Toronto the Good (2008) by Dan Postma

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P VAN Michael Van Pelt specializes in turning ideas into Rob A E L Joustra is a Research Intern at the Work Reinfluence. As President of the Work ResearchM IC Hsearch Foundation. He recently finished studying s: at Redeemer University College, and is pursuing a Foundation, he charts organizational direction hor t u A and vision. He has served as General Manager Masters degree in Globalization and the Human of the Sarnia-Lambton Chamber of Commerce, Condition at McMaster University in Hamilton. as a municipal councilor, and as an advocate for independent business, and uses his under- Tim Sheridan is Director of Outreach at First standing of networks to build the Work Research Hamilton Christian Reformed Church in the downtown. Tim lectures in religion and theolFoundation on innovative, solid foundations. ogy at Redeemer University College in Ancaster Gideon Strauss is editor of the Work Research and is a Th. D. candidate in Missiology at StelFoundation’s journal of opinion, Comment, and lenbosch University in South Africa. is a WRF Senior Fellow. Glenn Smith did his graduate studies in Patristics Eric Jacobson is author of Sidewalks in the King- at the University of Ottawa and his doctoral the? dom: NewiesUrbanism and the Christian Faith sis in contextual theology at Northern Baptist Cit (Brazos ur Press, 2003) as well as numerous arti- Theological Seminary in Chicago. He received oon an honorary doctorate from the Union des unicles New Urbanism. He is a member of the in t e. igh Congress ofseNew Urbanism, and is currently in versities privées d’Haiti for his contribution to l to r al ous gs r full-time , fo ostudies urban theological practice in that country. He bvi n at Fuller Theological Seminary, thin st apes isio dsc e mo daivPh.D. has been the Executive Director of Christian Diin Theology and Culture. Ake lan pursuing th s e ie ly an Th il n . rection in Montreal since 1983 and he is the auurb are o ggle d fam our e an stru dsKuykendall on is a Senior Researcher with the thor of numerous texts and articles on the topic ofRuss crim o ched s and attern urho al oWork Research ci p of urban mission. Foundation, formerly a political b es d lt so illn ifficu neigh s. y an staffer at the d ridgeParliament new ur crac ed. of Canada and Ontario a b o g f au in o n to bure mit enin Provincial on He was involved in the Raymond J. de Souza is chaplain to Newman is li agai uch Parliament. lati the ev s y o an es is e rb political communicad tr en Parliament, House, the Roman Catholic mission at Queen’s machinery of om mak ur u ers. y an ith to fectiv o tr ely ef w ts ad ew tions, and the formulation and University, Kingston, Ontario. He also serves on r policy analysis, ren vic le e men bered , thei m ch y to by cipolicy vern the advisory board of the Catholic Educator’s Reofietlpublic uwriting as th r and draft legislation. d y go ut encu nal to qu me fo Cit ore so nRuss source Center, and contributes regularly to the Priorrkto served ing this, s, b erso icle in the pastoral ministry by , ig o gap ttle p dar ized years. veh is wsome National Post. for ted gn ia ra eleven o li on RK

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Stained Glass Urbanism: The Untold Story of the Church and City Renewal

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Toronto the Good

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Cities as a place for public artwork:

A GLOCAL APPROACH with Dr.

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TORONTO good the

A N I N V E STIGATIVE REPORT BY THE WORK RESEARCH FOUNDATION b y M i c h a e l Va n P e l t a n d R o b e r t Joustra, with Gayle Doornbos

Copyright © 2008 Work Research Foundation All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the Work Research Foundation: 9-45 Frid Street, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, L8P 4M3. ISBN 1-896701-22-1 Design by Compass Creative Studio Inc. www.compasscreative.ca

The Work Research Foundation’s mission is to influence people to a Christian view of work and public life. We seek to explore and unfold the dignity of work, the meaning of economics, and the structures of civil society, in the context of underlying patterns created by God. The Work Research Foundation is a registered charitable foundation and its activities are financially supported by thoughtful individuals, business and labour organizations, and foundations. Work Research Foundation 45 Frid Street, #9 Hamilton, ON L8P 4M3 (888) 339-8866 Fax (905) 528-9433 Email: info@wrf.ca Website: www.wrf.ca President Michael Van Pelt This Report was made possible with the generous support, financial and otherwise, of: •

The Bridgeway Foundation

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John and Rebecca Horwood, Richardson Partners Financial Limited

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Charis Foundation

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The King-Bay Chaplaincy

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James Lau, Jameson International

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Fred Reinders, Maple Reinders Construction

The Work Research Foundation acknowledges this support with gratitude and appreciation.

Metropolitan United Church, Toronto Photo: Annie Ling

ABOUT T H E A U T H O R S

Michael Van Pelt specializes in turning ideas into influence. As President of the Work Research Foundation, Michael charts organization direction and vision. Formerly an advocate for independent business and the Sarnia Chamber of Commerce, as well as a municipal councilor, Michael brings his understanding of networks to bear in building the Work Research Foundation into an innovative institution with solid foundations.

Robert Joustra is lead researcher on Stained Glass Urbanism, the Work Research Foundationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ongoing project on the relationship between faith communities and city building. He is author of numerous articles on religion, as well as on the impact of religious faith in the public square. He is a graduate of McMaster University, with a Master of Arts in Globalization Studies, and a Lecturer in International Relations at Redeemer University College, Ancaster, Ont.

Gayle Doornbos was a research intern with the Work Research Foundation in the summer of 2007. She has worked with numerous churches and faith communities around the world, helping turn the particulars of theology into publicly relevant and socially constructive practice. Most recently she has returned from a church plant in Seattle to serve as interim director of the En-Gedi Resource Centre in Grand Rapids, Mich., and is pursuing a Masters in Theological Studies.

TABLE O F C O N T E N T S

Preface

Introduction

12 Recognizing Objections: Definitions of “City” and “Neighbourhoods” 14 Recognizing Objections: Definitions of “Church” 16 Who is this report for?

16 Methodology

Observation #1: Faith strategies are diverse and complex

Observation #2: City and public benefit most when the Church is freed to be the Church

Observation #3: Church and organized religion are not declining

Observation #4: Churches form a significant core of culture and heritage

Observation #5: Churches cultivate positive social challenge and change

31 Case Studies in Green: St. Gabriel’s 32 Befriending the Stranger: Matthew House 35 Strangers Within: Prison Fellowship

36 The Urban Paradox: L’Arche Toronto

Observation #6: Churches serve as mediating and mercy institutions on the front lines of city life

38 An Opiate for the Masses? 40 Living on the Streets: Shelters, Drop-ins and Missions

44 Crime, Violence and Community Safety

Observation #7: Churches build and sustain social capital and civil virtues within neighbourhoods

Observation #8: Toronto arts and culture are encouraged as part of church life

Conclusion

56 56 57 59

Bibliography of Sources Cited

Appendices

62 64 67 68 69 70

Next Steps Steps for Church Steps for City Steps for Research

Appendix A: Interview Matrix Appendix B: Questionnaire and Methodology Appendix C: Selected Publications Appendix D: Selected Religions, from 2001 Census Appendix E: Christian Population 2001 Appendix F: Faith Locations 2006 - Christian

Preface

e sat in the administration office of one of the City of Toronto’s social service programs. Our conversation was mostly about experiences with faith groups, both positive and negative, but it was a story we heard about St. James Park, reiterated in several other settings, that caught our attention.

St. James Park is named after the towering Anglican cathedral that dominates the skyscape. It’s home to fountains, gazebos, summer plants, a carefully tended landscape, street people, professional business people, and artisans. It’s also a high-intensity area for groups of all stripes that shoulder a social burden for the city. On one given weekend, nearly forty faith groups are present at St. James Park handing out food, living essentials, and Gospel stories. Notwithstanding the good intentions of these obviously deeply motivated groups, they left in their wake waste and debris, giving rise to neighbourhood complaints. That many of these religious groups were not from Toronto proper (and some were not even from Canada!) meant that they knew very little about local communityand city-based programs. As a result, their work was counterproductive. We recognize this is a sticky issue. It is tough to challenge what people feel called by faith to do.

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A second story emerged on a hazy summer walk through Regent Park with Geoff Ryan, head of the local Salvation Army, and an active leader of the church-led “614network.” There was no doubt this was the neighbourhood where Geoff lived, worked, went to church, where his kids played soccer, and, even after many years living in Russia, a place he calls home. He was in his element, meeting someone he knew at every corner as he chatted with us, pointing out changes and encouraging bright spots in the community. When we stopped by a community garden he turned around and pointed out some graffiti. It was the kind of graffiti that we would have walked right past, with our downtown city blinders on, ignoring it or else being forced to uncomfortably reconcile what it represented. Geoff stopped us. “These are effigies,” he told us, “of people who have died as a result of violence in this area.” Regent Park was well known to us as a dangerous place, the subject of not one but two centralized social experiments to alter its spiraling character. “They were removed once,” he went on. “People came in and white washed the building, the same as you

might tend a weedy garden.” He laughed a bit to himself. “What they didn’t understand was that they had bulldozed memorials. The next day the graffiti was back even grander than before.” The intersection of these stories is where this report begins. How can City of Toronto services and church organizations share information and expertise to advance mutually complementary goals? Do such mutually complementary goals even exist that political and civil institutions in Toronto can agree upon? We want to suggest that they do, and they help us organize what we mean by Toronto the Good.

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St. James Park, Toronto Photo: Annie Ling

Introduction

“

oronto the Good,” says the old social study from 1898 on the “Queen city of Canada,” is “one of the finest cities on the continent in point of beauty, wealth and intelligence, as it is unquestionably the leading commercial city of the west” (C.S. Clark, Of Toronto the Good: A Social Study, 1). That study was concerned with a very specific vision of good, and how this could be woven into the institutions and the moral fabric of Toronto. Since Of Toronto the Good this vision has been challenged in a variety of ways, so that it is important for this report to interrogate closely what we mean by good, and in what sense this can cultivate strategic linkages between churches and the City of Toronto. A foundational insight that we borrow from Of Toronto the Good is its emphasis on institution-building and partnerships between government and civil society. These partnerships are historically proven in Toronto, leaving their fingerprints all over the city’s contemporary landscape. Included in these partnerships was Toronto’s historical heritage of being a city of churches. This heritage has evolved. In some cases, it dwindled, and in others it was rebuilt in surprising ways. In Toronto the Good we intend to ask, what are the strategic opportunities for partnership between the city and faith communities today? What kinds of partnerships can (and are) being built to sustain a common vision

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Newman Centre, Toronto Photo: Annie Ling

of good city life? Where can the plans and processes of communities and governments fit into this? There are a number of sign posts that require attention along the way. First, we must be intentional by what we mean by good – and what vision of good city life we mean to suggest. We answer this question partly by not answering it at all. What we have worked hard to avoid is allowing one or another vision of good city life to predict our observations and suggestions. Despite being a study on faith and city, by good we do not mean one faith’s perspective over another’s on what is the right

path to take. We mean good in a political way, not a theological one. Yet we are not so naïve as to believe that no vision of good city life is present within our report. What follows are stories of government and faith communities which are not neutral in their telling. These are stories of what some people in government do, and what some churches do. We have tried to present a representative account, so it is necessarily not exhaustive. The stories we tell rest upon a specific projection and meaning of good city life in a globalized world.

By good, then, we mean a pluralistic vision, informed principally by the values of the City of Toronto’s Official Plan, ideally opening space for conversation and reflection based upon these public values. There is genuine room for debate on what good city life is theoretically composed of, but this report seeks only to stake out space for such debate.

defined them. It would be difficult, however, to maintain this model. Toronto is a global city, and its networks stretch over the face of the planet. Cultural elites may maintain more in common culturally and materially with partners across the globe than with those upon their doorstep. They may live and breathe within the same physical geography, but in a very real way they are worlds apart.

The City of Toronto’s Official Plan (1-2) is grounded in principles of: • Diversity and opportunity; • Beauty; • Connectivity; and • Leadership and stewardship.

The spirit of these principles informs the observations and suggestions found in this report. With the Official Plan, we believe that these are “strong foundations that can weather the test of time” and that these are, indeed, the building blocks of a common vision which has helped Toronto travel from its “early roots as a settlement on the shores of Lake Ontario to a vibrant and modern city” (Official Plan, 1-2). It is around these principles that we begin our investigations about what creative linkages can exist between City and church, between government and faith communities, and in what manner these partnerships can promote and sustain Toronto the Good.

“

Our borrowed definition of the city must take this into account. We understand cities as “an inhabited sheltering place of great population density whose fractal unity provides the clearing for an immense interdependent diversity of cultures, languages, commercial activities, beliefs and commitments strange to one another, to become By good we mean functionally structured Diversity and toward societal exercise of our native human opportunity, Beauty neighbourhoodedness” and Connectivity, (Calvin Seerveld, “Cities as a Place for Public Artwork: Leadership and A Glocal Approach”, stewardship think #15).

Recognizing Objections: Definitions of “City” and “Neighbourhoods” Cities are different from what they used to be. It may have been possible in the early twentieth century to talk about more or less contained urban centers whose lines of dependency, communication, work and living were consistent with the municipal boundaries that

”

Recognizing that major cities like Toronto hold such wide diversity within them has led to a renaissance of the concept of “ neighbourhoodedness” in urban literature. According to the report on “Why Strong Neighbourhoods Matter” (2004), a neighbourhood is usually defined as “having several thousand residents covering an area that people can walk across. The scale of a neighbourhood typically focuses on a primary school catchment area” (Christa Freiler, “Why Strong Neighbourhoods Matter”). Scale, the report summarizes, is one significant factor, but there are also four overlapping approaches to defining neighbourhoods (8-9): 1. B y function – as the site for the routines of everyday life;

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2. By fixed boundaries – such as postal codes or census tracts. The City of Toronto defines “neighbourhood” for administrative and funding purposes as consisting of several census tracts between 7,000 and 10,000 people; 3. The degree of homogeneity – this can result by choice, or necessity. People with similar values and lifestyles often aggregate to the same geographical locales; and 4. People’s lived experience – neighbourhoods can have social and symbolic as well as physical boundaries. They can be defined subjectively by the people who live there. These concepts of neighbourhoods inform our understanding of Toronto. While such

boundaries are not incontestable, since there is no obvious single definition for neighbourhoods, in a general way it helps make sense of how to begin investigating such a major urban centre. Studying the changing nature of neighbourhoods in Toronto is one method we have chosen to investigate the city, and to understand the diversity, disparity and challenges that Toronto encompasses. This renewed emphasis on neighbourhoods answers a few pressing concerns regarding contemporary city life. According to the Strong Neighbourhoods Task Force these include: •

concern about growing neighbourhood concentrations of poverty and disadvantage and their effects on individuals and the broader community;

We won’t tell churches what it means to be church– but we do suggest that churches have a public role to consider

Photo: Annie Ling

•

Even if religion were to have a voice in the public square, how could coherence emerge from this cacophony?

i ncreasing recognition that cities and urban regions are socially, environmentally, and economically critical to the well-being of i n d iv i d uals, regions and countries; and t he ‘discovery’ of social capital and its potential as a building block for social cohesion and to finding local solutions to problems.

