Episode 11 - A Bigger Boat: Risk, Faith, and Failing Forward - Prepared to Drown: Deep Dives into an Expansive Faith

Episode Transcript
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Bill (00:05):
All right, folks, here's the deal we're recording live on
the night before GeneralCouncil 45 starts as the United
Church of Canada gathers fromacross Canada and stands on the
threshold of its next century.
This is a moment that is thickwith memory, full of possibility
and honest about the stormclouds on the horizon.
And you know how we do it onthis podcast Once the
microphones are on, they stay on.

(00:26):
No edits, no retakes, just realconversation about faith,
failure and the kind of courageit takes to keep going when
there are no guarantees.
This one isn't about easy winsor neat resurrection stories.
It's about noble failures,stubborn hope and the holy work
of staying in the water, evenwhen the waves are rising higher
than you'd planned for.
Hope and the holy work ofstaying in the water even when
the waves are rising higher thanyou'd planned for.

(00:46):
I'm Bill Weaver and this isPrepared to Drown.
Deep dives into an expanse offaith.
Settle in and let's wade intothe deep together.
Welcome to this special editionof Prepared to Drown here on
this gorgeous August eveninghere in Calgary, alberta.
We are being recorded livetonight on the eve of something
pretty historic, at least in mylifetime, because here in

(01:07):
Calgary we are just hours awayfrom the opening of General
Council 45 of the United Churchof Canada.
It is the national gathering ofthe United Church of Canada and
it is happening here in Calgary, alberta, this year, and it's a
council that is going to markthe first steps of our second
century as a denomination herein Canada.

(01:28):
So I anticipate while I skipevery minute of it possible that
it will be soaked in memory anda combination of both deep
nostalgia and optimistic hopefor the future all rolled into
one.
So for those who don't know,either listening or here in the

(01:49):
room with us tonight, there's anumber of things that are going
to be happening in this GeneralCouncil time here in Calgary,
especially and notably along-awaited and probably
long-overdue apology to the2SLGBTQIA community for historic
church harm that has happened.
There's also going to be plentyof fun, policy debates and

(02:11):
reports and visions andhand-wringing and concern and
hope all rolled into one.
And we're doing it in the midstof declining numbers in the
North American church andcertainly resistance and
scalebacks to DEI on both sidesof the border and a growing
shadow of Christian nationalismthat seems to be coming up anew,

(02:33):
and we are all kind of comingto General Counsel 45, with all
of that around us and certainlyon our minds.
So there's going to be plenty oflonging for certainty and
longing for growth and longingfor a sense of purpose and
certainly longing forresurrection.
And so tonight at least, thetruth is I know it my experience

(02:55):
of the church has always beenthat the United Church of Canada
has never been a clean successstory, but has also never been a
complete failure, and we occupythe space somewhere in the
middle of that.
So as we step into the nexthundred years of the United
Church, I know that it istempting to reach for theologies

(03:16):
that say everything is part ofGod's plan, or maybe the church
just needs to shrink in order togrow again, or out of every
failure will always emergesomething better.
But tonight we want to ask thequestion but what happens when
resurrection doesn't come theway we want it to?
What if some things just end?

(03:38):
And what if we can't, forinstance, say that we have more
franchises than Tim Hortonsanymore, which was a tagline for
the United Church over a decadeago, I think, during the
Emerging Spirit campaign?
So tonight we're asking whatdoes it mean to live and lead

(03:58):
and risk and act with convictionand still not know if it's
going to work in the end.
What does it mean to takeresponsibility for our failures
and our lapses and the harmsthat we have done and still dare
to imagine that we cantransform well and meaningfully
in the process?
And so I'm joined tonight bythree guests who know what it is

(04:20):
to work from within systemsthat are both courageous and
sometimes a little bit flawed,and sometimes a lot flawed.
Most of our listeners alreadyknow Joanne and Ricardo and
myself.
We've shared plenty of reallydeep conversations over the past
year on Prepared to Drown.
But tonight we are especiallyglad to be joined by someone who
brings a very different kind ofvoice to this table than we

(04:40):
have had before, grounded instewardship and strategy and
storytelling across the NationalChurch and beyond.
So Sarah Charters is joining ustonight.
She is the president of theUnited Church of Canada
Foundation, executive officer ofphilanthropy, and under her
leadership the foundationmanages an extraordinary breadth
of work.
In fact, they just released awhole bunch of new announcements

(05:00):
today of Seeds of Hope, grantrecipients that fund community
healing and innovation, impactinvesting in indigenous
enterprises and green energy andethical ventures, constant
expanding networks of donors andcongregations and communities
that are trying to live theirvalues through action.
But even before that, sarahbrings decades of experience in

(05:22):
fund development and across thebroader not-for-profit sector,
and she is really good atnavigating the razor's edge
between aspirational dreams andgoals and realistic
sustainability.
So her job in many ways is tohold the tension between what we
long for as a church and whatwe're actually willing and or

(05:43):
able to invest in for as achurch and what we're actually
willing and or able to invest in.
So as we gather tonight on theedge of General Council 45, with
all of its visioning andprobably some repenting and a
whole lot of reshuffling,there's no one better able to
help us ask what does it mean tobe faithful when success is
uncertain and when outcomes areunclear?
And if you listened to lastmonth's podcast, you also know

(06:04):
that she's on my top three listof people to actually appear on
this podcast.
So I'm fanboying a little bittonight, but I'm trying to keep
it together.
And I am going to begin withyou, sarah, because I get to do
that as the host as we gatherfor the eve before GC45, you sit
in a rare vantage point becauseyou get to oversee a portfolio
that includes grants andendowments and ethical investing

(06:26):
, and everything from grassrootsreconciliation projects to
nationwide justice initiatives.
So, as we're gathering for thishistoric general council and
the next hundred years of theUnited Church, I'm going to ask
you what is one hard truth thatyou wish more church leaders
were willing to say out loud?
As you look at the UnitedChurch of Canada that is
gathering this year, Ooh.

(06:51):
Start with the hard truth andthe joy has faded right away.
Nope, nope, just right in there.

Sarah (06:59):
A hard truth that I wish more church leaders would say
out loud yeah.
That we can't wait any longer.
I feel like there's a lot offolks in the church who are

(07:25):
waiting not really for a magicbullet or some sort of miracle
cure, but just almost forsomebody else to come up with
something that they can do thatwill change the trajectory.
And you know, we see some ofthat through the granting

(07:50):
programs, when people areputting in their applications
for things that they're excitedabout or wondering about or
curious to test, and a lot ofthe time I think they're just
not dreaming big enough.
Time I think they're just notdreaming big enough.

(08:15):
And the idea that we have timeto make small, incremental
changes that will ultimatelyshift where we're headed.
I don't have it now.

Bill (08:24):
Interesting.
I'm a chairperson for my kids'school parent association
fundraising association and Ican remember one year sitting at
a teacher's meeting at thebeginning of the school year and
saying, like we have a ton ofmoney right now in our
association bank account that'ssupposed to be funding

(08:44):
initiatives at the school.
So we want you to.
And I remember saying we wantyou to dream big.
And the responses were oh,let's add like 10 more books to
our classroom library.
And I remember going back tothe next meeting and saying I
asked you to dream big and Ifeel like you collectively have
demonstrated an inability toactually do that.
So that's interesting actuallyto consider the possibility that

(09:09):
, yeah, like the idea of beingable to actually like waiting
around for somebody else to comeup with a big dream is a
challenging, a challenging truthto hear.
How does that?
How does that land with you,joanne?

Joanne (09:25):
Well, I mean it's interesting.
I was thinking back to when Iused to work at another church
in town that has undergone a lotof growth and when I first
started working there, therewere less than 100 people on
Sunday morning for sure, morepeople in the choir than in the
congregation.

(09:45):
So we started dreaming aboutwhat kind of community we wanted
to have.
You know, like, what are wereally wanting to build here?
And started thinking, well,there's got to be someone else
who's done it.
You know there has to be.
Let's find the model and justfit into it.
And we came to the conclusionthat the model and just fit into

(10:05):
it.
And we came to the conclusionthat, no, what we're doing is
laying track and there is no oneelse and we have to just go
forth in faith and do what webelieve is right, which
ultimately, you know, I'm nolonger with that congregation,
but it's been very successfulthere.
So this idea of thinking bigand just saying I'm laying track
, I'm not waiting to see whoelse is going to do this, or

(10:27):
whether it's going to work ornot, is so important, I think,
in ministry.
But I think the other thing onthe other side of it, like if I
was thinking of.
What I wish people would saymore is it might fail, right,
because particularly ministersare in the business of casting
hope, right?

(10:48):
And so you know, thecongregations we serve in our
team certainly have theirchallenges, big challenges, you
know, challenges you know.
And so as a team we gettogether, we think about, you
know, how could we do this?

(11:08):
What's the sort of growing edgeof all these places?
And you know, you go to theboards and to the congregation
and you say I think this is thedirection, and they agree or
don't agree.
Mostly they agree.
I like, yes, churches, you know, like that's great, but in the
back of my mind is always itmight not work.
And then what you know, and Ithink, when I decided to be a

(11:30):
minister, instead of just sortof a spectator working on staffs
, I remember very distinctly andI may have told this story
before, but recognizing that thechurch was in decline, that
there were fewer and fewercommunities of faith that could
hire a full-time minister, allthose things were true and I

(11:52):
really very strongly thought andsaid to other people I'm
investing this time to become aminister and going to serve a
church that could very well fail, eyes open.
It could very well fail, and allI could say to myself and what
kept me going was I believe itwould be a noble failure, and

(12:16):
this is to me.
In building communities offaith, how do we, as faith
leaders and community leaders,how do we go forward?
We give it everything we can,we dream big and in the back
it's like it could fail.
But it will be a noble failureand that, to me, that's what

(12:38):
inspires me.
Even if the work in the enddoesn't bear the fruit you hope
it does, if it's done in faith,with the right heart and
recognizing you've given iteverything you can.
You just have to leave thatthere and know that God is with
you, even in the failures.

Bill (13:00):
Yeah, yeah, so you, you said that, uh, the the other
congregation that you worked atbefore um when, you when you'd
gather, when you were muchsmaller.
Uh, you had that conversationabout what kind of a community
do we want to be?
Yes um, do you think we canhave that conversation as a
denomination right now?

Joanne (13:19):
what kind of denomination do we want to be?
What?

