This is the third special article which was distributed to General Council last August.

The prophet Jeremiah went down to the potter’s house and took notice of how the potter was working at his wheel. There he received a revelation to be addressed to the people of Israel. That the United Church’s 40th General Council has chosen this theme, “Down to the Potter’s House” (Jeremiah 18)(1) is a sign of hope and encouragement. Could it be that the revelation given to Jeremiah holds a particular message for our United Church as this “crossroads Council” faces the “tough new realities of declining membership and eroding finances”? Look carefully at the passage Jeremiah 18:1-12.

As Jeremiah pondered the meaning of the master craftsman trying to shape a useful vessel, he caught an insight, “a classic illustration of divine sovereignty in relation to human freedom”, a picture of the sovereign God as a free Person over us humans who are likewise free persons.(2) Then the word of the Lord came to me: Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the Lord. Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. Here also is a picture of God who has in mind a purpose and design. The fathers of the United Church believed that “the eternal, wise, holy and loving purpose of God so embraces all events that… in His providence He makes all things work together in the fulfilment of His sovereign design and the manifestation of His glory.”(3)

Jeremiah’s picture of God as the potter who has an unfolding purpose is a revelation which permeates the entire Judeo-Christian understanding of the Bible. In the Letter to the Ephesians God’s purpose is made more explicit as the ultimate design for the redemption of the world, a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in [Christ], things in heaven and things in earth. In Christ we have also received an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will (Eph 1:10 11).

How do we of the United Church of Canada fit into God’s purpose to redeem the whole world? Will the commissioners to General Council underline for us all these basic tenets of our faith?

As Jeremiah watched the potter working at his wheel, what seized his attention was also a picture of God’s patience and persistence. The vessel the potter was trying to shape and mould was marred, so he made it again. Was it a pebble, a bit of stubborn, rigid, unyielding clay? Jeremiah noticed that the potter did not discard the stubborn clay, but crushed it down to make it soft and malleable. Then using the same clay, the potter reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to him.

In keeping with this ultimate design and purpose, God does not cast his people aside. Rather, God can take us with our “selfishness, cowardice, apathy… our brokenness in human life and community,”(4) and remould, refashion, recreate us as a renewed church. God makes things new (Jer 31:22; Is 65:17; Rev 21:5). If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new (2 Cor 5:17).

Can we match the vision God has in mind for the United Church? How can we recognize it? One key to recognizing God’s will may lie in Paul’s letter to the Romans. In response to the gospel we are not to allow the world to press us into its mould; we are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, so that we may discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect (Rom 12:2).

Transformed by the renewing of the mind! Our God is in business to transform individuals, churches, nations and situations in order to make vessels fit for the Master’s use.

God’s message through Jeremiah is a call to repent –Turn now, all of you from your evil way, and amend your ways and your doings (Jer 18:11). Jewish teaching on repentance is one of the ideas unifying both the Old Testament and the New Testament. Repentance, as Jeremiah understood, is a conscious turning toward God in such a way that we might live obediently and righteously.5 Jesus’ basic message was to repent: The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news (Mk 1:15). Our human response to God’s message is consciously, deliberately to turn toward God and seek his direction, to renew our minds and be open to discern what God wants us to be and do.

By the call to repentance both as a church and as individuals we face a choice. Will we hear or refuse to hear? Will we follow our own plans, and will each of us act according to the stubbornness of our evil will?

“God forgives, and calls all of us to confess our fears and failings with honesty and humility. God reconciles, and calls us to repent the part we have played in damaging our world, ourselves, and each other. God transforms….”(6)

Could it be that God the Potter has a design and the will to re-mould the United Church to make us more effective in the decades ahead? Is the call to this “crossroads Council” for all of us, every person with any connection to the United Church, to renew our commitment to Jesus Christ in repentance and faith, that the world may believe (John 17:21)?

