Today is Friday February 07th, 2014 and its approaching lunch time and I want of offer a few words of thanks before I go to lunch. In fact I want to say thank-you to four people from three countries. I am not mentioning them in any ‘particular’ order. Each one has been very helpful to me even though they would be unaware of it. My impulse to write this note comes about from a feeling of gratitude, first for the ways in which each of these people have helped me out in my work related responsibilities this week; and secondly for the wonderful way in which these people, and those who support them, make their work, research and understanding so readily available to the wider world through a little help (actually a lot of help, I suppose) from internet communication. This feeling of gratitude is also mixed with a feeling of relief, as I have just completed the first draft of my ‘Minister’s Report’ for inclusion in the Central United 2013 Annual Report …and the Annual Meeting date is still several weeks away! Maybe now I will be able to catch some of the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics now that that’s finished.
To Rex Hunt , Bruce Sanguin , John Shelby Spong and Gretta Vosper , a big thank you to each of you – and to those who provide the technical support enabling your work to be accessible to countless people around the world. I have just finished preparing the order of service for this coming Sunday, thanks to lots of help from Rex Hunt’s liturgical resources – made freely available to a global community. Within Rex Hunts resources I am weekly reminded of the helpful influence of so many others ‘including fellow Canadians’ like Gretta Vosper and Bruce Sanguin who have been featured in this same resource time and again. In fact it was this man in Australia, for Pete’s sake, who reminded me a couple of years ago of the work of my own Canadian counterparts. This past week my subscription to John Shelby Spong’s Weekly Newsletter was very helpful with its added bonus of a video link to a conference held on August 3, 2013 at the Community Christian Church in Springfield, MO., USA. Our Outreach, Care and Communication Committee here at Central United loved this presentation.
Introducing Progressive/Evolutionary Christianity’s thinking and understanding to our congregations still requires a great deal of care since much of our theology continues to be locked up in understandings formed in those seemingly more blissful earlier years of pre-critical thought. People like me, working in a local pastoral charge in these dramatically changing times, with countless other day to day responsibilities, end up depending heavily upon access to life-giving resources, leadership and assistance provided by such people as those I am thanking today. Moving in important and vital new directions can only be done well when there is good support available for doing so. I feel people, like Rex Hunt, Bruce Sanguin, John Shelby Spong and Gretta Vosper continue to offer this kind of support with care and consistency and I very much appreciate it and I encourage colleagues and friends (lay and ordered) to check out the resources offered by these important leaders of our day, if you have not already done so.
I also wish to acknowledge two Canadian United Church congregations: West Hill United Church in West Hill (Toronto), Ontario and Canadian Memorial United Church and Centre for Peace in Vancouver, British Columbia because I believe both of these congregations provided the ‘permission slip’ and support to their church leaders (Gretta Vosper and Bruce Sanguin respectively) in such a way that these leaders of theirs were able to provide support, inspiration and encouragement, in their own individual and unique ways, to many others beyond the boundaries and membership of these individual congregations. Where would a hungering, searching person like me, longing for an improved and more authentic, emerging understanding/explanation/interpretation of my Christian Faith tradition be, if I was not able to access the work of people who had been nurtured and supported by congregations who also saw [and supported] the valuable work of their congregational leaders. Lately I have wondered if the congregations of West Hill United Church and Canadian Memorial United Church and Centre for Peace actually know and understand how much they have given to other people and to other congregations like Central United Church here in Moncton, NB (for example), simply because you have supported and enabled your leaders to be about the kind of work which inspires and encourages many, many others, and inadvertently I would argue, improves the health of the world! I feel the need to publically express my gratitude to these two Canadian congregations because I have been concerned that these two congregations might be completely unaware of the ‘far reaching positive impact’ of their willingness to journey to new places while in their covenant relationships with the clergy who serve with them – or have served with them. Thank-you West Hill United Church; and thank-you Canadian Memorial United Church and Centre for Peace.
A big thank-you also goes, to the Uniting Church of Australia and the progressive congregation called the Church of St. James in Canberra, where (according to his website) Rex Hunt served from 2000-2009. Did you, as a congregation, ever realize that your openness to emerging understandings was allowing the progressive initiatives of your incumbent clergy to encourage and nurture emerging progressive congregations ‘way up in Canada’ – on the other side of the world, for heaven’s sake!
Now a final to word to John Shelby Spong. I was in my second pastoral charge in northern New Brunswick, Canada. One day a man came into my study with a copy of a full page article from the Vancouver Sun. Now that was a newspaper published four thousand miles away on the other side of this vast dominion. (The man’s brother lived in Vancouver and had sent this man in Northern, NB a copy of the article from the Vancouver Sun.) The full-page newspaper article, published 20 years ago now, told of how an Episcopalian Bishop from the United States, by the name of John Shelby Spong, was praising The United Church of Canada for its courageous steps in publically declaring its readiness to ordain people of all sexual orientations. The Bishop was absolute in his opinion that this was the direction in which all churches would move one day, but criticized their slow pace in getting to such an important place of understanding. That day, 20 years ago, I began wanting to learn more about this American Episcopalian Bishop. To tell you the truth, I was surprised that someone outside of Canada even ‘knew about The United Church of Canada’ for I have often felt that even in Canada, many people know very little about our denomination. Anyway, Bishop Spong, you inspired me 20 years ago and you still inspire me today and I feel the need to declare that publically following a week where your work, along with the work of your global colleagues (named above), has once again been of great assistance.
Thank-you very much, all of you!
Jim MacDonald