Register here now: https://forms.office.com/r/ZjvMB4TVKL

Ontario Election 2025:

More than Tariffs A panel discussion

Sunday Feb 23, 3:00-4:15 PM EST on Zoom

Information to help you faithfully discern your vote and continue advocacy after the Feb 27^th election.

Brief presentations by five panel members on selected topics.

Panelists will respond to questions from the audience.

Advance registration required:

https://united-church.zoom.us/meeting/register/Pfy-0rDhQt-l-V5KqspFkw

For more information contact:

Thérèse Samuel tsamuel@united-church.ca and John Egger jegger@united-church.ca

Moderator:

Rev. Éric Hébert-Daly serves as the Executive Minister to ECO and EOO Regional Councils in Eastern Ontario. He was ordained in 2020. He served for 5 years as Responsible, Ministries in French, for 9 years as the National Executive Director of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society. Éric spent 17 years working in federal political circles and 7 years as a registered lobbyist. He also brings a hope-filled passion for the church.

Panel Members

Charles Barrett is a retired economist, who was actively involved in policy dialogue in North America, and the Asia-Pacific region in international economic relations, human resources development and capacity building. He has broad research experience and has written extensively on Canadian and international policy issues. He is a member of Riverside United Church, Ottawa and Eastern Ontario Outaouais Regional Council.

The Rev. Dr. Jessica Hetherington is an ecotheologian and ordained minister in the United Church of Canada. Working at the intersection of ecology and theology for 20 years, she inspires people of faith to transform their actions in response to the climate crisis. She currently serves as commissioner on climate justice with the World Council of Churches and the World Communion of Reformed Churches. Sign up for her weekly newsletter: Faith. Climate Crisis. Action. (https://jessicahetherington.substack.com/).

Bryan Smith is a long-term member of the Oxford Coalition for Social Justice, an organization committed to work and advocacy on a wide range of social and environmental issues locally in the County of Oxford and across the planet. It stands in for the Ontario Health Coalition and stands up for public health. Bryan is a retired teacher, and is active in providing school lunches and community dinners, and promoting local foods, the avoidance of waste, community events, and public health.

Rev. Jeffrey Dale (they/he) is the Minister at College Street United Church in downtown Toronto. Jeffrey is a harm reduction advocate and community educator, working with harm reduction advocacy groups throughout the Province of Ontario to educate communities of faith and the wider society regarding the needs of people who use drugs.

Rev. Susan Eagle is the minister at Grace United Church in Barrie. She chairs both the Ecological and Social Justice Commission for Shining Waters Regional Council, and the Steering Committee of the provincial interfaith coalition, ISARC, which does policy analysis and advocacy for income security, homelessness and employment rights. She has worked with newcomer and low-income individuals and sole-support families as a community outreach worker, and served on London City Council for 13 years.

This workshop is presented by the Social Justice Network of Ontario Regional Councils (SJNORC) with representation from Eastern Ontario Outaouais, East Central Ontario, Shining Waters, Canadian Shield, Antler River Watershed, Horseshoe Falls, Western Ontario Waterways and Prairie to Pine Regional Councils of The United Church of Canada.

Engage, Pray, Vote.

Register here now: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/lu2FfRocTb6yqlx2FznABw

Are you interested in engaging with global partners in their own contexts to witness first-hand the mutuality of partnership? About the rich history of Mission & Service partners, and the priorities that they are addressing?

Read more here:

https://united-church.ca/opportunities/pilgrimage-learning-delegations

Free Resource
for an Advent Small Group Study

We are offering every Community of Faith a gift this Advent season! By means of a regional subscription you can access an Advent Small Group Study created by:

The Prayer Bench entitled Advent Longing   

We hope this will be a gift for busy ministers and lay leaders in this Advent season who want a faith formation opportunity for their community of faith.

This Advent Small Group Study invites participants to nurture longing as a powerful spiritual gift through an imaginative pilgrimage in an old-growth forest. It encourages us to notice longing in our ordinary days, recognize its gifts during times of desolation and reclamation, and welcome “thin spaces”—those moments of connection, support, and hope. In the context of a planetary crisis, we explore how to activate Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love in the world God loves.

What You Receive with this Downloadable Resource   

• Complete Leader’s Guide for three Advent sessions with ideas for Opening, Singing, Movement or Sound Prayers, Conversation prompts, a Group Spiritual Practice, and Closing.

• Three 8-10-minute audio recordings.

• Three scripts of the audio recordings to download and copy so participants can follow along.

• Access to a Prayer Bench webpage with all the study materials, downloadable image for social media promotion, customizable poster for the series, and other resources related to the study.

Click here to register and receive the free resource here:

https://prayerbench.ca/regional-license-for-advent-small-group-study/

Advent Small Group Study Taster on Zoom  

An introduction to the Advent Small Group Study for Leaders with Janice MacLean of Prayer Bench, offering background information and hints for leading the process. Please download the resource and come with any comments or questions for use in your setting.

