From what I understand, it as simple as asking the minister of a United Church congregation, and making a public declaration of faith at the front of the church on a Sunday, along with other new members.  . I believe it is not even considered to be a conversion, and involves the same process as one who switches from one United Church to another, since it is considered that  the Catholic Church to be just another Christian Church. 

 

 However just as anyone who is switching United Churches, you should get to know the local church  before joining it. Unlike the RCC there is no unifying doctrine in the UCC. We have a creed, but it results in a variety of differences between and inside different UCCs.

 

Here is a link to our Faith Statements http://www.united-church.ca/beliefs/statements

 

Overview of Beliefs.

http://www.united-church.ca/beliefs/overview

 

Hello Lavendyr and welcome to WonderCafe.ca

 

 

Nope.

 

The first question typically asked in this circumstance is, "Do you have a letter of good-standing from your old congregation?"

 

If yes, then the Session of Equivalent need to see it and then at a Sunday service there will be a very brief liturgy welcoming you to the congregation.  You might be expected to stand and identify yourself and maybe shake hands with the Minister and a representative from the Session or equivalent.

 

Painless.

 

If the answer to the first question is no, you do not have a letter of good standing you will be asked if you can get one.  If you can, everything runs just as above, if for one reason or another the priest will not give you one then membership is not simply a transfer it is a profession of faith.

 

The Session or equivalent will okay you to take part in the profession of faith liturgy which can be brief but tends to include the following three questions (along with scripted answers)

 

 

The wording in question two may not belong to the classical Trinitarian formulation.  It will ask you if you believe in the Trinity.

 

Provided you stay on script you are in, if you adlib a no answer then the liturgy stops and you will not be admitted.

 

Now if you feel shy about asking the Priest at your old church for a letter of good-standing (I've know some priests who give folk a very hard time over this) you can ask the United Church congregation you wish to join to contact your old church and request the letter of good-standing.

 

What if the priest refuses to give one to you?  It happens.  Only if the priest can show a good reason why you should not be admitted to the congregation (and I haven't heard a good reason to not proceed with an admission) will you be denied membership.

 

The congregation might offer you some literature so you can have a better idea of what you are getting into.  It explains our funny handshakes and secret rules.  Just kidding.

 

The only sweat that you should experience is standing in front of a congregation that is happy you want to join it.

 

Grace and peace to you.

John

Just before you make the big jump, have you considered becoming Baptist?  *ducks for cover*

 

Did you even read her message? She's considering UCCan because her husband in UCCan. I doubt Baptist even entered into it.

 

Mendalla

 

 

Can you also explain the difference between a member of an UCC and an Adherent of an UCC, and is the process involved in becoming an adherent?

 

 

Yes I read the message, yes I understood why she's considering UCCan. Did you not see my ? Good grief.

 

There is no process to be an adherent, just show up and hang around for awhile and let people or minister know you are there.

Good call, Lavendyr.

Good luck with your decision.

 

Start eating strawberry shortcake and going to rummage sales today. 

Thank you so much for all the responses!!! I actually have considered switching to just Christian or like Born Again or whatever you want to call it... I am still sort of undecided but I have been researching the United Church and they seem to be the closest to my thoughts/feelings on a lot of issues. I am really struggling with the Catholic Church and have my whole life but really never thought there was any other options! I live in a town that is 85% Catholic..read that on wikipedia haha. My Mother will be broken hearted/devastated but now that I am raising my own two babies, I just can't feel right about the Catholic Church..I don't know how I can explain things to them..

Anyway, thank you for all the feedback..it's giving me a lot to think about. It certainly helps that my husband is United..he is not really practcing at all..hasn't gone since he was a kid. Which is why he allowed me to baptize the girls Catholic (they are 5 months and 3 years old btw). 

Hi Lavendyr - love your name & your avatar.  I don't have anything to add, other than a warm word of welcome to WonderCafe.  It's a pretty interesting place!   I hope to see more posts from you - but I see you're a pretty busy mom with two little ones!  Drop by when you can. 

Thank you! To make it even busier my husband works in Alberta (we are in NS). He is gone 6 weeks and home 2. So it's busy! Thank you for the welcome. I had been looking for a place online I could come and have discussions and ask questions, did not know such a great place existed! I find it really helpful to talk with people about all of this but don't have anyone in real life I can discuss it with. 

well, here we are. lol

 

Hi Alex,

 

 

There is no process to become an adherent.  As friend Panentheism says, you just show up claim a pew and keep returning.

