Every spring the Vancouver Marathon winds its way through Vancouver’s streets. Thousands of runners, volunteers and spectators moving together through our neighbourhoods. It’s easy to see it as just an event or an annoying cause of road closures and detours! But it’s something more: a rare, beautiful moment when a global city feels like a local community.
For a few hours, strangers become encouragers. Sidewalks become gathering places. And ordinary people become lifelines of energy for those pushing through the hardest miles.
When the runners pass through your street, you can witness perseverance in real time. Every person carries a story: months of training, personal challenges, grief, hope, determination.
You can be part of it. Your participation, whether in slides or running shoes matters.
Hospitality doesn’t always look like opening your home. Sometimes it looks like stepping onto the sidewalk. Bringing a sign. Offering a smile. Cheering until your voice gives out. Making space for others to feel seen and strengthened.
In a city like Vancouver—often described as beautiful but distant—these moments push back against isolation. They remind us we belong to one another.
Encouragement is one of the simplest and most overlooked forms of service. It costs little, but it carries weight. I have experienced the impact in completing a meager 10k, a clap at the right moment, your name shouted from the sideline, a high-five midway up a hill when you are ready to stop.
These are not small things. They are acts of presence.And presence is powerful.
The early church understood this well—they gathered, supported, strengthened one another daily. Not always through grand gestures, but through consistent, visible care.
The marathon gives us a modern expression of that same spirit.
A neighbourhood friend close to our church organizes a cheering station every May right along the marathon route at Cambie and 39th. I’ve had the chance to join this group clapping, calling out encouragement, offering high-fives to runners we had never met. It felt small in the moment. Simple. Almost forgettable.
But weeks later, someone stopped me at another community event. They recognized me from that stretch of road. That caught me off guard. Because what felt like a passing moment of encouragement had stayed with them far longer than I expected.
It’s a quiet reminder of something Scripture has been telling us all along:
“Always work enthusiastically for the Lord, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever wasted” (1 Corinthians 15:58).
In other words—what you do matters, even when it feels fleeting.
This weekend, as the Vancouver Marathon passes through our city, consider this your invitation:
Show up. Not as a spectator, but as a servant. Not just to watch, but to bless.
Bring your kids. Invite a friend. Join a cheering station or create one. Be the kind of presence that lifts someone through a difficult mile. Because you never know who might carry that moment with them long after the race is over. You may never hear the story of the impact you made but in God’s economy, nothing offered in love is wasted.