A new Toronto group is expected to launch on Feb. 12, joining a growing network of communities popping up across the central and southern United States, with meetings based on shared common values instead of a religion.

It’s not a church, but in many ways is sort of like one.

Oasis groups meet weekly in whatever space they find suitable — from dance studios to conference centres — for talks, discussions and music. This movement is founded on five shared values including: people are more important than beliefs, reality has its roots in reason, and humans can fix human problems.

In Toronto, the group is being started by a core team of about 10 people, including West Hill United Church’s atheist minister Gretta Vosper, Humanist Canada’s Martin Frith, Bangladeshi author Raihan Abir and advocate and artist Agah Bahari. It will be the first chapter of the network in Canada.

Vosper, who joined the network’s board of directors this year, made headlines when the United Church ruled that she was “unsuitable” to do her job because she doesn’t believe in God. The church is expected to decide whether it will defrock sometime next year. Although she’s still at West Hill United, Vosper is expanding her work with Oasis, which she says is similar to what she’s doing already — but this time, with absolutely no church affiliation.

“I think there are a number of things that religion does within community and for individuals that are important,” Vosper said. “Church didn’t come up with the idea of gathering, and church didn’t come up with the idea of transmitting values from one person to the next or transmitting things from one generation to the next.”

She thinks Oasis can meet those needs in a non-religious way. Vosper said no membership is needed to attend an Oasis gathering and drop-ins are welcome.

Helen Stringer, who started an Oasis chapter in Kansas City and is the co-founder of the network, said the movement is growing faster than she expected.

“The real thing that we’re offering is really that type of community support that is missing, I think, in a lot of people’s lives,” she said. “We are more individualized and isolated probably than ever, our society has just kind of started to flow that way. So a lot of us are looking for alternative ways to still connect with human beings.”

Stringer said even though the group has made no attempt at promoting itself, the Oasis network has received media attention. She said people have expressed interest in starting their own Oasis communities as far as Africa, South America and Europe. Although the non-profit network hasn’t got around to translating its start-up materials to meet overseas demand, she thinks the concept can work anywhere.

Bahari, one of the Toronto group’s founding members, thinks the network will fit well here, even if it might initially “freak some people out.”

He notes that Oasis is a secular community, not an atheist one, and that it will be open to listening and morphing into what the local public wants it to be.

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“I think the fact that there are many different people from many different backgrounds has a lot of significance,” Bahari said. “I think that’s the most Toronto thing about it.”

Closer to its launch date, founding members of the Toronto Oasis will announce details about upcoming, public weekly gatherings, which will be hosted at the University of Toronto’s multi-faith centre.