Conversations on neighbourhood revitalization, social capital and local solutions also provided what we think might be an intersection point with religious communities of all varieties. Toronto is a city of neighbourhoods, an idea which first coherently organizes Toronto for our research, and also renews support for local institutions, institution building, and follows the inference which we have borrowed from Of Toronto the Good. As a result, from each interview that we conducted among church and parachurch organizations we compiled significant statistical data on the neighbourhood in question, the diverse strategies that the leading communities and governing structures adopt, and how t h e s e m i g h t intersect to build and promote Toronto the Good.

Recognizing Objections: Definitions of “Church” Our definition of “church” also offers up complexity. To some, the religious world often seems confusing and fragmented. There is a confusing array of faiths, denominations, cults, spiritual practices, and more. Even if religion were to have a voice in the public square, how could coherence emerge from this cacophony? How could these voices be understood to be meaningful to our shared urban life in Toronto, and in cities all over the globe? We address this question in part by narrowing the scope to Christian churches, without intending to privilege one faith tradition over another. Our reasoning for this was both historical and statistical. Historically, Toronto was known as the city of churches, a name that was challenged by the theories of secularization. Statistically, a majority of people of faith in Toronto affiliate with various Christian traditions. A 2001 census of the total Toronto population placed Catholics at 33.4%, and the next highest groups, United and Anglican, at about 6.9% each (Statistics Canada data, see Appendix D: Selected Religions for Census Metropolitan Areas and Appendix E: Christian Population 2001). Finally, while diverging in organizational structure, Christian churches often work from similar models and social principles.

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Our hope in focusing on one broad and richly varied religious tradition is to provide an opening for other traditions, which might find common cause and solidarity with the observations and suggestions within this report. We t r e a t C h r i s t i a n i t y i n Toronto as a microcosm for religious life generally, with openings for other religions to enter the conversation. Even this narrowing of variables does not entirely answer the question. In the course of our investigations a meaningfully coherent Toronto church voice did not emerge. It was not just difficult to generalize across denominations. Even within established denominational structures it was tricky to determine standardized perspectives or opinions. Church issues and concerns varied widely as a result o f r e g i o n a l d e m o g ra p hy, congregants, networks, leadership, faith strategy and much more. We observed that sometimes denominations found more resonance on urban strategies with different faith traditions than with those within their own. A pastor of a Toronto United Church helpfully said as much: “At times we work better with other faiths than with those within our own Christian tradition,” he commented. This indicates something far off from a monophonic church voice.

We begin, therefore, with a two-fold definition of church, borrowed from the study on Understanding the Capacity of Religious Organizations: 1. Congregations – places of worship promoting religious beliefs and administering Christian religious services and rituals; and 2. Associations of congregations – associations and auxiliaries of these religious congregations and organizations supporting and promoting those beliefs, services and rituals. F i n a l l y, t h e s t o r i e s a n d generalizations we observed are not what all churches in Toronto do, but some. These are compelling examples of the values that we outline as good. They are not the only examples we observed. Church institutions in Toronto have no shortage of their own challenges. The stories are, however, good sign posts pointing to and addressing some of the ambivalence and uncertainty of religious life, and they can start a conversation on productive and creative ways in which faith communities and government can partner to build a better city.

A meaningfully coherent Toronto church voice did not emerge

Who is this report for? This report is intended for both City and church leaders. Many of the suggestions and observations regarding city government in Toronto came from within that government itself. The usefulness of this report is to give fresh air to some of thos ideas, encouraging government to look to faith-based partners to contribute meaningfully to the values of the City Plan. Wading into religious issues and communities can be uncomfortable for people in government. If this report can ameliorate the ambivalence and uncertainty of such efforts, then it will have served a useful purpose.

The report is not intended to present government with an overly rosy picture of religious communities, but merely to provide one snapshot of religious communities. We suggest that City-church (and, by implication, City-faith community) partnerships can be productive and worthwhile – that City-church partnerships can be leveraged to good effect on planning, architecture, zoning, and green space development. Our intention is to expand and inform an ongoing dialogue at City Hall, to provide positive examples for this discussion, and to demonstrate successful models of City- and faithcommunity partnerships. Secondly, we hope to prompt churches and parachurch communities to reflect on their public roles in the city. We are keen to avoid telling churches what it means to be church. We do suggest, however, that churches have a public role to consider. We are encouraging more public theology – more reflection on churches’ principles that determine how they are a part of society.

indeed, this report only encourages people of faith to consider what these implications may be, then it will have met its purpose. What follows are stories of what being a church can mean in Toronto, of how practicing faith can be consistent with being a good citizen, and how people of faith can find ways to love God and their neighbours that are robust, public, and of service to Toronto.

Methodology The report itself is based upon fifty-four (54) interviews conducted in Toronto, among both church and city leaders. Weight in the interviews was given to churches, with roughly 25% of the interviewees being city employees, compared to 75% being church leaders. The “interview matrix” for this report can be found in Appendix A: Interview Matrix, including the interview breakdown: City departments, church denominations, and parachurch organizations. Participants are unnamed in the appendices, and only specifically named within the text of the report with their consent. The methods and questions we used for the information included in this report can be found in Appendix B: Questionnaire and Methodology. The interviews were conducted exclusively in the English language, which we recognize as a potential shortfall for a study of faith in Toronto, even limited to churches. However, given our research aims and the investigative nature of this report, we do not feel that this restriction invalidates our observations and suggestions. 888

We take for granted in this argument that church and faith are integral to society. If,

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Observation 1:

Faith strategies are diverse and complex

ur first observation is one we’ve already touched on: that it’s difficult to generalize across the different strategies that city and church employ in relating to one another – where such strategies do exist, they are often complex and not entirely coherent. Unless a more hierarchical church structure, like the Catholic church, has established a cohesive vision or policy, there likely isn’t one. In respect of strategic coherence, hierarchical models hold an advantage over others, but this is mitigated by the freedom and creativity of locally governed churches interacting with their neighbourhoods. Generally, Protestant churches have faith strategies that differ significantly, along a continuum from mainline Protestant to more evangelical and charismatic Protestant. Within the growing evangelical world the quantity of literature and reflection on city living and ministry is growing, but not all consider broader civil goals to be a priority, and very few talk about engaging the public square in sophisticated social ways. Interactions with the City are limited to evangelism and more direct mercy ministry. Larger denominations, such as the Catholic, Anglican and United Churches, also vary

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Moving from floor to floor in City Hall yields very different perspectives on faith communities

on urban engagement, but generally offer a more unified theology of the city from which to approach these topics. As a result, it would be difficult to argue that the Church in Toronto definitively has one or another problem, as both the challenges and the solutions to these often exist within the larger organism of the Christian church in the city. Strategies at City Hall for engaging faith communities also vary widely. Moving from floor to floor in City Hall can yield very different perceptions on the relative usefulness of such strategies, and in some cases it is simply not on the radar as an issue of significance. Generally there is a degree of ambivalence and uncertainty about engaging faith communities. This reveals to us no overall coherent and communicated strategy for understanding and interacting with faith communities. Yet, the ambition for such a coherence is expressed by several staff â&#x20AC;&#x201C; in one case, an employee saw developing this coherent strategy as an integral part of his/her work for the City. 888

Observation 2: City and public benefit most when the Church is freed to be the Church 20

First and foremost, churches perceive themselves as a community, a body of believing people.

“

ustice without spirit is dead,” says John Joseph Mastandrea, the spiritual director at downtown Metropolitan United Church. “The great temptation,” Mastandrea explains, “when reflecting on church and city is to focus so strongly on the public goods that churches provide that the primary purpose of church is lost.” Unanimously, the churches we interviewed emphasized that their public roles, however they might perceive them, are expressions, not the raison d’être, of their existence. Their public engagement does not justify their existence – quite the opposite, their existence requires their public engagement. Will Ingram of St. Andrew’s Church also points out, “The church is more than a rental agency, or a food bank, or a shelter, or a drop-in clinic.” Churches that do these things don’t do them to justify their presence. First and foremost, churches perceive themselves as a community, a body of believing people, committed to hope, and to love of God and neighbour. Is this something that can be part of common city life? Urban theorists sometimes find it helpful to imagine churches as part of the machinery of civil society, one of the many cogs that benefit specific segments of the population. But at its heart, the idea of civil society includes a specific projection of the

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Churches are more than cogs in THE MACHINERY OF civil society

separation between public and private, sacred and profane. As a result, the observation that religious institutions are critical parts of civil society, an idea we cover in later observations, is really only part of this picture. We observed that the idea of civil society can be extended further: that these local institutions exist not only to call people forth to public good, but they also help define what we mean by public good, and how this can be commensurable with the goods we find at large around us. We found it helpful to understand church and faith communities as part of but different from the other organs of civil society. Their message goes deeper than cultivating civil habits and democratic virtue. Meredith Ramsay, a professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston, writes that the church must be seen as more than a set of organizations if its singular role in the city is to be made comprehensible. The church is a worldview, a preserver of sacred traditions, the sum of innumerable communities of like-minded believers, a vast complex of powerful institutions with local-global connections, and an independent base of transcendent moral authority (“Redeeming the City: Exploring the Relationship Between Church and Metropolis, Urban Affairs Review, 613).

Spirituality itself impinges on many areas of life, inseparable from other virtues more commonly thought of as public or democratic. Our observations made it difficult to differentiate easily between what is spiritual, and what is public; what values can be considered apart from spirituality; and which are distinctly and exclusively religious or pious. How is compartmentalization of religion and the public square helpful to understanding the role of the church and the city? The root of these questions is a tough, theoretical problem: does secular mean plural? We begin by suggesting that pluralism is informed by a variety of religious and spiritual voices – an attitude becoming more popular in a globalizing world. If we consider the cultivation of historic and cultural traditions, of pluralistic but transcendent debate over public goods, as a component of the pluralism that cities can embrace, then churches are well positioned to participate in city-building. Vibrant religion challenges the neutrality – the homogeneity – of public goods and the public square. It may yet open multiple and flourishing debates, reflection, and transcendent hope in the principles for which our public goods stand. 888

Observation 3: Church and organized religion are not declining

ll of this would be for naught, if we were to conclude that the number of church-going people has significantly declined in recent years. A 2003 national poll claimed that 70% of Canadians believe that new forms of spirituality are replacing traditional organized religions (Reginald Bibby, Restless Churches, 8). Most Canadian journalists, academics, and religious leaders tell this story, with the added wrinkle that interest in spirituality is up. When the Canadian media reported the May 2003 census findings, the top three stories were that Canadians were opting for no religion, that religious diversity was growing, and that 20,000 Canadians opted for the Jedi religion of Star Wars fame (Bibby, 9-10). But Reginald Bibby says these reports are a serious misreading of what is happening on the religious front in Canada today. American sociologist Peter Berger agrees, writing I think what I and most other sociologists of religion wrote in the 1960s about secularization was a mistake. It wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t a crazy theory. There was some evidence for it. But I think it was basically wrong. Most of the world today is certainly not secular (as quoted in Bibby, 61). Bibby contends that in Canada there are at least four empirical signs that established Christian churches are undergoing renaissance:

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1. There is an unexpected increase in the proportion of teenagers who are actively involved in the church. Canadian surveys of young people aged fifteen to nineteen years show that in 1984, 23% were attending services on a regular weekly basis. This figure dropped to 18% in 1992. But in 2000 this figure rebounded to 22% (Bibby, 17-18). [see table 1.1 on page 24]

2. Secondly, the last decade has revealed new interest in religion among young adults. For the first time since the 1960s Protestants have seen an increase in the proportion of adults under the age of 35 who are attending weekly services. After a significant drop in young adult attendance in the 1970s and 1980s, Roman Catholics have seen attendance levels stabilize. While these levels stabilized at a lower level in Quebec, World Youth Day 2002 with John Paul II served as a catalyst to renew Catholic youth involvement in many Canadian dioceses, including those in Quebec (Bibby, 19). [see table 1.2 on page 24]

3. Third, congregational reports suggest new growth. In a poll in 2000, one in three Canadians who were active in their churches indicated that their groups had been growing. Another one in three said their congregation had stayed about the same. Only one in three said that their group was decreasing in size. [see table 1.3 on page 24]

While the resurgence of organized religion has been led by conservative Protestants who are highly committed to evangelism, there are also significant growth signs among Roman Catholics outside Quebec as well as mainline Protestants: United, Anglican, Lutheran and Presbyterian churches (Bibby, 21). 4. A final indicator of church activity is national attendance figures. A spring 2002 survey conducted by pollster Allan Gregg’s Strategic Counsel suggested weekly attendance could be as high as 30% of the population. Bibby’s own poll conducted for the Vanier Institute of Family in 2003 found that 26% of Canadian adults were attending services approximately once a week. These are the highest levels reported by Canadians since 1985. [see table 1.4 on page 25]

While these figures are not Toronto-specific, they paint a picture of organized religion in Canada that is somewhat different than common perception. Is this generalization helpful regarding Toronto? Are there any churches and churchgoers still in Toronto itself? In July 2007, the National Post ran a feature on “Our lady of perpetual development,” a story detailing how developers in Toronto were finding new real estate in abandoned churches. With city building space at a premium, condo developers have found empty spaces in churches that are suffering from dwindling congregations and revenues. Even if church congregations survive to move on, they can sell their inner city

property at a premium and follow the flight to the suburbs. While Reginald Bibby’s data might suggest otherwise for the wider municipality of Toronto, there is certainly evidence of church decline downtown.

Jon Caulfield, a professor at York University in Toronto, provides helpful data in his 1995 study on “The Growth of the Industrial City and Inner Toronto’s Vanished Church Buildings” (Urban History Review, 3). Based on research of about ninety churches located in inner Toronto in

Table 1.1 Church Attendance of Teens by Gr o u p : 1 9 8 4 - 2 0 0 0 N AT I O NA L LY P r o t e s t a n t Conservative Mainline Anglican United R o m a n C a t h o l i c O u t s i d e Q u e b ec Quebec O t h e r F a i t h s N o n e

1984 23% 26 51 17 13 17 28 37 16 13 3

1992 18 30 61 16 14 13 21 27 11 15 2

2000 22 48 70 23 16 17 21 31 7 21 3

S o u r c e : D e r i v e d from Bibby, Restless Gods, 88.

Table 1.2 Attendance Levels of Protestant and Catholic 18 to 34 Year Olds: 1975-2000 1975, 1980 P r o t e s t a n t 16% R o m a n i c C a t h o l i c 22 O u t s i d e Q u e b ec 29 Quebec 19

1990 20 16 20 7

2000 26 12 18 5

S o u r c e s : 1 9 7 5 , 1980: Bibby, Project Canada Sur vey Series; 1990 & 2000: Statistics Canada, Gene r a l S o c i a l S u r vey (1990) and Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating (2000).

Table 1.3 Congregational and Parish Numer i c a l Tr e n d s “ I f y o u a t t e n d r e l i g i o u s s e r v i c e s o n c e a month or more: in recent years, has your g r o u p b e e n … ” Growing Same Declining Totals N AT I O N A L LY 36% 32 32 100 P r o t e s t a n t s 47 31 22 100 Conservative 59 28 13 100 Mainline 32 36 32 100 R o m a n C a t h o l i c s 24 33 43 100 Outside Quebec 33 35 32 100 Quebec 11 32 57 100 S o u r c e : D e r i v e d from Bibby, Restless Gods, 79.

