Community

An old machine shop on the urban streets of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada has been an indoor skate park for 18 years. And on Thursday night when I walked in the front door of The Edge… I could sense something different, something unique, something redemptive.

It was a noisy place. Certainly well used. The largest part of the structure was unobstructed, but filled with unique ramps, protruding rails, and plywood jumps. Every inch of the place was in play. Accessible. And as I stood, young men on boards screamed past me. Jumping, flipping their boards, twisting, falling… in full speed.

A group of us went upstairs to a small meeting area that had a smaller kitchen attached. We listened to Cliff, the director of The Edge. He talked about the history, the mission and the focus. He talked about the hundreds of kids that find warmth and recreation during the unforgiving and relentless winter months in Winnipeg… and then he introduced us to a young man…12 years old. Nervously the young man spouted his first name… it was something like Meesh.

He was uncomfortable until he began talking about what The Edge means to him. Like a moth to the light on your front step… Meesh kept gravitating to a single word to describe The Edge.

Community.

“It’s my family. It’s where I come to skate, to be with friends, to eat, to read the Bible, and to learn about God. It’s my community.” Over and over. With pride. With confidence. Because he was talking about something that he loved.

At the corner of Lily and Pacific, there is an old unassuming building… but inside something transformational happens. Young men learn what it’s like to play hard together. What it’s like to cheer for each other. What it’s like to eat a meal together. And what can happen when you understand that you and God can walk through life together.

It’s at The Edge that the incarnation of Jesus happens. It’s there that God puts on skin. It’s there that isolation and loneliness give way to community. It’s there that peer pressure is redirected, that expectations are elevated, that hope is birthed… that Jesus lives among us.

I met a young man… he told us that he has a family… at The Edge.

This is where good news becomes the Good News.

I was inspired and moved… because I met Meesh. Because Meesh met Jesus. At The Edge.

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” ~ John 1:14

Yes, dwelling among and shining the glory…full of grace and truth…and skateboards and volunteers and teenagers and hope and forgiveness and love and promise and family…

And community.