[Who We Are ] [Community Leadership]

There are many people who live out various passions in our community and gift us with their ‘leadership’ in various aspects of our community life.

Some examples of the kinds of people offering leadership in the community include:
* Jordana and Michael running ‘reel conversations’ (film nights).
* Jen, Alex, Helen, Michael, Lance and Rob leading morning prayer/meditation on various days of the week.
* Deb offering musical leadership at ‘river’ – especially in choosing and executing songs drawn from pop culture.
* The whole ‘river’ community bringing their gifts to the celebration of holy communion/worship.
* Helen offering amazing hospitality with her gourmet cupcakes.
* Chrys, Moira, Kelly, Andrea, Misha and others supporting creative children’s stuff in the neighbourhood and at river.
* Jordana, Jason, Alex and Christina leading elements of the after-school drop-in.
* Sandra ordering fair-trade coffee for the community.

These are just a few examples of people offering various forms of leadership in the community. As we evolve, we hope to get bios up of some of these (and other) folks!

We do have two (currently) paid leaders who support many aspects of emerging leadership and discipleship within the community in various ways…

Here are bios for both of them:
Lance Dixon Team Leader
Lance has been a teacher, pastor, social justice advocate, and mentor. He’s worked in diverse contexts; teaching at a college in rural South Africa, leading a suburban church outside of Toronto, doing youth work for inner city churches, and guidance counselling at a high school. As well as being the Jeremiah Project team leader, Lance brings a passion for mentoring and building up community leaders, helping people discover their potential, as well as intercultural community building to the project. His heroes include folks like Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King and William Wilberforce. He serves as the lead pastor/priest of St. Anne’s Church in the neighbourhood. He has a big love for basketball, and admittedly prefers gospel music to chant. He lives with the love of his life Kelli and their 3 girls.

Rob Crosby-Shearer Director of Community Formation
Rob has a rich experience in building communities of authentic spirituality. Rob is gifted at cultivating connections between meditation and action, of fostering new expressions of spirituality through music and sung prayer. Rob, in fact, enjoys all things musical – and listens to music ranging from renaissance chant to hip hop to punk rock to jazz to electronic music (which he composes). He also enjoys the other great cultural pastime – cooking and baking (at the very least it’s worth coming by for his homemade bread!) Rob’s work experience has been around grassroots community organizing, youth work with faith-based organizations with both a local and international focus, and coordinator for arts and justice festivals in Ontario.  Rob is married to his soulmate Meagan and they are expecting twins soon!  Meagan and Rob are currently part of Emmaus House; one of the community houses in the Jeremiah Community Village!