We are offering two sessions (the same content just different times and days) as follows:

Antler River Watershed, Horseshoe Falls and Western Ontario Waterways Regional Council

Friday, November 22nd at 1:00pm

Click link to register and receive the Zoom link:

https://united-church.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAudequpj4qHtUr_VJD6D436RejF-lPoQO7

OR with

Eastern Central Ontario Regional Council

Monday, November 25 at 7:00 pm 

Click link to register and receive the zoom link:

https://ecorcuccan.ca/eco-rc-2024-advent-small-group-study/

Regional Councils of ARW, HF and WOW in partnership with The Hub and Trinity UC Kitchener-
Thursday November 28^th, 2024, 6:30-8:30 (all participants are asked to arrive at 6:40).

Background: Post-pandemic, Youth leaders struggle to put together groups. A message often heard from youth in the church is that what’s being offered doesn’t work for them. Being an intercultural church includes finding ways to bridge communication between different age groups/generations.

Goal– To offer a forum that brings together youth and Elders in the church– a forum that allows the two groups to hear one another and be heard by one another, and to consider what might be the Spirit’s invitation to the church for youth ministry at this time.

FISHBOWL PROCESS:

8 Youth (teens to twenty-somethings) and 8 Elders (45+) from WOW, HF and ARW Regional Councils and facilitators will gather via Zoom.

• Discussion questions will invite each to share and listen to experiences of their own youth faith formation, and hopes and challenges for youth ministry then and now.
• On each question, using the Zoom spotlight feature to focus on one group of eight:
  • Youth will invite one another to share, while the Elders listen.
  • Places will be switched, and the Elders will invite one another to share while the Youth listen.
  • For some questions, the order might be reversed, with Elders sharing first
• After two rounds of sharing in separate groups, Youth and Elders will have an opportunity to reflect together as one group.

Each group will be invited to reflect on what they have heard and consider possible next steps.

Participants will be given questions for reflection and feedback, to be submitted in writing following the session.

This is a cross-cultural listening event, and a pilot project. This session will not focus on problem solving or planning. The focus of this event is to listen and learn about one another as a first step of re-visioning youth ministry in ARW, HF and WOW in this post-pandemic time.

An HONORARIUM of $105 is available for participants who are not otherwise paid for their time in this discussion.

To apply, complete the Application Form :

https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=qLUYz3gmEUCTEhXw9xV1dPBWSFWIXSNPila5mgKiAchUM0NLV0kyWUtVM1JXUEcyOUw4QlVaRlVDUS4u

Application deadline November 18, 2024

For more information contact

Thérèse Samuel tsamuel@united-church.ca

Kathy Douglas kdouglas@united-church.ca

Adam Cresswell – hubleadership@gmail.com

Aimee Belanger at youthevents@hubcommunity.ca

Antler River Watershed Regional Council

A Time of Renewal: Rebuild, Reconnect, Revitalize

Welcomes you to the 2024 Fall Gathering!

Online via Zoom 

Friday October 25th: Time 6:30pm – 8:30pm

Saturday October 26th: Time 9:00am – 2:00pm

The Celebration of Ministry will be In-person and Livestreamed on YouTube  

Antler River Watershed Regional Council Fall Online Meeting Information

Ask An Expert – Answer Session:

❓❓❓
Join us on Wednesday evening for a special one hour Zoom event.

Wednesday, September 18th, 2024 from 7-8pm

It has come to our attention that across-Canada anti-2S-LGBTQIA+ protest marches are to be held on Friday, September 20, 2024. The organization responsible, Hands Off Our Kids (https://handsoffourkids.ca/) states their mission is to:“safeguard children from gender ideology teachings, sexual indoctrination, exposure to explicit sexual content, ensuring that parental consent remains paramount.” They also aim to “protect our children from thought control and will ensure their religious freedoms are protected.”

Their rhetoric has been strongly anti-2S-LGBTQIA+ and especially anti-Trans in the past. This group has worked to exert influence in school boards in Ontario and beyond, spreading harmful misinformation and opposing SOGI (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity) education in schools, again with misinformation. For information about SOGI click HERE.

These marches are planned across Canada on September 20, including the following locations across our tri-regional councils:

WOW:  Owen Sound, Meaford, Hanover, Orangeville and Kitchener

HF: Mississauga (2 locations), Oakville, Milton, Hamilton

ARW : London, Windsor

More details and updates can be found on their website: https://handsoffourkids.ca/resources/

A constantly updated list of in-person presence and counter-protests is available here. The private Facebook group 1 Million Voices for Inclusion, which also hosts community-specific chats and planning, is an excellent resource for ideas and support.

Christ calls us to be a peace-seeking, truth-speaking,
love-focused presence in the face of these movements.

