Vol XVII. No. 26
Archive - Dec 2009 - Oct 2019 http://colleagueslist.blogspot/.ca http://colleagueslistii.blogspot.com
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Dear Friends:
I am introducing the first of two commemorative books by Wood Lake in preparation for the 100th anniversary of the founding of the United Church of Canada in 2025. Please note the terms "Kindom" and "Untied" in the text below. These are not typos.
This is the beginning of a series that I will be presenting here; both books of which are written by colleague Brian Arthur Brown.
PLEASE NOTE - If a link below, seems to be dead, cut and paste it into the address bar at the top of your web page and it should work.
SPECIAL ITEM
Book Notice -
KEYS TO THE KINDOM
Money and Property for Congregational Mission by Brian Arthur Brown with Foreword by Margaret Atwood
Wood Lake Books, March, 2022 Kelowna, BC $29.95 CAD 978-1-77343-410-0
Publishers Promo:
IN HONOUR OF THE 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE UNITED CHURCH OF CANADA
In Keys to the Kindom, Brian Arthur Brown presents exciting examples of new approaches to the funding of ministries and the missional usage of buildings in preparation for the 100th anniversary of The United Church of Canada. Money and property are important matters facing congregational leaders. Brown describes both issues as subtly theological and needing to be addressed as such in practical terms.
The initiatives described here are based on principles and practices established nationally by EDGE: A Network for Ministry Development and by The United Church of Canada Foundation. They can be actively applied at the local congregational level to staunch the bleeding of membership and to reverse the closing of churches through the development of new missional enterprises.
Foreword by Margaret Atwood
A few key words about my own roots in the United Church of Canada. My mother grew up in the early part of the 20th century in the Methodist Church, in a small rural congregation in the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia. My grandfather, the local doctor, helped build the church building and my mother and my aunts had to go to it every Sunday and sit in the front row and provide models of decorum and good behaviour...
My mother's church was at the centre of her small community. Not only Sunday services and marriages took place in it but society meetings of all kinds (for children, young people, ladies' aid groups, etc.)
The Methodists then joined with some of the Presbyterians to form the United Church of Canada which thus became probably the most dominant denomination in Canada. (When I moved to Toronto I joined St. Clair Avenue United Church and won the prize for the best essay on temperance in 1949 when I was nine. This essay described the horrors of drinking. At the same time I joined the Brownies at Deer Park United.)
Somewhat later, I found myself at Victoria College at the University of Toronto - again, a United Church establishment... Those were the years when Northrup Frye (was giving his Bible course on William Blake which was enormously famous at the time.) It was a course that dealt with the Bible as literature and was very useful to me.
(Atwood describes how Frye was able to combine religious belief and scientific knowledge which is very much needed today.)
In preparing for the 100th anniversary in 2025, this very Canadian denomination is celebrated in two books for on-going commitments in areas of concern to me. I commend Brian Arthur Brown's Keys to the Kindom and his Untied Church of Canada with their pieces on eco-theology. diversity with racialization gender equality, Indigenous reconciliation, ordination of LGBTQ2S+ members, equal marriage rights, refugee settlement, the welcome to new Canadians, and the interfaith movement around the world and in Canada. (I have spoken about these issues in various settings recently).
- terms in brackets are created by Wayne
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About the Author:
BRIAN ARTHUR BROWN writes collaboratively, always with collegial input. He has enjoyed 60 years in ministry (1962–2022): four summer mission field internships; 42 years in United Church congregations across the country; four years as retired supply; a decade as scholar-in-residence at the historic and progressive First Baptist Church in Niagara Falls, New York; and now as minister emeritus at St. John’s Stevensville United Church on the Canadian side of the Falls. He is perhaps best known for his recent interfaith, award-winning Seven Testaments of World Religion trilogy from Rowman and Littlefield Publishing, also available from Wood Lake Publishing
My Thoughts:
I am happy to get information on the first of these two United Church of Canada commemorative books to readers of Colleagues List, even if there is much more to be said. Be assured, you will receive more as time goes on.
St. David's United Church, Calgary, has been most hospitable to me over the years and I am grateful to have the opportunity to teach bible as well as almost 25 years of book studies to very supportive co-learners.
Stay tuned for more.
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Buy this book online from Wood Lake Books : https://tinyurl.com/2p8w9abz
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COLLEAGUE CONTRIBUTIONS
Isabel Gibson, Ottawa, ON
"Sunrise...Sunset - Poetry in Motion" March 26th, 2022.