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Table 1.4 Weekly Attendance: 1975-2003

31 28

26 21

1 9 7 5

1980

1985

1990

1995

2000

2003

S o u r c e : B i b b y, R e s t less Churches, 23.

1893, Caulfield found that thirty-nine of these buildings remain substantially intact, of which twenty-nine still serve as churches. Caulfield concludes that ecclesiastical land use in inner Toronto has significantly declined in the past 100-plus years. However, Caulfield also concludes that the evidence does not strongly support secularization or highest-best-use hypotheses. Instead, he argues that the best explanation seems to be the city’s shift to industrial urbanism as well as a degree of ecclesiastic overdevelopment. He argues that secularization does not describe the earlier process of church abandonment in inner Toronto… the middle class who left downtown did not lapse from church membership but refabricated their religious life in the suburbs; the innercity working class communities appear not to have been alienated from organized religion in general but from the traditional denominational institutions established in the city (Caulfield, 14). With the collapse of the old social fabric, writes S. D. Clark, “the very fact that the churches were churches, that is to say established religious institutions, meant that they were not able to meet the needs of people” (the newcomers) “who found themselves outside the established social order” (in Caulfield, 15). Under changing circumstances, churches such as the Salvation

Army and working-class revivalist sects grew and prospered, while many of inner-Toronto’s older churches increasingly sat empty (Caulfield, 16). Recent trends also suggest that inner Toronto churches have stabilized, and suburban churches are seeking to reenter this dense urban space. Churches that have remained in downtown Toronto are in a unique position to partner with these groups. Indeed, Meredith Ramsay writes that “although many churches migrated to the suburbs in the wake of urban economic restructuring, others remained as survival institutions in inner-city neighbourhoods. They are now the vanguard of community organization” (Ramsay, 608). In Toronto, as in many other cities, churches and liquor stores are virtually the only neighbourhood institutions that persist (Ramsay, 619). Apart from the downtown core, Toronto has no shortage of Christian churches. A 2006 City of Toronto census of Christian faith locations shows churches in many areas of the city (see Appendix F: Christian Faith Locations 2006, p. 70). Such institutions are knit into the very fabric of Toronto. While it remains to be seen in what ways these churches can participate in city-building, there is no doubt that their sheer diffusion leaves the church, and religious organizations generally, poised to make significant contributions.

Observation 4: Churches form a significant core of culture and heritage 26

rchitects often talk about whether a building “talks” to its neighbours. David Sucher writes in City Comforts

that

What they mean is whether a building refers in its own shape and material to the shapes and materials of its neighbors. A lively conversation between buildings means that the buildings relate to each other. The colour of one may be picked up and amplified by another or the roofline of another may be mimicked by yet a fourth. A group of musicians will do something similar in their playing. A horn may start with a cluster of notes, and the pattern will be repeated with variations by the other instrument (David Sucher, City Comforts, 149). Buildings, says Sucher, are much like human beings. They are rich with stories. They can be polite, exchanging pleasantries with their neighbours, or be rude and indifferent. Sucher writes, “Conversation between buildings, as among humans, is a poignant sign of neighbourliness. It is the height of rudeness – though all too often the expected norm in cities – for neighbors to speak not a word to each other for years on end. Buildings that do not talk to their neighbors are also rude” (Sucher, 149). Toronto, the city of churches, has a long

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history of architectural conversation. These conversations have seen highs and lows: churches can choose to mend or tear the urban fabric by means of restoration and construction. In considering in what ways Toronto’s churches can and are joining conversations

on architecture and city-building, we want to consider first what stories are told in these buildings, how those stories and conversations are changing, and whether this heritage is part of Toronto. Second, in what ways can and do churches help match colours, telling new

“Inspired to serve the needy”: Little Trinity Anglican Church is Toronto’s oldest surviving church building

Photo: Annie Ling

Photograph: Annie Ling

stories about themselves that converse politely but uniquely with the neighbourhoods and the culture of Toronto?

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Little Trinity tells a story of politics, immigration, religion, and more. It keeps a history alive and invites

Walking through Toronto it is easier to hear some stories than others. The easy stories are from churches like St. Michael’s or Little Trinity. They tell distinct, historic stories about both themselves and the city of Toronto. As of 2006 the city of Toronto its neighbours had designated 172 religious to join the buildings as heritage properties – places that the Culture Plan conversation. for Toronto describes as being “significant factors in the quality While unique in many respects, of life.” Healthy cities, the plan argues, find the the story of Little Trinity is common enough. right balance between creation and destruction, On our visit to the Newman Centre, a Catholic between change and stability. “Seeking out such parish attached to the University of Toronto, stories is how we locate ourselves in our own Peter Baltutis takes us on a tour of the building time” (Culture Plan for the Creative City, 20). and chapel. The chapel is dazzling, but it is the Our conversations at Toronto’s oldest, surviving stained glass windows that catches our eye. Peter church building, Little Trinity, reflected a great notices and approves immediately. “The stained deal of this vibrancy and history. glass,” he says, “are unique to this church. They are all scenes from 20th-century Catholic church Little Trinity opened its doors in 1844, the second history.” Each window features a significant Anglican church in Toronto. It was founded Canadian figure, dressed plainly enough for partly because the first Anglican church, St. their period. Many we can recognize, spotting James, was no longer able to accommodate the the elegantly attired Vaniers standing before city’s population. But it was also distinct from Parliament in Ottawa. “Canadians need saints St. James. Little Trinity was built for the poor, and heroes, too,” Peter tells us. working class people in the east end of Toronto who, unlike the rich social elites, did not have Some stories are not quite as obvious as Little means to rent pews and worship at St. James. Trinity or the Newman Centre. Stories told in It was inspired to serve the needy, and was stained glass are an easy religious medium to committed to the evangelical traditions of the spot. Increasingly, however, church buildings Church of Ireland. “To this day,” Pastor Chris are telling stories that aren’t told in windows, King says, “Little Trinity is still known for its arches, or in towering gothic proportions. strong participation in ministry and leadership by church members.” Churches like the Meeting House find their stories just as comfortable on the big screen at

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The building itself was unique for an Anglican church. It was built in an undecorated, perpendicular, 13th-century gothic style, and it was constructed mainly from red brick. While the church has gone through several different phases in its 165 years, including two different balconies and a fire in the 1960s, the simple design of the building remains. Little Trinity tells a story of politics, immigration, religion, and more. It keeps a history alive and invites its neighbours to join the conversation.

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Silver City. The church, rooted in the Anabaptist tradition, meets at Silver City movie theatres running from Waterloo to Toronto. It is one of the fastest growing churches in North America. Its “tagline”? “Church for people who aren’t into church.” The marker of good neighbours and being relevant to a changing culture can be one and the same. The Meeting House works in borrowed cultural space. Aside from its permanent Oakville location, the architecture of the church is established by Cineplex. Such egalitarian transience has led the church to think through the meaning of creating a church space in a movie theatre, while avoiding being co-opted by Hollywood marketing. One of the ways that they have done this is by exploring the screen as more than projection of words and images, but as space. The screen becomes a kind of stained glass window, a place where stories of relevance and of faith are told. Many more of these alternative spaces are becoming home to churches. The Toronto Star detailed in August, 2007 that there is a new ‘colonization’ of Toronto’s post-war industrial buildings, becoming home to sports facilities, kennels, and makeshift churches. Reporter John Lorinc writes, “Quite apart from providing urbanites with new modes of recreation, these born-again factories have injected life into gritty corners of the city – places where fun used to be something one had elsewhere” (“The Colonization of Industrial Space,” Toronto Star 12 Aug 07). In dense urban and suburban spaces, inhabiting and re-inhabiting existing urban space is a good sign of neighbourliness. This has also proven the case in the downtown Anglican diocese, as increasingly other immigrant church denominations have taken up residence in aging and unsustainable buildings.

Being a good neighbour is really about knowing and connecting to where you live. Different neighbourhoods in Toronto have different characters, and church buildings can establish, reinforce, or challenge those characters. In some cases the contribution of buildings to this conversation was so significant that when the buildings were sold the developer was required to retain the original façade. It seems even when the churchgoers leave, the church buildings prove to be such great neighbours that the remaining neighbours insist on retaining them. And as we learned at the Christian Resource Centre, it doesn’t always take eye-catching church architecture to build a great looking neighbourhood. Sometimes you can just start with petunias. 888

Observation 5: Churches cultivate positive social challenge and change 30

any of Torontoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s city churches already enliven the streetscape. From such a good start, relentless incremental improvements to church buildings and gardens lift the quality of life in their neighbourhoods. H o w t o Tu r n a P l a c e A r o u n d : A Handbook for Creating Successful Public Spaces offers some practical starting advice for neighbourliness: In creating or changing a public space, small improvements help to garner support along the way to the end result. They indicate visible change and show that someone is in charge. Petunias, which are low cost and easy to plant, have an immediate visible impact. On the other hand, once planted, they must be watered and cared for. Therefore, these flowers give a clear message that someone must be looking after the space (Kathleen Madden, How to Turn a Place Around, 69). This is the story at the Christian Resource Centre (CRC) in Regent Park. There we learn about three community gardens where over seventy local families grow produce. Additionally, the CRC partners with Regent Park Community Health Centre in their coordination of four community

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gardens serving another 120-plus families throughout the area. These initiatives have shown great success in other areas of the city, especially in areas which are better known for violent exchanges. Walking us past one of the gardens the CRC and his 614-Network Salvation Army help cultivate, Geoff Ryan tells us that despite the rough nature of the neighbourhood, nobody ever vandalizes the gardens. “The green space represents something peaceful,” he says, “something sacred.” Since they began, they’ve had tangible capital results, and they’ve built support and relationships in the community.

Case Study in Green: St. Gabriel’s

ontext is king. Father Paul Cusack at St. Gabriel’s in North York resonates with our garden stories. “But our parish,” he tells us, “had a little more freedom once we had sold our old building.” It was about understanding the neighbourhood, he argues. Their North York parish was surrounded by expensive stores and high rise condos – consumption of materials and fuel abounded. Poverty and violence weren’t the major issues in his neighbourhood. But the church still had a statement to make, something cultural and profound, and they decided the best way to do it was through their

Photo: Annie Ling

St. Gabriel’s sense of sacred space extends beyond their walls.

building. Being outside the downtown they could go green and do gardens on a slightly bigger scale.

The inspiration came out of need when ten years ago they were faced with either rebuilding or replacing their aging building. “The old building,” Father Cusack jokes, “used to heat the entire community of North York. We wanted to create a more environmentally friendly church; a space to connect people back to creation through worship – a green church meant to foster green people.” There is little doubt he is serious about this. The church is a display of modern eco-friendly architecture gone right. A sprawling green wall greets the eye at the entrance, over which a thin layer of water constantly flows to purify the air. The sanctuary likewise does not disappoint. The sun plays through the skylights during worship, with an eco-friendly angled glass wall overlooking the garden. The garden is not only beautiful, but also instructive of the church’s perspective on the interrelationship of all living beings. Their sense of sacred space extends beyond the walls. It seems that churches can even be at the forefront of ecological movements in the city. “This is a real marriage of theology and architecture,” Dwight Duncan, Ontario’s Energy minister noted. “Churches, mosques, synagogues, gurdwaras and temples represent a real opportunity when it comes to conservation. By making their buildings and grounds greener, faith communities will be able to reduce energy costs by 20 percent or more” (“Green Church Applauded,” Presbyterian Record, Nov 1 2006). 8

Photo: Annie Ling

Befriending the Stranger: Matthew House

nspiration and need met in the birth of Matthew House. On our visit we learn that the City of Toronto receives nearly 10,000 refugees a year. How do these people find Canada at the end of the refugee highway? How are they welcomed? What role can and do churches and parachurch organizations serve in partnering with or challenging governments on their behalf? It is worth considering broadly what role churches take in welcoming newcomers to Canada’s cities. In their working paper series Research on Immigration and Integration in the Metropolis, Laura Beattie and David Ley write that the maintenance of urban stability for immigrants, refugees and newcomers was historically dependent on institutions like the church. In a study based on oral histories from the 1950s to the 1990s of immigrants in the city of Vancouver, they write: Many of these churches presented remarkable models of stewardship, as mutual aid was collectively practiced , springing from shared spiritual belief… If barn-raising was a foundational expression of social capital in rural faith communities, the construction of the church as a collective project has often been its urban counterpart. The church building itself was

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Many refugees spend their first night in Canada on an airport bench or on the street – literally counted among the homeless.

a material expression of a deeply held intersubjectivity (Research on Immigration and Integration in the Metropolis, 7). The church served as a useful cultural platform, as an anchor to those sharing similar sensibilities. Beattie and Ley write that “the power of strong ties established through… activities, as well as shared values and common backgrounds, provided a firm basis for trust and friendship, courtship and marriage, in short the consolidation of personal identity within a broader collective identity” (Beattie and Ley, 9). Services ranged from job referrals and recruitment to finding accommodation, language acquisition, and resource sharing: “Such services and networks were crucial,” they write, especially “for immigrants who frequently arrived with almost no funds and unable to speak English. Practical assistance from church members went a long way in facilitating settlement” (Beattie and Ley, 11). A Toronto Star article quoted a Ghana community church member on August 13, 2007. “God is very important to us,” William Dankwah said. “Church brings community together. If you need help, the church is there for you” (Jen Gerson, “Hallelujahs at Jane-Finch Church,” The Toronto Star 13 Aug 07). According to Beattie and Ley this pattern continues. New waves of immigration have

benefitted from the same patterns as earlier waves did. On the west coast they note that larger waves of Asian immigration have reinvented both church demographics and affiliations for immigrant and refugee sponsorships. Churches and religious organizations of Asian origin continue to provide settlement services, as well as spiritual and material support, carrying on the model established by European-origin churches of the past. These observations are not news. It is an old story that churches sponsor relatives, or that congregations partner with government to sponsor refugees. According to Anne WoolgerBell, Director of the Matthew House, private and church groups sponsor as many as 3,500 refugees a year. The Government of Canada itself sponsors about 7,000, a number which has dwindled in recent years. Together this makes about 10,500 between government and private groups. But the majority of newcomers arriving in Canada do not arrive with sponsorship. In any given year, Canada receives about 25,000 refugee claimants who arrive without any support whatsoever. “Many people,” Anne tells us, “arrive alone and afraid, and after their long journey end up spending their first night in Canada on a bench at the airport, or on the street. This means that these people can often be re-traumatized by their initial arrival experience.” These persons are literally counted among the homeless.

