Paper survey? Online survey? How can I give my input? I didn't receive any survey at all.

Since you are not in leadership (lay or ordered) in the UCCan..........

MAybe the Baptists have a survey you could fill out???  (or are they not so involved in navel gazing as we are)

Hi Martha, is this the survey that will feed data into the "Collaborative Research Project"?

Hi. We haven't received it here yet either.

That's the one!  Y'all have till Friday to get it done and into the post.  (there's some slip allowed....but not much).

The paper surveys were sent out on Friday, Feb. 11, but some didn't get to where they were intended until yesterday.  (not "on purpose", mr. grumpy in Eastern Canada)

So: if you got one, or someone you know/love/have coffee with every morning got one, please encourage them to complete it and send it in!.

Thanks. Sorry, Baptists: no survey for you from us :)

You may want to reconsider.  You'll certainly get a lot more suggestions from Baptists about what they want to see from the UCCan, than you'll see from UCCan'ers.

Plus, you can use the completed Baptist surveys to start camp fires this summer.  Baptists get to feel like somebody is finally listening to them, and your campers get to stay warm.  Everybody wins.

I know and appreciate deeply two Baptist ministers: one from the 'fellowship' and one from the 'convention'  (? Is that even right?) and I confess to being deeply puzzled by the difference and deeply admiring of their spouses, whom I love and also admire for their energy, faith and boundless enthusiasm.

*waves to pastors Jim Sanderson and Darryl Dash*

You need to make a confession?  That's a Catholic rite.  You'll need St. Ignatius, who hasn't been around much lately.  I only do atheist rites like baby-eating and the like.

No, it's a Catholic sacrament. It's a rubric (service direction) in the United Church. Baptists call them ordinances.

O we do enough navel gazing, don't worry about that one. Ours is done, though, at more of the congregational level than denomination-wide. The Fellowship gets together just once a year to talk.

O woe is me. And here I am, martha, with so many opinions to offer up. Ah well, guess I'll just write a nice letter to my own pastor. I'm getting out of this here thread. Don't want to disrail it. My first post to it was just meant as humor as I think you all did realize.

Fellowship Baptist and Convention Baptist are Canada's two main Baptist denominations. The main difference between the two is that Fellowship is generally more conservative. I'm Fellowship myself. Pastor Dash is a great pastor. He used to be my spiritual leader when I attended Richview Baptist.

Confession is not an ordinance in the Baptist church. We only have two (count 'em two) ordinances: baptism and communion.

hmm, is the one that was sent to each individual, you had to send a request to the person.

i'm trying to remember, martha, if i did it.

Can you give a couple of the questions here...so i can trip this old tired brain.

Pinga, I honestly haven't even laid eyes on the survey!  (not actually a 'member' of the UC; merely of the staff)

Questions were about pastoral relationsand congregations, rather than technology (the other survey out at the same time) which asked questions like, 'what is the bandwidth available at your pastoral charge?'

The response rate has been quite amazing!  We're really looking forward to getting some of the data back!

ps: Morning, your avatar is awesome.

Thanks martha. Glad you like it. That's kewl. You made my day.