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Mark Whittall, Ottawa, ON
Sermons and Blog, April 1st, 2022
"A Moment of Grace"
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Jim Taylor, Okanagan, BC
Personal Web Log, March 31st, 2022
"Resonating With the Right Energies"
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Ron Rolheiser, San Antonio, TX
Personal Web Site, March 26th, 2022
"A Therapy of a Public Life"
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NET NOTES
POPE FRANCIS APOLOGIZES FOR CHURCH ROLE IN RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS
He Plans Visit to Canada Catholic Register, Toronto, April 1st, 2022
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VATICAN'S INDIGENOUS COLLECTION OPENED TO CANADIAN DELEGATION
Museum Tour Draws Mixed Reactions
Catholic Register, March 30th, 2022
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Opinion -
THE WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES MUST EXPEL KIRILL
His Support for Putin Requires the Churches' Condemnation
Religion News Service, March 28th, 2022
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COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS
For Young Canadian Adults, Belonging has Little to Do With Neighbourhood
Angus Reid Institute, March 30th, 2022
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HILLSONG LEADERS NEED CHARACTER MORE THAN CHARISMA
Big Box Churches Face Self Scrutiny
Christianity Today, March 24th, 2022
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SADDENED BY VANDALISM IN TWO MORE UNITED CHURCHES
United Church of Canada, March 31st, 2022
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ANGLICAN CHURCH OF CANADA EXECUTIVE BLUNDERS PROMPT CALL FOR GENERAL SECRETARY TO RESIGN
Leak of Draft on Sexual Misconduct a Big Mistake
Religion News Service, March 31st, 2022
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EARLIEST MENTION OF 'YAHWEH' FOUND IN ARCHEOLOGICAL DUMP
Discovery May Influence Dating of Biblical Events
Religion News Service, March 26th, 2022
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WISDOM OF THE WEEK
Provided by Sojourners and the Bruderhof online:
It took me quite a long time to develop a voice, and now that I have it, I am not going to be silent.
- Madeleine Albright
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We are not people who protect our own safety: / we are people who protect our neighbors’ safety.
- Barbara Glasson and Ale De la Torre
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I want a change from an acquisitive society to a functional society, from a society of go-getters to a society of go-givers.
- Peter Maurin
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There are just some kind of men who — who’re so busy worrying about the next world they’ve never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results.- Harper Lee
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“Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, / The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. / Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, / I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
- Emma Lazarus
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I have been overcome with grief at times, and felt my heart like a stone in my breast, it was so heavy, and always I have heard, too, that voice, “Pray.” What can we do? We can pray. We can pray without ceasing, as Saint Paul said. We can say with the apostles, “Lord, teach me to pray.” We can say with Saint Paul, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” (Acts 9:6). Will our Father give us a stone when we ask for bread?
- Dorothy Day
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God created through love and for love. God did not create anything except love itself, and the means to love. He created love in all its forms. He created beings capable of love from all possible distances. Because no other could do it, he himself went to the greatest possible distance, the infinite distance. This infinite distance between God and God, this supreme tearing apart, this agony beyond all others, this marvel of love, is the crucifixion.
- Simone Weil
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The image Jesus left with the world, the cross, the most common image in the Christian religion, is proof that God cares about our suffering and pain. He died of it. Today the image is coated with gold and worn around the necks of beautiful girls, a symbol of how far we can stray from the reality of history. But it stands, unique among all religions of the world. Many of them have gods. But only one has a God who cared enough to become a man and to die.
- Philip Yancey
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If we are honest, we have to say that we cannot reach the goal. We cannot become what we ought to become, true men and women. Many let the matter rest there; they confess it, but take no action. They make themselves satisfied with half because they cannot have the whole. God demands all, not just half. And this “all” we are not capable of giving. What is impossible for us is what God wants – all love to him and to our fellow humans. If this is true, it would seem that we can have no good conscience, no trusting relationship with God, no inner peace, and no freedom of the soul. But God has in his mercy shown us a different way. “You cannot come up to me, so I will come down to you.” And God descends to us human beings. This act of becoming one of us begins at Christmas and ends on Good Friday.
- Emil Brunner
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One must learn to make the transition from “let this cup pass from me” to “nevertheless, not my will, but thy will be done.” And God grant that as you face life with all of its decision – as you face the bitter cup which you will inevitably face from day to day – God grant that you will learn this one thing and that is to make the transition from “this cup” to “nevertheless.” …This, you see, is the thing that determines whether you go through life devoted to an eternal cause or whether you go through life depending on your own finite answers, which really turn out to be no answers. This is the thing that determines whether you can rise out of your egocentric predicament to devotion to a higher cause. This is what Jesus was able to do and this is the lesson that he presents to us today.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
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