Bill (13:21):
kind of a what kind of like?
Like.
There seems to me a certainalmost identity crisis that
we're kind of facing right now.
And don't get me wrong, I love,I love the United Church of
Canada.
There's nowhere else that Iwould want to serve, but the
social justice movements thatused to be so easy to kind of
look at and see and identify aremuch harder to, much harder to

(13:43):
engage in now and much harder towade through and much harder to
find our place in now than theyused to be.
And there's a certain kind ofchurch identity crisis that I
think has happened, certainlyover the last decade, around how
we even relate to one anotheras a denomination.
I remember a prophet we bothhad at seminary actually
laughing quite hysterically whenthe United Church restructured

(14:05):
itself in 2019 and saying youknow, the congregationalists
have finally been vindicated,after almost 100 years, this

(14:38):
idea of the vision of onenational Christian Protestant
denomination.

Joanne (14:40):
That was kind of the hallmark of our founding, the
hope of our founding, but hasnever managed to really gain the
traction that we had hoped forback in 1925.
Yeah, but in 1925, institutionswere trusted right,
institutions were trusted right.
And so being aninstitutionalist in 1925 and
saying we're going to be thesocial imaginary in one of the
textbooks I think it was PeterShort who said this but the
social imaginary of the UnitedChurch was that they would be
sort of the counterpoint to theCatholic Church, that there'd be
this one Protestantdenomination and that the

(15:00):
Anglicans would join us, and toobad about that, 25% of the
Presbyterians, but someday.
And that the Anglicans wouldjoin us, and too bad about that,
25% of the Presbyterians, butsomeday.
But institutions were trustedand it was what the 70s or the
80s, where institutions wereentrusted I mean Eaton's failed.
I mean what's more Canadianthan Eaton's?
The Hudson's Bay.

Bill (15:17):
Hudson's Bay company failed.
The Hudson's Bay has failed.

Joanne (15:20):
Like institutions fail now they're not trusted.
Professionals are not trustedin the same way.
We are in a completelydifferent environment.
So that social imaginary thatsays we're going to be the big
Protestant church in Canada issomething we got to let go of
because that's institutionalthinking.
However, I do think that thelatest sort of you know, public

(15:48):
relations or advertisement theydid where they had the table.
You know that looked like theLast Supper and they had a lot
of diversity there.
That idea everybody has a placeat the table is something that
is countercultural, becauseright now we all think our
tables should be exclusive.
It's countercultural.
It's expansive because we livein silos, and it proclaims the
faith that we embrace.

(16:09):
And so the United Church ethosis this to me it might be 10
people sitting in a congregationsomewhere, but the hope is it's
not always true for sure, butthe hope is that we put forward
is if you come here, you have aplace here.
We are not exclusive and webelieve that God's grace is for

(16:29):
all people and we try to livethat even interfaith-wise Like,
rather than being exclusivelyChristian and only Christians
are gonna receive grace orwhatever our conversations with
other faith traditions are heldwith integrity because we
believe humanity is the belovedof God.

(16:50):
The earth, the earth and allthat is in it is beloved and, if
we can lean into that as adenomination, it's a message
that resonates with the worldright now.
But, unfortunately, you know,like I say, I love the churches

(17:11):
I serve because they're, yes,churches, but I know a lot of no
churches.
You know, I remember I wasactually at the 100th
anniversary, sitting at a tablewith some people that went to a
church and I said you know what,in that first church that I
served, and even now the peoplewho are outside the doors are
more important than the peoplewho are inside the doors.
And she said to me why?

(17:33):
Why should they be moreimportant than us?
Do you know?
Because we fund it and you knowwe've been there a long time.
Shouldn't we be the moreimportant thing and having that
conversation about?
Well, of course, the people whoare in your congregations and
who support financially.
They're really lovely and needto be taken care of.
But if you don't have a missionorientation, that there's

(17:56):
people outside there who couldbenefit from being part of a
community and knowing the divinein a different and freeing way,
then you know we're a communitycenter and we don't need to be.
We don't need any morecommunity centers, you know.

Bill (18:13):
So incrementalism is something that we actually
wrestle with a lot in ourconversations.
Sarah talked about this ideathat maybe we never actually had
that time for incrementalexpectation or hope.
So when we talk on the ministryteam, it's constantly you
believe in incremental change.
I'm tracking the length of therunway left before the time has

(18:35):
run out.
Ricardo, you probably know morethan anybody else sitting at
this table about the tensionbetween incrementalism and
burning it all down in a hurry.
So I'm going to ask you how doyou navigate the space where the
language of transformation isthere but the systems remain

(18:56):
largely intact?

Ricardo (18:58):
It's interesting.
There's three different aspectsin society that I see now that
affect what we do me as a unionorganizer and you as ministry,
and anyone in the US or evenCanada will tell you churches
and unions are natural allies inthe fights that we have.
We all face declining numbers.
We all are actively trying toseek new people to enlighten and

(19:20):
to help, to help.
And we also sell.
We don't sell vacuum cleanersor anything.
We sell possibilities and wesell possibilities and we sell
hope based on a collective idealand a collective being where

(19:42):
individualism is sort of notreally going to be a successful
way to build our movements andto build our spaces.
And so when we sellpossibilities, we sell
incremental changes and bigpicture stuff based on
individual relationship buildingand conversation, based on

(20:04):
individual relationship buildingand conversation.
And what I find is that having aone-on-one conversation with
somebody these days is so muchmore harder when they have these
things in their hands.
And for those of you listening,it's a cell phone, right, it's
a smartphone, right?
I mean, my dad is funny.
He found this like age-oldcomputer in the basement and God
knows why he kept it.
When he moved houses A and hehad it there, I was like, what

(20:26):
do you have this for?
He was like, oh, I want to getthe photos off.
I was like one day I was like,dad, you know, my phone in my
hand is like four times morepowerful than that computer you
have in the basement and so weneed to keep up.
And it's so hard for us to keepup with the world when it's when
our own systems and our ownsort of um, uh, our own

(20:50):
movements are bogged down ineither like uh, uh, change
systems that are really reallyreally really like archaic and
so like when we when I when Isay that I mean like um, like we
have to keep up with liketechnology and keep up with
community and building andpeople aren't interested in

(21:11):
going to community centersanymore, even right or even like
they rely on their phone foreverything.
So how do we digitize that whilebeing innately, organizations
that require human contact andhuman interaction, right, and so
, if you think about ways we cando that, like I think about,
like there was somebody talkingabout the advent of AI now the

(21:33):
other day and how, like you know, just a hundred years ago
people could go through years oftheir lives with very little
technological change, verylittle years of their lives with
very little technologicalchange very little.
And now it's daily that peopleare facing changes and
technological changes in theirworld and the information
superhighway is so, so intenseand sometimes, often damaging

(21:59):
that how does our messageresonate with people in order to
find that healing and thatgrowth?
So, on my side of the fence, Isay well, the union can offer
you a collective way to earnhigher wages and better benefits
and stuff like that.
Oh well, how long will thattake?
Well, the bargaining process isbogged down with the labor
relations code and we servenotice to bargain, and maybe a

(22:20):
year down the road you'll get acollective agreement that might
improve your wages and benefits.
Yeah, okay, but daily they talkabout inflation numbers, daily,
right, so if you can't help menow, what am I going to do?

Joanne (22:30):
right, it's the same thing with salvation, I guess in
a lot of ways right Wow.
If you can't give me heaventoday.

Ricardo (22:47):
Yeah, yeah, right, like it's.
I was just looking at books andchapters the other day and
there's this new book that'sfront and center in chapters
called the anxious generationand obviously I haven't read it
because I just saw the coverthere.
But just looking at the coveryou can tell exactly what
they're.
It's a little kid sitting therewith headphones on and those
headphones are all over theplace now and just looking like
this, at like, like, very, verycautiously at the world and it
makes you wonder, like, wouldthat person see a home or even

(23:12):
um, spiritual help in acongregation?
Right, so does the unitedchurch need to be more app based
?
I don't know.
Does building a bigger boatmean we digitize ourselves and,
you know, be like the Pokemon Goof peace and love where, like,
if you walk so many kilometers,you'll find, you know, you'll

(23:34):
find a scripture that'll helpyou.

Bill (23:36):
I don't know there was a time actually, that even
churches would angle to be sitesfor Pokemon Go.
Back when it first came out.
We were right, we didn't evenask for it McD to be sites for
Pokemon Go.

Ricardo (23:45):
Back when it first came out, we were right.
We didn't even ask for it.
Mcdougal was a battleground, or?

Joanne (23:48):
something like that or whatever it called it.
Right Still is today Like Iknow yeah, that's right.

Bill (23:52):
Do you?

Joanne (23:52):
know what I find interesting, though, about this
conversation about howeveryone's on their phone and
incremental change and all thatis that like there's one place
in the world right now wherechange is happening so fast we
can't keep up with it, andthat's in the us, because
someone came along and said Idon't care about the rules
anymore, I'm going to break them.
And, um, they are rebuildingtheir society.

(24:15):
They have a vision of what theywant.
They are rebuilding it.
They don't care who gets in theway.
Um and it.
And it strikes me that unionsand churches and incrementalists
like what do they say?
You bring a knife to a swordfight.

Bill (24:32):
Knife to a gunfight, Gunfight.
Okay, that's it Well not Canada.

Joanne (24:35):
We don't have guns.
No-transcript Like this is oneof those.

Bill (25:09):
This is we're headed for failure because we don't have
people in the world who arecommitted to justice and

(25:37):
everyone has a place at thetable and wages that are fair
and benefits that work we don'thave champions that are willing
to break the rules and the youknow, stepping over the corpses
of the people who get in the wayof the vision that there's an
injustice that happens in thatright so that the end can't
justify the means.
Right In every scenario, rightgunfighter, to find that equal

(26:06):
footing or that equal kind ofwhether we champion or just even
like momentum and drive and youknow outcome that you're
looking for.
You're not playing with thesame toolkit to make that happen
.

Joanne (26:14):
And it's hard to punch through all the noise for your
message to even be heard.
I mean, this is the thing allthe dreams in the world, sarah,
with the, you know the bestgrant application we can make
and you give us like $25,000.
Convincing people out therethat this is the place, like
even getting the message out, isvery difficult, because the
contrary voices to everyone hasa place at the table.

(26:37):
Peace through justice, love isthe bottom is all the voices
that say no, take care ofyourself.
No, self-interest motivates us,and those are very, very
powerful messages that are hardto counteract.

Bill (26:55):
Yep, and have a way bigger budget.

Joanne (26:57):
Yes, and when we don't want to break the rules in any
way which I'm not saying weshould go out there and, you
know, rip up the British NorthAmerica Act or anything like
that.
But it is like to know how youcan be successful when you can't
even get your message throughto people, is a very.

