In the past 15 months people have come to me ideas about what "we" might do. Sometimes the ideas have come in a conversation, sometimes by written note, sometimes by email. Sometimes I have been given the seed of an idea, and sometimes the idea has been quite thought out. These ideas are not for the originator alone, or me, or the Board, or Michelle. They are being offered as a gift, for the whole congregation. So, the whole congregation should know about them, and have the opportunity to add to them.
The following ideas originate with various members of the congregation, and they are presented here with no suggestion of priority, feasibility, utility, or faithfulness to the purpose and mission of the congregation. Sometimes they have been preceded by: “We should explore…”; and sometimes by “We should do…” The list is illustrative of the imagination that people in the congregation have. We should build on this.
I invite you to add to the list or expand on any idea that appeals to you, or ask questions to test the feasibility or priority of an idea. Comments are welcome. We are counting on everyone to be respectful.
1.
Get a license and operate a low-power FM radio
station that broadcasts for a few hours each day, with programming
opportunities for other congregations and community groups as well as for OBUC.
2.
Install a bike rack in front of the
sanctuary. (Not many people know about
the one by the door to the kitchen, and its location doesn’t advertise that we
are bike friendly.)
3.
Install a partly enclosed shelter by the
sidewalk at the front of the church (like a bus shelter), so that people could
wait for rides in inclement weather, and we could use it as a water station
when the marathon goes by.
4.
Sponsor refugees (individuals or families)
5.
Harbor asylum-seekers who have been disavowed by
the federal government.
6.
Create a permanent record (memorial) of passages
our members experience (births, baptisms, confirmations, graduations,
marriages, anniversaries, deaths, and so on).
7.
Create a permanent record of gifts to the
congregation.
8.
Renovate the kitchen
9.
Renovate the chapel
10.
Sell the duplex
11.
Tear down the duplex and build something worthy
12.
Sell St. Columba House
13.
Tear down Gardiner Hall
14.
Rebuild Gardiner Hall
15.
Provide more bursaries for students who want to
continue their education
16.
Fund a sabbatical for a spiritual person from
somewhere else in the world to spend some time in Oak Bay and recharge their
batteries while they recharge ours.
(Maybe Bishop Tutu would have stopped in Victoria for 3 weeks or 3
months on his way to or from Ft. McMurray, if we had been able to offer him
accommodation and a small living allowance.)
17.
Twin with an Indian reserve or a community in
another part of the world – not just a church somewhere else – work with the
school, the medical clinic, the water treatment system, and so on
18.
Work more closely with surrounding United
Churches
19.
Work more closely with nearby churches of other
denominations (St. Mary’s Anglican, St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic, the Quakers,
the Providence Community Church)
20.
Do more inter-faith work, with Jews, Moslems,
and others (We could learn from them.)
21.
Expand the Gospel Experience, so that it is a
sacred music festival for every genre and generation
22.
Get into social housing (for the elderly, the
impoverished, the handicapped, the isolated)
23.
Operate a community kitchen, so that single
people (the elderly, people on very limited incomes) can socialize while they
prepare meals together, learn how to shop healthwise and pennywise, and eat
better during the week
24.
Freeze casseroles and other dishes for people
who are unexpectedly distracted from cooking meals (i.e. just released from the
hospital, or the mother is in the hospital and the rest of the family is having
a hard time coping)
25.
Have “testimonial” services a few times each
year. Instead of Michelle preaching, have
someone talk about their faith journey – high and lows, and questions – so we
know we are all in the same boat.
26.
Give Gordon more time for music, so that we
could have a children’s choir
27.
Have a kind of “inquirers” event every week, so
that people who want to know more about Christianity could know that there is
always a time and place to drop in.
28.
Revive the Stephen Ministry program.
29.
Adopt the Alpha Ministry program.
30.
Adopt the “Living the Questions 2.0” program
31.
Revive the “Elders” so that everyone in the
congregation is connected to someone
32.
Revive the U.C.W.
33.
Get more actively involved in Camp Pringle
34.
Get more involved in social justice issues
35.
Develop a stronger relationship with Our Place
36.
Invite new Canadians to speak to us, so that we
can learn more about the church in other countries
37.
Start a couples’ club
38.
Use our property for services that Oak Bay needs
39.
Change the name of the congregation so that we
are geographically and denominationally limited. “Grace Uniting Faith Community” would be a
good name.
40.
Open a coffee shop on Oak Bay Avenue – one that
people know is a comfortable place for conversations about faith – Christian
and other
41.
Become an Affirming congregation
42.
Invite other faith communities to worship in our
place, and ask if we can join them, so we can learn about their practices
43.
