How Bold Do We Want to Be? -- June Newsletter

Deep Spirituality, Bold Discipleship, Daring Justice

These three word pairs are a recent articulation of who the United Church thinks we, as a denomination, are called to be. These words were adopted at the national level during a meeting of the 43rd General Council last October. You can read a bit more about them at this link. Now we are challenged to figure out what they mean. They look great in print, would probably look nice framed and hanging on the wall, but what do they look like on the ground? What does it look like when we live as people of deep (and presumably deepening) spirituality? How are we and/or how can we be) bold as disciples of Christ? What makes justice daring?

The invitation for this newsletter was to talk about what it means to be a bold church. I think it means embracing all three word pairs. I do not think we can be a bold church unless we seek deep relationship with the Divine. We have to be disciples, learners and followers, of the Teacher who shows us The Way. And if we are not ready to take chances, to be daring in our crying and working for justice can we ever claim that we are being bold?

So how bold are we? How bold are we willing to be? How bold do we need to be?

If we are to be around in 20 years, either as a local congregation or as a national denomination, we have to be bold. Which is not to say that we are not already being bold, it is to suggest that maybe we need to be bolder. We need to be bold enough to try new ways of being the church. We have to be bold enough to share our vision, our understanding of God’s vision, of how the world could be. We have to be bold enough to proclaim, to shout from the street corners, to share on the internet, that God is active in transforming the world and how we are along for the ride. We even have to be bold enough to share our own story, maybe even to brag a little bit, about how we respond to God’s call in our lives.

I think that remembering how people from this congregation were involved in getting Odyssey House and the Friendship Centre going reminds us that we have a history of being bold. More recently, putting a Pride flag in our front window, and using the LED sign to pronounce support for the LGBTQ+ community, or Black Lives Matter, or Indigenous peoples, are ways we have been, and continue to be, bold as a congregation. Boldness led this congregation’s council to write a letter during the pandemic calling for more access to public washrooms in the area. 6 years ago we were bold enough to host a panel discussion where people shared stories about the Residential School experience. We are bold as we live out our faith. We are bold in standing up for a vision of what the world can be. We dare to speak for what justice can mean in the world today. We share our understanding of how God calls us to be in the world. This is boldness.

Boldness has results. Sometimes positive, like the people I and others have talked to this past year who have come to explore who we are because they say the Pride flag, or the “A Come As You Are Church” sign and wanted to find out if we really meant it. Boldness sometimes challenges others. There have also been people who have come because they saw the Pride flag and tried to convince me that I had to get it taken down (not knowing I was the one who suggested putting it in the window). In 2020, when we had bulletin boards with pro LGBTQ+ and pro Indigenous peoples and pro Black Lives Matter messages on the sidewalk for the reverse Canada Day Parade we had some very appreciative responses and some people flipped us the bird as they drove by. Boldness means we stand out a bit more. Some people will like that. Some won’t.

Which is why the question is not only “are we bold?”. The question is more about how and where we will be bold. The question is more about how bold are we willing to be. Are we willing to stand out and let people react both positively and negatively.

We have been bold in the past. We are being bold in the present [side note, I keep missing the ‘b’ as I type bold which makes it seem like I am saying we are old...]. I encourage us to keep finding ways to be bold as we move into the future. I think that to follow Jesus requires that we are bold. Some people will cheer us for it. Some will condemn us. But still we have to be bold.

Who is with me?
Gord