(27:20):
It's disconcerting, and what'sthe word I'm looking for?
It's depressing, sometimesthinking, you know like, oh,
proclaim from the mountaintopsreally.

Ricardo (27:36):
It's even the world we're heading towards in the US.
The world we're heading towards, and even south of the border,
is that if you proclaim yourmessage and it's not the message
of the person in power, thenyou're going to get in trouble.
Yes, you know, like even peoplewho proclaim themselves as
nonpartisan or nonpolitical,he's attacking them, like the

(27:59):
Department for Labor Statistics.
Sorry, they're just giving youthe numbers and now he's
attacking them.

Joanne (28:04):
Yeah, he's going to find someone who will give him the
numbers he wants.
It doesn't have to be true.
This is the other thing I'vebeen reading about the brain.
The brain believes what isrepeated, not what is true, and
what's said simply.
Yes, that's right.

Sarah (28:18):
I think where we often fail, if I can say it that way,
is that we try to be verynuanced.
Yes, fail, if I can say it thatway, is that we try to be very
nuanced, right, and it's thesimple thing that's easily
repeatable, that three-wordsoundbite Jesus loves you.
Well, yes, and then we'reafraid that we're going to be
confused with those people whosay Jesus loves you, but only if

(28:38):
X, y and Z.

Joanne (28:40):
That is absolutely right .

Sarah (28:42):
And I think about the fear that you were talking about
earlier about trying somethingand it not working, and like
that's fear, right, like if itdoesn't go forward, and I think,
man, we need to be brave, likeI really think we do, and they

(29:03):
will know us by our love, right,right, absolutely, really think
we do, and they will know us byour love, right, right,
absolutely.
So I I just yeah, I thinkthere's there's something about
that fear that we really the thefear of getting it wrong, the
fear of not doing it right, thefear of being mistaken for what
we are, not we.

(29:23):
We have to find a way to bebrave enough to be bold enough
to counter that.

Joanne (29:29):
It also comes down to how do you measure success too,
right?
Yes, and that's a big issue,because if you are always
comparing yourself to othertraditions, you know.

Sarah (29:41):
Or history.

Joanne (29:42):
Or our history.
That is a big problem with theUnited Church right now is they,
you know, say, well, you know,back in the 50s, the glory days
of the church.
Yeah, the moderator used tohave lunch with the prime
minister and all the cabinetministers at least once during a
term.
I you know, I didn't know thatwhen I joined the United Church,
but I've heard it oh, so manytimes since I have right.

Bill (30:03):
Last week someone told me about it.

Joanne (30:04):
Yeah, so the glory days are something that we compare
ourselves with.
You know the thousand kids inthe Sunday school.

Bill (30:10):
Gotta rent out the school gymnasium because there's none
in the space in the church.

Joanne (30:13):
I've heard that several times too, you know, and it is
demoralizing for leaders to beconstantly reminded of when the
church was great, because youcan't help but think, oh, how
come I can't do that right.

Bill (30:27):
Well, but I would say that it's not even just church
leadership, like it'sdemoralizing for congregations
who sit and go where did we gowrong?

Joanne (30:35):
Yes, that's right, which is, yeah, that's exactly right.
So our measurements of successhave to be different than
attendance on Sunday morning andchildren in the Sunday school,
like it just has to.
And if we truly are a faithcommunity that says everyone has
a place at the table, ourmeasuring stick should be
something like how have weengaged communities that are

(30:58):
marginalized?
You know, how do we spend ourresources on alleviating poverty
or other things?
How do we spend our resourceson alleviating poverty or other
things?
How do we partner withorganizations that are also
trying to bring justice, peacethrough justice?
Those kinds of things aresuccess, and if we go down doing

(31:19):
those things, that is a noblefailure that I can get into.
But if we go down because wetry to have more contemporary
music, I'm all for contemporarymusic, everybody knows this.
More contemporary music we waterdown our message so much that
we're indiscernible what we'rereally talking about.
If we end up just beingwishy-washy about stuff.

(31:43):
You know that verse.
I would wish you were hot orcold, but you are neither, so I
spew you from my mouth.
That's what you know in thebook of Revelation.
I think about that all the timeIf I'm going to go down.
I want to go down fighting.
I don't want to go down, youknow, with an innocuous message
that doesn't change the world ora person or doesn't touch the

(32:05):
hearts and minds of people.
I'm not interested in that.
You know, if it's a noblefailure, it's worth pursuing
different measurements ofsuccess.

Bill (32:16):
Yeah, so I've been on the receiving end of one of those
letters from the United ChurchFoundation that says you know,
not that it's not a worthyproject, but you were not
selected.
You know, in this grant cyclewe wish you the best in all
your—so what is the message?
Where is the hope?

(32:37):
I guess we know that we are.
You know, the North Americanchurch is in decline, not just
the United Church of Canada.
The North American church is indecline and we are asking
people to certainly at leastlive in the shadow of this fear
that we have been talking about,this fear of failure, this fear
of or this competition with theway things have been.

(32:57):
The incrementalist has said youknow, we need to go down
fighting.

Joanne (33:07):
One step at a time.
One step at a time.

Bill (33:09):
Fighting one step at a time.

Joanne (33:12):
We don't want a revolution on our hands, a
bloody revolution.

Ricardo (33:15):
I disagree.

Joanne (33:21):
I'm being persuaded to that.
The further we go down the roadof everyone else is breaking
everything.
Why don't we too?
Yep, yep.

Bill (33:28):
But certainly like what is the message of hope for people,
I guess, when we know thatwe're asking people to do more
with less, not saying that?
I mean I will admit that I haveflowered up language on the
United Church Foundationapplication in my lifetime to
really try to— Do you lie onyour resume too?

(33:48):
No, I don't lie on my resumebecause I will be asked to speak
all four languages, right.
But yeah, I mean thechallenge—I think the
challenge—everything you havetalked about, joanna again,
about like the noble failures ofyou know, partnering, and all
these still speak to me of likethese are the offshoots of

(34:11):
knowing who you're trying to beas a community right, commitment
from your community of faith toactually live into that reality
.
I'm not sure there's anythingnoble about that failure, right.

Joanne (34:32):
See that's—okay.
So when I say I'm anincrementalist, that's because
if you go into a community offaith, they love each other,
they have worked together, theybuilt that church, and then you
say these are how we'remeasuring success now and we're
going to do all this stuff.
The disruption in the lives ofpeople.

(34:53):
Because remember I think it waslast week we said, like people
last month, people go to churchas a spiritual practice, right?
So?
So I don't believe in anincremental vision.
I think you have the end resultin your head, like this is
where we want to be.
I believe in a pastoral processto get there, but I don't think

(35:16):
that faith leaders do theircongregations any good if they
don't push them a little bit ata time right.
A time right, like if I came tothe congregations that I serve
and I thought, oh, what's yourtheological statements here?
Oh, maybe, well, inevitablymore conservative than I am, but

(35:38):
if I decided to preach awatered-down gospel because it
was easier for me and mycongregation, that is not going
down fighting.
My hope is that incrementally,and hopefully by thinking deeply
and having deeper conversationsabout faith and God, that we

(35:58):
would be moving together towardsa place where we're all willing
to say yes, this is how we'regoing to judge success.
It's your way of success,joanne.
And we judge success by thenumber of my friends who come to
coffee after the service.
Right, nothing wrong with thatat all.
But if we're in the business oftransforming the world and

(36:20):
hearts and minds, coffee afterchurch is not a measurement of
success, no matter how manypeople stay.
But I'm not interested in goinginto a place that people call
their spiritual home, wherethey're fed and where they get
their nourishment for the nextweek in a spiritual practice and

(36:41):
setting a bomb off.
I don't think that's helpfuleither.
That's why, as derisively asyou say it to me all the time,
bill, I am an incrementalist.

Bill (36:57):
So, ricardo, I'm going to come back to you then, because
you've agreed that therevolution is the way to go Burn
it downburn it down um, how do you, how
do you, as a union leader, umlead people through the very
real reality that, in some cases, some of these things that they
are hoping for, we've?

(37:18):
We've listened to a lot ofcommentary on safeway here, um
over the past several months and, and some of the most um
surprising things that are stillon the list of do not haves for
workers in not just Safeway.
I don't want to just permanently, I don't just want to say one
In Alberta, compared to the restof the country too, yeah, and

(37:39):
so I mean there's a tangiblereality that some of these
things simply will not happen intheir lifetime in the
organization, right?
And how do you lead throughthat?
How do you lead people throughthe reality that this ask that
we know should be a veryreasonable, realistic,

(38:00):
attainable ask will not happenin their lifetime in the
organization?

Ricardo (38:04):
I think when we sell the possibility of what can be
achieved in collectivebargaining, collectivism is the
main word that we focus on,right, and what we then have to
do is to manage people'sexpectations in the sense that,
okay, look, we didn't geteverything that we asked for,
but we've opened the door nowand the company's opened that

(38:25):
door and what we have to do iswe make sure we never take our
foot out of that door and maybenext time we bargain we have our
whole leg through that door,right, but what has to happen in
, in, in contract negotiationsfor unions is not to put all of
our effort around justbargaining, it's.