Thou has given us little power to mould things to our own desire; therefore use Thine own omnipotence to bring Thy desires to pass within us.(7)

Thou art the potter; we are the clay. Mould us and make us after Thy will……. Hold o’er our being absolute sway? Fill with Thy Spirit till all shall see Christ only, always, living in us!(8)

1 The United Church Observer, July/August (2009) 27.

2 Interpreter’s Bible, 5, 960, 784.

3 THE BASIS OF UNION, Article III. Of the Divine Purpose.

4 A Song of Faith.

5 Interpreter’s Bible, 5, 786.

6 A Song of Faith.

7 John Baillie, A Diary of Private Prayer, 20th day morning, adapted.

8 Hymn. “Have Thine Own Way, Lord!” adapted.

David Dawson, First Vice-President, conducted an upbeat morning session, and Treasurer Peter Cade presented the Financial Report. Expenditures for 2010 total $70,807. (A full financial statement is available on request by phoning our office.) When it came to outreach we missed Elsie Riva, who was at a

grandchild’s baptism. And so Dawn Trueman read that report, and we were happy to see a good number of these faithful workers recognized and applauded before we went on to the election of this year’s Board of Directors:

Rosemary Best Fenwick, ON

Peter Cade Mississauga, ON

David Dawson Hamilton, ON

Gladys Douglas Weston, ON

R. John Foster Charlottetown, PE

Margaret Hunter Scotland, ON

Wilbur James Nanaimo, BC

Elsie Riva Mississauga, ON

Leonard Ross Melfort, SK

John Trueman Hamilton, ON

Hubert Tucker Marystown, NL

John Wilkie Guelph, ON

One of the warmest elements of our meeting is the chance to meet new members and renew acquaintances at lunchtime. To share in lively conversation and get to know new members is a heartwarming experience, and we all came out the richer for it. In fact, we were reluctantly called back for the afternoon session by Dawn Trueman’s medley of wonderful old gospel songs, but we were delighted to be part of a hymn sing led by Dawn Martens and Hannah Jamieson (of the Erskine Presbyterian Choir), who won us over with a beautiful duet.

Then came Gervis! Those of us who were in London, Ontario, will never forget the procession Gervis Black led in London from his church, Metropolitan United, to Alumni Hall at the University of Western Ontario for the 1992 General Council. That was 18 years ago. And it took courage – which Gervis never lacked.

You see, then, that this Annual Meeting had the proper ingredients for a wonderfully memorable one:the joy of meeting old friends and making new ones, our pride in the members who give so much of themselves as they serve in various ways, the chance to remind ourselves of the concern that surrounds us in this gathering of faithful people. We left feeling wonderfully uplifted and encouraged by a great man’s words. Thank you, Gervis, from the bottom of our hearts, and God bless you.

What should I wear? A subdued blouse and skirt. But John? He put on a black cap from a tray. The ceremony was long, our young neighbour bravely reading from the Torah, and the temple ringing with chants led by a golden-voiced cantor. I thought of how our Lord loved to go to the synagogue with his parents.

That afternoon made vivid the connection of Jewish and gentile people.

We have been very fortunate to be able to attend our churches, and to stand up, without fear, for our Christian values. That afternoon reminded us again that we in COC must continue to uphold what is most precious in our United Church – the gift of orthodoxy, a gift inherited because of the sacrifices of so many before us.

Because you support the Community of Concern with your gifts – whether they be big or small – we can continue to remind our Church of all that it has proudly stood for over the years. We in COC work for this week after week. Will you help us with a donation, whether big or small? Our heartfelt thanks to the many of you who do, and we will continue to do our best to inform you and encourage you. Freely you have received; freely give.

I am appalled and deeply grieved to learn from Christian Week that the United Church’s Emmanuel
College is now planning to offer a course to train Muslim leaders. What a preposterous offer! And what faithful Muslim would deign to accept such a presumptuous proposal? Would they in turn reciprocate by offering to train future United Church ministers in their theological seminaries?

It would be fascinating to learn what the syllabus for the proposed course might include. Might
one, for instance, find:

• the fact that Muhammad could neither read nor write, making it necessary for him to rely on inadequate and misleading information from others as to who Jesus really is;
• the historical fact that massive military campaigns were used to “convert” non-Muslims;
• a detailed account of the career of Osama Bin Laden, including terrorism such as the destruction of the Twin Towers;
• reliable documentation of the ongoing persecution of Christians in Islamic countries;
• required reading of criticism of Islam such as Ayaan Hershi Ali’s books Infidel and Nomad, and Mark Stein’s America Alone, and other documentation of ongoing persecution of Christians in Islamic countries, with Islam’s threat to impose Sharia law on “tolerant” countries like Canada”.

