If what we do is ask the question, ‘How do we get big or even survive,’ I think we’ve lost our way,” he said. “For me, the real question is, ‘What does it mean to be faithful?’

The United Church of Canada is the largest protestant denomination in the country. Almost anywhere you drive in Canada you see it’s churches. I suspect, having known a moderator or two,  the denomination is a difficult group of people to pastorally steer.  One of the major issues facing the church is the aging buildings and aging congregations; many who having spent their lives living their faith in their buildings are reluctant to let go.

These are brave words from moderator Reverend David Giuliano, Kingdom of God words - but I wonder if ministers and congregations are prepared to hear, see and implement as he tells congregations across the country to  worry less about budgets and buildings and re-focus on the suffering around us.

Our hope is not for our survival or even growth,” Rev. Giuliano writes. “I am praying that our preoccupation with getting people into church is transformed by a passion for getting the church out into the world.

There’s a lot of anxiety in the Church about our institution –about money and numbers.

Many of us are reluctant to give up [that authority]–even if it doesn’t really exist today –but I see the change as liberating, because we don’t have to hold on to that any more.

Jesus’s followers were not a huge group of people, and they were not prosperous. The measurement of a faithful community cannot be in its numbers.

Reverend David Giuliano believes his calling as moderator is to bring back the people of the denomination to knowing the call of Jesus: Be not afraid.

I am praying that more of us become concerned with Jesus’ call to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, and visit those who are sick, lonely, or in prison. I am praying that our preoccupation with getting people into church is transformed by a passion for getting the church out into the world. I am praying that we welcome strangers with a radical hospitality that sees in them the face of Christ—not an ‘identifiable giver’ or a ‘potential committee member.’

National Post
United Church of Canada
United Church of Canada - wiki