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It is in part local churches tells us, that one key Toronto Had I come all and church people in the city City manager commented that it this way only to of Toronto that highlight the is really in Toronto’s best interest problem. But it is also surprising to keep it active and running. die on the street how little churches are doing According to Anne’s calculations in a foreign land? about persons who are not directly the work that Matthew House connected with or sponsored by has done has saved the city – Refugee from Congo, one of 700 helped in 10 years by congregations or denominational approximately $1.5 million in Matthew House offices. Through working at a city shelter fees. In addition, the city funded shelter for homeless residence that Matthew House people, Anne saw that there were almost no rents from the city has resulted in rental dues of churches working with refugee claimants. nearly $150,000. Currently Matthew House is lobbying to convince the city to sell them their It was out of this experience that Matthew House building at below cost, as a recognition of their was born. Anne ran pilot projects in 1992 and partnership and complementary goals. Such a 1993, whose successful conclusion led her to open move, we suggest, would present a tangible, Matthew House as a permanent shelter in 1998. productive example of faith-based partnerships in Since opening, Matthew House has helped over the city of Toronto pursuing public goods. 700 refugees from more than 75 different nations. It can house as many as twelve people at a time, Anne pulls out a blue duotang. “The need is far and has grown from a staff of one to four full-time greater,” she tells us. Inside the duotang is a list staff, three full-time volunteers, and more than fifty of more than 2,500 refugee claimants seeking part-time volunteer helpers. A premium is placed temporary shelter, whom Matthew House had to on staff training and competency. Staff exhibit a turn away. The need easily out-demands the supply. variety of expertise, in fields including immigration procedures and law, medical referrals, social Matthew House is not alone. Conversations at service connections, orientation classes, permanent several other churches, especially more established housing solutions, and apartment furnishing. mainline denominations in the downtown, highlight programs for newcomers and refugees. This expertise is critical for unattached claimants In the case of Bloor Street United Church, a arriving in Canada. Refugee claimants are caseworker—residing within the building—helps required to file their stories within twenty-five refugee claimants with legal and administrative days of their admittance to Canada – no easy task challenges. The Light House Community Centre for those unfamiliar with the legal, administrative, runs a variety of programs, related especially and linguistic requirements. Neither does every to staff workers in the Chinese, Hispanic, and person who arrives fit a healthy, capable profile. Vietnamese communities. Matthew House itself In some cases unaccompanied minors arrive with has seen offspring all across Ontario and Canada. no support system. Such cases require flexibility Shelters in Fort Erie, Windsor, Vancouver, Hamilton and expertise that most city shelters, not designed and Cambridge have all been established based or operated for refugees, do not have. on this model. The faith groups that embrace these models are diverse, but each resonates with the Capacity at Matthew House is more and more need to partner and cooperate closely with levels widely acknowledged. Recently, it opened a new of government to the benefit of their communities Transition program, using a new house that was and newcomers. Matthew House is the story of donated to the group. Matthew House shelters only one such community, inspiring the foundation and assists refugee claimants that would otherwise of many more. be forced to use city agencies. It was in reference 8 to the support Matthew House provides, Anne

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Photo: Prison Fellowship

EVERY YEAR, 50,000 PRISON FELLOWSHIP VOLUNTEERS REACH OUT TO PRISONERS.

Strangers Within: Prison Fellowship

hurch and City partnerships have also shown success inside the prison system. “A lot of what we do is storytelling,” says Vivienne Nash, Director of Prison Fellowship’s In-Prison Services. Judith Laus, Managing Director, agrees. “The way we involve churches and people is with storytelling. I can give you our annual report, and tell you our numbers line up, but people actually want to hear about how faith and hope can really make a difference in hard places.” Through Prison Fellowship many churches get just that chance.

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To meet these goals, Prison Fellowship administers a long list of programs: aftercare, Bible studies, chapel services, music ministries, one-to-one visits, pen pals, pre-release training, visitor transportation, angel tree Christmas, camps and more. Additionally they operate halfway houses, seminars on resume-writing, and job-finding services… all in an effort to build community around offenders. Statistically, the value of community, support, and faith in prisons for reintegration is unchallenged. A system which focuses on retributive justice can only accomplish so much, Judith emphasizes. 100% of

The partnerships of Prison Fellowship span foundations, Probably churches, parachurch, municipal, our volunteers are Prison Fellowship notices the provincial, and federal groups. Judith tells us that “although regional differences in support. church people. churches only make up about “Suburban churches give 6% of our operating budget, money,” Judith tells us. “Urban probably 100% of our volunteers churches give people.” The are church people.” The value of volunteers divide, she further suggests, can sometimes also for Prison Fellowship cannot, in her mind, be be racially and culturally sensitive. Money is overestimated. And their work is really about good, she seems to be telling us, but the stories, bringing these groups together, to finally advance the work, really happens with people. Prison not just one or the other’s goals, but the wholeness Fellowship isn’t a top-down service organization of prisoners, ex-prisoners, and their families to – the benefits go both ways. The journey toward promote restorative justice. It is a global group, healing and better life choices is not a street serving as a charter member of Prison Fellowship you just lead people down, says Vivienne; “it’s a International, with over 100,000 volunteers in 112 journey you go on together.” countries: the single largest international ministry 8 in the criminal justice field.

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L’Arche sustains an alternative model of city-building and urban transformation

Photo: L’Arche Canada

The Urban Paradox: L’Arche Toronto 36

utually beneficial fellowship would resonate with Jean Vanier, the founder of the now-global L’Arche communities, which have also found a home in Toronto. L’Arche is probably most famously known through the writings of Henri Nouwen. L’Arche unravels traditional urban virtues – the wealth, sophistication, and networks of influential elites. In one of his letters, dated August 2003, Jean Vanier identified the ‘essential’ element of L’Arche communities as “presence: being present to people who are fragile; being present to one another.” Urban life is often fast-paced, with penalties for those who fail to keep up. In contrast, L’Arche aims: 1. To build communities that welcome people with developmental disabilities, and in doing so respond to their sense of rejection and validating their place in society;

3. To be a sign of welcome and respect for the weak and downtrodden; and 4. T o be a sign of hope, unity, faithfulness and reconciliation in the world between people of differing physical and mental abilities, and of differing social and cultural origins and traditions In Toronto these church and parachurch groups sustain alternative models of city-building and urban transformation – they challenge social norms, but do so by embracing the virtues that are laid out in Toronto’s City Plan. A Catholic cardinal once remarked to a group of young people in Rome that “the renewal of the church always comes as we dare to live a covenant with the poor.” Could it also be that good city life cannot be sustained until religious and nonreligious alike learn to live a covenant with society’s most vulnerable members? 888

2. To reveal the gifts and contributions of core members, who constitute the very heart of their communities;

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Photo: Annie Ling

Observation 6: Churches serve as mediating and mercy institutions on the front lines of city life 38

he connection between religious organizations and social services has always been a very strong one, especially in Toronto. The Womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s College Hospital, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Sick Kidsâ&#x20AC;? and Toronto General Hospitals, Mount Sinai Hospital, and the Canadian Red Cross, to name only a few, are examples of what people of faith have worked to establish. The role of religious institutions has changed in Toronto, but what we observed in our conversations and investigations is that people of faith, particularly in Christian churches, continue to have a profound impact on non-profit, volunteer, and charitable work in the city. Contrary to the suggestion that religion offers little of practical value, we observed a great deal of activity and earthly good from church and parachurch institutions. In a general way we will outline our observations using, first, some broad statistics which will be helpful to frame our subsequent stories on homelessness, shelters, drop-ins, crime, and community safety in the city of Toronto.

An Opiate for the Masses? Are churches concerned with more than prayer and piety? The report on Religion, Participation, and Charitable Giving from the Canadian Centre of Philanthropy

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suggests they are. The report concludes that religiously active persons make up 43 percent of volunteers in Canada and account for a startling 50 percent of all hours volunteered (Kurt Bowen, Religion, Participation and Charitable Giving, 2). In hours, weekly church attendees devote an average of 197 hours a year to volunteering, far greater than the 135 hours contributed by those who do not attend. If all Canadians, the report writes, volunteered as much as the religiously active, the number of volunteers in Canada would rise 35 percent from 7.4 million to 9.9 million and the total number of hours volunteered would rise 59 percent from 1.1 billion to 1.7 billion. If all emulated the religiously inactive, Canadian volunteers would be reduced to 6 million and the total hours volunteered would fall to 0.8 billion (Bowen, 3). Further, the 32 percent of Canadians who are religiously active contribute 65 percent of direct charitable donations. As one might expect, this group is responsible for 86 percent of donations to religious bodies; yet even in the secular sector, the religiously active provide 42

percent of the $2.1 billion raised by direct giving (Bowen, 2). The perception that volunteering and giving is done primarily within insular religious realms was also debunked in this report. Some 79 percent of religiously active persons indicated that they generally volunteer outside their religious domain. Even among weekly attendees who volunteer, more do so in secular agencies than religious ones. While religiously inactive volunteers devote on average more hours to secular associations than weekly attendees, the higher volunteering rate of religiously actives ensures that they are responsible for the highest percentage of all hours devoted to secular agencies (Bowen, 3). Volunteering and giving are nonetheless directed through networks that are faithbased, if not explicitly understood as places of worship. The breadth and number of these networks makes their impact statistically remarkable. There is a vast, physical plant of sanctuaries, halls, kitchens and meeting rooms that churches build, maintain, and make available to voluntary and service organizations in every community and region of Canada.

Photo: Annie Ling

There is a vast, physical plant of sanctuaries, halls, kitchens and meeting rooms—like this one at the Newman Centre—that churches make available to service organizations in every region of Canada.

To illustrate, consider that the Roman Catholic, United and Baptist denominations have 5706, 3909 and 2435 congregations respectively, while Pentecostal denominations have 1441 (Bowen, 2-3). According to the study for Understanding the Capacity of Religious Organizations, of all Canada’s 31,000 religious organizations, 79 percent primarily serve their neighbourhoods, cities, towns, or municipalities, and 73 percent serve the general public, compared to 46 percent of all organizations. Only 33 percent restrict membership, compared to 43 percent of all organizations. And 69 percent report that both members and non-members benefit equally from their services (Brownlee, Gumulka, Barr and Lasby, Understanding the Capacity of Religious Organizations, 3). Is this the kind of insular piety some expect from C h r i s t i a n c h u r c h e s a n d religious organizations generally? Meredith

Ramsay argues that our expectations may be influenced by an outdated perspective on organized religion. She writes that far from being an opiate for consoling and insulating spiritual belief from civil society and the public square, “religious faith… inspires belief in possibilities for real social change and thus promotes political mobilization” (Ramsay, 607). Faith, hope and love, it seems, do not cohabit well with cynicism and apathy. Instead, these virtues call people forth into service of their neighbours, into service of the common good, and to the pursuit of justice.

Living on the Streets: Shelters, Drop-ins and Missions An entire report could be framed around just the front-line issues of shelters, drop-ins and missions in Toronto. We observed a wide network of faith and church-based missions.

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Even those that don’t strike one as immediately churchconnected, usually are. Churches often feel a strong pull to be involved at this level. “Things like homelessness and poverty action are easy to galvanize support around,” one city manager told us. “They are statistically verifiable, they are in your face, and they strike a chord for immediate and immanent action.” This can at times be a problem. A call to faithful living can mean an immediate response instead of strategic and cooperative planning. It can mean that well-intentioned people tackle problems and places they know very little about, putting them at cross-purposes with longerterm efforts. In this section we want to tell stories that illustrate this, and offer suggestions for how church and city can more effectively mobilize their collective resources around social service concerns. Our meetings with city staff led us to Greg Paul, Founder and Director of Sanctuary. Sanctuary began as a band called Red Rain in 1985. Its members had a clear sense that God was calling them to take their message “to the streets,” and so they moved among bars, jails, festivals, universities, and other venues. It was around this time that they were invited by the Central Gospel Hall to use the church building for storage and practice. But by December 1992, Central Gospel Hall was meeting as a congregation for the last time, its congregation

having grown too small and too elderly to continue. Earlier in the year Richvale Bible Chapel had commended Greg and Karen Paul as missionaries to the city, and it was with these two events that the vision for Sanctuary was born. The place that was Red Rain’s practice and storage depot became much more. Sanctuary began with Wednesday drop-in lunches, along with street outreach programs. Since then, many different programs have been added, including “drop-ins” on Thursday and Saturday, health care, an arts program, and more. From a staff of just two, the staff grew to twelve and innumerable volunteers, most of whom, Greg tells us, come from right in the neighbourhood. A unique characteristic of Sanctuary’s work is that despite its emphasis on social services, it has always retained an equal emphasis on the arts. This is because, Greg says, “Sanctuary isn’t a social service depot, that feeds, clothes and medical-izes clients. In fact, the people who are part of Sanctuary are not really clients at all. Sanctuary is a community where everyone participates. I’m just as much a part of this community as everyone else who comes through these doors.” When there is cooking to be done, they get everyone to pitch in. The kitchen is designed to be comfortable, the kind

“religious faith… inspires belief in possibilities for real social change.”

“

• it has a health clinic staffed of social space that people Churches rally in a home would naturally by two nurses and volunteer more easily around doctor; and gather around. Greg tells us, “It’s the heart of every home. City Hall than they • it hosts arts events The kitchen is where people and concerts. do directly with share meals, where essential community formation Further, Sanctuary partners one another. happens.” The dining room is with the city’s strategic vision further testimony of this. It isn’t – and the city has people in a meal hall, or a cafeteria; it is like a large-scale place to work alongside. It means that both version of a family dining room. The walls are city departments and Sanctuary staff leverage decorated with community artwork – projects their resources effectively, supporting each that homeless persons, volunteers, and staff have other where it makes sense, and making completed together. As Greg takes us to see the space for each other where it doesn’t. Finally, clothing rooms he comments, “Some people Sanctuary has a holistic mission – it talks think we’re a social service organization; and about helping people, not solving problems. we do a lot of those kinds of things. But really, “Being healthy and part of a community is we’re a church. Everything we do here is about more than a full stomach and warm clothes,” living in and creating community – a place Greg tells us. “It’s about dignified work, beauty, where people are safe, secure and respected.” art, purpose, and hope.”

