The Bedford House Blog

EDGEy Conversation with Rev. Allan Smith-Reeve and Zoe Chaytors of the EDGE Network. 

The Rev. Allan Smith-Reeve knows about the power of social good initiatives. He has used Bedford House Community Ministry and its programs, such as Bridges Peterborough, to build relationships with his congregation at Greenwood United and to strengthen the community of Peterborough, Ontario.

The Saviour’s people would have been colonized and living under the rule of a foreign Empire.

What is so very cool has been this summer’s story of unchurched Bridging Team leaders visiting congregations – including Greenwood – to talk about what they’ve discovered in the midst of a safe, non-judgemental, circle of strangers who become friends and “neighbours”.

Can we hear the ancient call to repent and follow Jesus’ fearful path towards a counter-cultural witness? 

The second decade of this century saw three, inter-related, historic waves crashing on the shores of Canadian consciousness.  While each of these powerful realities are not new – we’ve been warned for decades that the reckoning is coming – it seems to me that the “seventh wave” – – the largest and most powerful in a series – has crashed this year on all three of these powerful realities.

For all of us who’ve felt like we didn’t belong, like we didn’t fit, or were made to feel as if we were deficient in various ways – it feels like we’ve created a place where our differences are celebrated, or at least tolerated with kindness and compassion.

“a tree can only be as strong as the forest that surrounds it”

What if we chose to talk instead about our failure to redistribute wealth effectively?
What if the problem has very little to do with “the poor”?
What if the problem is actually those of us who enjoy privilege and wealth?

It was an inauguration of what we’re calling the Neighbour Network.