If you've ever heard her share that story in person you actually see the tears well up in her eyes.  

 Q What do your colleagues in the legislature think of the United Church?

A Most don’t know what it stands for. It’s not the social justice giant it once was. Most folks see the Roman Catholics as the giant. Their Council of Bishops was far faster to endorse my minimum wage bill than the United Church. The Anglicans endorsed it. And the United Church eventually endorsed it, but way after the fact — after the government was already on side.

 Our internal struggles depleted us. We began to look inside rather than outside. Fear incapacitates. Some aspects of the church have been very frightened of losing status, and you always bring about what you fear. It’s a spiritual truism. But we still have a lot of people, a lot of money and a lot of power. By contrast, the Anglicans are really struggling, but they’re still active, still vocal about issues. We’re not suffering in the same way, so we could speak out. Why don’t we? [Sighs] Navel gazing! I have been blessed by The United Church of Canada. I believe it is the greatest expression of the Christian faith in Canada. Why are we not heralding that fact?

So what do you think happened to the UCC? Do you agree with Cheri?

Both the RC and Anglicans strike me as having very centralized structures. As such they can respond (if they wish) very quickly with one voice (who that actually represents is another issue). The UCC has a much more decentralized structure, which requires much more consultation from "lower" levels. (I wonder if we should actually call ourselves the United Churches of Canada).  The media looks for large, centralized structures when looking for their stories, and don't know what to make of the UCC. Look at the treatment of the Palestinian resolution at General Council last year. The media acted as if it had been adopted by the entire denomination even though it was voted down. All this does beg the question, though, about how the UCC (probably through its moderator) can more effectively communicate its message.

The moderator can not communicate a message that the church does not have.  That does not explain why the local churches do not get involved.  My congregation does involve itself  with the City of Ottawa, and takes a stance on municipal issues.  

That is the nature of our church, even if I do or do not like it.   Even when the moderator and GC takes positions on Church policies, they are ignored and have no effect.  We would have much more effect if 1000 UCC took a stance, than if the GC does.

Is it really that difficult and time consuming to write a letter or sign a petition on some basic issues like the minimum wage?  The media has lost it's monopoly on information due to the internet. I bet if only 500 UCC took a stance on an issue it would have more impact politically than the GC,   We just need to find ways to do so that is doable.  

 Perhaps  instead of having our staff and volunteers so busy with JNACs, committees,etc, We need to take positions on provincial, federal and international concerns. 

In all of my 25 years in the AIDS movement in Ottawa, we had support from Roman Catholic, Jewish,  Mennonites, both clergy and lay people.Among hundreds I only meet one lay person involved who belonged to a UCC.  Until recently I was not a UCC member because the only UCC in Ottawa that accepted openly LGBT people, would not accept people who were physically disabled until recently. I joined the day they did. However Cheri's point about us being a church for those with wealth and power still holds true. When we did a congregational study,  I was not surprised to find that I was in the lower 10% income wise relative to the rest of the members.   What did surprise me is that people who's income was 4 times greater than my income were also in the lower 10% of the congregation. Every household who made less than $50,001 is low income.

I know this is not true in smaller areas, but most people live in cities.

There are no people in my church who live on minimum wage. Yet 1/3 of my friends do.  Church people do not even know any households who  live on the minimum wage, so why should they be concerned.

What we need to be concerned about first is how can we include low income families in our churches. Do people believe that those on minimum wage are not interested in community, or God.   Could it be that many minimum wage earners work in retail, and restaurants, and that they are required to work on Sundays. Yet we have 90 UCC churches or so in Ottawa that have services Sunday morning.   There are no regular services at any other time. Anglicans, RC have services on Saturdays and Sunday evenings. There are also other protestant churches that have services mid-week.

It seems to me that when the local  UCC does it's planning, we  only consider people who already go to church. Thus, they tend to be happy with how things work. No one ever considers in their planning the people who do not go to church. It's overlooked, or we are wealthy enough that we do not need the little income that low wage earners bring with them.

Not only does it exclude people, but by only planning for those who are currently members, we are also agreeing with those who say the church is dead or dieing. Because eventually we need  people to replace those who die or leave the church if we want to stay  around in urban centres like Ottawa.

 If you live in a city, ask yourself the next time you are in church on Sunday. Who are the people who live on minimum wage, either one or two minimum wage households?

If you do not see any members like that, than ask yourself do your members believe it is only students and youth who live on minimum wage.   Then count how many youth or students who work for the minimum wage are in the church Sunday morning,. 

I do not believe we can say it is another's centralized structure and our decentralized structure, because there was a time and a place where it was our decentalized voice that was heard. We offered up a voice, often the voice.

Personally, I think it bit us in the ass. Now, fear of that paralyzes us.

"The Issue" bit us in the ass. We also took more than a few on the chin.
 

Instead of looking at why and deciding to adjust, we just hunkered in.

For me, while studies are undertaken at GC level, people in the pew should be discerning.... Decentalized does not mean there should be complete disconnect. We might have guessed it would be hard to say "we support gay and lesbian ordination" at a GC level when people with their behinds in the pews had been or were still being taught it is a sin.

So, without doing that, naturally internal strife happened.

We could look at disconnect and create connection, but instead, in my experience, we just avoid. It perpetuates disconnect.

People, in church after church, have since their church was divided, sought to avoid. Anything and everything. There is fear under the surface.

It is hard for someone to connect with those who are hunkered in shells and avoiding. It is hard to know the water is safe when everyone around you is looking for sharks.

My charge was divided and lost better than 1/2 their congregations and financial supporters. They were/are afraid of conflict. They cannot afford it and that is how they operate. Except, they see conflict where there is none.... they lurch at shadows and they scream at a peep of sound. A decision about sandwiches is seen as "divisive" and everyone goes into panic mode. What resulted? Draw a side. Those who only saw sandwiches are told they are ridiculous and this is armageddon. The newer folks ran. The older folks did not get it. The younger ran like, well.... like they should. When the shepherds, who are trusted to know the fields and the terrain and the dangers.... start yelling about wolves in sheep's clothing and they see people beside you as a wolf, and that the wolves are everywhere.... the sheep should dart. Shouldn't they?

When a conflict is not resolved, it festers. One can try to avoid all further conflict, but it bubbles up and it bubbles up everywhere. It is not just around the initial conflict, it is in every nook and cranny.

We are cannibalizing. We are eating ourselves. We are eating each other and we look at everyone as the potential next meal or the potential cannibal and then we act surprised newcomers are not about to hop in the pot or sit down for a meal.

Who wants to join or stay in an unhealthy congregation? Unhealthy people.

When you see all that unhealthy and the potential for blow-ups, you are not really about to get into conversations, debates, issues....

The churches who undertake the work of healing can be healthy. It means delving not avoiding. It means re-examining pain and hard stuff to heal from open sores into tough scar tissue.

It also means that what is not healthy if it cannot or will not be treated and heal...sometimes needs amputated. You simply cannot let gangrene go ignored.

When a congregation works as an independent entity, chucks the manual out the window and says publicly they wish they could take the "United" off the sign... then perhaps any arborist/doctor should consider if they need pruned/amputated.

The reality is that sometimes divorce is healthier than staying together.

If any married couple thought they could just avoid any and all issues, we would know they were headed for trouble. They would not be united, no matter what they said they were. To be reconciled, we know they need to do the work. If they do not,  what they had will wither and die.

Reconciliation or divorce is sometimes the only way there can ever be renewal.

We are so busy trying to keep the marriage together we do often do not worry about the kids, the neighbourhood, the house, the people across town.... navel gazing.