Our Community

What does the word community mean to you? 

What it means to us: You belong to us. We are your people. There is much that you can do by yourself. You can pray by yourself. You can spend most of the day by yourself. You can live alone or work alone. But it's harder to love God while we are alone, when God also calls us to love our neighbours as ourselves. 

A common definition of community has emerged as a group of people with diverse characteristics who are linked by social ties, share common perspectives, and engage in joint action in geographical locations or settings. People who belong to a community differ in the emphasis they place on particular elements of this definition. Community is defined similarly but experienced differently by people with diverse backgrounds. 

We care about community because God brings people to be together. 

About Safe Church at St. Anne's

"For a church to be safe, I think that means it needs to be a place where people can go and feel accepted. It doesn't matter where you come from. It doesn't matter what you look like. It doesn't matter how you come off. You're accepted. You feel like you're accepted. It's harder to come across than you would think, unfortunately."

The Liturgists podcast, Episode 9 - Safe Church
November 25, 2014

St. Anne's is intentionally safe space. 

• Safe for you if you want to visit. 

• Safe for worship.

• Safe for questions, for doubts and for fears. 

• St. Anne's is safe space to be all the letters of LGBTTQQIAAP. 

• St. Anne's is safe space if you have physical or mental health challenges. 

• St. Anne's is safe space if you live in poverty. 

We practice Safe Church. Safe Church means all our volunteer/ministry roles involve training, appropriate boundaries, and familiarity with the Anglican Diocese of Toronto Sexual Misconduct Policy. A police records check is required for roles that involve children, vulnerable people, and access to information or to church spaces.

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As you will see from this website, we share pictures to show what you what we are about. We have safeguards about photography:

Photography Policy

Image Release

The congregation of St. Anne's represents the neighbourhood - people living in or near the geographic parish boundaries, and the city - people who have identified with St. Anne’s, often through a connection to the arts. 

The congregation is diverse, representing a wide range in age, ethnicity, profession, sexual orientation, and viewpoints.

The St. Anne's congregation has a vibrant community life.  We come together for worship. Neighbours and friends feel comfortable joining us for community activities beyond our worship services.

In addition to worship, we come together to prepare and serve the Community Dinner, and for hikes and worship field trips, visits to galleries, social justice initiatives. Our events often include eating together: a pub, picnic or barbecue.

You will find it easy to get to know people here. St. Anne's is like having a big chosen family.

We are a welcoming community of Anglican Christians who gather at historic St. Anne's Church to worship God richly through liturgy, music and the arts. 

We are committed to openness, justice and loving our neighbour. 

Individually and together in ministry, we strive to grow into our Spirit-given potential to embody Christ's healing purpose for the world.

Sacred covenants of mutual respect and relationship, made in solemn witness of spiritual leaders from Indigenous Nations and from the Anglican Church, began to be broken after the War of 1812, when the Anglican Church allowed itself to be absorbed into the British imperialist programme. These covenants reflected the primacy of sustainability, mutual regard, and sharing; and acknowledged this to be the territory of Indigenous Nations since time immemorial. The members of the congregation of St. Anne's Anglican Church, Diocese of Toronto, honour these covenants made by our forebears, and hold them to be the best hope for our future generations. We pray that all Canada will restore this sacred relationship. 

Land Acknowledgment for St. Anne's, a mixed community of Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples standing together, 2018

St. Anne’s is a congregation of the Anglican Diocese of Toronto and the founding congregation for several other Anglican congregations in the western part of downtown Toronto.

Following the Anglican practice, St. Anne’s is a parish church with geographic parish boundaries. It is our ongoing ministry to pray and work for the well-being of all people living and working within these boundaries.

St. Anne's as safe space and holy ground for all people in our community and we intentionally build relationships and partnerships for the wellbeing of the whole community.

St. Anne's Day: St. Anne - the mother of Mary and grandmother of Jesus - is the patron saint of unmarried women, housewives, women in labor or who want to be pregnant, grandmothers, and educators. She is a patroness of horseback riders, cabinet-makers, miners, and the the Mi'kmaq people of Canada. Her traditional feast day, called St. Anne's Day, is July 26. 

Taking St. Anne as our example, St. Anne's Church befriends the whole range of people and organizations in our community. We celebrate St. Anne's Day with a community engagement event on or around July 26 - we move it for the nice weather!

In addition to Sunday School and the Youth Bible Study, children are part of all community events, joining us on hikes, planting the garden, reading the scriptures and presenting liturgical drama in Sunday worship, and serving the Community Dinner. Youth Brunch is always a favourite - after worship, we walk together to a local restaurant, with children and youth accompanied by their families and friends. Watch for it on our events calendar.

Messy Church: St. Anne's offers Messy Church as a weekday after-school activity for children and their families. Details of upcoming dates will be shared soon.