Since Jesus calls Christians to make disciples of all nations, in this blog we'll consider how we might better share the gospel to the world around us.
August 1, 2026 marked Emancipation Day, commemorating the legal abolition of slavery on the land that is now Canada. It’s a day to remember our history, acknowledge that racism continues to impact lives today, and renew our commitment to building a more just and equitable future.
This Emancipation Day, The United Church of Canada Foundation extended an invitation to help sustain anti-racism initiatives across the church. You can still make a gift. Gifts will support programs that address racial injustice and create opportunities for learning, healing, and conversation.
Powerful anti-racism initiatives are happening across our church in response to the truths that racialized and Indigenous Peoples have bravely shared and acknowledge their stories of resistance and strength. Contributions to the Foundation are an investment in these crucial initiatives, such as:
The United Church of Canada’s 40 Days of Engagement on Anti-Racism, which encourages vital conversations about racial discrimination across our church communities.
Our involvement in Fund Canada, which aims to unlock $500 million in grants by 2030, focusing on underfunded leaders and underrepresented voices. This funding will transform communities by investing in leaders with lived experiences to drive necessary change.
The Indigenous and Racialized Youth Scholars Program, an investment in young leaders in the church, encouraging their participation in dialogues that shape the future of our society.
Together, we can continue the work of becoming an anti-racist church. The giving page is online.
At Camp Kee-Mo-Kee, emerging senior staff are discovering what it means to lead with the support of an experienced mentor who can coach, encourage, and step in wherever needed. As staff grow in confidence and capability, they are better equipped to create a caring, meaningful summer for every camper.
September 13 Food4Fun
Children spend their PA Days getting their hands in the soil, learning their way around the kitchen, and discovering the joy of doing things together. For children with different abilities and needs, the welcoming program offers a place to explore, build confidence, make connections, and perhaps discover a new love of gardening or cooking.
September 20 Crossing Class Lines
Crossing Class Lines begins with something wonderfully simple: people sitting around the same table, sharing a home-cooked meal and getting to know one another. From there, honest conversations about poverty, privilege, and lived experience can unfold, creating space for deeper understanding and relationships across economic differences.
September 27 Restoring Sacred Connections
Healing with Horses brings people together with the land, community, and the gentle strength of horses, including four rare Ojibwe Spirit Horses that have found their way home. Through riding, caring for the horses, traditional teachings, and time together, participants are finding new ways to reconnect, express themselves, and begin to heal.
Why be a Mission and Service Volunteer?
You love the Mission and Service stories and want to share them: you’ve been reading the stories on the website every now and then, and you think they would inspire your congregation – if only you could hear about how other people were using them!
As a volunteer, you can have Mission and Service stories for the upcoming month sent right to your email inbox. They’re part of a weekly email with lots of information you can use.
You can also virtually meet other Mission and Service volunteers and learn what works for them!
Contact us today to learn more!
Mission and Service Volunteer Program The United Church of CanadaFoundation ms@united-church.ca 1-800-465-3771
Gifts with Vision News
Looking for a gift that gives twice? The Gifts with Vision online catalogue is brimming with meaningful ways to celebrate birthdays, holidays, milestones, or even "just because!" From supporting food security and education to caring for creation and emergency response, there's something for everyone. Take a look... you might just find the perfect gift. Take a look now!
Questions? Email Gifts with Vision. You can also call us at 1-844-715-7969.
Congregational Stewardship/Generosity
Don’t forget, as of July 2026, you can find Stewardship resources and support through the Community of Faith Stewardship page on The United Church of Canada website.
Special Event: Project Ploughshares Marks 50 Years of Peacebuilding
Celebrate 50 years of Project Ploughshares on the United Nations’ International Day of Peace. The anniversary gala will be held Monday, September 21, at 6:00 p.m. at Federation Hall, University of Waterloo, and will feature dinner and a keynote address by the Honourable Lloyd Axworthy.
Tickets are $70. Proceeds support Project Ploughshares’ continuing research, advocacy, and action for global peace. Register today!
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!
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.
Beechmont Presbyterian Church in Louisville is home to La Escuelita Learning Hub. La Escuelita embodies what churches can do to support public education and child advocacy by providing homework help, enrichment activities, ESL support and therapy for over 30 children, and case management for families connecting them with educational, health and social services. (Photo Credit: La Escuelita)
Recently, a friend asked, “How did you become Presbyterian?” I shared that I joined a Presbyterian church at 17. I’d been invited to the church’s youth group by a newfound friend in my first year of high school. I thought that Presbyterian was a funny name for a church. At the time, the pastor (now one of my mentors) invited me to consider joining. Knowing I would have to explain all of this to my mother, I asked the pastor to “tell me, in one word, what Presbyterians are about.” His answer was swift and profound — “Alonzo, Presbyterians are about education.” Over 30 years later, as an ordained pastor working in the national ministries of this “church with a funny name,’’ I carry his words in my heart deeply and I am still empowered by them.
Presbyterians are about education, and education is about growth and empowerment. Support of public education is also an attestation of possibilities of growth and empowerment for all children. Jesus’ radical hospitality and his invitation to all children should remind us as people of faith, that all children are created in God’s image and included in God’s life. Supporting public education shows our commitment to living in God’s life by meeting the needs of all children. Access to quality education plays an integral role in building the fullness of life for which God created them. Recent attacks on public education threaten this fullness by impeding access to vast educational opportunities for children, especially those in vulnerable and marginalized communities (children are the most poverty-stricken group in the U.S.).
