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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Rules of order for the GC44 Annual General Meeting.
The Call to Ministry is a sacred trust. The covenant of Ordered Ministry is Celebrated in sacred ceremony. In addition to this covenant, members of the order of ministry are also employees who deserve the rights and privileges of all workers in any station of life.
We believe God/Jesus Christ/the Holy Spirit is calling the church to recognize the lifelong call to ministry and faithful service in response to that call of many current Designated Lay Ministers. While their practice of ministry is indistinguishable from that of ordered ministers in the eyes of many church members, DLMs have been frustrated, hurt and disappointed at continuing to be limited to appointments and not eligible for call, paid at lower minimum salary schedule than ordered ministers, and retaining no status as ministry personnel between appointments and in retirement in many regional councils.
Since at least 2010, the Manual has stated that ministry personnel not in a call or appointment in a pastoral charge, community of faith, paid accountable ministry, or recognized ministry must be in “formal association” with a pastoral charge/community of faith in order to carry out the “functions of ministry.”
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.
Ministry personnel who are order of ministry and are appointed to administrative positions in the General Council and regional council offices (Manual section I.1.2.5) retain ministry personnel status and accountability to the Office of Vocation for compliance with the Ethical Standards and Standards of Practice for Ministry Personnel. Appointments to staff positions can be without term; the General Council and regional council offices are considered ministry sites.
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.
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.
Western Ontario Waterways Regional Council (WOWRC) stretches from Grand Bend and Glen Morris in the South to Tobermory and Wyevale in the north and forms part of a Tri-Regional Council sharing staff and resources with Antler River Watershed and Horseshoe Falls Regional Councils in South Western Ontario. Since the last meeting of General Council, we undertook an evaluation of the effectiveness of our Tri-Regional Councils Governance and Staffing Models. Together, as a Regional Council we took time to engage with this evaluation in order to strengthen the work of the Regional Council in our stated purpose of “Supporting, Connecting, and Transforming”.
