Onward Together: from shared vision to strategic plan

By John Hamer, Director of Outreach and Innovative Mission

The Canada West and Canada East Missions have now voted overwhelmingly in favor of creating a unified Mission Centre for Community of Christ in Canada. We haven’t rushed to make this decision, nor have we acted in haste or without due consideration. The process began four and a half years ago, when Apostle Art Smith asked me to assist him in facilitating a discernment process Canada-wide to imagine our future as a sacred community.

We invited the participation of “All Voices” — everyone who is a stakeholder in the ministries of Community of Christ in Canada, whether they connect through an established congregation with a building or one meeting in leased space or homes, or a group that meets online like “Sharing Love in Mission,” or some mixture of online and in-person. Or perhaps they connect to the church primarily through camping programs, reunions, or retreats. Perhaps they are focused on one of our charitable affiliates like Zerin and Sionito social housing, the Agape House, the Encounter World Religions Centre, or World Accord. Or maybe they connect with us through one of our new expressions: Creating Connection, Awakening Spirituality, the global community Beyond the Walls, and more.

What makes you passionate about this diverse movement? What are your hopes for the future? Listening to all the voices, several common themes emerged: 

1. the importance of making our campgrounds and camping programs sustainable,
2. developing a new generation of volunteers to lead us in relevant mission, 
3. doing outreach to invite new people into the community in innovative ways. 

We wove these together into a Shared Vision for Community of Christ in Canada and a plan that we entitled “Onward Together!”

With the resolutions enacted by our conferences, West and East, we will now move Onward Together as one Community of Christ in Canada. I was privileged to be present in person at the host location of both conferences, and I feel like the collective spirit was energetic and excited!
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Like nearly all churches based in the developed world, we are facing significant challenges. Canada, unfortunately, leads the world in generational decline in adherence to a religious community — that is, there is a greater gap between the high number of Canadians in the Baby Boom generation who say they are members of a church and the low number of Canadians in Gen-Zed — a wide generation gap that is bigger than any other country’s! [1]
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The National Trust for Canada estimates that fully one third of the nation’s existing church buildings will be lost in the next decade alone! [2] This is a staggering figure, but we can see it in our own denomination as congregations across Canada have been weighing the decision or have already made the decision whether to maintain an aging building has high operational costs while being underutilized through the week.

Yet as we move Onward Together as one Community of Christ in Canada, we are uniquely positioned among churches to address these challenges. We have built out charitable affiliates that effectively engage in relevant mission. Look at the Encounter World Religions Centre, which delivered 20,000 program hours last year and has become a resource for police officers to increase their religious literacy, which helps avoid misunderstandings in Canada’s diverse society. Executive Director Brian Carwana has been recognized as an authority on religious affairs by Canada’s national media, and by the government, as he received the King Charles III Coronation Medal.

Look at our social housing charities, Zerin and Sionito, which continue to develop new projects expanding housing for hundreds of people who might otherwise be in danger of homelessness. Just last Friday, the President of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), the federal crown corporation that oversees housing in Canada, visited the new Sionito Project on Finch Avenue in Toronto, identifying it as a model for social housing in Canada.
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Look at our international development affiliate World Accord! They have empowered tens of thousands of women and men in a dozen countries over the past 45 years. Executive Director Kristen Parmera has announced the launch of Accord Adventures — allowing young people and others here in Canada to travel to Central America, meet the locals, to share ideas and expertise — with the goal of engaging a new generation in a lifelong commitment to sustainable mission.

Our camping programs continue strong with vibrant family camps from McGowan’s Lake and Noronto in the east and north, to Erie Beach on the Great Lake’s shore, to the Ziontario Campground, to the Hills of Peace on the Albertan prairies, and Samish Island on the West Coast. These are supplemented by children’s and kids’ camps, camps for high-school-aged young people, retreats for women, for men, and for seniors, and special spiritual and meditative retreats. Our Onward Together plan has tapped Vonda DenBoer as our national director for camping and campground sustainability — to help all of us plan for the future of these sacred spaces and programs.
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All of our congregations are engaged in missional activities in their own communities — whether it’s circles who get together to knit “tukes” (or hats) for the homeless, doing collection drives for food banks or collecting Christmas gifts for needy children, or hosting AA groups and providing other needed community services. Unfortunately, we are often so busy doing the work of mission that we forget to tell everyone else what we’re doing.
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This is why celebrating mission is part of our Onward Together strategy. How does “Celebrate Mission” work? At the conferences, Leandro Palacios, the national director of communications for Community of Christ in Canada, reminded us about the benefits of sharing stories about what we’re all doing: 

1. The stories are inspiring; when we hear the good work being done in Stratford or in St. Thomas, it reminds everyone that we’re part of something bigger than ourselves that is having effects across the country and around the world. 
2. Hearing about the good work you’re doing may give other congregations and members the same idea: why aren’t we doing that here in our town or city? 
3. Celebrating mission, telling our stories, is an essential ingredient to inviting new people to share. There are people in your neighbourhood who would be very interested in doing the kind of good work that you’re already engaged in. But how are they ever going to hear about it unless we share what we’re doing? 
4. The reality in our increasingly online world is that if we don’t post about it: if it’s not in our Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok feeds; if we haven’t put it on our website and in our email newsletters, it doesn’t really exist. 

The truth is that you’re much more likely to remember a vacation or a special event if you have a photo than if you don’t. And so, it’s a goal of Onward Together to encourage every congregation, every expression of Community of Christ in Canada to recruit a communications officer so that Leandro can empower them to help you and all of us Celebrate Mission.

There is so much more that we have to celebrate! Newly energized and committed to a mission, we now have a plan for moving Onward Together as one Community of Christ in Canada. In the coming weeks and months, we will continue to explain additional aspects of the Canadian strategic plan for our members, congregations, reunions, charitable affiliates, and everyone who is a stakeholder in our shared mission.

Endnotes
[1] Pew Research Center, The Age Gap in Religion Around the World (2018).
[2] National Trust for Canada, Endangered Places List 2020.