How can you be active?

Faith-Filled Responses

• Send letters of encouragement to school staff and to any student group or individuals who need support;
• deliver homemade real church cookies to those groups/individuals;
• use your church signage and lawn to send PIE messaging;
• write letters to the editor;
• learn about SOGI and what it really is, as opposed to the myths spread about it;
• support school board candidates and members who are supportive of 2SLGBTQIA+ human rights.
• Offer support to transgender, Two Spirit, and gender-diverse people who are being targeted by this movement.

Faith-Focussed responses:

• Pray
• Re-read all the radical bible verses about God’s all- encompassing love.
• And be PIE— public, intentional, and explicit—about the fact that you’re people of faith supporting 2S-LGBTQIA+ people (using your best judgement about when and how, of course).

When we show up in a positive way, it is noticed!

When discussing with your congregation:

• Know that it is possible that well-meaning people in your congregation may be supporting these movements. Leading with language of “hate” in this instance can alienate the well-meaning people that you wish to connect with.
• While the “Hands Off Our Kids” and related movements are understood as hate movements, and that is an accurate description of the impact of these movements, not everyone who shows up in support of these marches is doing so out of hate.
• Name and honour how this harms people in 2S-LGBTQIA+ communities without conveying an assumption that this harm was intended. Intentions and impacts are often very different, but a well-meaning intention does not erase hurtful and harmful impacts.
• Offer grounded information to counteract harmful mis-information.

If you are making plans or have concerns, please contact me, Thérèse Samuel, Minister Right Relations and Social Justice, and my colleague John Egger, Minister, Social Justice.

Thanks to Northern Spirit Regional Council and clergy from Western Ontario Waterways Regional Council for sharing information that helped in the creation of parts of this resource.

Looking for continuing education that will grow your understanding of ministry from Indigenous perspectives? Join the Sandy-Saulteaux Spiritual Centre ministry training students in a learning circle.

October-21-25-2024-5-day-registration-form-Wisdom-and-Psalms

October-28-31-2024-4-day-registration-form-Prophets-and-Prophecy

For more information visit:  sandysaulteaux.ca/events.

You can also contact your regional council  Minister for Right Relations and Social Justice, Thérèse Samuel tsamuel@united-church.ca

This summer we have become aware of a “payroll scam” targeting ministry personnel and other staff members of churches.

How the Payroll Scam works:

• Scammers review websites of churches and learn the positions of each staff member to understand the staff structure in an attempt to steal staff’s salary.
• After they get to know who the staff members are and what their role is within the church, they target a particular staff member(s) and create an email address that is very similar to the person’s real email address ie minister@butterflyuc.com to minister1@butterflyuc.com and then use that email to contact the treasurer or bookkeeper to have their payroll auto-deposit banking information changed.
• Another way a scammer can get access to staff email address is by hacking into the churches email server and gain control over staff emails. Once they have this control they can send an email directly from the staff members real account to community members or other staff.  These emails will only be detected if the staff member check their “sent” emails.
• The outcome of the payroll scam is the targeted staff member is only alerted on pay day when their payroll is not deposited into their account and then contacts the church payroll administrator to find out a false request has been made to alter their payroll information. The payroll is deposited into the scammers account and will be a financial loss to the church.

How to avoid the Payroll Scam:

• Ensure that the payroll administrator on your staff team whether they are the treasurer, bookkeeper or church administrator use extra precautions when processing changes to payroll details for staff members.
• The best precaution is to respond in person or by telephone to verify any payroll information change requests.
• Have the staff member fill out a payroll change form in the office with a witness.
• Develop basic security protocols within the staff team and church council as an example, two staff members must approve financial transactions on behalf of the church ie cheque signing, payroll changes etc.
• Install trustworthy web security systems on all church devices.

Stay alert and be safe online and on the phone.

Did your Minister leave and run off with the sign in credentials to your church’s Facebook account? Did the volunteer on your communications team finish their term and didn’t give you access to your YouTube or Canva accounts?  Is one of your staff members on leave and not accessible to retrieve passwords to your MailChimp or X accounts?  Need to set up a meeting but don’t have the password to the Zoom account and your Church Administrator left abruptly.

You could be left out in the cold and shut out of your online church accounts like MailChimp, Facebook, Instagram, X, Canva, MailChimp, Constant Contact, YouTube, Vimeo etc.
The importance of setting up more than one administrator of your online church accounts has never been more important.  The importance of having more than one leader, staff member or volunteer the ability to access your online accounts for church business has excelled as we move much of our messaging and communications online in digital formats.

Gone are the days where file folders of paper can be handed over to new staff or ministry personnel or committee members.

