A look into the (not-too-distant) future...

Headline: "United Church of Canada takes bold new initiative!"

ETOBICOKE -- Citing "fiduciary responsibilities and "generally accepted accounting principles" The United Church of Canada today embarked on a dramatic shift in emphasis.

"We were faced with an un-avoidable question," stated General Secretary Scrooge McDuck. "Were we going to continue to speak with an authentic and passionate voice for human rights, justice and care of creation, or were we going to make money?"

For years, The United Church of Canada has held stock in Goldcorp, a Canadian mining company with a reputation for human rights abuses and environmental disasters in the developing world. Justice advocates both within and outside the church have pointed out the hypocrisy in maintaining these investments while continuing to put forward a justice agenda. Today, The United Church of Canada echoed the Tom Cruise movie character "Jerry Maguire" and said, "show me the money!"

The United Church of Canada Pension Plan holds $1.2 billion with a $35 million surplus. While Goldcorp only makes up 1% of the portfolio, Pension Board governors insist that Goldcorp is vital to the integrity of the Plan and can not be sold.

"We’ve made the choice to return to our core values," says McDuck, "property maintenance and investment management."

The United Church of Canada has more franchises than Tim Horton’s and is poised to exercise a virtual monopoly on the multi-million dollar Canadian property maintenance business. "We’re able to keep over 3000 historic properties open through the use of volunteer labour," states McDuck, "how hard will it be to dust and vacuum a modern office building or apartment complex?"

Spokespersons for Property Maintenance giant "Dusting R Us" refused comment but are said to be deeply concerned.

The United Church of Canada Property and Investing Group (UCC-PIG) is poised for an IPO that will rival Google’s first day on the New York Stock Exchange.

All staff members in the United Church’s Justice, Global and Ecumenical Relations division were immediately terminated. Non-disclosure agreements were signed before severance packages were finalized, but one brave soul shouted, "John 11:35!" before being hustled into a blacked-out van and being driven to an undisclosed location.

All attempts to decipher this strange, alpha-numeric code were unsuccessful. A Google search for "John 11:35" returned the error code "404, location not found."

The Elephant in the Room

At one point in our meeting, the chair of the Finance Committee declared, "I'd like to name the elephant in the room, which is our need to cut 7 million dollars from our expeditures over the next three years." I found my self ruminating on what the elephant was, exactly, and put up the simple Tweet, "There's an elephant in the room." There was some gratifying reaction to my Tweet, with some continued interest in what, exactly, the elephant was.

Clearly, the chair of the Finance Committee has put forward a suggestion of what the elephant is. But I feel that the issue is much deeper, and the two of us had a good conversation about it at the break. We don't disagree, necessarily, but like the blind men, experience the elephant from different perspectives.

My feeling is that the elephant is "congregational engagement with mission." And, of course, engagement with mission together through the Mission and Service Fund of The United Church of Canada.

The lion's share of our United Church of Canada budget comes from Mission and Service Fund offerings made voluntarily by individuals at the congregational level. This money is given in trust for this specific purpose and is transferred directly from congregations to the General Council level. It does not pass through Presbytery or Conference and suffers no administrative losses on the way. The total amount raised is approximately $30 million dollars a year. This, of course, is no small amount of money and represents a tremendous investment and engagement with the mission of the church: administratively, locally, nationally and globally. The problem is, that this amount has held constant for the last 20 years. 20 years ago we raised $30 million and every year since we've raised $30 million. Huge and amazing, but not increasing in pace with inflation. Which means, we're actually giving substantially less than we gave 20 years ago.

Over this same period, contributions towards local congregational budgets (including assessments for Presbytery and Conference) has, mostly, kept pace with inflation. We've managed to pull together the dollars to keep our local house in order, but have not been as devoted to providing dollars for the work of our denomination.

Some of the "emerging church" writers and gurus would suggest that this is part of the reason churches decline. As changes occur around us, as change occurs to us, we have a choice to make. Do we fearfully withdraw and look inward, seeking to protect ourselves from the changes taking place in the world? Or do we bravely look outward, engaging the changes and continuing to express God's love as best we know how into a needy and hurting world? The gurus tell us that the first approach is doomed, and only the second approach offers hope for future viability.