”

The list of Sanctuary’s partners in this mission is very long. Greg has been involved in several city committees, including the Homeless and Socially Isolated Persons Committee, and works very closely with branches of city government, especially Streets to Homes. He is enthusiastic about conversations with the City, which has been very helpful with problems in law enforcement in the area. Sanctuary also has partnerships with a wide network of churches and private donors, including big business and banks, like BMO’s Foundation of Hope. Sanctuary’s model gives us a few insights. It works first with existing church and nonprofit presences in the area. Their building is a testimony of an old partnership. In some ways the work and life of Central Gospel Hall continues through Sanctuary. Greg worked and lived for years before planting a physical presence. When he planted it, he did it in cooperation with likeminded people already present. He continues this kind of communal attitude: • every morning from 6:00 to 7:00 a.m. a Korean church uses Sanctuary’s space; • it houses alcoholic and narcotic support groups;

This argument for holistic community could have come straight from the mouth of Dion Oxford, the director of the Salvation Army Gateway. “The end goal of the Gateway is health and wholeness—mental, physical, spiritual and emotional health,” he tells us. Achieving the goal can be tough, “and sometimes,” he says, “too much help can be as bad as not enough. This can create co-dependence as opposed to our goal of independence.” Dion emphasizes partly what Greg Paul meant by being “partnered and strategic” with city and local organizations, but he also shows us that not everyone should feel called to start a homeless shelter. A city staffer argues the same point: Homeless persons and street people often have abusive pasts, and at times there is psychological and physical illness involved. These are complex people with complex problems: we need training, professionalization and competence, in addition to motivation and good intentions. Dion Oxford notes that staff at the Gateway are well trained, and he employs several

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professionals in job searching, addiction counseling, medical aid and more. We observed that too often, ch u rch e s c o n s i d e r s t r e e t ministry a task for young people or evangelism groups, who have little or no knowledge of street life or the complexity of the problems involved. One of the biggest issues that city staff are often working on is how to work alongside churches trying to engage in this work, to help professionalize and train them. Th e s e c o n d i s s u e D i o n f l a g s s u r p r i s e s u s . “ Th i s neighbourhood has a glut of social services,” he tells us. “But although there are more and more social services, we are not coordinated enough.” Dion’s suggestion seems confirmed when we examine Toronto’s highest priority neighbourhoods: the downtown was not one of them. This is part of the stra t e g i c p a r t n e r i n g t h a t Greg Paul has been telling us about. It is not just about partnerships, we observed, but about combining resources and neighbourhood knowledge to discern what each neighbourhood genuinely needs. This area, Dion tells us, “doesn’t need more food or clothing banks.” What it needs, it seems, is more conversation among the ones that already exist. In some places this is already beginning to take place. Talking to wealthier churches

like Rosedale Presbyterian Church, we learn that when their congregation became concerned for anti-poverty action they joined the preexisting Kairos network. Rather than step into a world they knew little of, they partnered with other churches actively doing the work. A similar strategy exists behind the work of Rosedale United Church and its support of the Christian Resource Centre in Regent Park. But we noticed that these intentional networks were not true of all churches, especially in the downtown. “The Christian inner-city missions network in Toronto is tight,” Dion said. “We are all friends. We play and pray together.” But the churches themselves are not nearly so tight. Travelling from churches to parachurch organizations and missions proves this case. There are long lists of partnerships, networks and cooperation, but very little of it seems to cross the boundaries of denomination or theological perspective. It is only in the more established non-denominational missions that we observe the blurring of these boundaries. Sometimes, we are told in conversations at Yonge Street Mission, it’s easier to partner with the city or with other faith groups altogether, than to partner with different Christian churches. While networks and partnerships exist between churches, mostly they stay within similar perspectives

Sometimes, we are told in conversations at Yonge Street Mission, it’s easier to partner with the city or with different faith groups altogether, than is it to partner with other Christian churches.

– particularly the twin, sprawling wo r l d s o f e va n g e l i c a l i s m and Catholicism. Established organizations like the Yonge Street Mission are well positioned to bridge these worlds. However, other extensive Toronto networks, such as the Salvation Army 614 Network or the anti-poverty coalition Kairos, have difficulty breeching these worlds in the same way. At times the only coherent strategy behind their respective work is the one that the city has provided: through municipal plans or inter-faith coalitions. Churches rally more easily around City Hall than they do directly with one another. While it is admirable that the city can perform this function, and essential that church and parachurch networks strategize with and alongside City Hall, the time seems right for these conversations to begin to take place amongst each other as well. These conversations keep churches from reinventing the wheel, from working at cross purposes, and will help make strategic alignments that can save resources, streamline goals and make more effective action. Our observations at Sanctuary, the Salvation Army, and at the Yonge Street Mission told us that if we want to be serious about churches and the City cooperating to build a better and more just Toronto, it is not just City Hall and churches that must talk, but churches with each other, and within themselves.

Crime, Violence and Community Safety Toronto is one of the safest cities in North America. But it’s not a uniform city, and there are regions and spaces that have disproportionately higher violence than others. This is not news: every city has “rough” neighbourhoods. The question for us here is in what way government and church can partner to promote community safety, and create hope in neighbourhoods at risk.

community strategies on violence and crime, fitting into a broader Community Safety Plan, which was adopted by Toronto city council in March 2004. In the first place, churches in Toronto can be and are busy partnering on these plans. Some churches are even pioneering strategic visions in their neighbourhoods. The story of the African-Canadian Christian Network (ACCN) was an example of church, government, and communities “visioning” together in Toronto to promote safety and sustainability. While the network represents significant capital investment, it also represents real people working together in neighbourhoods. “Churches don’t just need money,” says Andrew King, a board member of the ACCN and Pastor of a Seventh-Day Adventist Church. “Churches especially need people and experience.” “Church has to partner with government and city,” Andrew emphasizes. But, he seems to be saying, the best ways government can help aren’t just with money. The ACCN has done and continues to do excellent work, but it seems that the story of the ACCN reflects more than just a transfer of funds – it is the kind of working partnership which, given thought and time, positions local faith communities to make a significant impact. The Church of the Resurrection is another example of working faith communities. It helped created the East York Strategy, modeled (together with a nearby neighbourhood’s Etobicoke Strategy) after a program in Boston by Dr. Eugene Rivers. The strategy is a faithled, police-supported initiative dedicated to reducing the incidence of crime. It calls for, but is not limited to: •

•

Most neighbourhoods in Toronto have

developing initiatives to create jobs for young people; providing safe play areas for children and youth through active supervision

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of community and school playgrounds and gymnasiums; •

•

rganizing special “impact” events for o the community; e stablishing “Operation Homefront,” a program designed to provide faith-based mentoring to high school students in at-risk communities; and roviding assistance to individuals who p have been victims of crime.

Pastor Duke Vipperman of Church of the Resurrection says that church success in this strategy is partly because almost 80% of the congregation comes from within the geographic parish surrounding the church. This kind of presence means that the church is active in street associations, and even hosts street parties and festivals. Years before, Duke tells us, residents would never have dreamed of the freedom to celebrate in their streets, but the combination of government and church efforts means that real change is beginning to take place. The story of the Church of the Resurrection is really a continuing story of Little Trinity, which tithed its membership to help sustain the former’s dwindling congregation. From this graft, Church of the Resurrection has thrived and taken a significant lead in its community. This model represented another observation we made, about the capacity of neighbourhood churches to build and sustain social capital. 888

Observation 7: Churches build and sustain social capital and civil virtues within neighbourhoods 46

ocial capital refers to institutions, relationships, and norms that shape the quality and quantity of a society’s social interactions. The benefits of social capital for Toronto’s neighbourhoods are manifold. As Robert Putnam argues, for example, child development is powerfully improved by strong social capital; public spaces are cleaner; people are friendlier; streets are safer; institutions and businesses flourish; and individual health and well being is improved (Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community). The two critical components of strong social capital, according to Putnam and others, are trust and interpersonal connectedness, items we flagged in the introduction as waning urban virtues. Nick Pearce, however, argues that this cannot be achieved through political action or urban planning: Interpersonal trust and civic belonging are themselves often forged through social struggles, and the creation and maintenance of institutions and practices that generate and sustain other-regarding virtues (Nick Pearce, “Diversity versus Solidarity,” Renewal: A Journal of Labour Politics, Vol. 12 No. 3, 2004).

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Q. Do you believe God or a higher power exists?

PERCENTAGE

Catholic or Protestant No religion or other

90%

Yes, I definitely do: 49%

83% 72%

Yes, I think so: 33%

28% 17%

10%

Ta b l e 1.5

1981

1991

No, I don’t think so: 11%

2001

Q. What is your religion?

Q. Do you believe God or a higher power exists? Q. Which on the list below are very important virtues?

PERCENTAGE

Catholic or Protestant No religion or other

90%

Those who believe in God

PERCENTAGE Yes, I definitely do: 49%

83% 72%

Honesty

28%

Family life

17%

10%

1981

1991

No, I Being loved don’t think so: 11%

2001

Friendship

Q. Do you believe God or Courtesy Q. Do you believe a higher power God exists?or Concern for others a higher power exists? Q. Which on the list below are very important virtues? Those who believe in God PERCENTAGE PERCENTAGE Yes, I PERCENTAGE definitely Yes, I do: 49% definitely Honesty do: 49% Kindness Family life

No, I don’tI Being think loved No, so: 11% don’t think Friendship so: 11% Courtesy

Forgiveness Those who don’t Politeness Friendliness

Those who don’t Forgiveness

Yes, I think so:I Yes, think33% so: 94% 33% 89%

Politeness Friendliness Patience

88%

75% Generosity

88%

65%

No, I 86% definitely No, I 70% do not: 7% definitely 85% do not: 7% 74% 81%

63%

84% 77% 73%

52% 65%

89%

88%

75%

88%

65%

86% No, I

definitely 70% do not: 85%7% 74%

81%

71%

82%

63%

84%

52%

77% 73%

65% 66%

72% 67%

39% 37%

Source: Reginald W. Bibby, Project Canada Survey and STATSCAN Richard Johnson–National Post

71%

82%

No, I definitely do not: 7%

Those who don’t

Yes, I think so: 33% 94%

Kindness

Concern for others below are very important virtues? below are very important virtues? God Those who don’t

God

Q. What is your religion?

Th e d i s c ove r y of social capital, says Christa Freiler in “Why Strong Neighbourhoods Matter,” has been significant for neighbourhood studies and neighbourhood revitalization initiatives. She writes,

Religious institutions are our primary defense against the downward inertial drag that individualism has on our culture.

Not only has it helped to refocus attention and efforts onto the positive aspects of neighbourhoods – even those with high levels of poverty – it is also being used to guide decisions about i nvestments in communities. It is assumed that investment in local areas is more likely to be successful in communities with robust, value added social capital (Freiler, 10-11). John McKnight, of the U.S. Asset-Based Community Development Institute, recommends “rebuilding communities from the inside out, maintaining that everything you need is inside because low-income neighbourhoods have many more local associations than in some more affluent areas and newer sub-divisions” (As quoted in Freiler, 11). Don Eberly and Ryan Streeter write in The Soul of Civil Society that religious institutions are the primary means by which the minds and hearts of their members extend beyond themselves to the public, the community, the

common good. They are our primary defense against the downward inertial drag that individualism has on our culture, our homes, and our most important institutions. There is little the market or government or large national nonprofit groups can do to help turn our self-directed eyes to the community around us. Human-scale society, on the other hand, can make the community part of our natural purview (Eberly and Streeter, 32). The Canadian sociologist of religion Reginald Bibby provides more recent data (Table 1.5, 2007) which also suggests that a variety of social virtues are cultivated and disseminated by spirituality and religion. Nick Pearce suggests that this cultivation can best be pursued not just on a broader, social level, but that “interior cultivation” within these communities themselves lends a critical capacity for city-building. Advocates of civil society often cite the church as a mediating institution which along with other local community groups provides a buffer from the dictates of the market and the economy. But Mark Gornik argues that churches are much more than this. For Gornik, urban churches are “living communities of truth, grace and reconciliation,” where Christian identity cuts across every other divide in neighbourhood (Mark Gornik, To Live in Peace: Biblical Faith in the Changing Inner

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City, 18-19). Churches and other civil society organizations not only engender “other-regarding virtues,” they are also places where bridging social capital is nurtured and experienced. Churches locate the identity and personal contribution of diverse community members in categories that supersede educational, economic or ethnic stratification. Probably the best example of this was Toronto’s World Youth Day in 2002. “Five years after World Youth Day,” says Father Thomas Rosica, the event’s National Director and CEO, “people still spontaneously come together to share stories about what happened. There is a legacy of goodness.” World Youth Day brought young people from 170 countries to Toronto, participating in civil solidarity and peace. More than 600 bishops, archbishops and thirty-six cardinals were present, teaching and conversing in twenty-four languages at 129 churches in the Toronto area and in seven giant halls at Exhibition Place. Jean Vanier met with youth to talk to them about spiritual journeying. Many visitors also took part in sessions of song and prayer organized by the Taizé community from France. “First Nations” led performances and prayer experiences at the Youth Festival. An aboriginal village was constructed, and other events and ceremonies celebrated indigenous cultures. St. Ann’s

church in Toronto, which has a life-sized statue of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, “the Lily of the Mohawks,” hosted aboriginal prayer and gatherings. “The message of World Youth Day,” Father Rosica says, “was a message of hope, a message that we do not need to be afraid. That hope is at the basis of everything we do.” It is a hope that all people could share, breaking down barriers between generations, races, wealth and poverty. World Youth Day was deeply commensurable with civil solidarity and building social capital: “The Church must be mixing with people,” says Father Rosica, “being in public, bringing constantly a message of hope and of peace in the midst of the divisions and injustices around us.” World Youth Day 2002 and Pope John Paul II left the church and future generations of young people a profound legacy: “Build bridges, not walls” if you wish to make the world a better place. Increasingly, the churches we interviewed are moving toward these models, embracing new models of diverse communitybuilding. However, this model is also less common and robust than we might have hoped. Here, at least, there is genuine room for church models to grow in their calling for civil society and the City of Toronto. 888

Communication! Love! Be a healthy influence on society to help break down the barriers that have been raised between generations! No barriers! Communion between generations, between parents and sons and daughters. Communion! –P ope John Paul II, World Youth Day 1995, Manila

Observation 8: Toronto arts and culture are encouraged as part of Church life 50

All art is holy. Not that it is all long-faced and miserable; it can be wild and wooly. But if it transforms you, it is art. And it is holy. – Robertson Davies

uilding social bridges is a great legacy of the arts. Music and art express something sublime, aspects of life that are beyond an everyday physical experience. They call us to look deeper and to revel in the complexity of life. “Music and art and poetry,” writes Thomas Merton, “attune the soul to God.” As a result, the fine arts have found a home in religion, especially churches, as people reflect and express belief and faith in new and surprising ways. The Map of Toronto’s Cultural Facilities describes facilities in four categories: hubs, incubators, showcases, and cultural memory sites. A hub is “a place that provides support for cultural activity throughout all of the city’s diverse communities” (Cultural Facilities Analysis, 3). Only one third of these hubs are City-run. An incubator refers to support which is provided to Toronto’s artists, about 90% of which are City-run. While showcases provide support for culture as part of the City’s Economic Development and Tourism Strategy, more than 80% are not City-run. Finally cultural memory sites are those sites which provide support for culture as a heritage resource, more of which tend to be City-run. To r o n t o t h e G o o d

Photo: Tafelmusik.org

Churches (and places of worship, generally) are in the unique position of fitting into every one of these categories. Every church we visit has some form of incubation and commitment to the arts. These commitments vary widely, but each perform the critical role of cultivating or encouraging particular artistic expressions. Generally, many of the older, mainline churches employ musicians. Bloor Street United Church employs an organ scholar, as well as paid soloists and other musicians.

Every church we visit has some form of incubation and commitment to the arts. Trinity St. Paulâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, for instance, hosts Tafelmusikâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s renowned concert series.

Rosedale Presbyterian Church runs an Arts Festival, in which it celebrates Scottish culture, complete with dance and music. When we visited First Baptist Church it was shortly to host Nuit Blanche, a city-wide art and culture festival.

Churches fit into every one of these cultural categories.

