The Outreach Ministry

The Outreach ministry of Trinity - St. Paul's congregation is based on listening, seeking, and doing. Over the years the programmes and focus of our ministry have varied but the underlying theological rationale has been the corner-stone of our attempts to bring the Gospel to our urban setting. As a modern church, we must respond to the urban environment of our day. The church has unique qualities to bring to the city and urban environment.

"God approaches and relates to people as whole persons. Whereas the secular world tends to divide and to deal with people's problems in categories, the church can approach people in the city and the inner city as a whole person, thus meeting their real needs."¹

The congregations of Trinity and St. Paul's Avenue Road have long histories of interesting community activities and have provided programmes and space for their immediate neighbours.

Trinity United Church

Some of the activities in the past fifteen years have included providing the initial space for the Bloor Information Centre, an After-School Programme for children in the area, renting space to local tenants, associations, cultural, educational and political groups for meetings, workshops, rallies, etc. Trinity also contributes financially and with volunteers to INTCH projects such as The Gathering Spot and The Friendship Centre.

St. Paul's Avenue Road United Church

During this same period, St. Paul's congregation opened its doors, and provided a ministry to the alienated youth during the Yorkville "Hippie" era. The congregation also made a decision to share their space with community groups such as local citizens for Ward Meetings, City Planners and architects, actors, scholars, returning overseas volunteers, people working with seniors, and youth needing counselling and shelter.

In 1974 the congregation invited some groups to share permanent space with them to create St. Paul's Centre. When the congregation joined with Trinity United Church in the early 1980's the Centre groups also came to share space at Trinity, and now 12 groups form the St. Paul's Centre at Trinity.

With the amalgamation of the two congregations came a new mandate for outreach ministry, which happened in three stages. Stage one was the formation of a new Pastoral Charge consisting of two congregations, Trinity and St. Paul's. Stage two was the sale of the St. Paul's building which provided monies to enable the renovating of theTrinity building. This newly renovated space was made available for community groups both on a permanent and casual-user basis. Stage three involves the use of monies to establish an Outreach ministry in the community. This ministry attempts to identify and assess the needs of the community and, in consultation with other churches, agencies and people in the neighbourhood, propose programmes to address these needs. A half-time position for an Outreach Worker was established in May 1983 with salary provided from the interest monies from the sale of the St. Paul's building.

A support committee was also appointed to aid in the development of the Outreach ministry. The mandate of this committee was to develop familiarity with the community and begin to do social analysis in order to challenge and support the Outreach Worker and to take an active role in creating and implementing the ministry.

The data gleaned from our research confirmed that there are a great many people in our community experiencing brokenness and isolation. The economic climate of our country has a devastating impact on our city, creating a large group within our population who have severely limited financial resources. The effects of the economic recession include cutbacks in social services and unemployment benefits and tightening of welfare assistance and entrapment in the welfare cycle. The chances of breaking the cycle are unlikely without a great deal of support and assistance.

Our response to this need was to work with women 18-25 years of age to create an environment in which the women would have an opportunity to share their life experiences and participate in programmes which might enable them to make personal and systemic changes.

Common Ground Women's Centre was created with the mandate to create a loving and risking community through which women could be empowered to begin to deal creatively with their life situations. The programming and design arise out of the needs and concerns of the women in hopes of nurturing and supporting leadership development and the creation of future long-term projects, e.g. housing, employment.

The goals of the Centre are:

• to be responsive to the expressed needs of women who participate in the programme; to facilitate development of leadership skills of the participants;
• to be aware of and responsive to changing situations and needs of women, in the wider community;
• to share the learnings and reflections of the staff and participants so that religious communities can hear, learn and do theological reflection.

With these goals as a base the Centre was established in the Bathurst Street United Church building and Sheila Miller was hired as a full-time programme staff. The Outreach committee and the staff have been working toward establishing a secure operational base for the centre.

As a church community in an urban setting we must interpret God as being here on earth, sharing our sinfulness and grace, changing statistics into persons with names.

Figure 9B

Figure 9C