About Fusion Canada
Community Engagement
Who are we? These three words:
Together with Hope
They sum up a lot about who we are as Fusion Canada.
We are a group of friends who have been brought together by the hope that has, and is, making a difference in our communities, and in us.
We serve our local communities in ways that bring people together with hope. We work with other likeminded organisations and churches to respond to issues in our communities … such as bringing people together where there is a breakdown of community life, or assisting with a crisis accommodation service for women affected by domestic violence, or helping with restorative justice initiatives for our indigenous Canadian communities. We encourage small groups of friends get to know their communities, and find ways to respond to some of the needs. We are passionate about equipping people for this approach through training. This commitment has led us to partner with Taylor Seminary in starting work towards a training pathway that will build from Foundations (the short course on which the Fusion approach is built) right through to Masters and Doctoral level training.
We owe the development of this ethos to our friends in Australia, where Fusion started in 1960; a small group of friends who were committed to working together to respond to issues facing their communities, with hope. We adopted these principles, starting Fusion Canada in 2002, and have been working in this way since then.
Our mandate comes from 2 Corinthians 5: 14 – 21 (NIV):
“For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
This approach: small groups of friends whose lives have been changed by hope, who are compelled to bring others together around that hope for their communities, does not just define what we do, it defines who we are.