Have a mid-week worship service in the evening,
even if it is a short one
44.
Have different kinds of worship services, such
as Taize, or Contemplation Cafe.
45.
Keep the sanctuary open 24 hours a day, every
day, so that people who want to meditate can
46.
Encourage prayer groups and home groups that do
book studies, or talk about issues
47.
Encourage a dialogue with science
48.
Learn more about the Oak Bay community (We don’t
know it nearly as well as we think we do.)
49.
Go from door-to-door and actually invite people
to worship with us
50.
Livestream our worship services, or else put
each one on a DVD and loan it out to shut-ins, with a DVD player
51.
Cut a DVD of music (Gordon and the choir), and
sell it
52.
Put a QR code on everything we produce
53.
Host more social events, like Guess Who’s Coming
to Dinner, and the BBQ. (Progressive
dinners are great fun.)
54.
Develop closer links with the United Church
Chaplain at UVic.
55.
Sponsor tours of the Holy Land, and famous faith
sites in Europe.
56.
Create a multi-media “studio” where people who
live in apartments, or people who want to try something they don’t have tools
for, can go to work on projects (woodworking, painting, sculpture, pottery, and
so on)
57.
Host workshops that deal with family issues (conflict
resolution, parenting young children, caring for elderly parents, what it is
like to be in the ‘meat in the sandwich’ generation, helping children deal with
divorce, parenting the ‘20’s, and so on)
58.
Work closely with Oak Bay Emergency Net to be
ready to be a place of refuge if there is an earthquake
59.
Encourage more performing arts in our worship
service – not just music but also dance, installation art, and so on
60.
Provide much more on our web site
61.
Offer the ‘Roots of Empathy” program to children
in the neighbourhood (also other programs for children, such as anti-bullying
programs)
62.
Practice “green living”, with a smaller energy
footprint, less waste, and more re-cycling
63.
Encourage less consumption, cooperatives,
ethical investing
64.
Recruit and train volunteers to be occasional
care-givers for people in the community who need a shopper, or a driver, or a
companion or some other kind of care
65.
Help us learn more about evolution
66.
Improve the garden, and put signs on the street,
so that people can find it and enjoy it
67.
The library should have more material in it,
more contemporary material
68.
Paint Gardiner Hall
69.
Replace the sign
70.
Advertise in the Oak Bay News
71.
Show movies, like First-Met does
72.
Really promote our sanctuary, so that we host
more concerts and other performing arts events (great acoustics and
seating: too bad about the steel beams)
73.
Host a party (block party?) for our neighbours
74.
Entertain children on a Friday evening, 3 – 4
times a year, so that parents can have a night out without having to hire a
babysitter (or, do the same one morning or afternoon, twice a month, to give
mothers some relief)
75.
Offer a mother’s day out program, with child
care
76.
Participate in the street market in the summer
time
77.
Advertise an upcoming door-to-door campaign to
collect food or clothing for Our Place, and then go door-to-door to make the
collection
78.
Install a community bulletin board by the
sidewalk, so people could see all kinds of advertising about things going on in
the community
79.
Host letter writers for Amnesty International
80.
Support prison visits
81.
Support the hospice at the Royal Jubilee
Hospital
82.
Invite politicians to visit, for a private
conversation about the concerns we see in the community
83.
Learn more about “fair trade”, ethical trade,
and help us understand how we can make a difference
84.
When people go to conference, especially young
people, make sure that they report to the congregation, so they know we value
their participation (We send
representatives so that all of us can learn something.)
85.
Do pulpit exchanges, so that we get a variety of
perspectives and forms of worship
86.
We could probably organize more drivers to pick
up more people for worship on Sunday
87.
We should have a couple of additional mics in
the sanctuary, so that when people speak from the floor they can be heard
(someone would have to run around with the mic.)
88.
Have pulpit dialogues sometimes, so that people
understand questions and uncertainty are just as important as “preaching”.
89.
(Power wash and) paint Gardiner Hall: it looks decrepit.
90.
Host a family night a few times each year. Families can bring their favourite games, for
others to enjoy. We could show a family
friendly movie. Snacks… and more.
91.
Offer adult support for people who are
experiencing mental health or competency issues.
92.
Host something like TED talks for the
congregation.
93.
What about a Virtues Project for the adults in
the congregation? We need help with
generousity and courage and other virtues, just as much as the children do
(maybe more).
94.
We should display, prominently, the “important
to know” stuff. We should display the
crest of the United Church, with some of the explanation that Michelle recently gave in a worship message. We should display the
liturgical calendar that she often refers to.
We should display the new Creed.
