Sacred • Community • Justice

“We have been engaged with the people and the needs within this neighbourhood for 125 years.

A community located at the margins of society – but a community without margins.

Committed to encountering and celebrating the Sacred, to finding healing and growing into our full potential, to striving for Justice, and to experiencing a deep sense of belonging and personal worth”

Our vision reflects our Identity Statement (who we are), our Mission Statement (what we do) and our Strategic Focus (how we do it). It is anchored in 6 Greek words that defined the early church. These six words are the “secret sauce” or DNA of First United:

  • Kairos – God’s window of opportunity, fullness of time, the sacred ‘carpe diem’, etc.  We believe we at First United have a special “window of opportunity”, a Kairos moment, in which we have been called to respond. The growing focus on the DTES in the light of the 2010 Olympics, the raging debate over the possible gentrification of the DTES, and the creative space provided by the closure of the congregation and the call in the focus groups for First United to remain “Church”.  The subsequent election of a New City Council with its emphasis on homelessness, added further weight to this sense of a “window of opportunity”.
  • Ekklesia – the people of God, church as people within a context.  We are a church, not an agency; We are church, but not a typical church: an intentional community striving to be and become a true Gospel Community. We believe that being Church is about believing in the things in which Jesus believed.   We believe being church is not about having traditional symbols or practices or physical structures but about being a people (a community in which God is encountered and celebrated). It is not about pews, or traditional services, but about being one in the Spirit – about the way we live with each other, our neighbours, and the earth.
  • Kerygma (Proclamation, Preaching, Encounter with God and with the Gospel) – We deliberately provide opportunities to encounter the Spirit at work in the world. We believe that being Church is about encountering the Sacred (God) in ways that deeply speak into our personal and collective lives. It is about encounters that comfort the afflicted and that afflict the comfortable.  - Celebration
  • Koinonia (Fellowship, community, partnership, hospitality) – We consciously strive to build a sense of belonging and interdependence, celebrating diversity. We believe that being Church is about discovering life-giving personal validation, belonging and interdependence. It is about knowing that one has indispensable worth and that each of us is a unique gift to the world – and to know and experience that in the context of a mutual interdependence upon others and the earth. It is what Desmond Tutu calls Ubuntu and what the Bible describes as being one in Christ. – Inclusive Community
  • Didache (Teaching, learning, discovering new insights and understanding) –Being Church is about reaching for and being helped to attain healing, growth and wholeness. It is about freeing the potential that exists within us individually and collectively. We value growth, reach for what can be, and believe we need to stand with people in their present circumstances and also walk with them to new places of hope greater wholeness. – Healing and Growth
  • Diakonia (Service, outreach, caring, making a difference) – We are anchored in and driven by the needs of those who are otherwise marginalized; we strive for justice, peace and healing; we address homelessness, poverty, mental illness and social problems. We believe that being Church is about seeing and meeting the basic needs of others –  and about working for Justice and Peace. It is about being physically and emotionally in the places of brokenness – and about challenging in actions and words the systemic drivers and sustainers of injustice. Specifically, it includes authentic critique and prophetic challenge of social, economic, and political policies and practices. – Justice and Social Services
  • Leiturgia (Order of service for Worship, Service of God, Work of the people) – The greek word literally means ‘the work of the people’. We believe that Matthew 25: 31-44 makes it clear that our work is to be in the world alongside the Spirit. “Worship” is most deeply experienced and lived out in the activities of the community.  Our liturgy is articulated in the weekly schedule of events that reflects and anchors the work of the people. It describes and prescribes the order and weekly discipline of this faith community. – Weekly Ritual