United Church of Canada has long been more than a place of worship.
It’s a place that's made efforts to be welcoming to everyone, including allowing women to be in leadership roles, welcoming of the LGBTQ2+ community, and has a history of social activism.
Powell River United Church, located at 6932 Crofton Street in Westview, has also long made outreach efforts to the community, such as hosting dinners, coffee meet-ups and meditation on Friday nights. A few years ago, qathet Pride youth group painted the church's outside stairs rainbow colours to show support for the LGBTQ2+ community, but it has not been without controversy, as the stairs were hit with black paint soon after.
The church recently invited two artists from Quadra Island, Jen Watson and Paul Doust, to paint a mural on the outside entrance to the building.
Open Heart Ministry for Powell River United Church representative Doe Fraser spoke with the Peak about the mural and its connection to the church's ongoing mission to create an inclusive space.
"We decided we wanted to make something that worked with the colourful rainbow stairs," said Fraser. "So, what we did is, we contacted the artist, and she asked us to have our congregation each provide one word that described their church."
Fraser said the two artists started working on June 26 and finished the morning of June 30. It would be hard not to notice the bright whimsical colours painted on the door frame, along with images of a black bear and an orca near the rainbow stairs.
"Everyone put in their word, and we ended up with four categories: love, faith, community and justice; that's what they felt we stood for," said Fraser. "We took all of the words we received and used an AI [artificial intelligence] process to produce images that reflected those meanings."
On the top of the door frame is a glowing red heart, painted to represent the motto, "to serve with love", and the dogwood crest represents peace and a foundation in faith, explained Fraser.
"Service is a big part of us [congregation members] for the community," said Fraser. "The bear represents feeding and in harmony with nature, the mountains and the orca for being rooted and grounded. We chose, quite specifically, to put two separate trees; there's a dark tree and a light tree, that comes up the arch to make the heart, to ensure uniqueness is something that we embrace and we wanted."
One example of congregation members serving the community is by hosting spaghetti dinners, which have grown in popularity, and now, for summer, hosting a monthly barbecue that's open to the public.
"We made a decision last year that we would make local outreach our priority, to serve with love locally," said Fraser. "We just finished doing community meals on Saturday and Sunday for the last three months."
Fraser said the church received a $45,000 grant to provide eight meals a month for free to the community.
"Every Monday and Thursday there will be a lunch for seniors and of course our spaghetti dinners," said Fraser, adding that they are also providing people who need work experience in the kitchen a chance to work at the community meals.
"In the past, the spaghetti dinners were by donation, and we would get between 60 to 80 people," said Fraser. "But once it became free, we had up to 120 people."
The community barbecues are also drawing attention.
"We had 83 people show up in June for a barbecue," said Fraser. "During our our meals, we have been providing a family service, so parents coming with their kids have a meal, and then, our family service outreach person, would take the kids into another area and do a family time with them, and the parents could have a coffee, sit, and have a breather."
Fraser said they picked Watson and Doust because of their dedication to inclusivity.
"The stuff that she has done, and where she comes from is her from her heart, and from inclusion; all those things spoke to us," said Fraser. "She spontaneously invited some children to come and help paint on the wall so they could be part of the process."
Fraser said congregation members had been talking about having a mural painted for a while now, but everything just fell together at once, and the mural finally became a reality.
"An anonymous donor helped [financially], or actually, two or three of them," said Fraser. "The artists were going to be in Courtenay at that time, so it all fell together. You know, karma."
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