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Nov 19, 2024 | 
broadview.org | Christopher White
Q: Friends of mine, connected with another denomination, have been told that full-time United Church ministers are not obliged to visit or phone the sick and shut-ins within their congregation. Can this be true? A: It never ceases to amaze me what people think clergy do or don’t do. I and every minister I know make hospital visits when a person is ill. I’ve seen countless faces light up when I walk into the hospital room or express relief when it’s an end-of-life situation.
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Nov 6, 2024 | 
broadview.org | Christopher White
This morning, many of us woke up to the news that we dreaded, an event we were sure could not happen, but it has. Donald Trump will be the president of the United States. Again. Our world has changed. Reality has shifted into another, bad place. My late father was a professor of history at the University of Toronto. Years ago, he told me: “People assume that progress is the natural order of things, but they haven’t read history.
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Nov 5, 2024 | 
broadview.org | Julie Carl |Arlene L. Smith |Christopher White |Anne Thériault
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Oct 8, 2024 | 
broadview.org | Christopher White
Q: We have one member who inserts herself into every aspect of church business. We have had people resign from committees because of her, and others lose sleep wondering what will be criticized next. Even the minister will never meet with this person on their own. What can we do? A: Sadly, this is not a unique situation, and for some reason churches tend to put up with this type of behaviour far too often. The answer requires a couple of steps.
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Sep 26, 2024 | 
broadview.org | Christopher White
Chaplains are often associated with providing spiritual care in hospitals or universities, but one organization is bringing them to corporate Canada. Marketplace Care Canada (MCC) provides workplace chaplains to companies. While a Christian organization, MCC works with secular private-sector corporations and with employees of all faiths. But the term “chaplain” can have baggage.
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Sep 17, 2024 | 
broadview.org | Christopher White
Staying connected across The United Church of Canada has always been difficult, and the COVID-19 pandemic and the denomination’s 2019 restructuring added new challenges. In-person meetings are less frequent, and the elimination of presbyteries means fewer official opportunities to connect locally. Churches close all the time.
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Aug 19, 2024 | 
broadview.org | Christopher White
As we continue to close churches, the creation of new communities of faith has taken on a new urgency. But as Rev. Cameron Fraser, director of growth and ministry development for the General Council office, told me in an email, creating new communities is not all of the plan. He calls the goal of 100 new faith communities “attention grabbing.” And he adds that the six regionally deployed growth animators have been supporting existing communities of faith through workshops and conversations.
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Jul 11, 2024 | 
broadview.org | Christopher White
All I wanted was a new barbecue. Our old one had rusted out and was left behind in our move to Hamilton last year, so I headed to Canadian Tire looking for a made in Canada gas grill. There, I ran into a problem: their barbecues are all made in China. Even the Canadian brand Napoleon has a made-in-China line specifically for Canadian Tire. But why would the company that calls itself “Canada’s garage” and says that its goods are “made for life in Canada” not actually make its products in Canada?
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Jul 9, 2024 | 
broadview.org | Christopher White
Q: Our congregation is actually getting new people, which is fantastic. The challenge is that their expectations about church are very different from our existing congregants’ ideas, and it’s causing some ruffled feathers. Any advice on what to do? A: First of all, it must feel wonderful to have new people joining your community of faith. But it can pose challenges. For instance, your existing folks are deeply steeped in church culture, and I am guessing they are an older demographic as well.
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Jun 17, 2024 | 
broadview.org | Christopher White
When a bestselling novelist chooses to write about the book of Genesis, it is a publishing event. Marilynne Robinson, who won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2005 for her novel Gilead, was inspired by the humanity behind the scripture. “When I think there was a day when a human hand first wrote those words, I am filled with awe,” she writes in Reading Genesis. Robinson’s analysis is one of the most interesting and helpful commentaries on the Bible I have read.
