When a Missional Community Meets a Public School

A Resonate Global Mission partner missional community has invested deeply in the life of a local elementary school in downtown Thorold, Ont. God is using that relationship to bring kingdom transformation throughout the neighborhood.

It started slowly. About eight years ago a group of people from The Village Church, a Christian Reformed church plant in Thorold, gathered to study the Bible and ask God to lead them in ways to serve their community. They soon met with the principal of a local elementary school, and among the questions they posed about opportunities to serve with the school, they asked, “What would you say is your school’s greatest need?”

“A sense of community,” he said.

The school had a reputation for being a little rough. Fights regularly broke out among parents as they dropped off or picked up their children. So the parents weren’t allowed on the school grounds anymore—they had to wait for their kids at the chain-link fence surrounding the playground. 

“This is in downtown Thorold,” said Terence Schilstra, a Resonate church-plant partner who was part of the group from The Village Church. “It’s a great place, but there are a lot of challenges here too. One in four kids lives in poverty . . . without suitable housing, food, and clothing. Along with that comes addiction and mental illness and other various challenges.”

After brainstorming together, the church group began hosting monthly community dinners in the school’s gymnasium. Though it started small, the event grew to host 80-100 people every month, filling the gymnasium with conversation and laughter.

Schilstra, his wife, and other members of The Village Church began to meet with neighbors at the community dinner. More people started coming to their group. Then the group started gathering weekly in someone’s living room or garage.

Over time, said Schilstra, this group looked less like a small group and more like a church. And with support from donors toward innovative ministries in the CRCNA, they formed The Table, a missional community that meets regularly now in the Schilstras’ carport across the street from the elementary school to share a meal, study Scripture, and build relationships with one another.

“We’re a community of hope who live, work, and play in an intentional neighborhood,” said Schilstra. “What we are attempting to do—and I think every Christian community is attempting to do this in some way—is to live in our community in a way that our Christian life touches all parts of our neighborhood.”

The Table still hosts community dinners in the gymnasium about five times a year, and participants’ lives have become intricately woven into daily life at the school.

They partnered with Youth for Christ to start an afterschool program on Tuesdays. Schilstra also volunteers every Friday afternoon during the students’ lunchtime, talking with students and then playing basketball and soccer with them outside. Schilstra’s wife, Karen, also volunteers as a lunchtime supervisor working on providing a meal program for students whose families can’t afford school lunches. Another participant, Aaron, who is studying education at Brock University, is planning to start a tutoring program this summer.

Through this involvement and more, The Table has developed relationships with school staff, students, and families. And as a result the school knows they can trust and depend on The Table.

One day some teachers at the school learned that a single mother and her three children were homeless and sleeping in their car. The teachers informed the principal, and he called Schilstra to see if The Table could help.

“We were able to get the mom and her three kids housed by the end of the day,” said Schilstra. 

On another occasion a grandmother of a student at the school asked Schilstra if he would connect with Blaine, one of her friend’s grandsons, who was struggling with an addiction to fentanyl. The Table welcomed Blaine into their community, and they connected him to a recovery home where he was able to find healing. Blaine has been clean for more than a year and a half now, has become a follower of Jesus, and now organizes a lunch once a month in the recovery home where he healed.

“God is doing so much in Blaine’s life. I feel proud of him. I feel so thankful that God loves and transforms us. I’m just so incredibly thankful for the way God rescues and restores,” said Schilstra.

Change can take a long time, but Schilstra said The Table is committed to following God’s lead in the school—their work in the school is having resonating effects throughout downtown Thorold. 

“Anytime we experience the love of Jesus, there are multivariate ways in which the gospel touches our life,” said Schilstra. “At The Table, we see the good news of Jesus transforming people’s lives spiritually. We see people coming to know him and being baptized. We’ve also witnessed social and physical transformation in the school and in people’s lives.”

A new principal started working at the elementary school about a year ago. One day, as The Table was hosting a cookout for the students and Schilstra and the principal were flipping burgers together, the principal turned to Schilstra and said: “I’ve been an educator for over 25 years, and in all my years of being a teacher, I’ve never seen a deeper sense of community in a school.”