 

The differences between adherents and members in the UCCan are slight.  Adherents can speak to but not vote on issues that pertain to the congregation. 

 

On temporal matters (how the Church spends its money or uses its building) the congregation can extend voting privileges to adherents.

 

On spiritual matters (which minister to call or can and worship matters) the congregation cannot extend voting privileges to adherents.

 

Everything else, belonging related, is up for grabs.

 

Grace and peace to you.

John

Welcome Lavendyr! That's a great name - and I am very curious as to why you chose to spell it that way?

 

Have you been trying the United Church congregations in your area? If so, did you find one that was a good fit for you? If you have the option of trying more than one, I recommend that you do so because you'll likely find that each is quite different.

Hi, there is actually only one United Church in my community. I live in a pretty small town and as I said it's basically all Catholic. I am hoping to move to Alberta in the next couple of years so might be more options then.

As for my name, I have used this screen name for the past 15 years since I first started using the internet ha. Mainly b/c I loved the colour purple and lavender and just thought it was neat to spell it a bit different..I was just a teen when I started it and I guess it just stuck. I'm not creative enough to think of anything new!! hah

Welcome Lavendyr.  It's good to see you, and I hope that you enjoy your time here on the WonderCafe, and in the United Church.

It's probably about 25 years ago that my husband (Seelerman) transferred from RC to United for much the same reasons that you did. He had been raised Catholic but his attendance had fallen off. I was UCC and actively attending. So I'm speaking from past experience and things might have changed in the Catholic church since then.

Actually at that time it was impossible from the RC point of view to transfer. They considered 'once a Catholic; always a Catholic'. You could walk away from the Catholic church, join another denomination or just stop attending anywhere, and they would still consider you to be Catholic.

So, to become a member of the UCC. First step, which you may already have taken: start attending the UCC and find out as much as you can about it.

Then, when you decide you wish to become a member, approach the minister. She will guide you through. If you have already been baptized, you do not have to be rebaptized. The UCC recognizes RC baptisms. You will have to make a statement of faith in the UCC. The congregation you are joining (your membership will be with a particular congregation) may require you to take classes in preparation for making this statement. Then the congregation will welcome you as a member - with full rights and responsibilities.

The UCC will count you as a member of the UCC. However the RC will still consider you a member for the rest of you life, even if they never see you again.

(Remember, I am speaking from rather dated experience.)

I had learned that in a religious studies course I took in Uni..about being Catholic for life! Very convenient for them haha Thank you for sharing your experience Seeler. It's helpful to hear of a similar situation! And I love even hearing you refer to Minister as a she! Still blows me away that women can be Minsters. And Gay people..wonderful! It's so refreshing! 

I remember a buddy in library school was a lapsed Catholic (unchurched, probably an atheist though I don't remember for sure) and joked about trying to get excommunicated, which is apparently the only way to truly get out.

 

Mendalla

 

Easy. Make a donation to a charity that supports abortion or abortion rights, and show your tax receipt to your priest. That should get you turfed.

 

Don't assume you'll get excommunicated by doing something so heinous as harming a child. That may backfire. They might give you a job and a transfer instead.

 

ha! zing!

Lavendyr, perhaps the most important difference between the Roman Catholic church and the United is that in the Rc church the most important meal served is the Eucharist, whereas in the Uccanada it tends to be an annual ham and scalloped potato supper :D

My dad was excommunicated. What was his crime? He was the Best Man at his best friend's wedding, and the friend was Protestant. This was back in the 40s.

Lavendyl, disregard Jae. Most of us do.

that's true crazyheart, except that you just can't seem to stop mentioning me... Noticing me... Commenting on me... Dreaming about me...? I'm flattered, really, but married :)

Jae is a Baptist, and enjoys being a foil.

I'm an Anglican and work at GCO.

UCCan is a wonderfully diverse church, with many 'shades' of 'intensity', if you will.

Your 'local' UCCan congregation may be very liberal/middle of the road/conservative; if you move to Alberta (say, Edmonton area) there's a congregation of every type!  In fact, United Church is the next biggest (after, you guessed it, Catholic) in Alberta.

