Our Names – A Brief History

What we call ourselves and where we worship have gone through a few name changes since our beginnings.  Some of our members and friends, supported by the Ministerial Transition Team want to review whether to retain our name of Unitarian Church of Vancouver or consider replacing “Church” with some other C word.

1910  First Unitarian Church

1912  The First Unitarian Congregation of Vancouver was officially incorporated.

1946  The Unitarian Church of Vancouver became the new official name. There are no records of discussion or debate among the 35 members about this decision.

2004   After several Forums with the Congregation the Board unanimously chose Vancouver Unitarians on our website, logo, and banner to reduce in prominence the title of Church.

2018   On April 17 the Board approved the creation of the Name Change Task Force “to investigate alternatives to the word ‘church’  in the title Unitarian Church of Vancouver.”

On September 16 A Potential Name Change Forum was held.

2019   On August 25 the Task Force was resurrected and renamed What Do We Call Ourselves (WDWCO TF) We posted to the CUC Leaders’ google group that we were reviewing our name and invited comment. The 43 responses were compiled into the summary report: What do we call ourselves?  Centres for hope and inspiration?

On October 20 we held an information Forum: What’s in a Name?  Why this is important.

2020   In January the article What’s in a Name? (WIAN) was posted to the January monthly Bulletin, UCV Events, UCV Chat and weekly Orders of Service.

On January 19 our third Forum Sharing what is important to us about the name was attended by 42 participants.

In March COVID suspended our planned survey of members and friends about name preference.

2021    On December 14 the Board passed a motion to reappoint the What Do We Call Ourselves Task Force.

2022   On February 17 the Ministerial Transition Team Chair encouraged the Task Force to prepare the congregation for a fall vote on our name.  The Task Force is planning a survey of members about what name best represents who we are today and for the future.


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