Why We’re Building This

The problem

Many people today feel less connected than they’d like to. Loneliness is more common, friendship is scarcer, and belonging is harder to find than it should be. It’s weighing on mental health, too: anxiety and depression have been climbing for years.

I'd prefer to see a well-cited rant about this →

The reasons are multifaceted, and mostly bigger than any one of us.

Institutions have thinned

The institutions that used to hold communities together are thinner than they once were. Often for good reasons, but the everyday support they offered went with them.

Screens took the hours

Screens fill the time people used to spend on each other, and feel like connection without delivering much of it.

Costs squeezed the room

The cost of ordinary life keeps climbing, housing above all in Vancouver, leaving less money and less room for gathering.

Third places are fading

The informal spots where community used to just happen have closed, gotten expensive, or now take careful planning to get to.

The world feels less steady

Costs climb, work feels less certain, the climate is changing, and the headlines rarely help. All of it lands heavier on people facing it alone.

Who's bearing it

This touches just about all of us, in different ways.

Children Growing up with less of a village

Childhood has moved indoors and onto screens, with less freedom to roam and fewer adults around who know them by name. Kids today simply have less of a village than their parents did.

Young people Finding their people is harder than ever

Coming of age with more of life on a screen and fewer places to find their people, and reporting less happiness and connection than any generation measured before them.

Couples Asked to be each other's everything

Often asked to be each other's everything: best friend, confidant, social planner, all without a community around the relationship to share the load. That's a lot to ask of any two people.

Parents Carrying more, with less help close by

Trying to meet higher expectations than any generation before them, measured against the curated families of social media, often in smaller homes, further from family, and with less help close by. Raising kids was never meant to be done this alone.

Seniors Outliving the places that held them

Many are outliving the things that once held old age together: the congregation that noticed an absence, the club with a role to play, the long-time neighbourhood. Too many are growing older with fewer people around them than they deserve.

What people have tried

People know something’s missing, and they’re out there looking.

Clubs, meetups, and activity groups. Everywhere you turn, and full of real friendship and real fun. What they rarely become is a truly holistic community, one that feels secure and lasting, marks the big moments, or shows up when life falls apart. And the bonds can fade when health or finances make it hard to keep coming: an injury that ends the weekly game, or a layoff that puts the fees out of reach.

Cohousing. A genuinely lovely idea: neighbours by intention, sharing daily life. In Vancouver, it also mostly requires winning the housing lottery and waiting on an endless waitlist, or building something from scratch.

Communes and intentional communities. The boldest version, and a few beautiful ones exist. But most ask more than an ordinary life can give, and without sound structure underneath they tend to come apart. The worst don’t just fail — they harden around a charismatic leader who ends up controlling the money, the rules, and eventually the people. There’s a reason the word “cult” comes up.

Secular congregations. Closest to what we’re after: church-shaped community without the church. They’ve drawn real crowds, which says a lot about how many people want this. But most asked so little of anyone that they stayed audiences rather than communities, and many quietly faded.

How Bedrock answers

A substantial part of the solution, we think, is refreshingly tangible: a living community filling the role of one of the big institutions many folks are missing, the faith community. Durable, in person, intergenerational, and grounded in shared values. Communities like this are how people have always lived well together and made it through hard stretches. What’s new is that many of us no longer have one. So we’re building one — a sturdy foundation of belonging and support underneath our members’ lives.

Pencil sketch of a pack of laughing kids swarming the local soccer star as she dribbles the ball across the grass — Illustration by Lorne Perry

Maybe think of it as a bedrock.

Our answer

Our mission says we’re a place providing four things: belonging, shared meaning, practical guidance, and solidarity. Each one answers part of the problem directly.

Belonging A real place that's simply there

If people have fewer friends, fewer confidants, and fewer places to just be, and the hours that used to go to each other often go to screens, then Bedrock's first job is to be a real, in-person place that's simply there: on the calendar, with nothing to plan, afford, or get invited to. You just come to a place where people are glad to see you and miss you when you're away. It's a village on purpose, intergenerational by design, so kids grow up alongside other kids, parents get backup, couples get community around their relationship, and seniors have a role that matters.

