Written by: David Hood

One of our values at SECC is that we want to be a church that is for the city, and more specifically for the Alta Vista ward. We believe that our church shouldn’t just meet in this community, but we should be rooted in this community, giving of ourselves for it’s thriving and flourishing. Jesus calls us to love our neighbours as ourselves, especially the poor, the exploited, and the marginalized. If you ever come to a SECC Sunday worship gathering, you will probably hear somebody talk about this from the front. While this has been a season filled with many challenges for us as a church, there is a lot of potential in this moment as well for us to really live out being a family of servants on mission in incredibly impactful ways. Here are some of the ways we’ve been doing that with our more vulnerable neighbours.   

A little bit of background first. Since September 2018 we’ve been hosting monthly outreaches and building relationships at a low-income, Ottawa Community Housing (OCH) apartment complex, populated mostly by seniors. Every third Sunday of the month we enjoy a community lunch together where we play games, hang out, and my wife provides free professional foot-care for the tenants. We have developed some incredible friendships through this outreach over the last almost two years. Last June we decided to host our annual “Big Give” event there. As a church we decided to go above and beyond in blessing these neighbours of ours. We gave away hundreds of dollars worth of fresh produce, had a massive BBQ that many of the tenants contributed to, brought soil and flowers to make potted plants so people could beautify their balconies, and some of our youth did face painting for the kids. It was an amazing day of community building and was a blessing for both our church and the residents. Since then our ministry there has really been gaining momentum and in response to this we launched a once a month Monday games night in collaboration with a youth group from a nearby OCH residential community. Over 20 youth showed up to play ping pong, cards, and bean bag toss with the older tenants and we had a blast together. The energy and joy was palpable. 

When the Coronavirus hit Ottawa, OCH closed their offices and the public lounges in their buildings. By necessity our outreaches had to shut down. We were already thinking we’d have to cancel our monthly get-togethers because a lot of the tenants are vulnerable due to age and pre-existing health conditions or compromised immune systems. There’d be no way we could run the outreach safely. This felt like a real blow for us initially, and of course we are still grieving the loss of this ministry and longing for the day we can return and hear the laughter again. However, since then we have realized there is an opportunity to do something truly special here, for us to show our friends and neighbours that we really are here for them. We aren’t just here for them when the lounges are open, when we can come in at our usual time on our usual day and do our usual thing, but we are here even when all of that gets upended. We aren’t just here for them when things are good, but we’re here even when things get hard and scary, we won’t retreat, we won’t think only of ourselves, we’ll keep being there. 

How are we doing this? By God’s grace we very quickly got connected with one of our local food banks whose catchment area includes these neighbours we’ve been reaching out to. Many of our neighbours are unable to access the food bank because of mobility issues or quite frankly because they’re afraid to go out. Some of them are very vulnerable and it would be better for them to go out as little as possible. We’ve discovered through this that accessibility is actually an issue with many of our city’s food banks. In order to address this need, our church has started doing food bank deliveries. Once or twice a week we pick up peoples’ orders and drop them off at their apartments. This has allowed us to keep contact with many of our friends, to check in with them and see how they’re doing, to see if they need any other supplies like light bulbs, cleaner, or prescriptions, and to have nice physically distant visits. In some ways I feel like we’re seeing some of our neighbours more now than we were before. These deliveries have also introduced us to new neighbours we’re hoping will join our lunch and games night events when the restrictions lift. We’ve also revived the lost art of letter writing and are regularly sending cards and notes of encouragement. Our  church has even started crafting homemade cards. In these cards we’ve provided our phone numbers so that people can reach out to us if they ever need anything or just want to talk. On top of all of that, we wanted to make sure the food bank servicing our neighbours doesn’t run out of food, especially fresh food like produce, dairy, and meat, so we have financially partnered with them to help them weather the COVID storm of decreases in donations and increases in demand. Food insecurity should never be an issue in a city like Ottawa.

Right now we’re just delivering to this one apartment complex where we’ve been building relationships, but there is very real potential for us to expand this ministry and start doing deliveries to other vulnerable neighbours in our area and to financially partner with other local Alta Vista food banks. God is good! Psalm 68 says that God is “A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows…God sets the lonely in families, he leads out the prisoners with singing” (Psalm 68:5-6) and He most often seeks to do this through His people. 

On Sunday, I said that sticking with people through difficult times is when (i) you take your relationship with them to a whole new level, and (ii) you show that you truly are a friend. It is when you can show that you really are for them. You’re in this with them. In the early 1500’s, the bubonic plague hit Germany and the famous pastor and professor, Martin Luther, was asked by many Christians whether it was permissible for a Christian to flee their village or city. In “Whether One May Flee From a Deadly Plague”, he offers his opinion and says, if a deadly epidemic strikes, we should stay where we are, make our preparations, and take courage in the fact that we are mutually bound together so that we cannot desert one another or flee from one another. What would our neighbourhoods look like if we saw each other as mutually bound together? What would the church’s witness be if we saw ourselves as mutually bound together with those in our community, especially the poor, especially in times of crisis and uncertainty? We often say we are, but now is the time to show we are.