Sunday Services: 11:00 am949 West 49th Ave, Vancouver, BC V5Z 2T1Office: 604-261-7204 |  |
This month marks our congregation’s 110th anniversary, and 55 years of our presence at 49th & Oak. We’ll honour the vision and colourful character of our Vancouver Unitarian ancestors – those who created, sustained, and breathed life into our congregation; and those who continue to do so (yes, I’m talking about you—us!). In a “digital world,” there’s an essential role and place for a multi-generational, “analog” faith community like ours, don’t you think?
So much of the varying value that society ascribes to people is dependent on the nature and compensation of their labour. For many of us, our work has been one of the things that has given our lives meaning and purpose. As the world of work changes and automation proceeds at an unprecedented pace, what new stories do we have to write and learn and tell about what gives life meaning?
Rev. Christopher Wulff was ordained in the fall of 2018 and was recently called to serve as the Senior Minister at Westside UU Congregation in West Seattle. An OWL trainer, a former lay chaplain, and previously the intern minister at the First Unitarian Church of Victoria, Rev. Wulff has been working with the UUA in supporting congregations throughout the Pacific Western Region for the last three years. His wife Ariel has recently completed her service at the North Shore Unitarian Church where she worked on membership and youth programming, and his three-year old son, Rowan, has been known to wander about the chancel during storytime at UCV.
(Note: This recording is missing the first minute of the sermon. The complete text can be found at http://vancouverunitarians.ca/services/creating-home/)
We crave connection and the comfort of a place to call home. A place where we feel held, secure, welcomed, and loved. Where we are free to relax into our selves, while our best selves are encouraged and our short-comings held with grace. How do we take a microcosm of families and individuals across the metro area and make of this place a home? How do we create connection spaces where a sense of belonging is cultivated?
Kiersten E. Moore is a lifelong Unitarian Universalist who has lived in many places across North America. Though she has continuously uprooted herself from places and differing career paths, she has always sought out UU churches and fellowships in the places she has lived which has ultimately led to her role as Director of Religious Education here at the Unitarian Church of Vancouver.
The Pact for a Green New Deal for Canada was launched in May 6th of this year by a large, non-partisan coalition of more than 60 organizations, unions, associations, faith leaders and the Canadian Unitarian Council along with 50 prominent Canadians. The vision is of rapid, inclusive and far-reaching transition, to slash fossil fuel emissions in half by 2030, protect critical cultural and biological diversity, create millions of new jobs and address the multiple crises we face while respecting the constitutionally enshrined and internationally recognized rights of Indigenous peoples. In less than a month, more than 150 town halls across the country were organized to hear from as many Canadians as possible about what they’d like to see in a Green New Deal for Canada.
Our UCV Enviro team was inspired to host one of the Town Halls in May – join us for an overview of what this Green New Deal is trying to accomplish for Canada and what was heard across the country.
This service is being led by Tara Bonham, Tamiko Suzuki and Elizabeth Dunn. All three are active members of the Environment Team here at UCV. The Environment Team proudly promotes our 7th Unitarian principle: “Respect for the Interdependent Web of all existence of which we are a part.” through education ( forums, public events, Intergenerational Activist Dinners), and participating in environmental actions throughout the region.
The 7th Unitarian principle underlies the other six, but the interdependent web also includes all the other-than-human species and beings with whom we share the Earth. How conscious are we, in our daily lives, of our place within the web, of our interdependence with all the beings in existence? Is it just an abstract principle to which we give intellectual assent, or does the awareness of our interdependence permeate our lives so that it governs all our actions? How do we cultivate and enhance this awareness so that we are always conscious of our place within the web?
In the immediate aftermath of failure, be it personal or professional, we languish in a gully of desperation and hopelessness, convinced that we will never taste competence, let alone success, again.
Bouncing back from failure is a practice. Author and UCV member Lorimer Shenher explains how his life’s personal and professional challenges led him to believe in a failure muscle. He explores ways to strengthen ours, not only building our individual resilience, but enabling us to embolden our global quest for justice and peace.
During the annual Mother’s Day/Flower Communion service, Steven comments on the phenomenon of emotional and interpretive labour.
One hundred years ago, working women and men staged strikes across Canada (with its epicentre in Winnipeg) in protest against unemployment, inflation, bad work conditions, low wages and in favour of collective bargaining. Management and government responded with massive obstruction and violence. It would take another three decades before Canadian workers secured union recognition and collective bargaining rights.
Consider this a May Day sermon.