(38:47):
It's the relationships youbuild throughout the life of
that collective agreement andthe support you build.
So to give you an example ofsomething that's been very novel
in Alberta is the notion of awalking steward.
So in our meatpacking plants wehave full-time paid stewards,

(39:08):
and if no one knows what asteward is, it's basically a
worker in the plant who's also aunion activist and supports and
assists their co-workers inanything contract-related,
including disciplines and stufflike that.
But now they have someone who'sfull-time.
They just walk around the plantand they assist people with
their questions.
They represent people indisciplines, they file
grievances.
It just takes a lot of it's alot of hands-on work right there

(39:30):
and they've never had such aprogram at a grocery store.
So our local and leadershipdecided we need such a thing at
grocery stores because ingrocery stores I mean I'm sure
everyone in this room canremember a time where working at

(39:51):
Safeway was a really good job.
Working in a grocery store wasconsidered a very good,
middle-class job and over theyears that dream has been
whittled down to something thatwe used to consider entry level,
like fast food.
What a lot of people don'tunderstand is that the turnover
in grocery stores, while itstill exists at quite a high
number.
The people that work in grocerystores and in fast food are

(40:12):
single mothers, new Canadians,people working additional jobs
in order to make ends meet.
It's not just the teenagers whojust want summer money, right,
and so walking stewards werenovel for us to be able to have
company paid full-time peoplejust roaming the city, going
from store to store, educatingpeople, and the company refused

(40:35):
to do it for years and just thislast contract at Safeway.
They said, okay, we'll try itfor one contract and we'll see.
And it's been a massive successfor us educating the members,
and it's been a massive successfor us educating the members and
we do big events in the storesand people find out about their
benefits and they find out abouttheir rights for scheduling.
And the contract at Safeway isexpiring at the end of this

(40:57):
month and they've already givenus notice that they're
eliminating the program Right,and so this is what we have to
fight for.
So now we have to make surethat everybody in between these
contracts are are ready to fightand are engaged and and
educated the same way.
Um, in churches you can't justbuild your support around

(41:18):
Christmas and Easter Right.
The the the relationships arebuilt um through uh through a
time, through that contact andit's troubling that the rise of
individualism is sort of tandemwith the rise of like income

(41:39):
inequality inequality ofhumanity in terms of equity
seeking groups and people arenow pitted against one another
instead of being pitted againstthe people that are making them,
keeping them in those places.
So, while I could say that, okay, collectivism, if you're in a
unionized workplace,collectivism is important.
We need to support each other,we need to vote properly, we
need to vote to strike, we needto all be on strike, blah, blah,

(42:01):
blah.
If you don't have a union, thepeople representing you and
creating rules around your lifeof work is the government in
power, okay, and so if your workis not working for you, then
the collectivism you need tofind out about and educate
yourself on is who you vote forRight.
And if governments are also, inthe life of the church,

(42:25):
supporting religious factionsthat are actively hurting other
people and religious sects thatare hurt, you have to understand
, then who do you vote for right?
And this is where we're at inAlberta right now, too, with the
big separatist movement that'scoming out and all that sort of
stuff.
Is this the way you want tolive?
Then you have to educateyourself and build those

(42:49):
relationships, and unfortunately, it falls upon us that, like,
really don't have a lot of time,right, excuse me.

Joanne (43:00):
I want to go back to the question about the people who
don't get funded, Like what arethe kinds of things that you
consider?
Like, what makes an applicationsuccessful?
We have webinars about this.

Bill (43:17):
I've watched the webinars about this?

Sarah (43:19):
No, so it really does vary round to round and
congregation to congregation.
And you were asking about whereis the hope in that?
And for me, I have the greatpleasure of being able to go out

(43:46):
and talk to a lot of differentcongregations, and even those
ones that are struggling aredoing immense good work.
It might be their lunch program, it might be they've got some
sort of after-school care thatthey're still able to run Like
they are a service to theircommunity, and I think that's
really positive.
And when you talk to them aboutthat, they're like oh, that's

(44:09):
just something we do, Like no,you have to recognize that
you're offering somethingamazing to your community

(44:30):
congregations risking doingthings differently, coming
together in different ways andbeing willing to really think
about that.
To think about, like you weresaying, it's not just Sunday
mornings.
That can't be the measure ofour success, but it's how are we
creating that United Churchpresence from coast to coast to
maybe even coast, and how are weshowing up?

(44:51):
And I think we have done andare doing a pretty good job at
that.
But we need to recognize that.
We need to recognize that and Ithink there was something you
said earlier.
There was something you saidearlier, Bill, that just made me

(45:11):
think.
Those disciples, 2,025 yearsago, they must have thought that
was a big failure.
The kingdom did not come in theway they thought it would.

Ricardo (45:31):
And here, we are, 2,000 years later, still carrying
that message and still lovingand serving our neighbors.
It's interesting how I camefrom the Catholic Church before
I joined the United Church andso it was always like no Sunday,
right.
I mean, my parents do othergroups outside of it, but it was
always focused around thechurch and coming to the United
Church.
The church is important, but itcenters around the community

(45:51):
that's involved around it, right?
So when we did things likeSouls in Sync or Messy Church
things on like Tuesday night, Iwas like what Isn't that the
minister's day off?
Do they only just work onSundays, right?
The minister's day off?
Do they only just work onSundays, right?

Bill (46:07):
But there was an entire like when I was in youth
ministry.
There was an entire sort ofacknowledgement and movement and
just recognition that you hadto find ways to not compete
right.
So, and the things you at leastlike in youth ministry, the
things you had to compete withor had to not compete with, were
, like, community sportsprograms right.
Anything where you had to choosebetween like I pay hundreds of

(46:28):
dollars for my kid to be on thishockey team or come to this
free church event, and likethere was never, you would lose
that competition every singletime because there was no skin
in the game financially for thatkind of stuff to happen.
So you started to learn reallyquickly.
Tuesday night or Sunday eveningwas always if you could get
people away from um, like Sundayevening television programming,

(46:50):
that was the only fight you hadto fight.
And by then there was nowonderful world of Disney, there
was no hockey night in Canada,there was no beach comers right
Like um, that had all alreadydied.
And like family Sunday eveningsweren't really a thing in the
same way that they were when Iwas a younger kid.
So like if you could find a wayto harness the energy of Sunday

(47:11):
evening, there was never acontender for that time.
And like you could do whateveryou wanted.
So like the Catholic churchmissed out clearly, Um, if, if
it was always Sunday morningbecause Sunday morning was one
of the one of the hardest timesto get people to show up for
anything that was going to beanything more than like a quick

(47:33):
in and out 30 minute Sundayyouth group kind of a thing,
Because there was the sportthing to get to, or, you know,
the weekend job, or whatever thecase may be.
There were always competitorsfor that time.
How do you choose?

Ricardo (47:46):
Like how do you like what's your focus right now in
terms of the foundation?
Like, I think to myself likethere's a lot of novel things
that are happening right now,and you know this.

Bill (47:57):
Well, and, to be clear, the United Church Foundation.
The reason why Sarah is likeone of my number one people to
be on this podcast is becausethe United Church Foundation
does it better than most as faras saying, like these are our
clear priorities right and I'mgoing to screw some of them up,
but I'll get some of them right,like indigenous programming and
leadership.
What else is there Like?

(48:18):
There's a fund for innovativeseniors ministries.
There's leadership development.
I think there's an educationalexpansion or growth or whatever
component.
What else am I missing?
You're doing great.
I think there's two more still.
Right that I'm missing One more, two more.

Sarah (48:36):
Yeah, well, we ask people to consider how they're caring
for climate and what can they bedoing Climate.

Bill (48:41):
that's the one I was yeah, and anti-racism.

Ricardo (48:47):
I'm not saying you personally signed off on this
podcast.
But like when we first startedthis podcast, I was like Bill,
we got a lot of chairs here but,like two podcasts ago, people
were standing in a room likethat.

Bill (48:59):
Standing in a room like that Amazing, right, yeah.
And we have hundreds oflisteners now, right?

Ricardo (49:03):
I'm not sure that our friend who listens to us from
Japan holler right.

Bill (49:09):
You are fixated on this guy.
I love that we have oneJapanese listener and they're my
best friend, right.

Ricardo (49:16):
I'm not sure that's going to get more butts in the
seats, right?
Well, you know, if I want to goback to the Sunday morning
metric, I'm not sure it's goingto increase revenue.
I don't know what it does.
It does amazing for outreach,for people we can't see or talk
to.
But like that's my realquestion.
Like Bill must have just beenan amazing grant writer first of
all.

Bill (49:35):
So we didn't get a grant for the podcast, oh sorry.
We got a grant for the SoulSeller, which is, which was our
innovative ministries.

Ricardo (49:46):
Let me rephrase my question Would this podcast?

Bill (49:49):
Oh, my goodness, Do not answer that question, sarah.

Joanne (49:52):
Let's just start peppering Sarah with all the
programs we want.

Ricardo (49:57):
I'm not asking for a yes or no question based on this
podcast, but now that you knowwhat we do, would something like
this be something that thefoundation would consider, like
these innovative sort ofdifferent things that are being
done?
Or is the basis like thepillars that Bill talked about,
or congregation growth?
That's really.
What I'm asking is, like, whatuniqueness do you look for in

(50:19):
these things?
Right?

Sarah (50:23):
So like uniqueness can depend right.
So if a church, Messy Church,is a well-known program.

Bill (50:30):
Yeah.

Sarah (50:31):
And sometimes some church in the far reaches of nowhere
that's got one kid is like wereally want to do Messy Church
and we're like, well, maybethat's innovative for you where
you are and so it's not new, butit's new to you and you're, and
you're all in like there's ademonstration that the community
of faith is going to be all inon this.
Then that's something thatcould be considered unique.

(50:57):
I want to say time has warpedever since the pandemic, but I
want to say seven, eight, maybeeven longer years ago we did
fund a podcast out of BC andthat was like unique and it was
drawing in.

(51:17):
So I think what the committeeand that reviews all the
applications and the board arereally interested in is how are
congregations collaborating, howare they pushing themselves,
how are they stretching, how arethey going beyond what they
normally do?
And can we be a good partnerfor that?

Bill (51:39):
So when you talked about what I love about the United
Church Foundation, when youtalked about the rise of
individualism, right, you saidlike it's unfortunate that the
rise of individualism and sortof the rise of, you know, like
self interest and all thosekinds of things that are
happening, like, my response inmy head that I didn't say out
loud because I didn't want tointerrupt you was are you
surprised by this?
Right, because individualismand the idea that the individual

(52:03):
is the pinnacle of society,right, and the pinnacle of human
achievement, honestly, is theindividual.
You can see the mirror in somecongregational responses.
Right, that you start to getinto this mindset of what we're
all legitimately facing.
Right, if something does notchange in the trajectory, we can

(52:31):
conceive on paper, tangibly, atime when we can no longer be a
community of faith.
Right, either through declinein numbers or decline in
finances or decline in just evenability to engage in our wider
community, we can almost becomeso irrelevant that we just
disappear.
Right, and so in the midst ofall of that, some congregations
will respond with stop all theexternal stuff.

(52:54):
We got to keep the lights on.
We got to keep the people hereyou know, cared for, and they're
like to be clear.
I don't want to sound toopejorative about that, because I
actually, I think, believe evenmore so than you would that
there is actually profounddignity in being clear and
saying we are going to take careof the people who are here

(53:17):
until we can't anymore, and thenthat will be the end of our
church it's called death withdignity, and there's nothing
wrong with it there is nothingwrong with that at all.
Right, but that is again comingback to what kind of a community
do we want to be right, I waslistening to Morgan Bell's yeah,
and not that I'm going to tryto speak for him or recreate
that, but if you ever want tohear a really compelling orator

(53:42):
addressing the United ChurchFoundation at their, was it your
AGM?

Sarah (53:45):
Yeah, in.