The Salvation Army Gateway recently installed new stained glass, an exceptional display of a young artist whom the Gateway had encouraged and supported. Visual arts are alive and well in Catholic and Orthodox churches in the city: intricate iconography, paintings and reliefs magnificently sculpt their interiors. Quite apart from the Newman Centre’s obvious artistic works, it is regularly used for filming and photo shoots. As we learned in our visit, much of the elaborate furnishings at the Centre are gifts from movie sets. St. Gabriel’s, the eco-friendly church in North York, retained a l l i t s h i s t o r i c s p l e n d o r, creating art in light refractions and colour. Again, Sanctuary, the church and shelter led by Greg Paul, had its beginning in a band. It is still used for concerts and community art shows. Anne-Woolger Bell proudly displayed for us art that had been created and supported at Matthew House. There are the music festivals and choirs at Metropolitan United Church, a church including one of Toronto’s three concert-class carillons (the others are at Hart House and Exhibition Place). This does not include the city wide “Sing-Along-Messiahs”

at Christmas, or St. Matthew’s Passion in the Easter months. Churches in each case are involved in arts in worship, or arts as worship, if not also in more widely promoting artistic use of their space. Toronto churches also seem to be excellent hubs. “Space is at a premium,” we learn in an interview at Bloor Street United Church. “There aren’t a lot of really excellent musical spaces left in the city, and those that are left are in high demand.” Certain kinds of music require particular spaces, and in many cases this means churches. To r o n t o ’s C u l t u r e P l a n acknowledges the important role that places of worship play in this, particularly in such public cultural spaces as Trinity St. Paul’s, where Baroque original instruments and vocal ensemble Tafelmusik performs. Tafelmusik’s concert series at Trinity St. Paul’s is renowned in the neighbourhood and across the city, no small thanks to the space and to partnerships between church and the arts. Church and parachurch organizations can be significant contributors not just with religious art, but as venues for public fine arts. 888

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Conclusion:

T 54

he beginning of this report emphasized the comparative lack of research on the engagement of faith communities in city-building. We introduced the complexities of this and the challenge that it poses to policy makers and faith leaders. We also began by suggesting that the compartmentalization of urban space, and the growing disparities between neighbourhoods, makes this kind of research more important than ever. What followed was a series of observations that suggest why expanding this research is important. Our research suggested that faith communities can be significant partners with city government on strategies for achieving Toronto the Good: in defining how people understand public goods, and in defining under what structures and circumstances they may contribute. Churches are not the only local organizations important to this work, but they are a significant presence on the front lines, cultivating and creating good city life. These are our key observations, recapitulated: â&#x20AC;˘

ity and church are complex entities, C and no research can take for granted that a perspective held by one part of the city or by one church is representative of the whole. In City of Toronto departments we observed that strategies for engaging the faith sector could vary a great deal, and in

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churches we see no overall strategy for engaging public life, or city-building.

Cathedral Church of St. James, Toronto Photo: Annie Ling •

•

We should not try to make churches something they are not. Churches are not foremost aid, rental agencies, public spaces, or arts communities. The city and the public benefit most when the church is freed “to be the church.” Diversity can mean encouraging the kind of plural commitments this entails. Church qua (as) church requires constant reflection on and sustenance of what we call public goods, why we call these strategic alignments good, and the different ways public goods can be achieved. It does not mean some flat imposition of different religious or spiritual values, but a forum for legitimate conversation on what we believe, and how we will live in the city – our political life together. This conversation begins with relationships, real interaction, and lively respectful response, not just tolerance. C hurch (and organized religion, g e n e ra l l y ) i s n o t s i g n i f i c a n t l y declining in the city of Toronto. These institutions and organizations are in every single neighbourhood in Toronto. They command significant resources, especially in respect of charitable giving and volunteerism.

The breadth and depth of churches and parachurch organizations is such that we do not want to miss out on the possibilities such partnerships offer to city-building. •

•

hurch buildings and institutions form C a core of heritage and culture in the city of Toronto. Church and parachurch organizations are not somehow historically distinct from the city of Toronto. Toronto’s story is the history captured in these churches, as in so many other heritage spaces. Religious faith has been and continues to be a significant determinant in building and cultivating the communities and neighbourhoods that are the city of Toronto. hurch and parachurch organizations can C be a positive source for social change. This is not merely political activism, but an embodiment of beliefs in buildings and lifestyle. This is the story of St. Gabriel’s eco-friendly church building. Matthew House is another example of church and parachurch’s leading social change for immigrants and refugees, mediating between citizenship and immigrant status, and approaching newcomers to Canada and the City of Toronto as New Canadians. These stories of integration and relationships are similar at Prison Fellowship and L’Arche, where church and parachurch take the lead with persons on the margins of society. hurches serve as mercy institutions on C the front lines of city life. The activities of Toronto church and parachurch groups in hostels, shelters, drop-ins, after school programs, tutoring, community safety, and more reveal an important role for faith groups. These are the places where government and church have the highest levels of interaction. oronto arts, culture, and social capital T are built, sustained, and encouraged as

part of church and parachurch life. Every church that was involved in this study is connected to the fine arts. Many churches have sophisticated connections, including as concert venues and with cultural and arts education. World Youth Day was a tangible example of what church and city can accomplish together, resonating still years later in the minds and hearts of the people of the city.

Next Steps: City and Church in Toronto City and church should reconceive of each other as potential partners, not rivals. This report observed a variety of ways in which churches can make significant contributions to good city life, and ways in which government can work with them to encourage this. This is not to suggest that government can or should partner with faith communities on every project, but merely that these groups should be on the lookout for ways that they can work together, rather than apart. Ideally the stories and observations within this report can sustain the suggestion that religious groups and city staff can profit by finding each other and working together.

Steps for Church 1. C hurches must internally reflect on their theology of the city, and where they can strategically “partner” with the City in their neighbourhoods. Churches should ask what it means to be located in their neighbourhoods in the city, and what roles they might play in the community, given the range of their convictions and the needs of the neighbourhood. They may consider what a local neighbourhood church might look like, as distinct from commuter-based models. These conversations – internal to churches – are pre-requisite to wider conversations, either between churches

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“

There is no alliance more determined and dogged in action than church workers, ordained and lay members, when mobilized for a common good…. The church is to the fore, far out in front of the media and politicians in dealing with the needs of our fragmented society. –B rian Stewart, senior CBC correspondent, in his address to the 160th Convocation of Knox College (2004)

or between churches and government. A good first step in this process would be to develop a theological handbook, which gathers perspectives and writings from some of the globe’s leading Christian persons on the theology of the city. Follow-up work, modeled after Montreal’s Christian Direction, could help establish baselines and action items for particular churches within the region of Toronto. 2. Churches in Toronto should identify linkages between themselves, and begin conversations about how they can enhance cooperation and their living together in the city. Churches could take some cues from the parachurch network in Toronto which has been working closely for years. But churches, quite apart from parachurch missions, can exert significant impacts on their neighbourhoods. Exploring these might mean seeking out other faith communities in proximity, and brainstorming how to leverage combined capacities. Churches could begin by recognizing that regardless of how wide one particular church world might be, effectively leveraging resources requires conversation with other institutions in civil society, including other partner churches. In a conversation at Toronto’s Catholic archdiocese we were told that the “Catholic Church enjoys the benefits of being a larger organization,” meaning they are able to independently offer many services and programs that would

”

take collaboration at other levels. But we suggest this can also be a drawback, if not for the larger organizations themselves, at least for the smaller partners that miss out on opportunities to partner on that scale within their neighbourhoods. How much more could Toronto benefit if the resources of its churches could be coherently mobilized toward the common, public virtues of good city life? We suggest that churches in Toronto engage in city-building in order to rally communities in common cause – the public good. A regular meeting of Toronto’s church leadership should gather to discuss these issues with each other, and set goals and baselines for urban renewal supportable from a diversity of theological and religious traditions. It is critical that these churches begin to do some urban action together, as only working together and meeting the people within Toronto’s churches can help build these bridges. Along with what we have already emphasized, this could take the form of something as simple as planting petunias.

Steps for City 1. Partnerships can be profitable, and the City of Toronto should place more emphasis on urban professionals’ developing religious literacy and recognizing the diversity that exists within, as well as between, religious traditions and organizations. We observed that religious institutions and people are a lot like everyone else, and

that generally reasoned assessments and partnerships around common concerns are not difficult to imagine. 2. More emphasis on the already occurring conversations between City and church is called for. It is difficult to generalize on these conversations. The Anglican and Catholic churches, for example, have professional staff who interact with city services and departments on a regular

in these conversations. While preparing to join such conversations may require internal ecclesiastical reflection, leading this conversation is a role that the City of Toronto is in a unique position to fulfill. 3. I n this environment we think it is worth re-examining the institution or role of a Faith Liaison Officer at City Hall, a position that formerly existed in Toronto. This role is now functioning in other

Trinity St. Paulâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s United Church, Toronto Photo: Annie Ling

basis. These groups may possess the capacity for more ambitious partnerships. However, many churches have yet to be brought into conversations with this level of urban sophistication. These groups may not have the capacity to partner at the level of some of the models observed in this report. They should, instead, begin with our suggested first next step for churches before engaging actively

major Canadian and American cities. Such a step could be one significant way to promote strategic partnerships between city departments and faith communities. Torontoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dynamic urban history suggests that cultivating genuine relationships with faith partners is likely to be a task which will pay return on investment in future years.

To r o n t o t h e G o o d

Steps for Research The nature of this report means that our observations and suggestions are necessarily limited. In some cases our observations suggested areas for further research. Following is a tentative agenda for further research: 1. A theological study on the changing nature of the local church in the global city could offer a base framework the kinds of reflection â&#x20AC;&#x201C; internal to churches â&#x20AC;&#x201C; that we have suggested. Such a tool would be a helpful resource for those who hope to engage and work alongside churches. This could include indicators and baselines, such as those described by Christian Direction, for what city-building and urban transformation look like from a variety of theological perspectives. 2. Analysis of the workings of local government in Toronto, and other major Canadian cities. Our conversations touched on how city government functions in the local context. A study limited to this topic could prove very helpful for the spectrum of civil society, including religious communities, that are looking for the strategic knowledge required to partner with the City, congruent with City plans. This could include a study on how different levels of Canadian government interact in the City, and how to navigate and partner with levels beyond the municipality. 3. A study similar to Toronto the Good, but examining much more closely suburban and outlying urban regions, and the role that faith communities can and do play in these contexts. Suburban regions often defy traditional notions of neighbourhood and communitybuilding, creating unique circumstances and challenges for faith communities in suburban communities. This report touched only peripherally on suburban

regions. But do our observations about central urban neighbourhoods hold for suburban neighbourhoods? Are the common goods of suburban communities similar to those of more dense urban environments? What roles can churches and religious groups play in the suburbs to sustain and promote vibrant community and neighbourhood building? 4. R esearch on the capacity of mediating institutions in civil society, the divisions of powers, and the social architecture of Canadian urban life. What is the relationship of faith communities to the different spheres of society? How can this relationship be understood in such a way that the different institutions and perspectives that make up Canadian society can work toward mutually complementary goals? 59

We began this study asking whether faith communities and the City can partner to help create Toronto the Good. With observations drawn from research among churches, we suggest that this is the case and, further, that churches can be considered indicative of organized religion generally. The stories that we heard are good examples of what can happen when faith communities pursue certain goals, and when City departments partner with them. There are problems, to be sure, that highlight the challenges that religious groups in Toronto face, but our observations suggest that such partnerships are nonetheless worth pursuing. This report does not claim the last word on any of these matters. We hope, instead, that these stories, observations, and suggested next steps will provide jumping-off points for dialogue and action as we promote, build, and sustain Toronto the Good. 888

BIB L I OGR A P HY OF S O U R C E S C I T E D

“ A Map of Toronto’s Cultural Facilities: A Cultural Facilities Analysis.” Prepared for Division of Economic Development, Culture and Tourism (Toronto). Toronto, 2003. Beattie, Laura and David Ley. The German Immigrant Church in Vancouver: Service Provision and Identity Formation. Vancouver Centre of Excellence: Research on Immigration and Integration in the Metropolis Working Paper Series. No. 01-19. October 2001. Bibby, Reginald. Restless Churches: How Canada’s Churches Can Contribute to the Emerging Religious Renaissance. Toronto: Novalis, 2004. Bibby, Reginald. Restless Gods: The Renaissance of Religion in Canada. Toronto: Stoddart Publishing, 2002. 60

Bowen, Kurt. Religion, Participation, and Charitable Giving: A Report. Toronto: Canadian Centre for Philanthropy, 1999. Brownlee, Barbara and Glenn Gumulka, Cathy Barr and David Lasby. Understanding the Capacity of Religious Organizations: A Synthesis of Findings from the National Survey of Nonprofit and Voluntary Organizations and the National Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating. Toronto: Imagine Canada., 2005. Caulfield, Jon. “The Growth of the Industrial City and Inner Toronto’s Vanished Church Buildings.” Urban History Review. Vol. 23 No. 2 (March 1995). Clark, C.S. Of Toronto the Good: A Social Study. Montreal: The Toronto Publishing Company, 1898. “ Culture Plan for the Creative City.” Prepared for Culture Division. Toronto: City of Toronto, 2003. Eberly, Don and Ryan Streeter. The Soul of Civil Society: Voluntary Associations and the Public Value of Moral Habits. CITY?, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2002. “ Enough Talk: An Action Plan for the Toronto Region.” Toronto: Toronto City Summit Alliance. April, 2003. Freiler, Christa. “Why Strong Neighbourhoods Matter: Implications for Policy and Practice.” Prepared for the Strong Neighbourhoods Task Force Toronto. November 4, 2004. Gerson, Jen. “Hallelujahs at Jane-Finch Church: Ministry that Started Out in Ghana and Continued with 13 People in a Toronto Basement Celebrates 25 Years of Helping People Find Community.” Toronto Star (13 Aug 07). Gornik, Mark. To Live in Peace: Biblical Faith and the Changing Inner City. Grand Rapids,Mich.: Eerdmans, 2002.

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Lorinc, John. “The Colonization of Industrial Space: Our Post-War Industrial Buildings Now House Sports Facilities, Kennels, and Makeshift Churches.” Toronto Star (13 Aug 07). Madden, Kathleen. How to Turn a Place Around: A Handbook for Creating Successful Public Spaces. PLACE?: Project for Public Spaces., 2000. McKeown, Larry and David McIver, Jason Moreton, Anita Rotondo. Giving and Volunteering: The Role of Religion. Toronto: Canadian Centre for Philanthropy, 2004. World Youth Day 2002: The Official Souvenir Album. Michael O’Hearn, editor. Ottawa: Novalis, 2002. Paul, Greg. God in the Alley: Being and Seeing Jesus in a Broken World. Colorado Springs, Col.: WaterBrook Press., 2004. Pearce, Nick. “Diversity versus Solidarity.” Renewal: A Journal of Labor Politics. Vol. 12 No. 3 (2004). Putnam, Robert D. Bowling Alone: The Collapse of Revival of American Community. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000. Ramsay, Meredith. “Redeeming the City: Exploring the Relationship Between Church and Metropolis.” Urban Affairs Review. Vol. 33 No. 5 (May 1998). Reed, Paul B. and Valerie J. Howe. Defining and Classifying the Nonprofit Sector. Ottawa: Statistics Canada and Carleton University, 1999. Ryan, Geoff. The Siren Call of a Dangerous God: Essays in Evangelical Dialectic. Toronto: Credo Press, 2004. Seerveld, Calvin. “Cities as a Place for Public Artwork: A Glocal Approach”, Think #15. Hamilton: The Work Research Foundation, January 2008. “Strong Neighbourhoods: Supporting the Call to Action.” Toronto: Toronto City Summit Alliance. Discussion Paper for Toronto City Summit 2007. February 26-27 2007. Sucher, David. City Comforts: How to Build an Urban Village. Revised Edition. Seattle: City Comforts Inc., 2003. Ted Tyndorf, Chief Planner and Executive Directory City Planning Division. Toronto Official Plan. Adopted by City Council November 2002. Approved with Modifications by Ontario Municipal Board June 2006. Toronto: City of Toronto, June 2006.

