships beyond familiarity.
To redefine community not as who belongs to us, but as who we belong to.

Because faith was never meant to stay contained.

It was always meant to move.
To stretch.
To reach.

And maybe building community does not begin with a program.

Maybe it begins the same way it did in that small restaurant.

With a table.
With food.
With someone asking, “How are you?” and meaning it.

And then, slowly, courageously—

Getting up from the table
and carrying that kind of belonging
out into the world.

That might be where community begins again.