All the best: it's a very welcoming denomination, although each congregation has it's quirks :)

Welcome!

Thank you everyone! I am excited to learn more and to spend more time here..expect more questions from me in the future. I never expected to have so many wonderful responses. It's very helpful!

Just don't go all the way and become a full-blown atheist, okay? There are quite enough of those insufferable bastards around. Baby-eating evidence junkies, the lot of 'em!

Ok, here are some real differences I believe exist between Roman Catholic and UCCanada...

 

RC: Pope.

UCCanada: No pope. Moderator.

 

RC: Confession to priest.

UCCanada: Confession to God.

 

RC: 7 sacraments.

UCCanada: 2 sacraments.

 

RC: Eucharist.

UCCanada: Lord's Supper/Communion

 

RC: Homily.

UCCanada: Sermon.

 

RC: Bible + Apocrypha + tradition

UCCanada: Bible

 

RC: Ordains only heterosexual Christian men.

UCCanada: Ordains any adult.

 

RC: Single priests are to stay single.

UCCanada: Single ministers may marry.

 

RC: Belief in works-righteousness

UCCanada: All kinds of beliefs going on there.

 

RC: Mother Teresa of Calcutta

UCCanada: Gretta Vosper.

That's a pretty good list Jae, but I'm not quite sure how Gretta Vosper is the UCC's Mother Teresa - perhaps you could elaborate? Mother Teresa is known for her good deeds whereas Gretta Vosper is known for her alternate theology. If I had to pick a UCC version of Mother Teresa I think I would go for someone like Nellie McClung who, I believe, made the lives of all Canadian women better.

Hi Lavendr-happy exploring!

Welcome

If you attend a United service you will notice several differences from the RC mass

The Ucof C doesn't offer communion weekly. Whenit is offered it is often an "open table" The minister willoften say this is not the table of the united church but God's table-all are welcome-or something similar. You will often see children taking communion.

Grape juice is used instead of wine.

Marriage is considered holy but is not a sacrament. Therefore divorced folk can remarry and even remain ministers!

Your children's baptisms will be considered valid.

 

A small note Tabitha - some congregations in the United Church do offer wine at communion. In our church we have a choice between wine and grape juice.

Nellie McClung helped raise the status of women but she was a proponent of eugenics, with particular regard to sterilization of people with various mental and physical disabilities and low IQ's- particularily among non-white non-Anglo saxon Protestants. So, she did some good things but we need to be careful not to venerate her too much, IMO, and forget the harm done by eugenics- which we all know what that movement grew into in Europe. Horrific. She had a messed up ideology running alongside a good one.

I think the same could be said of Mother Teresa.  In a different way though.

 

Interesting thread!  I enjoyed reading some of the answers above as I didn't know all of them!  I hope you find your place Lavendyr!

Yes, hi lavender! Welcome! Sorry to be rude and not say hello! :)

True, I suppose. There are likely many unsung heroes/ heroines of the UCCan that we've never heard of. We don't have a 'Mother Theresa' though.

True, I suppose. There are likely many unsung heroes/ heroines of the UCCan that we've never heard of. We don't have a 'Mother Theresa' though. We're kind of low-key that way.

 

Actually - I think this phrase could be used with both Nellie McClung and Mother Teresa. I was thinking of the eugenics issue with Nellie McClung when I made the suggestion and, in my mind, equated it with some of the controversies surrounding Mother Teresa's ministry. In both cases, I think the good outweighs the bad.

 

Jae is a person from the outside of either church, attempting a superficial comparison from his limited knowledge of either. His purpose is unclear.

Pope / Moderator - there is a great deal of difference between these two positions and in the entire organization of the denominations

Confession - Jae is right that in the UCC it is between the individual and God

Sacraments - yes

Eucharist / Communion - the significance of this is two deep for a single word comparison

Homily / Sermon - similar; can also be called a message, or reflection

Bible, Apocrypha, tradition / Bible - over simplified and leaving out the working of the Spirit in both churches

Ordination - I would question the 'only heterosexual ...' It is true that the RC only ordains men. I would also question 'ordains any adult' - while any adult can be considered, the process of ordination is not simple.

Married clergy - with a few exceptions only single men become priests, and priests remain single. In the UCC both married and single people are accepted into ordained ministry.