Bill (53:47):
June, and you can find most of it, I think, on social
media now.
But the United ChurchFoundation not only puts their
skin in the game on these things, they put other people's skin
in the game on these things aswell, right?
So the legacy gifts, thebequests, the endowments, the
partnerships, like all of thesedifferent sources where all this

(54:09):
stuff comes from?
And the foundation says whatcan we invest in that will not
just maintain or sustainsomething that's already there,
but will actually?
Was it cast hope?
Was that the phrase you used atthe beginning?
Was it cast hope?

(54:48):
Was that the phrase you used atthe beginning?
And more often than not, even Iwould say that will be in some
way directly tied tocollaboration.
Right, the individual does notwork in the systemic kind of
understanding of things.
An individual will never be outfor anything other than the
individual's best interests,right?
So even in our shared ministryhere, we spend a lot of time
talking about the idea of like,will people summon their better
angels for the collective good,or is it going to be everybody
trying to sustain themselves atthe expense of whatever it needs
to be to keep themselves going?
Right, Because that trajectory,we all know where that leads.

(55:12):
We all know what that leads toand, to be clear, I'm definitely
not going to poo-pooresurrection, but we spend a lot
of time talking about, oh, outof the death of this, something
new will like.
We have phoenixes in our backpocket everywhere we go, and I
hate to break it to you, butmore often than not, nothing

(55:34):
rises from the ashes of thatright.
More often than not, it'sclosure, it's grief, it's like,
it's sadness.
And that's difficult, right,you can.
Do everything right and stillfail.
That's difficult, right, you cando everything right and still
fail, and more often than not,that in my experience now is the
case right, that you can doeverything right and it will

(55:56):
fail, and it may be a noblefailure.
Noble failures eventually startto feel good, but they suck in
the moment just as much asanything else.
Right, it is still painful, itis still grief-inducing, it is
still like it is reallydifficult and really
disheartening and reallydiscouraging and you spend a lot
of time asking why bother, like, what was it for?

(56:21):
Right?
Yes, there's something lovelyabout being remembered, right,
when you're gone, but it doesn'thelp with the gone-ness of it
all in the moment, right.
And so, at the crux of all ofthat, the United Church
Foundation tells people no, butalso tells people yes, right,
and does it with, from mylimited experience, a really

(56:43):
great blend of like sometimes wesay yes to the thing that dies
in utter futility at the end ofit all and you go.
Yeah, okay, you know we didn'tsee that coming.
Um, but other times where it'slike like, look at this story of
this thing that started with a$10,000 grant and grew to be
like a community, changing,transformative, amazing endeavor

(57:04):
, right, and it's a crew ofpeople sit cloistered nameless
behind closed doors and reviewall these applications.
And you even said like, as wegathered here tonight before the
mics were turned on, we werekind of joking here about like
yeah, every church is lookingfor money, right?
now right, and it really comesdown to I'm not going to say
cost-benefit analysis, butrisk-reward assessment.

(57:27):
That may be oversimplifying it.
So that's the difficulty.
I think right Is not everythinghas to be a new idea.
There are some good ideas thatare like collective bargaining
you don't need to reinvent thewheel on collective bargaining,
right.
It was a good idea.
The people who first thought ofit geniuses right.

(57:48):
If it isn't broke, you don'tneed to reinvent the wheel on
collective bargaining, right.
It was a good idea.
The people who first thought ofit, geniuses right.
If it isn't broke, you don'tneed to fix it.
Right.
It's had to shift and change,I'm assuming, over time We'll
talk about that in September butcertainly the idea that we are
better together.
We're still living the realityof that.
I think we don't have tocollect a bargain as the United
Church yet.
We're still living the realityof that.

(58:09):
I think we don't have tocollect a bargain as the United
Church yet, but certainly we'reeven realizing, like
congregationally and like as faras communities of faith and
even regions and, you know, likegroups in the United Church and
beyond, are recognizing there'ssolidarity and strength and
sustainability in expanding ourrelationships with each other

(58:31):
rather than constricting them.

Joanne (58:33):
I think there's a lot to be said for people too, Like if
I bring this down to justindividuals, like it's really
hard as an individual to take arisk you know, especially in our
world, where so much isprecarious already.
And we do have this.
You know this message that you,as an individual, need to

(58:57):
succeed on your own, which Ithink is just propaganda from
the people that have everythingand want you to vote against
your self-interest.

Bill (59:06):
So what a great segue, because I got it written right
here.
We're going to take anintermission right now.
And when we come back, we aregoing to turn from the
institutional and the corporateand we're going to start looking
more at the personal and theindividual, because sometimes
it's not systems that arefailing, it's not structures and
governing bodies, it's likelife, it's the things of life,

(59:30):
it's the diagnosis or therelationship or the dream or the
job or any of those kinds ofthings.
So when the thing that we hopefor doesn't happen, as
individuals.

Joanne (59:34):
What?

Bill (59:35):
then Right, so we are going to take an intermission
and then we will be back shortly.
We will see you shortly.
Stay with us.

Sarah (59:57):
Thank you.

Bill (01:00:16):
And we are back with our second half of Prepared to Drown
and we're going to jump rightback into it.
But I want to shift from thecorporate and the institutional
and the systemic and look a bitmore at sort of the individual
and life and living kind ofcomponents of what we're talking
about here, Because we can talkabout the grit and the
determination and the grief oflosing and failing and noble
failures in and of themselves,and there's a lot of those kinds

(01:00:39):
of contradictions thatcertainly exist in our
structures, but they also existin our lives.
In our lives, and sometimes thestruggles are not about
policies or programs but aboutsomething that you care for or
something in your life that isimportant to you falling apart
or failing or or changing forfor things that are beyond your
control.
Your job ends and it hasnothing to do with your

(01:01:02):
performance.
The healing that you're hopingfor doesn't come, the
relationship breaks down andyou're left wondering was any of
it worth it?
Was I foolish to hope forsomething different?
And what do I do now thatresurrection hasn't shown up?
and that the phoenix has notrisen from the ashes.
So, ricardo, I'm actually goingto start with you on this one.

(01:01:23):
Dun, dun dun.
We got to figure out a way thatpeople don't look at me with
like fear every time I say hey,I'm turning to you, I don't know
, because you've spoken beforeon this podcast about the
emotional toll of the advocacywork and the cost of being
vulnerable in public life, andI'm wondering if you could share
a time, share a time when thestrategy that you deployed in

(01:01:48):
your advocacy work or in yourpersonal life, if you so wish
was sound and the vision wasclear, but still, even then, it
fell apart.
And what did that failure do toyour sense of your conviction
or your sense of calling yeah?

Ricardo (01:02:07):
I'll leave the fact that COVID happened aside,
because that killed a lot of mysoul um.
He said soul when I, when I,when I got involved in the labor
movement, uh and I said thisthe last podcast it was a lot
more ideological than realisticfrom what I knew.

(01:02:29):
Like this, big collection ofworkers is marching with
pitchforks and torches, and youknow that beautiful vision of
revolution that I still haveWinnipeg general strike, Exactly
exactly.
What I noticed is that everycommunity group and social
justice organization, includingchurches and unions, operated in
silos, like quite often we'd beworking on the same project or

(01:02:50):
the same vision in justdifferent areas of the city, and
so community engagement wasreally something that I wanted
to do, like there had to be.
I had to figure out a way tofind this nexus between people
where they work and going totheir union and their community
groups, because people weregoing to the community groups

(01:03:11):
more than the union thatrepresented them and the dues
they were paying.
But it's not their fault, it'sours.
And so I said to the leadershipat the local we have to be out
there in the community and wehave to build these connections.
And so my big project for yearsbefore covid hit was to be have
a booth at every single likecultural event that took.

(01:03:34):
So we had a pride parade boothand float.
I put booths in like carry festand latin fest, and, and we had
volunteers at global fest andin the hopes that something
would latch on and maybe we getorganizing leads for new
workplaces or the leaders ofthese groups would come to us
and say, hey, let's build apartnership outside of this

(01:03:55):
right.
So that was my hope and mydream, and what it ended up
being was that they just thanksfor coming right and it was our
job.
You know what the the failurewas?
That it was just more and moremoney like for us just putting

(01:04:16):
toward booths and sponsorshipsand stuff that never really came
to a tangible effect.
And it wasn't because thatwasn't a good avenue, it was
because our approach was stillvery we're paying you like your
fee.
And what I realized was thatyou know, we could put any
amount of money towards fees andhaving booths, but our money is

(01:04:39):
better spent just buildingcommunity.
So, like, let's have one-on-oneconversations with the
leaderships in theseorganizations and say, okay.
So I'll give you an example.
We started a small partnershipwith Action Dignity and June was
here talking in one of ourpodcasts and Action Dignity said
, well, we had a lot of peoplefrom one of your workplaces come

(01:05:00):
to ask for help, especiallyduring COVID, because they
didn't know that the union couldhelp them right during COVID.
Because they didn't know thatthe union could help them right.
And so I said, okay.
Well, you know, it's nice thatthere's this big circle of you
go to Action Dignity and thenyou say oh, you have a union
called the union where we canjust be with you side by side
and do that, right?
Or there was a situation yearsago at JBS in Brooks where there

(01:05:25):
was a.
It was owned by not JBS, it wasowned by XL Foods at the time
and there was an E coli outbreakin the plant and the plant shut
down for two weeks while theydeep scrubbed it and people were
going to the church like crazyfor food bank donations, right,
because they work without pay.
Lo and behold, like why didn'tthey come to our office?
But that next, you know?
So community engagement was mybig thing at the local and I

(01:05:46):
wanted to be involved in thecommunity, which is why
organizations like the CalgaryAlliance for the Common Good
make sense, wherenot-for-profits, churches and
unions get together to buildapproaches on collaborative
issues.
But that approach really killedit and it killed my whole
summer, because I was the onlyone.
I was also like the trading cardof the local, being the brown,
young, gay guy.
Let's put him at the frontthere, right?

(01:06:07):
And it just never got anytraction.
And so we actually had to takea step back, cancel all of our
sponsorships, and we canceledour sponsorships.
That was the budget we had nowfor sponsorship how do we use
that money better?
And we regrouped an entirething where we built it in from

(01:06:28):
the ground up, where we got moreactive in the stores and in the
workplaces we represent and seewhich of our members were
active in their community butnot active in their union and
help draw that nexus there so wecould have it in on the
community and build partnershipsthat way.
Um, and it was a successfulidea.
And then I think it was sixmonths later that the first

(01:06:51):
COVID cases started again and soeverything just stopped.
And now we're in the process ofrebuilding that, that strategy
to figure out like, how do wereintegrate?
And in the US they are waybetter at this community
organizing in terms of unionsthan we are in Canada and as
much as I hate the term right towork and as much as I hate what

(01:07:14):
it brings about, it's out ofnecessity that they build
partnerships.
You know where?
In Canada we have almost aguaranteed income for due
structure as a union, in thatsense Like the more members we
have, the more money we get.
But in the US, the more membersyou have, not necessarily the
more money you get, because theyhave to still elect to pay dues
.
And so when I say churches andunions are natural allies,
community groups are naturalallies.