Two-Factor Authentication(2FA) or One Time Passcodes (OTP) are our new reality with bad actors coming up with new scams daily. Two-Factor Authentication and One Time Passcodes are important ways to verify your church’s identity and the user logging in.  These 2FA or OTP notices should go to Communications or Administrative emails or phone numbers not to personal phone numbers for verification.

Best Practices:

1. Assign more than one administrator on accounts such as Facebook. Many online and social media platforms offer differing levels of permission to be assigned to administrators depending on their responsibilities, so it isn’t necessary to turn over full control of your accounts, but a person can be given permissions limited to posting and replying to posts, for example.
2.  Make sure the Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) or One Time Passcodes (OTP) go to an accountable staff or volunteer person that is available to access where these authorizations land.
3. Separate personal and business emails when creating accounts for your community of faith. Church email accounts should be set up as an example “administrator[your church name or initials]@gmail.com”.
4. Create a secure password log to be held by your church treasurer or administrator
5. Set up a dedicated communications or media email account that can be accessed by more than one accountable staff or volunteer member to be used for online community of faith accounts.

Consider using a social media management platform where you can manage access to multiple platforms from one place. The General Council Office uses Hootsuite, and there are many others to choose from, such as Buffer.

[Photo Sara Kurfess via Unsplash]

Submitted by Michele Petick, Websites and Social Media Manager, Administrative Assistant
Antler River Watershed, Horseshoe Falls, Western Ontario Waterways Regional Councils.

We’re trying something new. We’re introducing an Ask An Expert series in partnership with the General Council Office. You ask the questions, and we’ll provide the expertise.

Who are the experts? Well, it depends on the topic and staff availability.

Maybe you want to know more about the insurance partnership between the GCO and Communities of Faith. Or what you do when the local newspaper calls (or when you want to get a good story out). Or what the new government relations officer does. Or what the cost-of-living-adjustment is.

It’s kind of like a Pick-Your-Own-Adventure book. Here’s how it works:

1. You send us your questions here: https://forms.office.com/r/q7UM9spU9z

2. We find the expert who can answer them.

3. We all tune in on Wednesday September 18th, 7-8 p.m. by Zoom here: https://united-church.zoom.us/j/89972136949

4. As many questions will be answered as can be within the allotted time. Unanswered questions will carry over to the next session, or we’ll answer them on our Regional Council Facebook group.

5. Tough questions are okay. We’ll do our best to answer them, and if we can’t on the spot, we’ll follow up with the right information.

So, pick your adventure. Will it be insurance? Or grants? Climate justice? Governance? Media relations? Government relations? Global partnerships? Or something else?

You pick. Ask your question here: https://forms.office.com/r/q7UM9spU9z.  Join us on Wednesday September 18th at 7 p.m. to get an answer in real time. Don’t have a question right now? Listeners welcome!

This session will be facilitated by: Michelle Owens

Invitation from The Moderator

The Moderator invites you to consider becoming a nominee for General Council Commissioner

English: https://youtu.be/0Zfpxtgva80    French: https://youtu.be/4bRACsa_VMU

Electing Antler River Watershed Regional Council’s Commissioners (The Manual Section D.1.1.e)
DEADLINE FOR NOMINATIONS MAY 1, 2024

Click here to fill out the General Council Commissioner Nomination Form.

Antler River Watershed Regional Council voted to have a diverse slate of GC45 Commissioners that will be voted on as a whole at the Spring Meeting of the ARWRC, May 24-26, 2024. We will be asked to approve a slate of 13 Commissioners to accompany the President of ARWRC to General Council 45, for a total of 14 Commissioners.

As you consider General Council 45 Commissioner nominations, remember the importance of reflecting the diversity of our denomination. Also, consider the diversity we as a church want (or need) as we seek to live out God’s mission. Ask yourself questions like:

• Whose voices need to be heard in this decision-making body of our church?
• Who’s missing from the table?
• Whose wisdom, insights and experience can best contribute to the conversations and actions at GC45?

Let these questions – and others that the Spirit brings – aid you in your decision-making.

General Council Proposals (The Manual  Section F)
Do you have an idea for a way to strengthen the United Church? If so, please consider preparing a proposal. (See The Manual, Section F) Proposals have a set format:

• Title:
• Originating Body:
• What is the issue?
• Why is this issue important?
• What might the General Council do about it?

Detailed information is laid out in the The Manual, 2024. To view the GC45 Proposal Template Guide, click here GC45 Proposal Template Guide. Proposals reach the General Council through the regional council. If submitting a proposal, please do so as soon as possible to allow the agenda and business team time to allow sufficient time for discussion.

If you would find advice helpful in framing the desired action or change as you craft a proposal, please feel free to be in touch with Executive Minister, Mark Laird mlaird@united-church.ca for assistance. This would be help in terms of format and wording, not advice re: the action itself.

 Candidates for Moderator
Is the next Moderator of the United Church in our midst? Nominees for Moderator no longer need to be a Commissioner