Beliefs - over simplified Cannot be explained in one word or sentence

Mother Theresa - lots of worthy women (and men) in both churches - all of them no doubt people of their times and with human faults.

Again - I don't know Jae's intention in posting this list.

Maybe you're right, somegal. She did do good things. I guess I just cringe at the thought of the eugenics thing. Had I been alive then, likely, I would have been sterilized because I have a disability. It makes my heart sink a little. My husband as well maybe would have been sterilized because of his disability. We don't have kids and likely won't by our own choice- we have enough on our plates to deal with-but still, when I hear about that and picture myself in that time it makes me feel less than human and not someone who'd be considered to have the same rights as the other women she empowered. She is a well known figure, a name I was familiar with, but I didn't know about the eugenics thing until fairly recently.

Kimmio - for most of my life I heard of Martin Luther as brave and courageous and a hero of the Reformation.   Only much later did I hear of his attitude, and words, against Jews.  His image was certainly sullied for me.    Now I see him as a person of his time, and with human frailties - like the rest of us.

I know. And if you were a target of those attitudes, you might have respected him even less. But in each of these instances they thought they were doing the right thing- and humanity rethinks that later. I guess it's a good reason we should be careful not to idolize, huh? It can lead to disappointment.

Maybe that's why the UCC doesn't have saints.

My church (UCCan) is named after one, actually ;) but, we don't hold them in the same regard, that's true. A UCC church is just as likely to be named according to the street it's on, as it is to be named after a saint- and we don't have saints days and prayers for every saint (although some of us might still wear green or hand out paper hearts on St. Patrick's and Valentine's Days)-we tend not to make a big deal about them. Oh yeah, and we don't name new saints- if that's what you meant, seeler.

Hi Lavendyr,

 

Welcome to WonderCafe.

 

New posters like you make discussions around here more interesting.

 

I am wondering how you heard about WonderCafe.

 

You will continue to be welcome here, even if you do not convert.

Kimmio - I guess I was thinking of the canonizing of modern day saints.  Yes, I'm aware that we refer to certain Biblical people as Saints - St. Matthew, St. Paul, etc. and that churches are sometimes named for them.   Paul seemed to refer to all Christians as saints, giving the word a different meaning than we usually associate with it. 

I might refer to a gospel reading as s"According to the Gospel of St. Mark" - referring to a follower of Jesus from biblical times.

Or I might refer to the "Communion of saints", referring to all followers from Jesus time to the present - all of us being saints. This would be quite a different meaning than the Catholics give the word.

Hi seeler,

 

 

Technically, all members of The United Church of Canada are considered saints.

 

What the United Church doesn't have are Saints.

 

What is the diff between Saint and saint you might ask?

 

Plenty.

 

For example Saints are former folk just like you and I who demonstrated remarkable faith so apart from the Apostles you have folk from various places and times in history who have been beatified and canonized by the Church in Rome so that they can intercede on behalf of the faithful  with God.

 

Without the capital, saints are folk just like you and I, who live as faithfully as we can and may never be called upon to do something extraordinary.

 

Grace and peace to you.

John

John - see my second, and more thoughtful, post on saints.

Naman, hi. Thanks for the welcome. Actually I was just hoping to find a discussion forum to be able to pose questions such as this. I had no idea the UCC had their own page like this! Really exciting to find. As I had mentioned earlier, I really have no one I feel I can talk to in real life about these issues. I like being able to come on here and pose questions and learn. While I said my husband is United, he certainly knows nothing about his own religion and hasn't attended church since he was a kid so it would be a huge learning for him as well. I feel so far that the United Church seems very welcoming. In my community they do so much social justice action which I love! I am a social worker after all. Overall, they just seem so much more progressive than the Catholic Church. I feel like I have stayed Catholic more out of fear of disappointing my Mother but I never go to church anymore..just Chrstmas/Easter/etc. I want to be able to go to Church every Sunday w. my family and raise my children with a faith. I am afraid I won't be able to give them that faith if we stay Catholic as I don't agree w/so much myself..so how do I explain it to my children. I had so many questions growing up Catholic and no one ever answered them..just brushed them under the rug and basically told me to stop asking questions and just do as told. Frustrating. 

PS I never knew that about Nellie McClung or Martin Luther King..see, learning already!