Here are four ways that we as Presbyterians can covenant to live into supporting and defending public education. You can find this education covenant in its entirety here: pcusa.org/sites/default/files/2025-01/EaC-Covenant.pdf.
Be involved in direct service. This means that we can create ministries and early childhood programs within our churches to address impediments to children’s academic, developmental and social needs. We can walk with families, listen to communities and invest in organizations and programs that meet the needs of young people and their families.
Create opportunities to engage in raising consciousness about these issues. Here, we become aware of the lack of access to education as one of the root causes of poverty. Effectively ending poverty in this country means that children must have the basic skills that will allow them to live lives of self-determination. Schools cannot accomplish this alone. It is also here that we can better familiarize ourselves with our historical commitment to education and commitment to advocacy and call to engage in justice and public life.
Engage in systemic change,which allows us to partake in a deeper engagement in advocacy and public witness. One quick way to do this is by signing up for Action Alerts from the Office of Public Witness. Attend school board, city council and campaign town hall meetings and advocate for legislation and safety net programs that benefit children and their families.
Practice Christian disciplines by including children, families, teachers, administrators, and all who work with children in the church’s worship and spiritual life. We should be intentional about connecting Scripture to what is happening in public life. We should integrate the concerns of educators, children and families in spiritual practices like prayer, worship and Bible study. Congregations can take up a collection for teachers to offset out-of-pocket school supply expenses.
In Matthew’s Gospel, Christ warns against those who place “stumbling blocks” in the way of children (18:6). As people of faith, we are called to commit ourselves to the missional work of removing stumbling blocks from children and young people by supporting and defending public education. In doing so, I am inspired by Lucy Craft Laney (1854–1933), the pioneering Black Presbyterian educator and civil rights advocate who was born in slavery and in 1883 organized a school for Black children in the basement of Christ Presbyterian Church in Augusta, Georgia. Fighting segregation, racial animus, terror and poverty, Laney believed that education was also integral to survival. Education equips all of us. Thriving communities (and democracies!) benefit from access to quality education. For many children in our country, access to public education is integral for their survival.
Here are some links that I believe you will find helpful in learning more about how you can be involved in the work of supporting public education and its intersectional issues:
Rev. Dr. Alonzo T. Johnson, Manager of the Presbyterian Committee on the Self Development of People and Convener of the Education Roundtable
Let us join in prayer for:
Monty Anderson, Vice President/COO & Corporate Treasurer, Operations, Presbyterian Publishing Corporation Rachel Anderson, Global Ecumenical Liaison-US, Global Ecumenical Partnerships, Presbyterian Life & Witness
Let us pray:
Holy God, teacher of all, show us how to have courage in removing stumbling blocks and taking care of the least of these. Loving God, teach us again the lessons Christ taught us in welcoming and caring for all children. Remind us in our sacraments that we are called to love, accept, provide, advocate, strengthen, protect and include all children. In Christ the teacher we pray. Amen.
This guide has everything you need to plan, prepare and receive the World Communion Offering this year. Look inside for information on World Communion Sunday, how World Communion Offering funds are used as directed by the General Assembly, and even minutes for mission you can use in worship services leading up to the day you receive the Offering.
Use these premade social media images to share the World Communion Offering with your community. Just schedule these posts on your platform of choice. It’s that easy.
Our World Communion Offering worship liturgy, prepared by the Presbyterian Association of Musicians, gives you a beautiful and meaningful way to craft the worship service for receiving the World Communion Offering.
Coloring is not just for children. Use this coloring sheet that is a visual representation of Micah 6:8 and make it available for everyone in your congregation to use in classes, meetings and worship.
Thank you for generously supporting the Churchwide Special offerings. If you have any questions, reply to this email or call us at (800) 728-7228, Ext. 5047.
The Ecumenical Jury, appointed by INTERFILM and SIGNIS, awarded the prize, donated by the Evangelical Reformed Church and the Roman Catholic Church in Switzerland, to director Hong Sangsoo (South Korea).
The film centres on a daughter’s first visit to her mother in ten years.
The daughter, Sanghee, together with her brother, visits her mother in the South Korean city of Jeju, where her mother runs a successful restaurant. Sanghee’s stepfather is making a film about a “grass grave,” and his daughter has taken up painting. They exchange news, unsolicited advice, and insincere compliments. On the morning of their departure, the other family members watch a film made by Sanghee.
The jury selected the film for its extraordinary human depth. “What do we focus on in our lives? Do we see the obvious or the invisible? How do we tell a story of truth?” The jury begins its statement with these questions.
“Nun Dul Dega Eomne takes us on a brief journey to a family reunion where expectations and relationships can be rekindled,” the jury comments. “The dialogues unfold like precious pearls of universal and existential themes, offering an intense reflection on creativity and art.”
The statement continues: “The film achieves extraordinary human depth in what is only seemingly superficial. With great empathy and subtle humour, it explores alienation and how difficult it can be to truly see one another and accept one another mutually.”
The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith, witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship of churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings together 356 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 580 million Christians in over 120 countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay from the Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa.
Media contact: +41 79 507 6363; www.oikoumene.org/press Our visiting address is: World Council of Churches
