The Latest 

May 20, 2022 

Good Friday all, 

Friday may be a day of preparation – what are your preparing for? 

Perhaps the start of outdoor season, a long weekend for bringing out the patio furniture and getting the tender tomatoes into the ground - 

Perhaps the anniversary on Monday of the confirmation of hundreds of indigenous children died and were buried without ceremony and without family at residential school across the country -   

Perhaps it is a combination of all these things.  Whatever it holds, may it truly prepare you and yours for what is emerging and true in community, in family, in faith.  

LeaderSHIFT has been preparing for the fall and return to in-person opportunities.  We are watching, and listening, and praying into what we can uniquely offer in the Chinook Winds, and the Pacific Mountain Regions as faithful leaders yearn to align themselves with Spirit’s intentions.   

We hear you wonder about articulating a bold public witness and theology.  We hear you give language to a vision of God’s kindom that animates and enlivens our mission and lifts us out of busy work and into faithful service and worship.  And we hear you wonder, have we lost a capacity to be swept into the Holy Spirit’s movement in and through the world? And in and through our churches? Come, Holy Spirit, Come.   

If you live in Chinook Winds region you are blessed to have the chance to bring all these wonderings and yearnings and hopes to Bold Witness, Relentless Grace in person!  Sarah Bessey together with a slate of diverse and thoughtful theme leaders will help and challenge us to engage and live the faith we profess.  This conference, offered and hosted by the Symons Valley United Church team, will be such a wonderful opportunity for connection, coffee, food trucks, conversation and prayer, song and thinking together.  If you are in the Pacific Mountain region…check out the satellite option for groups.   

We are preparing retreat for you clergy who are needing a refresh and a deep reset: Total Clergy Wellbeing at Naramata Centre.   

We are preparing an event for those of you being nudged by God to consider a vocation in leadership.   

We are preparing a deep learning for congregations with part time clergy – to embrace the model as a pathway to abundance instead of a confirmation of decline. 

We are ruminating on ongoing mental health, and faith formation, and learning about integrating virtual and in-person ministry. 

And we await what will happen as councils both regional and general continue to meet and discern together the next faithful steps for our denomination.  Watch.  The Spirit could show up too.   

Faithfully,

Allison