Lynne McKenna
Special to Spur Ottawa

Julian of Norwich Anglican Church has a vision to re-purpose their property. The church is not going away; they are exploring ways of creating innovative partnerships to better meet present and future needs.

Monique Stone, the incumbent priest of the parish, says it all started with the question, “Can we do something that maximizes the [church] property for social good and build the property for the needs of the community?”

That question led the congregation on a three-year journey, exploring ways to add to the available affordable housing units in Ottawa and re-invent their sanctuary and community spaces on Merivale Road. Ottawa had more than 10,000 people on a waiting list for affordable housing in 2017, according to Action Housing, a government-funded charity based in Vanier. Stone says the church’s vision to help address the community housing needs is “extremely exciting and also a little terrifying.”

The church submitted a feasibility study for their proposal, which was approved in 2018. With a background in community planning and development, Stone is leading the next stage of refining the vision and developing partnerships, as the community discerns how and where their ministry should proceed.

The church is already making their worship space more flexible with a dinner church service, held twice a month.

“This project must include several partners who will walk alongside us to create a new community on this space that also includes a sacred space and the required office space, gathering space, and kitchen that will allow us to continue our parish ministry in a sustainable way.”

A big questions the parish is exploring is how to create more flexible worship space. Stone says the church is already doing this with a dinner church service, held twice a month, that they recently introduced. The liturgically-based service is built around a communal meal. Accommodating the worshippers meant moving some of the pews in the traditional sanctuary. Their plan to re-invent the sanctuary space will make it more flexible to act as community space, as well as for worship.

One of the challenges for the vision, Stone says, is creating partnerships with other organizations in ways which churches have tended not to partner in the past.

She says the initiative is “really stepping out of comfort and protection for the church community”.