Coordinating

The spiritual and social renewal that makes cities vibrant and sustainable is not haphazard. A city becomes a place of well-being only to the extent that her citizens and institutions consciously employ their gifts to her common good in light of a higher vision of what she could be. We help people find opportunities to give of their resources and themselves. We help organizations and sectors (non-profit, business, government, etc.) forge and then implement systemic strategies and local collaborations.

Christian Food Security Network - In this major new initiative, we’re partnering with A Rocha Canada, Surrey Urban Mission, Crossroads Community Project, and Tenth Avenue Church to permanently link food growers, food providers, and low income consumers. Our collective goal is to move faith-based food programs beyond “charity” by equipping their participants to start community gardens, community kitchens and nutritionally balanced communal meals. City Gate’s role is to assess the strengths of Christian food provision in the region, to recruit more programs and participants into the initiative, to amplify our partners’ efforts to create training resources and spread best practices, and to achieve economies of scale by establishing and coordinating a formalized network.

Regional Steering Committee on Homelessness – City Gate represents the Christian community on this federally-mandated committee tasked with crafting the official Homelessness Plan for Metro Vancouver and recommending projects for funding equal to $8 million annually. In 2011 our Executive Director is chairing RSCH’s Communications Working Group, which is responsible for overseeing the annual Homeless Action Week as well as messaging and forums targeting the three levels of government, the business sector, faith communities, and the public.

Roundtables – Occasional gatherings of leaders in a given sector that serve to

• establish & strengthen collegial networks
• cast shared vision
• forge collaborative strategies that strengthen each partner
• articulate best practices

A city region strategy – Over the last ten years, several groups have emerged which are seeking to promote unity and coordinated action within different segments of the Christian community and in different parts of BC’s Lower Mainland. As we at City Gate extend our network and expand our programming, we are focussing energy and resources on bringing these various groups together in order to discern a common vision and shared strategy for city transformation. This includes bringing in representatives of highly successful movements for faith-based collaboration from other parts of Canada and the United States.