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General Council 45
United Church of
Canada

It’s a wrap! General Council 45 was held in Calgary Aug. 7-11. Our Chinook Winds Region took on the enormous task of hosting the event, welcoming over 400 commissioners, Youth Forum, and many more guests and volunteers from coast to
coast to coast. I served on the Local Arrangements Committee and became the liaison between our committee and the Theme and Worship Committee (mostly national staff).

The theme for General Council 45, Visions and Dreams, inspired us to imagine into the future, the kind of church we are being called to be in this time and place.
• Our guest speaker, Rev. Dr. Karen Georgia Thompson, from the United Church of Christ in the
United States, challenged us to step into our vision of Deep Spirituality, Bold Discipleship, and
Daring Justice with courage and intention.
• We witnessed an historic living apology to the 2S and LGBTQIA+ people and communities for
harm the church has caused over the years.
• We heard about the initiative, Toward 2035, which encourages us to change the trajectory of
decline by engaging with First Third Ministry and establishing new connections in our
communities – (Sound familiar? Yeah us!!)
• Commissioners elected our 45th Moderator, the Right Rev. Dr. Kimberly Heath, to lead us for
the next 3 years.

You can find out more about GC 45 by clicking this link, Home | General Council | The United Church of Canada . Thank you again to Glynis and Jodi and all our Sunnybrook volunteers, for designing and preparing the 70 table centres. They certainly added to the festive atmosphere at the Convention Centre.

I’m sure I will continue to process this experience in the days to come, and I look forward to sharing with you all that I learned about this United Church of ours.

Peace and joy
Nancy