AP P E N D IX A : Interview Matrix

Introduction This interview matrix outlines how interviews were selected, and the rationale for selection. Interviews were split into two categories: A) Toronto/municipal leadership, and B) Church/Parachurch leadership.

Category A) Toronto/Municipal Leadership Interview candidates were identified in interviews with churches who had significant relationships with city government. They were also identified by other departmental associates who felt they had relevant data to offer. We intended an even mix between upper-level officials and lower-level directors, to provide for as neat a cross section as possible. Subsets: Mayor’s Office

Planners/Planning Department

Urban Theorists/Thinkers

Managers City Departments

Journalists

Councillors/Council Experience

Total

Category B) Church/Parachurch Leadership These interviews were meant to establish more detailed information about what churches are doing toward goals of citybuilding, and in what respect they have or have not joined other churches and municipal government. We used three criteria to control how interviews were chosen. First, Statistics Canada data record the religious persuasions of the city of Toronto, as of the 2001 census. Relevant statistics for the religious affiliations in Toronto can be found in Appendix D: Selected Religions, for Census Metropolitan Areas. This data was a first filter for determining in what ways research interviews were be weighted. Secondly, the physical presence of downtown churches was another filter. The physical presence of churches is weighted heavily on the Catholic, United and Anglican Churches. This is not, of course, always indicative of larger or more active membership. The data especially from Jon Caulfield’s “The Growth of the Industrial City and Inner Toronto’s Vanished Church Buildings” was used for this filter, which capably traces church buildings in inner Toronto from 1893 to the present day. In addition to corroborating

To r o n t o t h e G o o d

the thesis that these three have the largest physical presence, it highlights broadly the evacuation of evangelical churches from the downtown core. Contemporary data seems to suggest a resurgence of evangelical interest in the core, but this has been recent, more so even than Caulfield’s 1995 study. This filter emphasized the institutional and cultural capacity of the three largest Christian groups.

regular basis. Protestantism suffered from a similar fate, although the identification of some newer denominations such as “Pentecostal” groups had a much stronger relationship to church attendance. Bibby’s data suggested that we should temper the results of Statistics Canada (STATCAN) data especially in respect of the historical, mainline denominations, where affiliation is strong but attendance, light.

Third, tempering this data were studies by the sociologist Reginald Bibby. Bibby’s earlier research highlighted that while close to 80% of Canadians might identify themselves as Christian, only 20% were attending a church on a weekly basis. Despite this, in Restless Churches Bibby argued that organized religion was poised for a comeback. By 2000, weekly attendance had hit a low of 21 percent of Canadians, but surveys in 2002 and 2003 by Bibby, Vision TV, and Allan Gregg’s Strategic Counsel pegged weekly attendance at levels ranging from 26 to 30 percent. However, while church attendance may have been on the rise, different groups reflected different rates of identification and attendance. For example, Bibby’s data in Restless Gods: The Renaissance of Religion in Canada suggested that Catholics, in particular, were liable to identify themselves as Catholic only if their parents attend church on a

We therefore split Church interviews, as well as categorized them, as follows: Denomination Persons Catholic United Anglican Presbyterian Baptist Salvation Army Seventh-Day Adventist Christian Reformed Non-Denominational Parachurch/Missions Christian Resource Centre The Lighthouse Centre Yonge Street Mission Urban Promise Matthew House Prison Fellowship TOTAL

Interviewed 5 3 8 4 3 3 1 1 1

Locations 4 3 3 4 3 2 1 1 1

2 4 1 1 1 2

1 1 1 1 1 1

AP P E N D IX B : Questionnaire and Methodology

We used different questionnaires for government and church interviews. All questionnaires were administered verbally, and recorded either in audio, if the party consented, or with notes. We used the following outlines of questions for our conversations.

Government Questionnaire and Methodology Section 1: Introductory Questions 64

hat is your position here? How long W have you been with this department? • What responsibilities does this position entail? • What areas of the City does your work put you in touch with? • What originally attracted you to work in this position? • What is the most important contribution your position can make to Toronto? •

Section 2: General Professional Experiences with NGOs/Civil Society hat kinds of resources are most W important for your work? • In your work, which non-governmental organizations would you consider to be the most helpful? – do NGOs provide any of these resources? • If you could give a list of the top five most significant partnerships, both •

government and non-government, that you have, who would they be? • How would you describe the importance this department puts on relationships with civil society and NGOs? Critical, moderately important, somewhat important or not very important? Section 3: Faith-based Organizations in Toronto ould you consider faith-based W partners to be major stakeholders among these groups? • What has your experience working with religious groups been? • What do you think have been the strengths of working with religious groups? What do you think are the weaknesses of working with religious groups? • What do you think is the best place for faith-based groups and churches to contribute? • What steps could be taken to help government and these groups work better together? •

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Section 4: Conclusion I f you could give one message that would reach faith-based and government partners, what would you say? • Is there any aspect of your department’s work with NGOs and religious groups that we have missed that you would like to talk about? • Can you recommend any faith-based partners you work with on a regular basis? • Can you recommend any other staff in government who have significant opinions that could help this study?

Age of Church: Styles of Worship: Programs: Person(s) Interviewed:

•

Church and parachurch interviews began with a cover-sheet prior to the interview which established some of the particular details of each church. A condensed version of this sheet is included below:

Toronto the Good: Church Profile Cover (Condensed) Name of Church: Denominational Affiliation: Address: Website: Phone/Fax: Senior Pastor: Staff (numbers and positions): Congregation (attendance and demographics):

Church and Parachurch Questionnaire and Methodology Section 1: Introductory Questions hat is your position here? How long W have you been here? • What does your position entail? What role do you play in this community? • What originally attracted you to work here? • What is the most important contribution you feel you can make to the City of Toronto from this position? • How long has your building or location been here? Is there anything in particular special about your building, or why it is in this location? •

Section 2: Theological Investigations hat do you think it means to be this W church? • What is this church’s mission statement or primary goals? • Why do you focus on these things particularly? • Why has your congregation become interested in these goals? • How do you facilitate these interests? •

Section 3: Programs, Vision and Community Impact hat programs does this church run? W How do you connect these programs into your mission statement? • Do you run these programs independently, or along with others? • Who do you think are the top five partners of this church in facilitating its mission and programs? Why? • Do you often partner with other churches, organizations or governmental agencies? What has your opinion on those partnerships been? What have been the strengths and weaknesses? • What is your annual budget? What proportion of your annual budget is dedicated to outreach or community programs? • •

Section 4: City and Neighbourhood hat is your neighbourhood like? W How do you assess or verify this? • What are the challenges that this neighbourhood faces? What are its strengths? • How does being part of this neighbourhood shape your church? • Are you involved in any neighbourhood associations or groups? • Does most of your membership live in the neighbourhood? • •

ow do you think membership H proximity aids or hinders this church? • Do you consider yourself a neighbourhood church? • What is the relationship of this neighbourhood to the others in the City of Toronto? • Do you know the neighbourhood history? •

Section 5: Conclusion hat do you think the place of church W and parachurch in the City of Toronto is? • What do you think the major challenges to religious partnerships with the City are? Do you think these partnerships would be helpful? • If you could give any one message to church and City in Toronto, what would it be? • Is there anything we have not covered that you think is important for our study? • Can you recommend any faith-based partners you work with on a regular basis? • Can you recommend any staff in government who have significant opinions that could help this study? •

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APPENDI X C : Selected Publications The following publications provide examples of work being undertaken by a variety of faith communities in city-building and urban regeneration. Campolo, Tony. Revolution and Renewal: How Churches are Saving our Cities. Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2000. Faith in the City: A Call for Action by Church and Nation. A Report of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Commission on Urban Priority Areas (UPA). London: Church of England, 1985. ‘Faith’ in urban regeneration? Engaging faith communities in urban regeneration. Richard Farnell, Robert Furbey, Stephen Shams Al-Haqq Hills, Marie Macey and Greg Smith (Eds). Bristol, U.K.: The Policy Press., 2003. Finneron, D. and Dinham, A. (eds). Building on Faith: Faith Buildings in Neighbourhood Renewal. London: Church Urban Fund, 2002. Goldsmith, Stephen. Putting Faith in Neighborhoods: Making Cities Work Through Grass Roots Citizenship. Noblesville, Ind.(?): Hudson Institute, 2002. Jacobsen, Eric. Sidewalks in the Kingdom: New Urbanism and the Christian Faith. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Brazos Press, 2003. Lewis, J. Faiths, hope and participation: Celebrating faith groups’ role in neighbourhood renewal. London: New Economics Foundation and the Church Urban Fund, 2001. Lucas, Thomas M. Landmarking: City, Church, & Jesuit Urban Strategy. Chicago: Loyola Press, 1997. Paul, Greg. God in the Alley: Being and Seeing Jesus in a Broken World. Colorado Springs: WaterBrook Press, 2004. Smith, G. and Randolph-Horne, E. Faith makes communities work. London: Shaftesbury Society, 2000. Van Pelt, Michael and Greydanus, Richard. Living on the Streets: The Role of the Church in Urban Renewal. Hamilton, Ont.: Work Research Foundation, 2005. Vincent, John. Hope from the City. Peterborough, Ont.: Epworth Press., 2000. Wolterstorff, Nicholas. Until Justice and Peace Embrace: The Kuyper Lectures for 1981 Delivered at the Free University of Amsterdam. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1983.

AP P E N D IX D :

Selected Religions, for Census Metropolitan Areas(1) and Census Agglomerations - 20% Sample Data SELECTED RELI GIONS

Religion

To r o n t o To t a l p o p u l a t i o n Roman Catholic No religion U n i t e d C h u rch Anglican Christian no t i n c l u d e d e l s e wh e r e (1) Baptist L u t h e ra n Muslim Protestant no t i n c l u d e d e l s e wh e r e (2) P r e s by t e r i a n Pe n t e c o s t a l Je w i s h Buddhist Hindu Sikh G r e e k O r t h o d o x (3) Mennonite Orthodox no t i n c l u d e d e l s e wh e r e (4) Je h ova h ’s Wi t n e s s e s U k ra i n i a n C a t h o l i c Ch u rch o f Je s u s C h r i s t o f Latter- d ay S a i n t s ( M o r m o n s ) S a l va t i o n A r my Chri s t i a n R e f o r m e d C h u rch Evangel i c a l M i s s i o n a r y C h u rch Christian an d M i s s i o n a r y A l l i a n c e A dve n t i s t N o n - d e n o m i n a t i o n a l (5) U k ra i n i a n O r t h o d o x Aboriginal spirituality Hutterite M e t h o d i s t (6) Pa g a n (7) Brethren in Christ Serbian Orthodox

2001 4,647,955 1,553,710 770,850 320,880 321,580 160,415 99,580 49,045 254,110 82,080 79,090 61,960 164,510 97,170 191,305 90,590 81,615 2,540 65,195 20,625 21,975 5,760 9,830 7,165 6,520 6,525 22,195 2,920 4,430 1,090 55 8,280 2,415 3,075 7,665

Percentage Percentage distribution change (2001) (1991-2001) Median age 100.0% 33.4% 16.6% 6.9% 6.9% 3.5% 2.1% 1.1% 5.5% 1.8% 1.7% 1.3% 3.5% 2.1% 4.1% 1.9% 1.8% 0.1% 1.4% 0.4% 0.5% 0.1% 0.2% 0.2% 0.1% 0.1% 0.5% 0.1% 0.1% 0.0% 0.0% 0.2% 0.1% 0.1% 0.2%

20.1% 14.1% 39.3% -10.1% -12.5% 129.7% 17.8% -12.5% 139.8% -26.8% -39.6% 4.1% 8.8% 100.8% 112.2% 118.5% 8.3% -2.9% 86.1% 7.4% 14.0%

36.0 35.7 32.9 43.5 43.8 31.4 38.3 47.6 28.5 41.1 44.5 31.7 40.0 38.3 31.9 29.6 38.4 34.6 35.1 35.9 42.4

9.3% -30.0% -17.2% 37.1% 42.2% 49.5% 29.5% 2.4% 186.8% ... 0.4% 146.4% -21.8% 117.1%

30.2 39.3 36.0 38.8 36.5 32.1 33.7 43.0 33.2 6.8 42.7 33.1 35.3 34.7

Religions selected for this table represent counts of 20,000 or more for Canada. (1) Includes persons who report “Christian”, as well as those who report “Apostolic”, “Born-again Christian” and“Evangelical”. (2) Includes persons who report only “Protestant”. (3) In 1991, included counts for Greek Catholic. Religions in Canada / Religions au Canada http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census01/products/highlight/Religion/Pr… 2 of 2 12/4/2007 4:19 PM (4) Includes persons who report “Orthodox”. Also includes Armenian Apostolic, Bulgarian Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox and Macedonian Orthodox. (5) Includes persons who report only “non-denominational”. (6) Includes persons who report “Methodist”. Excludes Free Methodist and Evangelical Missionary Church. (7) Includes persons who report “Wicca”. This information is the property of Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada and is published by authority of the Minister responsible for Statistics Canada. All rights reserved. Users are forbidden to copy the data and redisseminate them, in an original or modified form, for commercial purposes, without the expressed permission of Statistics Canada.

