For members of St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, Kitchener, ON, it was what Rev. Mark Ehlebracht called a “burning bush moment” in 2018 that led them to find a creative way to address that city’s affordable housing crisis. That’s when they discovered a family of three living in a below-ground air vent behind the church.
“It galvanized us as a community and as people of faith,” said Ehlebracht of the downtown congregation. “It was a defining moment in our journey.” What made the experience even more poignant was realizing the church’s altar was directly behind the wall between the sanctuary and the family’s home.
“On the one side was us, the clergy all dressed in our finery and the congregation singing, praying and praising around God’s table, and they were living in an air vent behind us,” Rev. Ehlebracht said. “It broke our hearts. As people of faith, we couldn’t be idle with that kind of need,” Ehlebracht said. “We decided to do something about it.”
The March 2025 issue of Canada Lutheran, aims to uplift the ways in which our congregations are re-imagining their spaces in faithful response to the affordable housing crisis.
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