God's Mission Our Gifts: Your August Mission & Service Stories and more!

Your August Mission & Service Stories   AUGUST 6 Learning, Teaching, and Loving   [Image credit: Provided by Donna Nelson]   Helping a newcomer transition into Canada is a life-changing experience for everyone involved. Your gifts to Mission and Service create opportunities for refugee families and church communities to work as partners.   AUGUST 13 Your Generosity Settles Families   [Image credit: Almaz Fesshaye] When Almaz Fesshaye and her two young children arrived in Canada in 1991, they did not know what to expect. None of them knew the language or culture but hoped and prayed that Canada would be a safer place than Eritrea, a war-torn country in Eastern Africa. Your gifts to Mission and Service help support life-changing programming and staffing to support families seeking safety. AUGUST 20 Being There for Refugees and Migrants in Morocco   [Image credit: Église Évangélique Au Maroc] In the last three years, the number of refugees and asylum seekers in Morocco has more than doubled. Each person arrives there hoping for a better life for themselves and their family. In Morocco, your Mission and Service gifts support refugees and migrants by providing life-saving medication as well as blankets, food, clothes, and professional training.   AUGUST 27 Making a Home for Refugees: ChrisAnn Alvarez’s Work   [Video still: The United Church of Canada] “There’s this huge misconception that refugees choose to be refugees,” says ChrisAnn Alvarez, Refugee Support at The United Church of Canada. “It’s not a choice. It’s something they’re forced into.” There are many causes: human conflict, climate change, human rights violations, and more. Through Mission and Service, you can help.   Fill out your Mission & Service goal-setting form online! Congregational Stewardship/Generosity This is your resource to help you grow generous disciples and gather the resources you need to respond to God’s calling. Please modify and use these ideas in your context. Ideas You Can Try!  You Can’t Say “Thank You!” Enough It may be easier over the summer, as congregational life slows down a bit, to make time to say “Thank you!” Start a new habit or refresh a current one.  Tell someone why they matter and what you are thankful for that they have done to help your community of faith live out its calling and purpose. Be specific!  Resist the temptation to add an ask. Just say “thank you.” This may be harder than you think!  Include both those visibly involved and those quietly sharing their gifts in the background.  There are several ways to do this. You could: Write a thank-you note to someone every week, or twice a week, or daily.   Make a phone call to thank someone. Just like the handwritten thank-you note, but over the phone.  Include a “thank you” during every pastoral visit.  Communities of faith that make thanking a central part of their life not only see an increase in giving, but an increase in morale and a deepening of relationships.    In Case You Missed It! Summer Resources for Families and Kids to Encourage Generosity and Stewardship  “I don’t know about you, but the end of the school year always feels like a fresh start; a chance to leave behind the busyness and expectations of the school year and find space and time to do something new. This summer, why not build some generosity practices into your family’s summer days and see how it can impact you.” Find four ideas and read more in our latest Stewardship blog, Spice Up Summer with Kindness and Generosity.    Stewardship Seconds (revised for July-December 2023)   Short, pithy sayings that pack a punch, to help infiltrate stewardship thinking into your community of faith. Add them to newsletters, worship, announcements, webpages, wherever people gather!  Find them at the Stewardship in Worship webpage.  Offering Introductions and Dedication Prayers (revised for July-December 2023)   The offering time in worship is NOT about collecting money! It is about growing generous disciples and stewards. These Offering Introductions and Dedication Prayers, for each Sunday of the year, will help. Find them at the Stewardship in Worship webpage. Called to Be the Church: The Journey Called to Be the Church: The Journey modules really make a difference.  “I loved this course. It created excitement about stewardship and provided concrete tools to take baby-steps towards healthier stewardship practices.”  —Jen Dresser of St. Andrew's United Church, Yorkton, SK.    “A wonderful introduction to Stewardship and what it can be for any Community of Faith. It helps to understand the whole aspect of Stewardship, not just money. I like the emphasis on gratitude. We have so much to be thankful for.”  —Jane McDonald of Orchard Valley United Church, New Minas, NS.  In each module, community of faith leaders rediscover how inspiring their church really is and get excited about telling their stories as they invite people to share their resources to grow in faith and make a difference in people’s lives. Come and join the movement!  Plan now to participate in the fall! Watch CHURCHx in August for all module dates, times, and to register. First come, first served. Getting Started in Stewardship (September 11 OR November 1)  Stewardship Best Practices (starts September 26/27)  Setting Up Your Congregational Giving Program (Winter 2024)  Bequests & Estate Giving for Your Community of Faith (October 11 & 25)  Called to Be the Church: The Journey modules really make a difference. For more information on these and other stewardship supports, contact called@united-church.ca.  Get the Stewardship Support You Need The people and resources to help you succeed are here.  Our Call and Vision The General Council Office has adopted a Call and Vision statement that speaks to how we boldly embody the Christian story in this time, filled with the certainty of resurrection and hope for new life, and which informs the 2022‒2025 Strategic Plan of the General Council Office. Living purposefully into this call and vision anticipates becoming what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and others called the Beloved Community—the ever inbreaking, ever transforming, ever reconciling realm of God, realized in our time. In the next few issues of God’s Mission, Our Gifts, we are sharing stories, prayers, and worship resources that your community of faith can use to engage with the Call and Vision: to live into deep spirituality, bold discipleship, and daring justice. This month, we’re taking a look at what individuals and communities of faith can do in the spirit of daring justice. You almost certainly know that we have apologized as a church for our broken relationships with Indigenous people. But did you know that in 2012, the United Church repudiated the Doctrine of Discovery? This was a legal framework that justified European imperial ventures around the world, including the colonization of North America, by stating that all lands belonged to the Christian powers that “discovered” them, that people who lived on the land before Europeans arrived had no right to own it, and that European colonizers “were bringing civilization to savage people who would never civilize themselves.”* Residential schools played a big part in “civilizing” – and also indelibly traumatizing – generations of Indigenous people, and continue to affect them and their descendants today. Yet the Doctrine of Discovery continues to influence Canadian law and legal decisions, the latest as recently as 2014.**   There are several resources linked on the United Church’s Doctrine of Discovery page, including a worship service created for Canada’s 150th anniversary in 2017 and a video with Buffy Sainte-Marie. You may find that what you learn starts you on a path to living out daring justice in your own actions and relationships, and even in how you perceive the world around you. Do you dare to try?   *Canada’s Residential Schools: The History, Part I: Origins to 1939, p. 18. ** Supreme Court of Canada, Tsilhqot'in Nation v. British Columbia, Case no. 34986, 26 June 2014.   GOD’S MISSION, OUR GIFTS is your newsletter. We want to provide news and information that you can use in your community of faith, whether you’re a minister, a board member, an administrator, a treasurer, or anyone else who wants to make a difference.   What else would you like to see? What can we do to help your community of faith get where it needs to go? Send us your thoughts! Fill out your Mission & Service goal-setting form online! Donate Facebook Twitter Website Email Instagram YouTube LinkedIn   Your generosity enables the United Church to love, serve, and minister in the world. Make an online donation or learn more about your options to support the work of the church.

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