S o u r c e : 2 0 0 1 Census of Population - Statistics Canada

ons and Percentage of Population, By Census Tract

47 56 25 23 33 68 51 47 65 66 43 61 47 56 42 53 43 23 50 48 30 53 42 25 34 54 33 47 43 60 57 34 57 51 40 56 53 68 48 65 47 84 40 47 37 43 42 44 62 61 66 43 47 53 56 43 41 42 23 37 30 53 25 54 42 34 52 43 48 56 57 57 46 4760 69 43 42 66 54 42 46 59 58 6834 53 3348 59 43 44 65 84 42 43 37 40 55 55 61 406651 62 53 61 31 47 82 43 45 47 41 43 50 30 45 42 77 49 52 54 66 467559 48 60 42 57 34 46 40 50 58 65 5537 47 82 69 82 43 54 53 59 48 71 79 39 42 5 60 40 72 53 31 45 47 55 55 61 5643 45 44 63 41 62 63 50 43 45 77 42 49 52 55 62 46 48 63 42 50 9 46 47 69 66 75 58 55 75 54 71 79745965 43 7282 82 4 45 56 31 70 60 8262 41 51 54 44 63 4765 6344 63 43 81 60 74 42 84 77 31 55 62 63 83 73 50 64 41 50 59 66 74 71 79 65 65 75 75 82 43 82 2 45 44 70 40 80 3 77 54 81 63 81 81 60 62 63 4853 59 445 68 43 74 84 31 43 5473 63 83 73 64 72 4159 4750 47 29 75 43 43 44 37 53 82 56 58 65 43 43 4853 42 47 51 70 56 23 40 80 50 42 43 81 53 84 48 25 37 77 53 42 33 5234 6836 34 47 84 74 81 51 31 43 68 807343 51 65 59 49 84 83 73 42 68 65 42 61 72 42 62 47 7266 814459 50 75 29 63 61 714374 74 8758 43 81 43 41 51 80 74 30 4177 47 69 70 5060 53 36 30 54 49 83 84 66 43 49 56 60 57 51 34 70 36 57 81 42 66 66 43 80 41 60 5373 40 5574 8172 40 61 40 87 69 74 55 32 72 55 55 61 43 37 517486 39 87 74424875 63 61 71 74 7145 49 74 69 52 8343 70 50 50 60 42 30 49 73 28 62 84 46 48 45 32 49 49 66 70 46 47 82 51 70 67 67 66 59 59 55 65 73 58 61 69 38 59 48 55 80 41 63 54 58 55 79 60 71 44 3169 81 32 74 74 47 53 72 61 44 82 56 5850 51 46 45 74 87 60 87 75 56 8650 74 44 6163 71 41 7447 69 85 44 70 89 50 69 8966 77 63 43 30 73 49 28 62 54 83 55 65 64 62 62 66 32 42 82 6769 70 62 50 29 7040 51 58 55 59 6575 73 63 81 8266 42 70 67 50 66 66 7 70 7166 50 79 65 6454 71 72 32 74 61 67 45 67 61 63 74 44 87 62 49 88 69 8954 89 63 63 78 44 85 65 56 59 71 66 62 60 81 63 63 73 28 65 62 64 62 43 66 63 81 80 64 32 65 66 82 67 64 60 41 59 65 74 54 81 63 CHRISTIAN 29 40 5143 58 80 8085 75 27 53 70 61 6950 83 66 70 79 647341 77 68 82 83 87 74 64 6 7 65 2001 POPULATION 80 70 7463 71 8 0 61 67 72 40 43 67 68 40 29 42 89 85 88 40 62 89 59 43 78 49 48 65 68 77 57 7660 6866 71 74 84 66 63 63 48 82 31 52 64 43 59 68 65 78 64 62 86 66 80 64 73 80 6559 5072 4370 81 76 of83 4958 69 60 29 40 Persons and Population, By Census 6164 7159 66 49 518058 7083 69 59 50Total 79 77 85 87 83 80 Tract27 74 78 56 59 80 Percentage 58 43 3853 60 41 72 58 80 74 29 42 78 49 59 80 95 87 53 36 77 67 81 4240 78 71 77 57 76 36 63 66 63 81 82 86 67 64 64 43 71 5 78 59 75 25 73 42 61 60 80 74 69 49 71 60 816365 71 61 65 6461 4945 73 76 52 72 36 78 6478 77 74 66 72 6180 74 27 29 72 80 8085 876383 63 64 75 80 59777456 77 59 43 38 80 95 5264 72 66 87 69 51 75 71 29 70 42 86 60 66 42 31 71 59 73 59 47 71 84 57 44 81 49 66 43 4064 53 3775 51 64 6355 47 8251 86 74 77 69 70 71 80 645665 42 5359 41 51 48 76 78604881 7181 2558 43 61 50 48 38 83 64 47 37 64 56677758 53 42 25 23 33 76 34 41 52 70 77 71 63 68 72 7153 69 47 7268 42 63 53 74 5454 7461 79 23 68 74 43 44 51 7874 6587 7769 42 74 84 69 50 74 72 42 72 74 80 69 59 524745 58 5975 8875 6 62 80 95 34 87 61 66 43 7725 77 42 72 7177 64 7469 7570 74 33 77 62 43 47 86 55 41 61 65 69 60 48 51 71 50 66 59 30 31 73 30 72 49 6742 83 71 56 57 71 81 59 68 58 7465 54 70 51 66 64 84 43 51 60 50 57 34 67 70 57 64 66 63 70 51 53 53 59 68 40 40 66 39 42 67 75 62 54 43 70 61 52 63 71 6678 55 55 61 64 43 37 40 48 47 83 62 76 50 67 8 0 65 7032 74 68 43 71 66 64 32 83 77 43 74 74 63 43 7574 77 5430 63 41 68 68 77 48 45 74 49 53 52 86 80 77 54 65 40 54 87 52 45 68 46 59 8842 54 74 7251 54 58 5548 51 54 66 53 63 6531 64 69 62 436767 6069 5654 35 604471 5782 69 64 77 59 46 34 60 44 59 73 45 50 575377 59 66 6455 56 46 4781 55 54 55 4 62 51 5358 87 56 47 53 73 41 63 67 51 50 32 44 57 43 67 54 66 4028 82 6762 73 63 54 65 5870 54 59 59 51 55 55 61 77 68 81 4053 60 584469 6353 48 55 76 66 74 776 73 83 63 66 62 78 53 64 62 42 48 71 50 52 50 8 0 75 64 74 53 59 82 71 68 43 83 74 65 71 61 72 61 61 64 77798952 43 7 8468 62 68 544054 68 6360 44 68 4963 6760 45 45 53 54642 49 56 59 61 36 40 54 63 54 44 68 88 73 89 79 46 63 71 54 43 54 70 35 6549 46 48 45355932 55 77 67 65 6469 69 85 607148 51 5659 59 5457 67 6765 69 7 63 69 43 60 63 59 58 5558 79 72 6587 34 6566 53 5181 61 41 54 55 42 4763 5366 74 644350 62 67 54 66 55 47 62 82 51 56 82 65 68 59 43 45 62 66 5875 4864 44 60 34 41 7062 76 40 6153 8166 29 58 5340 70 6981 6051 62 5658 60 58 65 43 69 53 54 70 31 68 58 64 71 60 52 65 64 53 48 45 52 45 59 80 68 74 8 47 59 74 84 35 39 66 38 54 31 74 43 4471 4364 67 36 53 60 84 83 73 74 63 50 59 5063 79 39 61 60 73 54 67 40 54 41 73 77 58 45 72 59 7988 60 78 49 35 32 6259 55 55 45 8049 42 55 365058 5654 70 55 36 8179 42 71 7782 59 54 67 6978 43 53 75 51 34 66 4 536351 87 53 54 67 62 81 42 80 43 66 60 42 66 56 65 7173 427447 60 64 49 60 79 76 6350 80 48 44 61 65 2761 76 3464 60 64 7280 81 29 44 45 64 5747 61 41 49 54 45 72 38 77 65 71 64 52 53 85 63 64 45 83 55 80 87 63 58 49 35 39 83 51 38 79 43 54 8 0 71 77 62 56 43 36 60 7266 69 63 84 6359 43 38 84 7980 63 73 60 49 7964 42 61 41 51 55 61 81 56 59 70 396674 29 59 5860 54 40 41 71 55 57 427973 35 32 633844 72 74 63 51 55 58 79 78 81 74 74 406956 54 70 82 64 34 64 64 74 8786 756777 75 58 7469747242 61 76 71 25 56 3 59 64 4347 64 66 64 58 4770 50 82 8140 30 49 8250 42 25 74 6564 83 61 34 61 44 57 48 70 68 7059 41 66 81 70 76 65 64 55 67 53 45 45 74 61 78 66 8535 3969 59 548038 77 95 79 87 32 63 47 72 75 48 69 79 87 86 74 68 69 72 74 84 73 72 31 59 71 28 625159 75 42 44 54 42 31 55 73 7355 65 73 60 5931 53 5667 71 50 49 74 66 74 43 59 75 63 71 67 7473 58 82 32 74 6683 42 504767 59 71 61 82 74 89 69 74 676561 64 64 75 68 40 58 52 63 68 7850 89 85 65 71 66 80 55 70 81 657429 77 63 71 7466 77 74 75 71 85 7469 77 81 63 64 62 66 52 53 36 69 54 63 62 77 65 45 47 63 58 60 40 51 58 69 69 77 79 66 70 69 54 65 86 69 74 81 66 67 74 81 49 64 59 53 73 67 74 41 7360 70 88 4672 46 64 7867 73 73 836255 73 54 75 5960 77 63 51 61 53 63 7474 74 65 76 63 80 64 70 46 72 76 49 80 29 74 27 63 43 68 68 46 78 77 38 83 80 74 534954 66 51 79 8370 80 77 69 61 5964 68 63 60 71 77 43 68 72 438085 87 80 64 70 68 56 68 82 6386 77 5755 68 75 35 5 47 40 60 48 8466 297742 65 63 67 58 64 64 78 35 88 76 2569 63 54 58 48 72 51 81 49 51 59 72 80 41 61 46 63 77 51 50 58 76 46 57 72 67 7 3 73 77 81 6159 6468 7357 67 59 583175 62 80 95 87 78 72 75 53 N 586960 74 54 72 72 46 69 42 71 53 58 60 4 54 67 8059 74 75 87 59 59 52 46 60 71 53 53 7174 75 6983 74 65 64 7169 63 71 78 54 54 55 74 60 30 70 63 40 50 65 74 77 74 83 52 45 69 71 54 49 54 55 77 66 45 59 5654 62 53 59 59 86 54 70 67 43 66 59 55 73 77 54 67 51 81 87 45 53 56 45 64 67 67 46 64 69 43 63 70 51 62 46 76 53 54 53 53 77 55 78 63 45 83 48 76 44 81 69 70 77 60 68 43 32 74 63 46 68 63 68 71 77 52 80 58 52 55 77 65 64 59 6887 69 60 48 51 36 4650 51 72 588886 60 74 84 58 35 54 N LEGEND 63 60 7363 60 61 39 43 73 57 67 53 58 733461 39 4379 80 28 61 36 6468 73 58 62 62 53 35 59 32 83 70 59 82 60 32 67 7954 40 59 65545654 73 54 55 544566 6334 66 64 56 64 50 71 59 71 5467 69 42 47 43 45 55 53 51 61 8764 53 66 44 67 62 41 47 34 61 64 76 Religion: Christian (calculated total) 63 48 44 8157 45 45 436458 6560 53 35 39 34 41 44 8445 67 61 57 64 71 8979 52 38 54 89 36 69 LEGEND 63 39 54 38 85 73 64 65 61 79 60 35 32 6557 66 64 7340 79 62 42 44 56 6566 5545 64 56 6154 70 42 47 34 70 60 42 44 56 5829 5859 66 6954 38 3451418144 45 64 65 53 35 70 42 51 47 60 79 (calculated 39 59 74 74 56 Religion: 88 Christian total) 67 42 4450 55 55 51 60 59 58 47 42 63 240 1,780 7855 49 79 50 69 63 59 63 59 54 55 27 79 69 80 59 54 49 80638085 87 83 61 60 64 77 747455 74 82 80 83 7982 74 43 38 80 an (calculated 85 total) 72 56 47 29 85- 1,780 42 47 59 240 40 57 77 47 7874 67 7373 66 63 827373 64 64 86 1,781 -762,635 81 72 61 25 76 73 75 74 67 59 46 46 77 80 95 87 78N 59 72 75 46 46 42 31 80 71 71 75 4659 52 63 71 1,781 - 2,635 69 75 74 73 7877 74 2,636 - 3,455 75 71 65 64 524645 46 69 74 77 74N 54 63 62 77 46 59 46 N 86 77 66 73 81 64 64 LEGEND 63 70 51 53 635 83 76 70 68 68 68 63 43 77 74 2,636 3,455 Religion: Christian- (calculated total) 80 68 77 69 60 48 51 53 54 88 64 35 5 55 77 65 3,456 - 4,400 59 50 51 54 72 57 67 53 58 60 63 58 58 6468 62 24083 - 1,780 8 0 53 5 60 455 54 40 54 LEGEND 55 45 43 45 59 5654 55 3,456 - 4,400 71 59 5467 53 51 87 53 67 62 76 63 1,781 - 2,635 48 44 4,401 -71 8,700 81 60 52 Population 58 some XX.x Percent of Total Registering form73of Religion: Christian 84 (calculated total) 63 73 39 43 61 36 79 60 35 32 70 400 79 34 2,636 - 3,455 54 Source: Census 2001 66 56 64 42 47 64 4,401 - 8,700 61 45 64 65 53 34 44 57 41 45 Copyright 2004 City ofas Toronto. All rights Reserved. 35 39 some form 54 38of Christianity Religion 79XX.x Percent of Total Population Registering 240 - 1,780 Prepared by: Social Policy Analysis & Research 3,456 - 4,400 44 42 56 55 51 60 58 47 59 42 Publication Date: January 2004 700 50 55of Christianity as Religion XX.x- 8,700 Percent of Total Population Registering some form 63 4,401 79 Population 59 XX.x69 Percent of Total Registering some form of Christianity55 as Religion 54 Classified by Natural Breaks 7474 1,781 82 - 2,635 85 47 67 7373 74 2,636 - 3,455 Source: Census 2001 75 46 46 73 77 N Copyright 2004 Toronto. All rights Reserved. 46 City of46 47

CHRISTIAN POPULATION 2001 APPENDI X E: Total Persons and Percentage of Population, By Census Tract

By Census Tract

CHRISTIAN POPULATION 2001

Total Persons and Percentage of Population, By Census Tract

3,456 - 4,400

Prepared by: Social Policy Analysis & Research Publication Date: January 2004

4,401 - 8,700 XX.x Percent of Total Population Registering some form of Christianity as Religion ing some form ofLEGEND Christianity as Religion Classified by Natural Breaks Religion: Christian (calculated total) 240 - 1,780 1,781 - 2,635 2,636 - 3,455

TIAN FAITH FAITH LOCATIONS LOCATIONS 2006- CHRISTIAN - CHRISTIAN APPENDI X F : 2006 Population Population byby Census Census Tract Tract

FAITH LOCATIONS 2006 - CHRISTIAN Population by 2006 Census Tract FAITH LOCATIONS - CHRISTIAN Population by Census Tract

N LEGEND Christian population 2001

240 - 1,780

N N Faith Location - Christian

LEGEND LEGEND Priority Area 1,781 - 2,635 Christian Christian population population 2001 2001 No Census Data 2,636 - 3,455 3,456 - 4,400

240240 - 1,780 - 1,780

Faith Faith Location Location - Christian - Christian

4,401 - 8,700

Publication Date: November 2006 Contact: spar@toronto.ca Classification by Natural Breaks. Some locations may overlap.

1,781 1,781 - 2,635 - 2,635

Priority Priority Area Area

2,636 2,636 - 3,455 - 3,455

No No Census Census Data Data

3,456 3,456 - 4,400 - 4,400 LEGEND 4,401 4,401 - 8,700 - 8,700 Christian population 2001

Source: Community Safety Secretariat 2006; Social Policy Analysis & Research 2006; Census 2001 Copyright 2006 City of Toronto. All rights Reserved. Prepared by: Social Policy Analysis & Research Publication Date: November 2006 Contact: spar@toronto.ca

Classification by Natural Breaks. Some locations may overlap.

240 - 1,780

Faith Location - Christian

1,781 - 2,635

Priority Area

2,636 - 3,455

No Census Data

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