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.
1) Enter your search words.
2) Use the filters to refine your search by GC, Document Type, Originating body, or more. You can stack the filters to further refine your search to help find exactly what you’re looking for. Results will update in real-time as you select filters.
3) To find Belief/Policy documents, use the “Topic” filter option.
Consistent with the previous report, the Theology and Inter-Church Inter-Faith Committee again seeks a reasoned position that accords with our tradition and views the issues through the lens of the previous report, which emphasizes that a decision for MAID must be the result of a free and informed choice.
With Medical Assistance in Dying now legal in Canada, people participating in United Church of Canada communities of faith are faced with their loved ones choosing such assistance in dying, or considering this option themselves, and with health care professionals in their communities who are discerning their response to this option. How can the church support people challenged with such a decision? How can the church prepare people for end-of-life decision-making?
That the Executive of the General Council: 1. receive the report of the Theology and Inter-Church Inter-Faith Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying 2. adopt the report as an official statement of the United Church on the subject of Medical Assistance in Dying.
The current phase of the theological dialogue between the Anglican Church of Canada and the United Church of Canada resumed in January 2012 with a shared mandate to discern “whether God is calling us into a new stage in our common life.”The 2010 General Synod of the Anglican Church specifically asked the dialogue to focus its work on “an examination of the doctrinal identities of the two churches and the implications of this for the lives of the churches, including understandings of sacraments and orders of ministry.” Meeting once annually, the members of the dialogue have rediscovered the degree to which our two churches share a common faith, context, history, geography, and commitment to carrying out God’s mission in the world. We have spent considerable time examining the theological positions and practices related to orders of ministry, sacraments, and creeds.
The Permanent Committee, Programs for Mission and Ministry proposes: That the Executive of the General Council receive the report of the United Church’s consultation on disabilities (entitled Gathering Together: Toward a Culture of Mutuality and Full Participation for Persons with Disabilities and Their Allies), and approve the following recommendations
In July 2013, about 55 self-identified people with disabilities, and their allies, gathered for a twoday consultation to share stories, ideas, dreams, and hopes about what would enable The United Church of Canada to better live into its recent commitment to becoming an “open, accessible, and barrier-free church, where there is full participation of persons with disabilities in the church’s ministry and mission.”
Since establishment in 1975, the Roman Catholic Church/United Church of Canada Dialogue has discussed, and issued reports on, a number of topics. In 2004, following contrary briefs by their two churches to the Supreme Court of Canada on same-sex marriage, the Dialogue after deep reflection decided on Marriage as its next topic. Praying for the guidance of the Spirit, the Dialogue has wrestled the subject joyfully, and is now reporting consensually under the headings of Social Context, Theology of Marriage, Christian Wedding, Pastoral Care and Marriage in Society, as well as Conclusions and Recommendations. Appendix A contains a selected bibliography; and Appendix B the chronological list of persons involved in the dialogue on this subject from 2004 until 2012.
Ministries with persons with disabilities are not a new phenomenon in The United Church of Canada. For example, since the inception of the Ecumenical Disabilities Advocates Network in 1998—a program of the World Council of Churches—the United Church has offered financial and logistical support for this member of our global partner community. More locally in Canada, the Executive of General Council of The United Church of Canada recently formed a Task Group on Disability Policies and Procedures to review the current provisions of The Manual concerning disability for ministry personnel. The review will clarify the obligations of ministry personnel and, where applicable, their pastoral charges when ministry personnel are eligible for the restorative care plan or long term disability.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel used to tell the story that when God, the Holy One, gets up in the morning, God gathers the angels of heaven around and asks this simple question: "Where does my creation need mending today?" And then Rabbi Heschel would continue, "Theology consists of worrying about what God worries about when God gets up in the morning."
In winter 2003, twelve persons named by The Anglican Church of Canada (ACC) and The United Church of Canada (UCC) met in Vancouver to consider their new mandate to explore the relationship between our two churches. It was clear to us from the outset that we were not commissioned to prepare plans for a new “church union,” a successor to the failed project of the 1970s. What we should make our task was initially less obvious.