(01:07:35):
They all work together, theyall do the soup kitchens
together, they all work in thecommunity together, and that's
what we need to do as a whole,especially with the way the
world is acting right now.

Sarah (01:07:48):
The most vulnerable are the ones that are going to
suffer Right.

Ricardo (01:07:50):
So that was my hope.
That hit the mark with thestory.
Yeah.

Bill (01:07:57):
So, sarah, I'm going to turn to you not so much as a
foundation executive now so much, but you do work in a space
that's constantly balancingimpact and limitation, and I'm
wondering if you've ever pouredyour time or your heart, or your
soul into something that didn'tproduce the result that you

(01:08:17):
needed.

Sarah (01:08:25):
I can think of a couple of things.
Actually, this is a workrelated came to mind.
Fair enough.
So the United Church has areputation of being more open

(01:08:51):
than some other denominationsthe 2SLGBTQIA plus community and
we thought, well, we shouldwork at sharing that information
, reminding folks that this is,you know, one of the things that
they know about the UnitedChurch, because I'm sure you all
have run into it.
You say, oh, you know, I'm partof the United Church.
And they're like oh yeah, andyou guys did that great stuff,

(01:09:12):
and so we tried this ad campaign.
So flat, so absolutely flat,like I think our QR codes got,
like one hit.
And we had a donation fromsomebody who was already a donor
, who happened to see it, solike not a bad idea, just

(01:09:36):
something we, it was the timingor it was the way we presented
it or something just didn't work.
But it's also expensive whenyou do that right, when you're
when you're getting adplacements in um like Zoomer
magazine.
They were very good to us butbut still like that's, that's
pricey and so um.

(01:09:57):
So I think about that and Ithink about how, um, one of my
really big hopes, not just forthe foundation but the church,
is to think.
Really big hopes, not just forthe foundation but the church,
is to think and I know people dothis but to really think about
how we use all of our resourcesto align them with our values.

(01:10:23):
And so the foundation has made aforay into impact investing,
where you expect a societal goodor environmental good alongside
your financial return.
So you've got your financialreturn and then some sort of
social or environmental returnthat you can measure as well.
And that's a steep learningcurve on how you go about that
and how you measure that and howyou talk about that.
And I think we still strugglebecause you know we can say

(01:10:45):
we've got these greatinvestments.
We have an investment thathelps immigrants and newcomers
get their canadian accreditationin their chosen field.
Amazing work, um, is it havingall of the impact that we want?
Well, we're not quite sure.
We know how to tell, like we.
We know what it means for thefamilies and communities that
are now have these folks to,that can provide services and

(01:11:10):
support.
But, like, what does that meanoverall for the church, for
example?

Ricardo (01:11:16):
And that would be a prime example of a collaborative
effort that could happenbetween unions and churches?
Yeah, right, because most of thepeople okay, I'll rephrase that
, most of our members that workas new immigrants from the
plants would seek a program likethat.
You know, like our meat plantsin Brooks alone, 300 plus people
are temporary foreign workersactively seeking PRs.

(01:11:37):
We can't offer that programalone, right?
And if someone is creating thatprogram, why beg to the
foundation all the time for themoney to support the program,
when we can collaborate with theunion that represents the
workers that are looking for theservice, right?
So that that's, that's yeah,we'll talk.

Bill (01:11:53):
I would love that, so one of the things that happens
certainly in church circles, butalso also I've experienced it
on sort of the individual levelas well, joanne, you've you've
probably experienced it too inyour ministry is how we
theologize these things whenthey happen, right?
So whether it's the committee orwhatever sitting around the

(01:12:16):
table after the failed attempt,right, you'll hear things like
you know, oh, this is justpreparing us for something
better, right?
Or again, even the idea of,like there's a you've worked
your butt off for this job andyou finally get it, and then
you're laid off three months inbecause the company goes under
and you've sunk everything youhave into being ready for it and

(01:12:37):
suddenly you are left destitutein the food bank line and
people will say, oh, you know,this was just God's plan for you
and there's something bettercoming.
You know, this was just God'splan for you and there's
something better coming.
Or like these really kind ofmessy, done with the best of
intentions, I'm sure, but reallynot helpful, messaging from the

(01:12:57):
standpoint of learning anythingor addressing the reality of
the failure, right, so whenthings inevitably will go wrong,
not everything will always be amonumental success.
Does the foundation have funlittle, not helpful theological

(01:13:20):
explorations that it goesthrough?

Sarah (01:13:21):
I got to believe they do.

Bill (01:13:23):
I got to believe they're like everywhere else in the
church, like there's got to besome messaging that's less
helpful than Like as we talkamongst ourselves about what.

Sarah (01:13:38):
So I think Part of what we do is we work really hard to
see ourselves and to actually bea learning organization.
And so while in some of theexamples that you gave, like
nobody did anything wrong,circumstances being what they
were, something didn't go rightand so is there a way that we

(01:14:01):
can learn from that to eitheravoid or do better or what have
you.
And so probably somewhere inthere there's a little bit of
that not so helpful stuff.
But anybody who knows me wellknows I am a bright sider and so
, well, this part of it didn'twork, but this part actually was
kind of cool and there wassomething good there.

(01:14:23):
And how can we use that?
Who else needs to know aboutthat so that somebody else can
be more successful than we were?
So it doesn't work foreverything.
Some things are just terrible.

Joanne (01:14:44):
But your loss is terrible.

Sarah (01:14:45):
Yeah, and everybody was trying their best and everybody
had the best intentions, but itjust didn't work.
And so there's still that sortof deconstruction.
I was reading Chris Hadfield'sbook and that's fascinating,
talking about how astronauts andspace agencies break everything

(01:15:07):
down.
You can't go over somethingenough, whether it went right or
whether it went wrong, and Ifound that so intriguing because
everything is something toexamine and to look at and to
learn from if at all possible,and so I really.
As an organization we try tokeep that mindset and it does
mean you have to sort of bebrave every now and then, and

(01:15:33):
the grants committee sometimestalks about that amongst
themselves and the board too,about like, can we do this,
Should we do this?
Can we do this, Are we going todo this?
And you know it takes a bit ofguts sometimes.
Yeah.

Bill (01:15:49):
I'm worried that Joanne wrote down bright cider no.

Joanne (01:15:53):
It's interesting.

Ricardo (01:15:55):
You should.
You know that we recognizeJoanne for her incremental
success model, but that's alsolike, I think, that we as humans
especially those of us incommunity organizing and social
justice want that big successthat we targeted for at the end
of it all and we very oftenneglect or ignore the

(01:16:17):
incremental success that we had.
And I think our biggest problem, whatever side of the table
we're on, is that we don'tcelebrate those incremental
successes nearly enough to buildupon that and sometimes, if
it's only incremental, we giveup instead of changing that
approach.
It's funny you talked aboutChris Hatfield's book.

(01:16:40):
I recently went to Houston, tothat space center, whatever it
was, and they said NASA's primedirective has always been the
safe return of our astronautshome.
That's always been the goal,and they say every single
project that they embark on, thenumber one goal is the safe
return of our astronauts toEarth, and then they work
backwards from there based onthe goal that they have Right.

(01:17:01):
So and that's what we should,we need to be doing, we need to
celebrate our wins more and weneed to celebrate so like.
An example would be generalcounsel and the historic now
apology to the 2SLGBTQ community, and the impact of that would
be very profound for somebodywho understands why the apology

(01:17:23):
was necessary.
Who understands why the apologywas necessary?
Because there's a facet ofUnited Church congregation that
knows the history of the UnitedChurch, especially over the
situation in the 80s right andall the fallout of congregation
from there, and there's also afacet of society that
understands fully how somechurches treat the 2SLGBTQ

(01:17:47):
community and continues to do so.
And there's a facet that justsays who gives a crap?
We're growing.
Dei, as much as it's underattack by leadership south of
the border, is growing.
Acceptance of our community isgrowing and if churches want to
just continue their hatred, letthem all just die right.

(01:18:09):
So I think that this is a grandopportunity for the United
Church, with this apology, tokeep celebrating that openly and
advertising that openly.
And while they don't have tohave lunch with the prime
minister and the ministers oncea term, I think celebrating side
have lunch with the primeminister and the ministers once
a term, I think celebrating sideby side with governments and

(01:18:33):
politicians and businesses andorganizations that openly do
that is a great way to celebratethat incremental success.
And when the foundation doesstuff that, yeah, the grant was
great, we gave the money forthat and they only achieved 50%
of what it was.
Let's celebrate that right.
Celebrate that loudly, becauseit still did a lot of good right
.

Sarah (01:18:51):
Absolutely.

Bill (01:18:53):
That is still not how I'm wired Ricardo.

Joanne (01:18:55):
It's not nothing.

Ricardo (01:18:56):
It's not nothing, it's not.
Yeah, you're right.
You're the guy that sees howmuch runway was left before the
plane landed, right?

Bill (01:19:02):
And the goal right, not the steps along the way it's.
I mean, we were talking duringthe intermission about
drivenness, right, and yeah, Imean it's, maybe that's my cross
to carry, I don't know.
But, joanne, you certainly have, you know, sat beside a lot of

(01:19:25):
people going through a lot ofdifferent things in their lives
and you've experienced a lot ofthe harmful messaging done with
the best of intentions as well,right In the midst of losses and
failures, breakdowns ofrelationships, all that kind of
stuff, right?
So, like, what is your advice?
People always want to help.
So what is your advice?
People always want to help.

(01:19:45):
People always want to.
I honestly believe people attheir core are decent, kind,
caring, compassionate people.
By and large, there are alwaysexceptions to every rule, but
they want to help.
They don't consider the impactof telling someone who's lost
their child God needed anotherangel, right, and what that

(01:20:08):
actually says about God in thatmoment to somebody who is
grieving that kind of a lossright.
So how do you suggest peopleconsider messaging that reminds
people that God is present, evenwhen the outcome doesn't change
?

