God's Mission Our Gifts: Your April Mission and Service Stories and more!

Scroll down for congregational stewardship news! Mission and Service Worship Resources   Downloadable Mission and Service worship resources for the Easter season – including slides, an impact report, a video, and a prayer card – are now available under “Mission and Service This Season.” Support Mission and Service This Easter!   Your Easter gift can nurture and sustain rural ministries across Canada and around the world through Mission and Service. Donate online, by mail, or by phone at 1-800-465-3771.   And did you know you can give to Mission and Service through PAR? See how below. Let’s Get Ready! Congregational Stewardship and Generosity   Will this be your time? Will this be the time you step out in faith and hold a Congregational Giving Program to finally address the financial and stewardship issues you see in your Community of Faith? We are praying it is because we know it will make a difference! But if this story sounds familiar, then you need to hear these stories: Instead of yet another deficit, Trinity United Church, in Beamsville ON, finished 2025 with a $10,000 surplus by doing an annual stewardship plan and giving program in the fall of 2025. AND… With an intentional program, White Oaks United Church, in London ON, increased their November and December 2025 donations by $20,000 to tackle a deficit. When they compared their income from donors from 2023-2025 they were happy to find that the amount had increased. Why can’t this be your story? Find out more and register for Setting Up Your Giving Program on CHURCHx, or contact us to talk. Seriously, isn’t it about time? Celebrate your congregation with personal stories of why it matters. Invite greater generosity as a commitment of faith. Be thankful for God’s blessings.   Take care. And remember, God loves you! Easter is coming When you have a fuller house for worship on Easter Sunday, family, friends, people you have never met, it's really important to tell your story. People want to know, what is your Community of Faith doing, what makes it different, because of Jesus’ resurrection? Connect the dots for them. And hopefully one of those stories is about generosity as a spiritual practice.   Easter worship resources Look no further. Worship, Liturgy, Sermon, Kids Activities, for the 5 weeks following Easter are all available in the The Early Church in Eastertide: Worship for Five Sundays after Easter file on the Stewardship in Worship webpage.   May is PAR Month How will you Inspire, Invite and Thank people who are not giving consistently to try it? By using PAR (Pre-Authorised Remittance) to give monthly, of course. And consider how will you Inspire, Invite and Thank people already using PAR to increase their monthly giving.   All the resources you need for PAR month will be available under Downloads at the bottom of the United Church PAR webpage in March. Sample letters. Social media. Sermon. Planning template. And watch for the new PAR Video (hopefully before May!). Get the Stewardship Support You Need The people and resources to help you succeed are here. Team Changes. Welcome to the Rev. Sarah Giles!! Sarah will be covering for Vicki Nelson while she is on medical leave. Those of you in the Prairie to Pine, Living Skies, Northern Spirit, Chinook Winds, and Pacific Mountain regions can reach Sarah at sgiles@united-church.ca Beginning on January 1, 2026, The Rev. Roger Janes has retired! We will seriously miss him, but wish him the best. Those in his regions are still welcome to reach out using stewardship@united-church.ca. We hope to have a staffing update for you, soon. Your April Mission and Service Stories

April 5 Rooted and Rising  [Image credit: Michelle H. | Adobe Stock]   Easter reminds us that new life often begins in unexpected places. In rural communities across Canada, churches are continuing to gather, serve, and nurture faith in ways that keep hope alive. April 12 Anchored in Every Season  [Image credit: Tobermory United Church (sign created by Jan MacDonald)]   At the northern edge of the Bruce Peninsula, Tobermory United Church is a place where people gather in every season. From shared worship to community events and a welcoming thrift shop, care and connection happen year-round.  April 19 Flowing Beyond the Banks     [Image credit: Chipman United Church] For more than a century, Chipman United Church has been woven into the life of its town. From preparing meals for neighbours to sharing worship online, this small congregation shows how care can ripple far beyond its walls. April 26 Room to Speak, Space to Listen  [Image credit: Amy Zavitz] In Kenya, a mentorship circle offers young people something powerful: a safe space to speak openly and be listened to. For Christine, conversation changed her life – and now she’s helping others find their voice. Gifts with Vision News Our small but mighty Gifts with Vision catalogue has been updated – featuring brand new gifts, as well as your existing favourites. Take a look now! Questions? Email Gifts with Vision. You can also call us at 1-844-715-7969. Why be a Mission and Service Volunteer? What do you feel called to do? There's a place for you! You might be part of a small congregation: you’ve been promoting Mission and Service in your community of faith for a while now, and sometimes it seems like you’re doing it all alone. We want to give you the support and resources you need, and listen to what you have to say. As a volunteer, you get a weekly email with information you can use, plus resources to help you spread the word about Mission and Service in your community and online. You also get the chance to share your own stories of Mission and Service with a wider audience.   Contact us today to learn more!    Mission and Service Volunteer Program   The United Church of Canada Foundation ms@united-church.ca   1-800-465-3771  GOD’S MISSION, OUR GIFTS is your newsletter. We want to provide news and information that you can use in your community of faith, whether you’re a minister, a board member, an administrator, a treasurer, or anyone else who wants to make a difference.   What else would you like to see? What can we do to help your community of faith get where it needs to go? Send us your thoughts! Donate Facebook Website Email Instagram YouTube LinkedIn   Your generosity enables the United Church to love, serve, and minister in the world. Make an online donation or learn more about your options to support the work of the church.