Since the United Church’s beginning in 1925 there has been a steady regression from being evangelical to the prevailing ultra-liberalism that pervades our Theological Colleges. The result has been our dubious distinction of being the fastest declining denomination in North America! We have lost the Gospel we once faithfully proclaimed, and have forfeited our cornerstone as a Christian Church by abandoning Jesus’ mandate for His Church in The Great Commission.

Do you believe that God would smile on a denomination that marginalizes His Son and the clear
teaching of his Word, the Apostles and Nicene creeds, and the affirmations of the Protestant Reformation? Somewhere along the way our Church has kicked out the basis of union that held us together and made our Church a strong one.

And your proud graduates look in vain for giants to lead us on.

This is the second special article which was distributed to General Council last August. The third will be printed in our June Concern.

Who speaks for the Church? The individual member of the congregation? The Presbytery or Conference? Or is it the General Council? “Who speaks for the Church?” is a question heard more and more often and more and more loudly in our Church.

It is not, however, a new question for the Church or for those in the Reformed and Protestant traditions. It was, in fact, a lively question in the Reformation, and one frequently raised during the long history of the church in Scotland.

In Scotland, this question often brought with it acrimonious debate, turbulent reactions, and radical change. “Who speaks for the Church?” was at the heart of the controversy with the House of Stuart and their ambition to rule and govern not only the state but the Church as well.

It was the same question in the bitter struggle between Episcopacy and Presbytery as to who should govern and speak for the Church. While these struggles and those which followed in succeeding centuries revolved around theological and doctrinal issues, always present and underlying the debate was the basic question, “Who speaks for the Church?”

Ebenezer Erskine and his followers seceded from the Church of Scotland to form the Associate Presbytery and Thomas Chalmers led half of the ministers, hundreds of elders, and thousands of members out of the Church to establish the Free Church in the Great Disruption of 1843.

These secessions involved theological debate as to the congregation’s role in the Body of Christ, and in particular its right to call its own minister rather than having one imposed on it by the General Assembly.

Over and over again the General Assembly seemed “to develop a life of its own”, and its will did not always reflect the will of the people. Eventually the church adopted the Barrier Act, which prevented the General Assembly from imposing any article of doctrine or polity until a majority of Presbyteries had given their approval. Even the Barrier Act, however, was not able to remove the gulf between the people of the Church and the Assembly. An old highland minister expressed the feeling when, at a a service of public worship on Assembly Sunday, he prayed for the whole Church, and for “all those meeting in the General Assembly down there in Edinburgh that they may do as little harm as possible to Your Kirk in Scotland.”

“Who speaks for the church?” is a question very much alive today among members of our Church across the country. There is a widespread feeling that issues are decided without their involvement.

Signs and sounds of unrest are now evident everywhere. Mission and Service Fund giving goes down, Observer subscriptions drop, loud cries of protest go up on any number of issues – but little if anything changes. There is a rising tide of anger in the Church against the General Council and those who are perceived as thrusting unacceptable decisions on the church.

There is much talk lately of “power” in the Church, that the United Church is not a democracy but a conciliar church – as though the two are or should be mutually exclusive. We are, however, not living in the Middle Ages under tyrannical monarchy or a monolithic church, but in the 20th century in democratic country and a free society.

Understandably those who are elected or selected to represent others can become less and less representative the longer they hold their positions, the more knowledge they acquire, and the higher they go in the organizational structure. Under this kind of scenario the General Council and others working at this level can “take on a life of their own” — quite separate from the views and wishes of ordinary members in the pews.

This separation has occurred in our day, notwithstanding the declaration of Project Ministry affirmed by the 28th General Council [1980], that “it is as members of the People of God, as members of Christ’s body – that all Christians share in His ministry.

The Church as a whole, and every member of the church, is called to participate in this ministry.”

Is it possible that a church that struggles so hard to identify itself with justice for the peasants of the Third World does not hear the voice of the common people among its own members?

