The New Common, a product of our church’s vision “… to influence our city and the world,” is the primary way by which we participate with God’s plan for the reconciliation of all things (Col 1:15-20). We do this through the partnership of two approaches:
Domain Engagement Community Development Expressions Next Step
We desire to empower the church to participate in God’s plan is by focusing on transforming the
domains that form the grid of society: Health, Education, Governance, Science and Technology,
Communication, Agriculture, Economics, and Social Work.
We also desire to empower our city to participate in God’s plan. We believe that communities thrive when people recognize and utilize their strengths and gifts. For too long, the church has taken a deficit-based approach with a saviour mentality instead of a servant mentality. So rather than focusing our efforts on merely filling in gaps, we desire to come alongside communities, agencies, and organizations in order to collaborate in creating solutions.
This is our space in St James Town, that is the most densely populated, and arguably the most diverse neighbourhood, in Canada. We use this space in order to collaborate in creating solutions through the partnership of domain engagement and asset-based community development. Check out thenewcommon.org for more details!
As we discover our identity and destiny in Christ, we get to influence our city and the world. The engagement principles we use apply whether we are in our global city or another one. Therefore, we're focusing on a specific, strategic, sensitive area to be a part of the renewal of all things through domain engagement and asset-based community development.
Domain engagement is also a major part of our church planting strategy! We have trained, equipped, and planted various types of churches including churches that are multi-ethnic, churches that are ethnic-focused, churches that are collegiate-focused, and churches that are in global cities. To learn more about what we do you can check out glocal.net.
In order to empower our church to empower our community, it would be helpful to know your strengths, gifts, passion, and which domain(s) of society you operate in. So take just a few minutes to fill out this brief Societal Engagement Survey so that we can empower you to empower others!