Copyright © 2026 The United Church of Canada, All rights reserved.

Mission Yearbook: New confession in the works ahead of this year’s General Assembly

In 2022, the 225th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) approved an overture from the Presbytery of Arkansas calling for the formation of “a special committee to write a new confession for the PC(USA) to be considered for inclusion in the Book of Confessions” (TWE-08). Committee members have been quietly and steadfastly pursuing the mandate they were given for the last year and a half and recently convened for several days in Louisville to move forward in producing a draft confession to be considered by the 227th General Assembly this year.

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Dr. Edwin Aponte is co-moderator of the Special Committee to Write a New Confession.

The committee consists of 16 at-large members from presbyteries across the country who were appointed by the co-moderators of the 225th General Assembly, the Revs. Shavon Starling-Louis and Ruth Faith Santana-Grace. It is intentionally diverse, consisting of teaching elders, ruling elders, and church members of various backgrounds and identities. One committee member, Byungil Kim, speaks Korean, with simultaneous interpretation technology allowing him and the rest of the group to communicate with one another. The group is co-moderated by teaching elders Dr. Edwin Aponte and Dr. Margaret Aymer, who respectively serve as dean of Drew Theological School and academic dean of Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

The committee was tasked with drafting a new confession that contends with the intersection of faith and the contemporary challenges facing the church and the world, with the committee’s draft to be considered by the 227th General Assembly for possible inclusion in the Book of Confessions. In accordance with TWE-08 and two other overtures brought before the 225th Assembly, the committee was directed to consider the destructive impact of racism, white supremacy, and colonialism, while affirming unity and diversity in the church and the image of God in all people and rejecting oppression.

“The writing of a confession that speaks of the intersection of our faith with the challenges of contemporary culture is one of the most important tasks to which a church is called,” said the Co-Moderators of the 225th Assembly. “We are grateful for these saints who will put their hearts and pen to paper in an effort to offer words reflecting those values for a time such as this.”

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Dr. Margaret Aymer is co-moderator of the Special Committee to Write a New Confession.

The discussions have been rich and expansive but also intentional and slow by necessity. The committee has divided itself into subcommittees several times throughout the process, ranging in focus from theological questions to communication strategy. As the subcommittees have evolved, the make-up of committee members has also intentionally shuffled, allowing various voices to be in conversation with one another.

When the full committee gathered together at the Presbyterian Center in Louisville recently, the subcommittees brought their work to be considered by everyone, and the committee worked to compile the various components into one cohesive document. The committee still has a lot of work ahead. One challenge the group is still contending with is the limitations of language. A smaller group of committee members met after the formal gathering ended to reflect together on the process and discussed how “current language of the day can be a fault line.” The confession will somehow have to find words that are both timeless and descriptive. Much of what the group will focus on now is the work of honing the specifics of word choice and other particulars.

Even when the committee’s draft is complete, the process of getting the confession finalized and approved will likely include revisions and reviews and will require approval at multiple stages from multiple future General Assemblies, followed finally by ratification from at least two-thirds of presbyteries. This complicated process reflects the significance of adding a new confession to the doctrinal standards of the denomination.

If this new confession is ultimately added to the Book of Confessions, it will be only the second time a confession written by members of the PC(USA) is formally adopted. A Brief Statement of Faith was drafted by a committee appointed by the 195th General Assembly in 1983 and was approved for inclusion in the Book of Confessions in 1991.

Despite the lengthy process and the challenges yet to come, members of the Special Committee to Write a New Confession share a common conviction that their undertaking is a sacred calling and worth the effort. 

Layton Williams Berkes, Communications Strategist, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Click here to read original PNS Story)

Let us join in prayer for:

Barbara Betts, Manager, Presbyterian Distribution Services, Administrative Services Group, A Corporation
Beverly Bewley, Customer Service Representative, Operations, Presbyterian Publishing Corporation

Let us pray:

Faithful God, please lead the church to deeper faithfulness and help us live out the good news we proclaim. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Mission Yearbook: Young Adult Advocacy Conference participants are urged by Stated Clerk to act with compassion and love

The Rev. Jihyun Oh gave a message on the second day of the Young Adult Advocacy Conference that served as a reminder that justice was a central part of Jesus’ ministry and should be a guiding force for Christians today.