Ralph Watson was Secretary of Montreal Presbytery for 28 years. From the beginning of our Church’s troubles he has been a strong supporter of COC. It therefore gives us great pleasure to reprint his article, which is still timely 22 years after it appeared in the Observer the same year COC was born!

On June 10th we stand once again at a great crossroads. Let us pray that our Church’s leaders will be led by the Holy Spirit.

Of course other Protestant churches in Canada have been similarly afflicted, as have ones in the United States and parts of Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America. We seem fated to go through mainline Protestant losses on a hitherto unimaginable scale.

Can we celebrate the 85th Anniversary of the United Church’s founding this coming June without praying for some resurrection miracle? After all we’ve been going backwards steadily for 20 years.

In 1998 the American Professor of History, Thomas Reeves, wrote a book entitled The Empty Church: The Suicide of Liberal Christianity. Here is what he said on page 175:

The “submission of liberal Protestantism to a secular gospel rests upon a failure to accept the essentials of the Christian faith. The first and most critical step in halting the slide of the mainline churches is the restoration of their commitment to orthodox theology. Everything else depends on that.”

1988 - 1990………………………………………….34,536
(Moderator: Sang Chul Lee)

1990 - 1992………………………………………….43,648
(Moderator: Walter Farquharson)

1992 - 1994………………………………………….31,513
(Moderator: Stan McKay)

1994 - 1997………………………………………….41,018
(Moderator: Marion Best)

1997 - 2000………………………………………….44,646
(Moderator: Bill Phipps)

2000 - 2003………………………………………….44,171
(Moderator: Marion Pardy)

2003-2006……………………………………………51,564
(Moderator: Peter Short)

2006 - 2009………………………………………….47,751
(Moderator: David Guiliano)

TOTAL………………………………………………..338,829

Then sorrow came with the news that a fine Christian friend of ours had died. I fought back tears at the memorial service, but when I opened my bulletin I read every word that our dear deceased friend had chosen for it. One hymn really spoke to me: “Light of the anxious heart, Jesus, thou dost appear, To bid the gloom of guilt depart, and shed Thy sweetness here.”

Many of us are encouraged by COC’s hard work to keep our Church strengthened in orthodoxy as we try to comfort and quiet our “Anxious hearts”. We will also be heartened by the Annual Meeting as we mingle with old friends and listen to Gervis Black’s address. But our meeting entails travel and accommodation for our Board members, the hiring of a bus to bring those who otherwise couldn’t come, the luncheon, the gratuities – it’s a long list.

How can you help? By the donations which many of you faithfully send. Could you increase yours this spring? We would be most grateful. You may be sure that for this special event your money will be well spent!

For most people, Christmas day is a time to feast, a time to give gifts, and (which is more important to many people) to receive them! But on the day of Christ’s birth there seemed little to rejoice about. Mary was very young –perhaps 17 years old –and a virgin; so you can imagine how afraid she must have been to find herself pregnant! Her husband Joseph eked out a small living as a carpenter, but he must have been a wise and compassionate man to believe in the morality of the teenager he was betrothed to! As they made the slow journey to his family’s birthplace, Bethlehem, to pay their taxes, can you imagine how uncomfortable it was for Mary, near her due time, riding a donkey? And in the end finding that the only place to stay was the stable of a poor inn. No bed –only a cold floor shared with animals. No sanitary conditions, not even sheets for the baby, just a manger filled with straw. What an entry into this world for a King!

That baby grew into a man who began his ministry at the age of 30. Yet he owned nothing. He walked everywhere (or borrowed a donkey), had no home of his own, and relied on others for food and lodging. When Herod, a cruel tyrant, heard two years later that a king had been born in Bethlehem, he ordered all children aged two and under to be killed. But Mary and Joseph had been forewarned, and escaped to Egypt until it was safe to return to Nazareth.

God works in a mysterious way His wonders to perform. That baby’s humble birth resulted in two billion Christians, with you, dear reader, numbered among them. But let us remember what that first Christmas was really all about –not feasting and presents, but God’s priceless gift to us; peace and heavenly joy through the gift of Christ our Saviour.

by Rev. James O. Wilson