This Library contains documents from all recent United Church governance meetings, including General Council and its Executive. It also includes “Our Beliefs Explained” official policy documents dating back several decades. If you can't find something you think should be included, contact gcbusiness@united-church.ca.
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Helpful topics
The current formulation of the Cost-of-Living Group Assignments (COL) are creating inequities between pastoral charges located in the same city. Final decisions on appeals of COL assignments are made at the General Council Office using third party data, however using the hard data alone has created unhelpful disparities between churches in the same community. There is currently no mechanism for those with local knowledge of their own communities to correct these irregularities.
We believe that God is calling us to address an injustice concerning ministry personnel access to ‘ChurchHub’ information for communities of faith that are in the search process.
We have witnessed in real time genocide against the people of Gaza - an atrocity that has challenged our morality, ethics and ultimately our theology. As we have watched this horror unfold, many have come to realize that the international rules-based order as well as many theological understandings that emerged after World War II now lay in ruin under the rubble of Gaza.
I believe the Holy Spirit is calling the church to overhaul the human resources processes used to address concerns raised by ministry personnel in regard to working conditions and to encourage the church to provide more effective interventions to ensure safe and healthy workplaces.
The Pacific Mountain Regional Council is aware that those in ordered ministries have their salaries and benefits continued for 6-months if they die while in ministry. However, this policy does not apply to the General Council staff. Salary and benefits terminate immediately at the time of death.
The Pacific Mountain Regional Council believes that the recent decision of The General Council Executive at its meeting from September 27-28, 2024, undertook an action related to the remuneration of The General Council (General Council Office staff and staff deployed to Regional Councils) that is not congruent with existing employment and equity policies.
Glen Morris United Church and likely other small churches have difficulty filling all positions on their Governing Bodies due to the limited number of full members in their congregations. Many adherents are faithful and devout Christians who possess skills and resources to become invaluable members of Governing Bodies. They are willing to be nominated and elected to Governing Bodies to contribute to the life of work of their churches. this is an important issue since it very likely affects United Churches throughout Canada.
Many diaconal ministers have years of experience administering the sacraments in their communities of faith and in other ministry positions. When Diaconal ministers retire, this licence is removed.
In 2021, the Ministry Streams task group submitted a report and proposal, “Ministry Leadership to Meet the Needs of the Church in the 2020s”, which acknowledged and commissioned the church to address the reality that United Church of Canada communities of faith are on the whole smaller, older, and less able to employ paid ministry personnel, making ordered ministry a less viable profession and lay leadership burdened by professional standards of accountability.