There is a “whole movement of people who call themselves Christian” who say that God’s justice and the good things of life are only for a particular segment of people, said Oh, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). To counter that, “we must talk about and act on and advocate for justice where there is injustice and negate that message as being something that comes from Jesus because it doesn't.”

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The Rev. Jihyun Oh addresses the Young Adult Advocacy Conference Saturday at First Presbyterian Church of Lansing, Michigan. (Photo by Alex Simon)

Oh, who also serves as executive director of the Interim Unified Agency of the PC(USA), spoke those words during a morning worship service in Michigan at the “Jesus and Justice” conference, which has been held by the PC(USA)’s advocacy offices for the past three years to teach young adults to do social justice advocacy.

“I think it’s of vital importance that you continue to remind us in your local congregations, but also on the national level, that the voices of young people need to be heard,” PC(USA)’s advocacy director, the Rev. Jimmie Hawkins, told attendees gathered at First Presbyterian Church of Lansing for a day of worship, workshops and networking. “We are a church that, right now, is seeking new ways that we can engage with young people.”

 Oh read from Luke 4:16–30, a passage that harkens to a time when Jesus was at the beginning of his ministry and ready to declare that a new day had come.

In that passage, Jesus visits a synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth and stands up to read a scroll containing words from the prophet Isaiah.

Jesus “unrolled the scroll and found the place where it’s written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, and to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

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Lawrence Robertson of Compassion, Peace and Justice ministries sings at the Young Adult Advocacy Conference in Lansing, Michigan. (Photo by Alex Simon)

After rolling up the scroll as all eyes were on him, Jesus declared, “Today, the Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing,” and the people were amazed at his gracious words, though they eventually became offended and drove him away.

Jesus’ goal had been to share a particular vision of his ministry that was directed not just for the people he’d grown up around but “anyone who has been bound and pressed down and treated as less than,” Oh said.

That includes “anyone who has felt powerless in the face of the rich and powerful, in the face of unjust economic and social systems, in the face of unjust health care systems” as well as “anyone who has been made to bow down, made to feel crazy, made to feel like they don't matter in society and to God,” Oh said.

Jesus’ reading of the words from Isaiah was a message of justice is everlasting. “It’s a reminder that God has always been about justice, and that the vision of the reign of God is a vision of justice yesterday, today and tomorrow,” Oh said. “God has been and God is, and God always will be about justice.”

And what does that kind of justice look like? It means “all needs are met,” Oh said. “Nobody is hungry, nobody is suffering because they can’t pay for care and healing. Nobody is jailed because they can’t pay a debt or pay a fine. There are fair scales and fair wages and ways for people to dig out from enormous economic hardship.”

Oh also explained what God’s justice is not. For example, in Jesus’ ministry, “religion isn’t used to keep people from wholeness.”

Jesus knew that “justice only for us and not for anyone else is perhaps vengeance, but not God’s justice,” Oh said. “Justice for us at the expense of ‘them’ is not God’s justice.”

Oh went on to encourage conference participants to “act with humility and compassion,” remembering that “God’s justice, God’s love, is for everyone.”

Darla Carter, Communications Strategist, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) (Click here to read original PNS Story)

Let us join in prayer for:

Jon Baxter, Chief Engineer, Building Services, Administrative Services Group, A Corporation
Serrita Bell, Directory of Communications and Marketing, Presbyterian Foundation

Let us pray:

God of justice and mercy, you proclaim good news to the poor, freedom to the oppressed and hope to all who feel forgotten. Shape our hearts to reflect our compassion and guide us to seek justice for others. Amen.

One Great Hour of Sharing - Housing is a Human Right

Housing is a Human Right “Why?” wondered Adrian Alberto Madriz. Why were his neighbors in Miami living in unsafe housing in one of the richest cities in the richest country in the world? Why were “forgotten neighborhoods” being allowed to fall into neglect while landlords avoided prosecution? Adrian decided to take action. And that’s when SMASH — Struggle for Miami's Affordable and Sustainable Housing, was born. SMASH, supported by gifts to One Great Hour of Sharing, is the first community land trust and affordable housing cooperative in Liberty City, Florida, to make housing a human right. Read more about SMASH, and how our gifts make a difference. Centered in the prophet Micah’s call to do justice, One Great Hour of Sharing has been helping neighbors in need around the world for over 75 years. The annual Offering gives the PC(USA) a tangible way to share God’s love by joining together to help eliminate the root causes of the world’s injustices. If you have any questions, reply to this email or call us at (800) 728-7228, Ext. 5047.

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