In this context, the elephant could be, how do we express our understanding of mission as a shared enterprise dynamically represented by the Mission and Service Fund? How do we re-vitalize congregational engagement with the Mission and Service Fund and re-energize givings so that Mission and Service Fund offerings begin to keep pace with inflation? A simple, 10% increase in Mission and Service Fund offerings is all that it will take to keep pace, and yet any attempt at increases seem tantalizingly out of reach.

I don't believe we can suffer any further cuts to expeditures and continue to pretend that we have any kind of denominational mission expression beyond "keeping our house in order." We will inevitably cut global and domestic mission efforts and seek to maintain vital administrative areas. And without the mission efforts, the adminstrative areas will be able to be reduced as well. There are many who will say, "about time!" I fear, however, it is the beginning of the end. We will be reduced to a loose association of congregations, some with major mission emphasis, some with none, but with no significant national, denominational expression.

What do you think?

1st GCE of the new triennium

Greetings friends! I have survived my first meeting of the GCE. Please find below a report that I prepared for my Presbytery which met last night! Please let me know if you have questions.

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Report from General Council Executive
David Hewitt, elected Ministry Personnel Representative
Maritime Conference

The Executive of the General Council met at the General Council offices, Toronto, from November 13 to 16, 2009. The Executive and committees work to carry forward the work and ministry as approved and directed by the actions of the 40th General Council, recently meeting in Kelowna, BC in August 2009.

There are over 70 people in the room when the Executive (GCE) meets, the majority of whom are the elected voting members: 26 Conference reps, 4 members at large, 5 Permanent Committee chairs, 2 Francophone reps, 2 Ethic Ministries reps, our representative to the World Council of Churches, the General Secretary, Moderator and past Moderator. The 13 Conference Executive Secretaries/Speaker are corresponding members, and a variety of General Council staff move in and out as required.

40% of the voting members of the GCE are new, including me! As this newly constituted executive gathered for the first time, significant portions of time were spent in reviewing our governance model and the role and processes of the executive. Even more time was spent examining, exploring and refining the 5 themes that were adopted by the 40th General Council to inform our work over the next three years:

• emerging church
• authentic relationships with youth and young adults
• faith formation
• outreach, social action, care of creation
• becoming a whole people

While we offered some substantial insight as to the meaning of these themes for the work of the General Council Executive, committees and staff, there is still work to be done before it will become clear how these themes may inform not only our Call to ministry, but also our assignment of dollars and staff time. The General Secretary, Nora Sanders, and the Permanent Committee on Governance and Agenda has some important work to do between now and our May 2010 meeting.

Former moderator Bruce McLeod led us in theological reflection to begin and end the meeting. A copy of the text of Bruce's remarks will be sent to us soon. A phrase that has stuck in my mind since Friday's address went something like this, "as followers of Jesus, it's important to keep him in sight. Don't fall too far behind, don't barge ahead as if we know exactly where he's going and can get there first."

We received accountability reports from a variety of bodies including:

• Moderator
• Moderator's Advisory Committee
• General Secretary
• General Secretary's Supervision Committee
• General Council Accommodations Task Group (next GCO location?)
• World Council of Churches rep, Carmen Lansdowne
• GC40 Agenda and Planning Committee
• Permanent Committees on Finance, Governance and Agenda, Ministry and Employment Policies and Services, Programs for Mission and Ministry

We also dealt with approximately 80 separate pieces of business relating to the actions taken by GC40 or ongoing work of the General Council. Some highlights:

