The voting closed last night but I didn't have time to pull the final tally until now (busy day and I can't do WC stuff from work anymore due to a new filtering system).

Total responses: 37

Yes: 33

No: 4

So, with 89.2% voting in favour of confirmation, the membership of the first Council is confirmed by the community in accordance with the Council document.

Mendalla

I hesitate to post this for any number of reasons, but I think it might prove useful for both me and others, so here goes. Please read my whole post before answering. Note the bold text near the end. I will call out anyone that I think is going down the wrong road.

I've been searching through the UCC manual and Googling like crazy, but I can't find any information on "revoking" or cancelling a United church membership. Does such a thing exist?

Here is my story - I attended a United church regularly in my late teens/early 20s. In 2003 I was confirmed and became a member. In 2005, I left that church for good.

For most churches, it's annual report time.

Ministers spend hours trying to be pithy, reflective and inspirational as they cobble together words that most of their community will not read. Folks want to get on to the meat of the report - the numbers and graphs. Red ink and black. This is the time when find ourselves weighed, measured, and often found wanting.

Did we make money?

Did membership go up? (There was someone I didn't know sitting in my pew last week.)

Is that welcoming and listening to people really worthwhile?

Is this emerging church thing really working? (I think that H1N1 might have put a stop to it.)

We have one particular problem that needs to be addressed. (Actually, I have many, but you probably don't have the medical credentials to deal with them.) In the past decade, 25-45 year olds have not sought out "membership" in religious institutions. This is not only true of The United Church of Canada, but all churches from evangelical through Anglican and Roman Catholic (don't ask for a footnotes, ask around). It is not limited to churches, but also true for fan clubs, consumer clubs (Costco, Sam's Club, etc.) and other identifiable groups. We don't want to be a single thing, we don't want to limit ourselves with labels and darn it, we just don't trust joining stuff!

 Well, it's finally happened.  

As I remember, membership drives were done in the church every 3 or 5 years. Sometimes companies were hired to take on this task. As I remember, the volunteer base did not like to do it. Was it beneficial? Should churches still be doing it? Should it be done by the congregations? What happens when one goes to a door. Are some churches still doing it and with what kind of results.

Any thoughts?

So many people claim to "love Jesus" but the hate the church. I think this a wrong view for three reasons:

• The Church loves Jesus
• The Church loves those who love Jesus
• Jesus loves the Church

If you're interested in reading more about this topic, read the rest of this post at my blog