Shared meaning Your values, held in good company

Many of us have a beautiful set of values that we cherish. But in a disconnected world that's getting tougher, it can feel like we're holding them alone. Bedrock is a place where those values can be practiced and celebrated in good company, from a place of strength. Ritual and celebration, songs, stories, and traditions: a shared culture that gets richer every year because members build it.

Practical guidance Wiser ways through modern life

So many parts of ordinary life have become fraught to navigate: parenting norms no generation before was asked to meet, partners expected to be each other's everything, seniors living into old age alone, and the big chapters of money, career, aging parents, and growing older so often faced solo. A community that gathers practical, expert advice on the things that matter day to day, alongside people who have already been through them, lets us cultivate a culture of saner expectations and wiser ways through the challenges of modern life.

Solidarity Built for the hard stretches

Life's hard stretches come for everyone: the illness, the loss, the year that goes wrong. Most of what people find today can't hold them through it. The group chat and the club aren't there when life falls apart, so the weight lands on individuals, or on one overloaded partner. Bedrock is built to be a community where looking out for each other is something we do on purpose, not something left to luck, and where membership holds even when health, money, or energy dip.

And the wider world doesn't look like it's getting gentler. In the years ahead we may find ourselves relying on each other more, holding the line on our values harder, and looking for organized ways to fight for what we believe in.

How we're different

We’ve studied the attempts that came before us closely. Some asked too little of their people, and nothing held. Some asked more than an ordinary life can give. Some cost too much to join, and some came apart for lack of sound structure underneath. Bedrock is designed with every one of those lessons in mind.

Thicker than a club or meetup. The big moments marked, care that’s intentional when life gets hard, and a gathering that doesn’t hinge on one organizer’s energy, or on your finances or ability.

The togetherness of cohousing, minus the mortgage. Low-cost by design and open to you whatever your housing looks like. In reach without reorganizing your life around it.

The ambition of an intentional community, minus the failure modes. Members hold the legal power, no founder control, finances in the open, and conflict worked through fair process.

More lasting than the secular congregations before us. Membership carries clear, liveable expectations and responsibilities, and members build something together, because communities that ask something real of their people are the ones that stick.

What we ask of each other, and what you can count on

What we ask of each otherWhat you can count on

Come once a month, to one core gathering.: You'll have somewhere that's simply there, with people you can count on being there. It's on the calendar, and you don't have to plan it, pay for an outing, or wait to be invited.
Chip in toward the cost, as you're able.: You won't be priced out when money's tight.
Make an effort to contribute. A committee, a dish, a workshop, a skill, the board, or whatever fits for you.: You'll have a role, a growing culture that you're part of, and a place that doesn't burn out on a few people's energy.
Help hold the values. Take them seriously, while making room for people to understand and live them in their own way.: You'll have a place of strength for people who share them, and practical ways to practice and celebrate them together.
Show up for people, as you're able.: You can count on others making the same effort when you need it.
Agree to a one-page code of conduct. It sets out how we treat each other individually, the bedrock community, and the organization.: You'll have a community with clear expectations, ways to avoid problems, and ways to work past them when they come up.
Engage in democratic processes.: You'll be part of an organization that's truly shaped by its members and keeps getting better over time.

Why once a month?

Honestly, we don't love making attendance a requirement. But the research that helped inspire Bedrock suggests that part of what makes faith communities often so good at creating belonging, support, and lasting ties is that participation isn't treated as entirely optional. People are expected to keep showing up for one another. A community you can count on needs some version of that shared commitment. Without it, gatherings become unpredictable, relationships don't deepen, and keeping things going falls to the same few people.

Once a month is the smallest commitment we think can create a real rhythm: enough for faces to become familiar, for people to notice when someone's missing, and for Bedrock to become more than a series of events. It doesn't mean perfect attendance, or no room for illness, caregiving, travel, or a difficult season. It means that showing up is part of the commitment we make to one another and one of the most important things that makes this a community you can count on.

Beautiful! Can you show me please? → ... nope, still sketchy → I'd like to help found it! →