• GC40 approved a Statement on Ministry which, among other things, determined that the court of designation for Designated Lay Ministers shall no longer be the Conference, but the Presbytery. The GCE approved a number of manual changes that would put this decision into action. Such changes do not take effect until 90 days after the release of a new Manual, which means that 2010 will be the last Annual Meeting of Conference that will recognize and designate Designated Lay Ministers. After that, such designation will take place at the Presbytery level only.
• a declaration of concern about how hosting the Vancouver Olympic Games may have given rise to abuses and oppression of poor and homeless people, and restrictions on the right to free speech.
• approved the granting of license for sacraments to retired Designated Lay Ministers, when needed.
• clarifying that it is the Presbytery, not the Pastoral Relations Committee, that appoints representatives to JNAC, JSC and IM Transition Committees.
• clarified the notice of pastoral charge meeting for pastoral relations matters: 2 Sundays plus a day in all cases. Meetings for any other purpose will only require notice in worship at least once before the meeting.
• approved as directed by GC40 further study and development on the Candidacy Pathway, including possible trial implementation in up to 3 Conferences. One of the significant initiatives in the Candidacy Pathway is the relocation of the Internship requirement to post-graduation.
• referred amendments to the Pension Fund "Statement of Belief and Principles" and "Terms of Reference" back to the Permanent Committee for MEPS for further work specifically in regards to socially responsible investing and referencing MAR 19, which raised concerns about Goldcorp.
• approved in principle a campaign on Major Gifts and Legacy Giving. This will include signficant support for congregations.
• agreed to strongly and annually urge the Government of Canada to target development assistance to attaining the UN Millennium Development Goals.
• approved the broadening of Extra Measures Initiatives beyond the testing done in Bay of Quinte.
• approved the Moderators "Plan for Participating in God's Abundant Healing of Creation."
• clarified that only the General Secretary may offer "rulings." Executive Secretaries may offer "interpretation."
• clarified the role of the Committee of Stewards with respect to assisting the work of the Stewardship Committee of the Pastoral Charge.
• clarified that Designated Lay Ministers must be members of the United Church.
• modified the definition for Quorum at Presbytery.

Please contact me if you have questions about any of this work, or other items of concern. Please also check my blog at http://discerningtheway.blogspot.com/, where I will occasionally post up thoughts and impressions on our work.

Respectfully submitted,

David Hewitt

Here We Go Again!

So, I’m off to my first meeting of the General Council Executive (GCE) next week. The meeting begins on Friday the 13th, no joke! My workbook has arrived and is packed full of Proposals requiring the action of the GCE, either referred from General Council, or drafted in response to other actions of the GCE and the GC.

Remember that meeting back in August? The 40th meeting of the General Council of The United Church of Canada, affectionately known as "GC40?" Along with the 170 or so Proposals that we looked at, we also received some input on the "State of the Church" and financial projections. One of the things we heard (I hope I have this correct!) was that if we took NO ACTION on any of the Proposals before us, if we simply continued forward the ministry work that was already in place, we would generate a $6.5 million deficit in the next three years...

Then we began "discernment."

As GC40 came to a close, our discernment lead to the identification of "5 Themes to Guide the Church:"

• emerging church (radical transformation, hope in the struggle)
• authentic relations with youth and young adults (camps, campus)
• outreach, social justice, and the care of creation (honouring relationships, peace initiatives, refugees, resisting empire)
• faith formation (empowering congregations)
• becoming a whole people (intercultural engagement, language, anti-discrimination work)

Now, as far as I can tell, there’s nothing missing from this list. Pick your issue, it’s in there somewhere. Any of us who had any kind of priority we wanted to be sure was carried forward can be satisfied that we are included in this list. But the question remains, if we’re going to run out of money trying to continue doing what we’re already doing, what’s going to get cut? If any of the new work approved by GC40 requires new money, what’s going to get cut? OR how do we go about raising more money in order to further the mission to which we feel Called?

A couple of years ago, the GCE used a statement from GC39, "A Call to Purpose" to re-evaluate priorities, re-allocate money and cut mission programming. A great hue and cry arose. I was particularly disappointed with the lack of broad consultation before making a final decision. GC39 Commissioners themselves said that they never understood "A Call to Purpose" as a priority setting tool. Others responded that if the problem was a lack of money for mission, GCE should issue the challenge to raise more money for mission. Late in the year, a pathetic bargain was struck that if an additional $2 million dollars could be raised before year-end, the cherished programs would be saved. It wasn’t and they weren’t.

Now here we go again. Only this time I’m not watching from afar, I’m one of "them." :) And I am very anxious to discover what the mechanism will be that will help us as a church make the necessary choices. Comments?