Jacob's Well

“Jacob’s Well is a faith-based community in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, BC. We seek mutually transformative friendship with those on the margins of society and equip others to do the same in their own context.”

Life-giving relationship is our highest goal. Through friendship we seek to encourage and strengthen residents and workers in the downtown eastside in practical and spiritual ways. We recognize that Jesus was a friend of the marginalized, not a friend to them. Like Jesus, we desire to be real in the way we relate to one another – therefore we treat everyone with value, desiring to build sincere lasting relationships. We believe that through loving friendship with our neighbours there is life-giving hope that is imparted and this can result in healing and new life.

We deeply value the truth that every person is created in the image of God. We believe therefore that everyone has something to offer other people. We want to create opportunity for people to reflect the image of God through using creative gifts they have, through serving in some way, or a through sharing a kind word or their possessions with one another. Everyone needs to have the opportunity to be known and through being known people are able to be generous with their lives. As each of us endeavors to do this the gifts we share enable more of God to be seen in and through everyone in our community. It is to this end that as we live our lives together we try to give every person who is a part of our community a chance to participate meaningfully.

We also have a passionate commitment to equip people to understand God’s bias toward the poor and marginalized. Scripture demonstrates that God desires that the marginalized receive justice and compassion. This particular bias however sometimes does not show up in the lives of people who claim to follow God. Our hope is that through teaching and modeling God’s heart for the poor others will begin to discover ways they can engage their lives with marginalized people around them.