The Spirit of Truth

There’s nothing quite as wonderful as joining together with a bunch of United Church people at a regional event, like we did last weekend in Edmonton.  Our region, Northern Spirit Region, is the largest geographical region in the United Church, covering northeastern British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, and northern Alberta, and the church in Lloydminster has the boundary between Alberta and Saskatchewan running between their front door and back door, so we have a tiny bit of that province as well.  We had about 120 people gather from Jasper, Fort McMurray, Grand Prairie, Athabasca, Barrhead and beyond, all wanting to network and learn about ways to live with deep spirituality, bold discipleship and daring justice.  We sang together, prayed together, worshipped together and conversed together about the challenges and joys of being United Church. There were challenging topics of conversation and joyful, playful chats over coffee or crafts.

On this 100^th anniversary of the United Church of Canada, we also heard some very stark statistics. If nothing changes, in 10 years, there could be less than 2000 people across Canada worshiping in a United Church on an average Sunday morning.  Certainly we have seen and experienced it here in our local congregations.  The increase in suspicion of institutions in general and churches especially has been a growing trend since the 1970’s.

According to a Global News article in 2022, Statistics Canada found only 68 per cent of Canadians 15 or older reported having a religious affiliation. It was the first time that number dipped below 70 per cent since StatsCan began tracking the data in 1985. Even Catholicism, Canada’s largest denomination, was being impacted, reporting 32 per cent of Canadians over 15, down from 46.9 per cent in 1996.  Broadview Magazine reported in 2023 that The United Church of Canada lost a whop­ping 40 percent of affiliates between 2011 and 2021, falling to 1.2 million people from roughly two million. United Church affiliates don’t only skew older — they also skew more white. Among Christian denomina­tions, the United Church has one of the lowest percentages of racialized affili­ates at only 2.5 percent. Compare that to six percent of Anglican or 45 percent of Pentecostal affiliates.

In our Broadview magazine this month, the back page talked about new data. It said that The Pew Research Center Religious Study of 2023-24 points to changes in U.S. religious affiliation. A decline in American religiousness observed since at least 2007 has slowed over the past four to five years. The Pew Research Center noted that the country is heading toward growth among mainline protestants, the group suffering the most during the earlier decline. 'The U.S. is a spiritual place, a religious place, where we've now seen signs of religious stabilization in the midst of longer-term decline,' said a Pew researcher.

The slight but consistent growth in American Christian affiliation beginning in 2022 was limited to mainline protestants, Methodist, Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, Lutheran and Episcopal, the very denominations which led the overall decline since 2007.

In 2025 the only United churches to close so far this year have been Little Britain UC in rural Manitoba, Bluevale UC in rural Ontario, and Rupert, Que., as compared to three per month up to a year ago. Closures are now at least outnumbered by new church plants, new communities of faith, and older traditional churches being rejuvenated by new life.”  That’s quite the article.

So I’d like to invite us to ponder why church matters to us.  I know that it matters to me, because without the church, I would have been a much poorer mother and wife to my family.  An example of the importance of being part of a Christian community happened some twenty years ago on a wintery December morning. I was getting out of the car in the church parking lot when I slammed the door on my thumb in my rush to get to church on time. I screamed and Tim struggled to unlock the door.   Needless to say, my kids were upset and still remember it vividly. We dashed into the church and one of the congregation members helped bandage the thumb. It was the same Sunday that the children's choir was singing an anthem. I remember conducting the choir with one hand while the other was held high in the air to slow down the bleeding. As soon as the song was done, Tim drove me to the hospital. Someone at the church volunteered to take care of my kids, took them home and fed them lunch while we sat in emergency waiting to see if I needed stitches. It seemed to take forever but without the church, it would have been much more traumatizing. They were helpful, kind, and much more resourceful than I would have been on my own. It was quite the lesson in trust! Why does church matter to you?

We are given a spirit of adoption, a spirit of trust. A spirit of truth. It's easy to forget and slip into a spirit of fear, but Pentecost is when the disciples, still traumatized by the loss of their beloved Rabbi, found themselves filled with hope and courage and daring.

Last weekend at the Regional meeting, Michael Blair talked about this very thing, the spirit of Pentecost, and said "If our ministry doesn't give hope, we might as well pack up and go home. We go on like Eeyore and expect people to come. Our ministry needs to be rooted in the spirit. You and I need to stop and pray and listen to what the Spirit is calling us. The Spirit calls us into mischief. Walk around our neighborhood with our eyes open listening for Holy Mystery. Our ministries must center those who are excluded, who are marginalized and oppressed. Not to offer charity but to be transformed through choosing vulnerability over privilege, be open to being taught rather than fixing. When we value others in vulnerability everyone is transformed. Our very presence brings hope. God is calling us to a ministry where we will be empowered by the spirit. We cannot do it on our own, it is too complex. We learn to live in the nuances. We are called to privilege the voices of the marginalized because that is our salvation. That is where our transformation happens. That is where our communities will be restored to life-giving safe places of hope and transformation. May that be our purpose for living into the next 100 years." May it be so for us all!