This Library contains documents from all recent United Church governance meetings, including General Council and its Executive. It will also soon include “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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Individually and in community, we do everything through the lenses of our cultures: there is no such thing as a culture-free perspective. Our experiences and understandings are shaped by our cultures. Since we cannot capture the complexity of God through our limited cultural understandings, our understanding of God is limited when we see this God through only one dominant cultural perspective. Instead, our understandings of God and our scriptures can be deepened when we come together, as disciples of Jesus Christ, in all of our differences and diversities to acknowledge intercultural reality and richness.
Our commitment to becoming an intercultural church is grounded in commitments that the United Church has already made; it is another step in the continuing journey to be a transformative, justice-seeking, equitable church where there is the full participation of all. Our intercultural commitment is also rooted theologically and biblically in what it means to be the church – to be the church is to be an intercultural community that honours difference.
The Permanent Committee, Programs for Mission and Ministry proposes that the Executive of General Council: 1) Receive the report “Intercultural Ministries: Living into Transformation”; 2) Forward it and the following proposal to the 41st General Council for decision.
Declare that in matters respecting doctrine, worship, membership and governance, The United Church of Canada is opposed to discrimination against any person on the basis of age, ancestry, colour, disability, ethnic origin, gender identity, language, marital status, place of origin, race, sexual orientation, socio-economic status or any other basis by which a person is devalued
In 2006, The United Church of Canada committed itself to becoming an intercultural1 church. In “A Transformative Vision for The United Church of Canada,” approved at the 39th General Council, the church declared that intercultural dimensions of ministries [will] be a denominational priority in living out its commitment to racial justice, where there is mutually respectful diversity and full and equitable participation of all Aboriginal, francophone, ethnic minority, and ethnic majority constituencies in the total life, mission, and practices of the whole church.” The church affirmed that this commitment will be a process — a prayerful journey of transformation — affecting all areas of the church’s life. The Executive of General Council, in 2007, reaffirmed intercultural ministries as a denominational priority for the church. The vision of an intercultural church calls all to move toward becoming mutually welcoming and racially just communities, and calls all people to be changed.
In the company of God and one another, our community can be transformative. Ethnic Ministries believes that God is calling us to transformation as individuals, as communities, and as church, with all the life-giving traditions, faiths, and cultures we have been gifted with for Godsmission