Joanne (01:20:23):
Yeah, I mean, I have a great story about that.
Before I was ever a minister, Iwas like a temp at a law firm
in Toronto actually at the time,and I was taking over a mat
leave for a woman who she hadn'thad good prenatal care I don't
know why, but she'd never had anultrasound and she went and

(01:20:46):
delivered a child and the organswere on the wrong side, I think
, and the baby died and I wentto the funeral.
She was Catholic, went to thefuneral.
The priest actually said at thefuneral God needed another
angel to that mother, right.
And then later I just felt itwas so important to tell her

(01:21:09):
that that was just wrong and herresponse was when he said that
to me, I said why is it my baby?
Why did God need my baby?
He could take another baby, doyou know?
And that stuck with me and has.
And that stuck with me and hasbeen with me since I was in my
20s at the time when thathappened.

(01:21:30):
Just the idea, because peopledon't know, they have this idea
of God as the puppet master insome ways right, and when one
door closes, a window opens orsomething like that, there's all
these platitudes that we'velearned historically.
I remember someone was dyingand you know I used to get these

(01:21:55):
emails about what God isteaching them through the slow,
you know, death of their spouseand just being infuriated by
this.
Why can't God just grieve withus?
Why do we have to learn fromall these things and coming to
the conclusion?
There is a difference betweenGod teaching us something

(01:22:16):
through our, or needing to teachus through our struggles, and
God who is with us and uslearning in the process.
Those are two really differentthings.
So when failure happens, firstof all we learn more through
failure than through success.

(01:22:36):
That's just the way it is Likewhen, sarah, when you say we go
through, well, this worked, butthis didn't, so how can we build
on that?
So that's, I think alwaysreminding people about those
small successes or that there isstill joy is really powerful.
You know, like joy can be foundin the midst of failure, and it

(01:22:56):
might not be redemptive joy, itmight just be a beautiful
flower.
Do you know what I mean?
But for that moment, thingsthere is hope in this, like it's
not all despair, and then God'sthe first to cry, god is the
first to shed a tear when thatbaby died.

(01:23:18):
Not I needed another angel.
It's like God was.
If we could reorient ourselvestowards God is in this moment
and there is love even in this,and it is a tragedy that does
not need to be explained.
Right?
Human existence has tragicsorrow built into it, and for us

(01:23:46):
to try and bring ourselves outof it by saying somehow God has
a plan in this.
No, no, there is nothingredemptive about a young person
who will take their life becauseof their despair.
There's nothing redemptive inthat.
I'm sorry.

Ricardo (01:24:04):
Nothing to be explained either.

Joanne (01:24:06):
Nothing to be explained either.
Sometimes you just have to sitin the chaos and the messiness
of life, but know that God issitting there with you as well.
That's sort of the only messagethat I have in tragic times is
God is here.
God is here, right, you know.

Ricardo (01:24:24):
And God is trying, yeah Well, god is trying, right, you
know.
And God is trying, yeah Well.

Joanne (01:24:28):
God is trying.
That's an interesting way ofputting it.

Ricardo (01:24:32):
I look at it like I agree with what you're saying
fully, completely right, god ishere.
But how do you explain tosomebody like what's God doing
with Gaza?
Right, you know what.
I'm saying.
I think that there are pocketsin the world right now that are
revolting and screaming aboutwhat's happening there, and
that's God Right when I say Godis trying oh yes, god is working

(01:24:56):
through humanity.

Joanne (01:24:58):
Yes, I'm not a God who changes history.

Ricardo (01:25:02):
Yeah, I'm not the God that's going to smite all the
soldiers and move them backacross the border.

Joanne (01:25:06):
Well, and you know, to be fair, lots of people left
faith because of things likeGaza, like evil in the world,
and you're like, if God wasreally a God of love, would this
be happening?
right, there's a lot oftheological ideas that say that
God is limited you know, likeGod is not can do anything right
, and I sort of tend towardsthat open and relational.

(01:25:30):
There's an open and relationaltheology that God is limited by
rules of nature and things likethat, but God works through us.
You know Like we can pray forpeace in Gaza, but unless we
work for peace in Gaza, thatprayer is useless.
You know what I mean me?

(01:26:00):
The certainly like maybe evilleadership that is deciding to
starve children to win a war.
Right, I wish, I wish.
But the thing about God is Godworks in relationship with us

(01:26:21):
and God calls us to be peoplewho work towards a world that is
renewed.
That's our call.
And if we want to abdicate ourcall and our responsibility in
this and just say, oh, godneeded another angel instead of
comforting that mother and beingwith her and finding joy even

(01:26:42):
in the midst of that sorrow,that's abdicating our
responsibility.
And that's what those things do.
They abdicate theresponsibility of each of us to
carry each other.
Don't bring God into it to makeit easier for you to deal with
it, because I think that's whatit is.
I don't know what to say.
I'm just going to say you know,god works everything out in the
end, because not true, actually, sometimes there is a failure

(01:27:06):
and it's not even noble.

Bill (01:27:08):
You know, absolutely, and there are alternative paradigms.
So I would say I used to railagainst the church, even the
United Church.
I'd go to church meetings, I'dgo to conferences, whatever, and
everything would always betethered to resurrection
narratives, right, like therewill be something new that will

(01:27:29):
happen, like the pruning forabundance and all this kind of
stuff, these messages.
And I would say there are otherparadigms in our scriptures
besides constant new life.
Right, and I get that we are aresurrection people by nature.
But there are times like Paulnever loses the thorn right and
it afflicts him for the entiretyof his days.

(01:27:49):
The fig tree never grows,despite all of the work that
actually happens to try to makeit, and so there's just kind of
this reality like we need tobroaden our ability to
understand our relationship withGod and our relationship with
the world around us that doesn'tconstantly rely on like a
redemptive.

(01:28:09):
You know, resurrection arc tothe end of the story.

Joanne (01:28:13):
Well, and I remember when I was taking English
literature in college anduniversity and doing the Great
Gatsby right, and at the endthere's something about beating
against the waves.
There's some boat, you know,and the idea was that there is

(01:28:34):
meaning in fighting the waves.
You know, there's meaning inthe work and I think that's kind
of the perspective we have totake in the course of failing
and learning.
When there's despair, is thatthere is meaning to be found not

(01:28:55):
just in the success at the endand the bright, shiny I won the
Oscar kind of thing but in thework that you put in to get
there.
You know, like you were sayingit's funny.
You said like you lost your joband it wasn't because you
weren't good enough.
What about when you lose yourjob and it is because you're not
good enough?
Do you know what I mean?

Bill (01:29:13):
That is more devastating in a lot of ways right.

Joanne (01:29:17):
You're just like I was not good enough, and that really
sucks.

Bill (01:29:20):
I remember my first job at Toys R Us.
You bastards that, like I, wasa seasonal hire through the
Christmas season and they saidyou know some of you, you know
depending on your performance orwhatever we may decide to keep
you on, you know full timeafterwards and when the season

(01:29:40):
was done.
I was the only one out ofeverybody.
Everyone else got a job exceptfor me, and it was only me who
had to do the walk of shame onthe day that the seasonal hires
finished.
I still carry that with me tothis day.
I was not good enough for ToysR Us.

Joanne (01:29:59):
I mean, yeah, you just weren't a good fit, apparently.

Bill (01:30:03):
No, but that's the thing I had a plan for me.
Yeah, that's right.

Joanne (01:30:09):
Yeah, but that's the thing is that there are times in
our lives where we try ourhardest.
It's just not good enough,right?

Bill (01:30:14):
Yeah.

Joanne (01:30:15):
There's something redemptive in that trying, you
know.
There's something redemptive inlearning and growing and
figuring out where we do fit.
Learning and growing andfiguring out where we do fit
Because sometimes, like beingfired from a job you hate is a
great gift in the end, eventhough it's scary at the time,
because you're given anopportunity to think again what

(01:30:39):
about that job was okay, andwhat did I really hate?
And what will I not sell mysoul for ever again?
I always think not necessarilythat it's resurrection in all
the time, like we can't alwayslook for oh yes, the sun shining
.
I think that's the problem.
We move too much to the rosypicture, and there's nothing

(01:31:00):
wrong with being a bright-sidedperson.
But figuring out how the livingof life and the failures that
we have and the successes wehave, the love that we find, the
questions that we ask, allthose things go together to
provide meaning for ourexistence and we create a

(01:31:21):
narrative of our life based onall those things right.
And some people createnarratives where all they see is
the failure right.
So they come to the end oftheir life.
My kids don't talk to meanymore.
I never made enough money.
I'm dying in debt, you know,like every bad thing that ever
happened to them compounds andthey create this narrative I'm a

(01:31:42):
failure.
But hidden amongst all thosethings, I'm sure, are moments of
love.
I found joy here.
I did this job well.
So what are you going to focusyour attention on when you
create the narrative of yourlife?
Are you going to focus on allthe things you did wrong, all
the bad things that happened toyou, all the failures?

(01:32:05):
And you should not erase themby any means, by any means.
But again, the brain believeswhat it repeats and if you
repeat throughout your life I'ma failure, I'm a failure.
Look at all these times Ifailed.
You will get to the end of thelife and say I'm a failure.
But there is always thosemoments in between that could

(01:32:26):
create a different narrative.
And our meaning in our life isfound by extracting the things
that create a narrative of love,of companionship, of God with
us, and I guess, as a minister,that's what I try to convey to
the people in my congregationGod with us.

Bill (01:32:48):
Well, and that might actually be the messaging that I
would hope would also be at thecore of the gathering of GC45,.
Right, you can look at the longarc of the United Church of
Canada and everything from 1925forward and say, like we've got
these moments where we wereblazing the new trail and things

(01:33:09):
were great, affirming uh,ministry, um, because some
people see it as this, thisgreat cause of justice, and and,
uh, and, and, like, true, youknow, expanding the table, um,

(01:33:31):
or expanding the seats of thetable.
Others can't get past the personwho sat beside them faithfully
for five decades, who suddenlystopped showing up, and the loss
of that relationship or theloss of that sort of sense of
the glory days or whatever,right, and so there still really

(01:33:51):
becomes like.
You can choose the lens throughwhich you view the hundred years
of life of the United Church ofCanada, right, but how you
choose to do that is going todictate what you're telling
yourself as you're sitting, as acommissioner, at one of these
tables, you know, at the DallasConvention Center this coming

(01:34:12):
week, and you can choose to lookfor the grace or you can choose
to look for the failure, or tojust ignore or wash away the
things that we clearly need towork on or learn from, or let go

(01:34:34):
of, or make some decisionsabout, but to recognize that
again, as I said at the verybeginning, neither a perfect
success story nor a complete andtotal abysmal failure is the
United Church right, but achurch that has lived and I say
lived in like capital letters,lived the human experience of

(01:34:56):
trying to make the world abetter place and bring new life
and hope and light, if I daresay, to every corner of
certainly Canada.
But the world at large, I meanour global partnerships as well,
are pretty substantial.
So I am aware of time and Iwant to be sensitive to that

(01:35:18):
because I know that at leastsome of us are not skipping
general counsel tomorrow.
And that is not me, but wealways do like last thoughts
here on the podcast and I'mgoing to start with Sarah on
this one, Because we've talkedabout all of the heartbreaks and
the failures and the you knowdidn't quite go as plans and all
that kind of stuff.
But again, what do I love aboutSarah Charters and the United

(01:35:40):
Church Foundation in general?
They still show up, they'restill here, they're still doing
the work, they're still tryingto push the envelope and find
new ways not only to invest inbringing about real meaningful
change in the world and UnitedChurch presence in the world,
but to do it in ways that alsodo it ethically and sustainably

(01:36:04):
and finding new ways to quantifyimpact.
Um, so, uh, I'm going to askfor our closing.
Um, where have you caught aglimpse of hope?
Um, not failure, not because,but also not because things got
fixed or because of sometriumphalist, you know success
story, but, um, becausesomething, something showed up
anyway.

