Guiding a Community – Ted Reeve

Mainstream church has been declining for the last couple of decades and is less relevant in today’s society, particularly amongst millennials, so what’s striking about Orillia is the number of churches it has.

St. Paul’s Centre, originally known as Orillia Methodist Church, is shown on this colour-tinted postcard from 1909, which was postmarked in Orillia.

Ted Reeve, Coordinating Minister at St. Paul’s Centre, has spent close to a decade transitioning the space from a traditional church to a community centre and major event venue. Previously teaching Social Ethics at the University of Toronto, Reeve initially came to town on contract, but chose to stay and work with the people.

Who is Ted Reeve? (captions available in both FR and EN). Enjoy this video with a transcript (En).

Interested in a broader vision, he developed a place for the community to gather with a range of events – from gardens, to food classes, a concert venue, and a place of worship. Most services and how they talk about religious understanding is in a contemporary manner of meaning & purpose, and engages the mystery, wonder, beauty and a deeper celebration of how we as human beings live and have purpose in this life.

Ted Reeve – Orillia’s Community (captions available in both FR and EN). Enjoy this video with a transcript (En).

What Reeve is most excited about is working with the Indigenous community, being in conversation with elders/Indigenous people about how we share this land and finding new ways forward.

Orillia has potential to understand relations with the Indigenous people, settler history, and its place geographically. It’s important to recognize both the positive and negative history.

Ted Reeve – Indigenous Connections (captions available in both FR and EN). Enjoy this video with a transcript (En).

Reeve finds a wonderful sense of commitment in Orillia, the volunteerism, community spirit, and the spirit of people’s concern for each other is a really heartening part of living.

Ted Reeve – Change in Orillia (captions available in both FR and EN). Enjoy this video with a transcript (En).

…the spirit of people’s concern for each other.
It’s a really heartening part about living in Orillia.