George Leslie, a gardener, donated the land on which the church stands. Queen Street East is the oldest Presbyterian Church in Toronto, East of the Don River. It began as Leslieville Presbyterian Church in November 1877. The congregation began to worship on the current site in July 1878. In 1895, the congregation voted to change the name to Queen Street East Presbyterian Church.
Today the community called Leslieville is being gentrified; developers are buying old houses and fixing them up or tearing them down to give way to new developments. Queen Street East Presbyterian Church, on the corner of Queen and Carlaw, is in the middle of all of these changes. And the question we constantly ask ourselves is: What is God calling us to do here? How do we read the signs of the times (Matthew 16:3) in our city in light of the biblical and reformed tradition on which we stand?
In our tradition, we claim that all are called; all are gifted and enabled by God’s Spirit to do God’s work in the world. Everyone who trusts in God shares this priesthood as we gather in community and celebrate the God we know in Jesus. This is the well from which we as a community draw energy to pray and make holy this city and world that God so loves. We work for the well-being of the city knowing that in doing so, we will find our well-being as well (Jeremiah 29:7).We follow Jesus Christ who was crucified and is risen. This means that we trust God has power over the forces of death that threaten our city and our world. Only God can bring new life out of deadly circumstances and raise us all to new life.
When we gather to worship we come as a people of faith, hope, and love. We come from all the corners of the earth – we have with us people from Guyana to Ghana – and rejoice that God has called us together.
We serve in our community not because we want to attract more members. We want to make sure that how we do service is mutual and equal (2 Corinthians 8:13-15) so that those we serve do not feel that they are being used as objects of our charity.
We are also careful not to use acts of service as an opportunity to talk people into coming to church. Many years ago, Luther rejected the idea of giving alms to the poor as a way of “gaining merit for heaven.” There are many in our community who are on social assistance. They are aware that sometimes the programs directed towards them are not necessarily designed to serve their needs but the needs of the agencies that create them.
Grounded in prayer, the congregation has the freedom to do its work faithfully. We are nurtured “by God alone, by faith alone and by grace alone.” And we have seen it work far more than we can ever dream of or imagine.
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