Sarah (01:36:26):
Yeah, I believe it was our former moderator, the
Reverend Jordan Cantwell, inNewfoundland, and she was
speaking and she said hope anddespair are not mutually
exclusive.
We can hold them both together.

(01:36:51):
And, to what you were sayingearlier, we really need to hold
those two things together,particularly as we think about
the future.
And so where I'm seeing hope,there's a lot of places, frankly
, across the church there are alot of places.
But last year, in 2024, theFoundations Board decided to set

(01:37:14):
aside $100,000 in grantsspecifically to help
congregations and communities offaith celebrate the centennial,
and we thought that'll bemaximum $5,000, so there'll be
at least 20 grants there.
That would be great, and wewere kind of wondering what was

(01:37:36):
going to happen, because therewas a lot of stirring around the
church.
Should we be celebrating?
Should we be commemorating?
Can we be joyful in this moment, given some of the history of
the church?
And the board increased theamount for those grants twice,
and so we had up to almost$200,000 that we could have

(01:37:59):
awarded and in the end, I thinkit was I should know the number,
it was, I should know thenumber, but I think it was like
somewhere around 150,000 to over60 different organizations, I
want to say and so like to me,the fact that there's that many

(01:38:20):
congregations out there tryingstuff and a lot of these are
working with other congregationsit wasn't just one, it was many
getting together to do thingsLike I think that is a real sign
of hope.
It means we can do it, and Ithink that's what we really need
in the next decade definitelyyeah.

Bill (01:38:43):
Yeah, joanne, how about you?
Sign of hope.

Joanne (01:39:00):
Well, I, you know, every time I have a conversation with
somebody who's found the UnitedChurch, has felt left out and
marginalized in another place offaith and we're not perfect by
any means and feels like theycan have a place.
That's hope.
I'm a big place at the table.

(01:39:22):
Everyone has a place at thetable and when we live that out,
that's faithfulness and hope ina capsule to me.
On Sunday I was at theMcDougall site and there were a
couple of younger people andmost United.

(01:39:43):
Churches it's hard to findyounger people.
And one of them said yeah, I'mreally trying to get more young
adults here.
I really want to get more youngadults here.
I just find it so joyful here.
And she'd brought a friend whosaid the same thing and I'm like
, oh, here's these people intheir 20s surrounded by people

(01:40:03):
in their 80s and they live thejoy and that is hopeful to me.
You know, that is when we hangon to our faith.
Like I would say about theUnited Church, it's been
faithful, because success,faithfulness is not measured by
the kinds of successes did itsucceed or not?

(01:40:25):
It's like, were we faithful?
And if I can come to the end ofmy life and go as much as I can
be, I have been faithful.
That is a win to me.

Ricardo (01:40:38):
Ricardo, the next Onward Christian March.
Hey, I think it boils down tothe individual changes we can
make with people, one-to-one,while still harnessing the power
or the scope of size that thechurch holds, or even the union

(01:41:00):
or whatever group.
I think connecting with ourgrassroots even more over the
next little while is important.
Somebody was telling me theother day that I don't know
where I heard it, but they saidduring the time of World War II,
when the Nazi movement wasgreat and huge and seemingly
unstoppable and Jewish peoplewere disappearing like crazy,

(01:41:21):
everybody knew this washappening.
And so many years later, later,the people that are remembered
are the individuals who helpjewish people hide and escape
persecution and death.
So I think that while the worldis the way it is right now and
people are dying on mass dailyand and growing, nationalism and
right-wing crazy movements growand hurt people and hurt

(01:41:44):
communities, when churches andindividuals help each other,
it's like a spider web, thatnetwork grows that way and
that's the impact that we have.
And while, as I said earlier,and while we may not reverse the
course of this movement in thisforeseeable future I mean I
think we have three and a halfmore years with him right, this
foreseeable future I mean, Ithink we have three more, three

(01:42:05):
and a half more years with himright, it'll be the stories of
people that were helped thatwill start creating a movement
of change.
And I think getting back to ourgrassroots again is what's
going to have to happen, becausecouple that with the way the
world is now right, paper boyson the corner don't exist
anymore because they're 24 hoursbehind on a on an hourly news

(01:42:28):
changing world that we live innow.
Right.
So meet people where they areand and create change on a on a
grassroots level is, I think,where it's going to happen.
Right, the church doesn't haveto be a building, but it can
definitely be a movement.
Right and I think I think whatmoved me towards the United

(01:42:49):
Church was the ideology and theprinciples that it carried.
Otherwise I was ready to leaveorganized faith altogether.
But the more I joined thechurch I realized it's less
organized and more faith and Icome from the Catholic church
which is pretty top down.

Joanne (01:43:03):
They have more franchises than Tim Hortons.
They have more franchises thanTim Hortons.
They have more franchises,definitely, exactly.

Bill (01:43:07):
But they also have a Monopoly on Sunday morning.

Joanne (01:43:10):
Yeah, oh no, they have a Saturday night mass and a mass
every morning at 8.30.
You can always find your way tomass, and that's a good thing.
I'm not, please.

Bill (01:43:20):
Don't send in the hate mail.

Ricardo (01:43:22):
That's right.
So I think, building roots, andif people have left the notion
of Sunday service, then let'smeet them on Tuesday afternoon,
and I think our church.
The United Church of Canada, isthe church that will understand
that need more than anythingright now.

Joanne (01:43:41):
Here's hoping, here's hoping yeah here's hoping,
here's hoping.

Bill (01:43:47):
Yeah, for me.
I've always kind of held to theidea that in the gospel, in
what it is that we are called todo and be as God's mission of
love in the world, there isgreat joy but there is also
great challenge, and that we arekind of called to both.
And so anytime that I can havea conversation that embraces
both the joy but also the greatchallenge, there's great hope

(01:44:11):
for me in that Because, as wetalked about even in this
podcast, we recognize that insome cases the rules are played
differently in the world that wecurrently live in and in some
cases they're broken, brokenaltogether and not even held to.
But you know, in encounteringthat kind of directional

(01:44:35):
trajectory towards like breakevery rule and build the world
in your own image, we respondwith everyone's got a place at
the table.
We respond with everyone's gota place at the table and and
that there is something very,very counter-cultural to that.
But in all honesty, for me it'salmost like the most violent

(01:44:57):
thing you can do in the face ofthe messaging against it is to
hold that up as, like the themore, the more you try to
separate people and put peoplein their place and tell them
they don't belong.
We are just going to push thatcircle ever, ever wider, right?
Um?
So, as a guy who really loves animage of love that is not the

(01:45:20):
touchy-feely but like the gritty, you know, like stand stand up
and fight kind of approach to it, that challenge that like, are
we prepared in the next hundredyears of the United Church of
Canada, to really embrace thechallenge of making sure that
every person actually has aplace at the table and recognize
that eventually the flowerinessof that is going to wear off

(01:45:45):
and the real challenge and thereal work is going to begin?
That, for me, is where I findthe most hope that we are
actually talking now aboutexpanding that circle and doing
it intentionally and doing itdenominationally, and doing it
not just for ourselves but forothers as well.
So that, for me, is where Ifind the most hope that we might

(01:46:08):
actually start to, as Joannesaid, work toward a world
renewed and far more in theimage of what God intended for
God's creation, rather than inour own image and our own echo
chamber.
So thank you to everyone who'sbeen here tonight, but thank you
especially to Sarah, becauseSarah got off a plane and drove

(01:46:29):
basically straight here, and onthe eve before a really long
week of general counsel.
So all I want to say is that ifyou are listening right now and
carrying something that hasn'thealed in you or hasn't resolved
in you or hasn't made sense inyou, you don't need to try to
explain it away and you don'tneed to tie it up with neat

(01:46:50):
theological statements about Godhaving a larger plan for you,
because that is not how Godworks.
God is with you and you are notalone.
Hope isn't always about answers.
Sometimes it's just abouthaving the courage to look more
deeply for the moments of joy inthe midst of it all, because we
all have moments in our livesand in our work and in our faith

(01:47:10):
when we realize that we aregoing to need a bigger boat to
weather the challenge that'sahead of us or to deal with the
failures that we cannot controland the elements that we cannot
control.
So we start where we are and westay in the water and we reach
for one another, because we arebetter together and always have
been so with that, thank you,Sarah.

Sarah (01:47:32):
Thank you.

Bill (01:47:33):
For everything and for being here tonight and take care
of yourselves, but also maybetake care of the people around
you as well, because the worldsorely needs it.
And with that we are out untilnext month.
All right, friends, what we'veshared tonight isn't just a
theory.
It's about lived faith in realtime.
It's the risks that we take,knowing that they might not work

(01:47:54):
, the heartbreak of watchingsomething you love falter, and
the quiet resolve to try againanyway.
We all have moments when werealize we're going to need a
bigger boat.
What matters is that we don'tface those moments alone, that
we keep showing up for eachother, even when success isn't
promised.
If this conversation stirredsomething in you, subscribe
wherever you get your podcastsor join us on Patreon.

(01:48:18):
You can find past episodes andblog reflections and more at
preparedtodrowncom.
Prepared to Drown is supportedin part by a generous grant from
the James Robertson MemorialTrust Fund at the United Church
of Canada Foundation and isrecorded live at MacDougall
United Church in Calgary,alberta.
Until next time, stay curious,stay kind and remember grace
holds even when the waves rise.

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Episode 11 - A Bigger Boat: Risk, Faith, and Failing Forward

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode 11 - A Bigger Boat: Risk, Faith, and Failing Forward