Options for our Future: Meeting November 6

Those who attended (or watched) the service last Sunday heard Dennis Brown enumerate what he sees as the four options facing us as a congregation following the sale of the church. Below you will find a ballot for your input on those options. If you are receiving this newsletter, we consider that you get to vote. There will be a meeting following the service on Sunday November 6th at which all votes received  will be tallied. Because time is so tight, if you are not able to attend the meeting, we ask that you call in or email your responses to the office at 514 768-6231, or southwestunited@gmail.com. There are four Yes/No questions. It is possible to say yes to more than one.

As a point of information, we are still looking into other spaces to rent in Verdun and Lasalle but have so far come up empty handed for our preferred time of 10:00 on Sunday. When we speak of renting from, or merging with, another church, the offer that we have is from Summerlea United in Lachine.

SouthWest United Church

Options after the sale

Basic impacts

Staff: 3 positions.   Congregation.                     Finances.

1.      Stay together as a worshiping community. Rent space for worship any location (store front, Boys and girls club etc.)

Pros – Retain staff, Worship time controlled by us, retain most of the funds

Cons – Both renting a full time space and renting just worship time would require much effort.

I vote:    YES        I vote     NO

2.      Stay together as a worshiping community. Rent space for worship at another church.

Pros – Retain staff and retain most of the funds. Mostly low effort on our part, other than transportation.

 

Cons – Worship time not controlled by us. The one time we have been offered is 11:30

I vote:    YES        I vote     NO

3.      Merge with an existing United church.

Pros – Retain some funding, worship time blended with hosting church. Little effort on our part.

 

Cons – Staff terminated. (Minister to end of contract, Office and music 6 months’ severance package) Pastoral charge is closed.

I vote:    YES        I vote     NO

4.      Close Pastoral Charge.

Pros - We all pick where and when to worship. Little or no effort.

(over)

Cons - Staff terminated. (Minister to end of contract, Office and music 6 months’ severance package) Pastoral charge is closed. Funds distributed by regional council.

I vote:    YES        I vote     NO

 

We will count the votes for each option and try to come to a consensus.

 

Halloween and All Saints Day Around the World

I have loved Halloween for as long as I can remember.  Even more that Christmas if you can believe that!

Halloween is celebrated and observed in various countries around the world on October 31st. While it has been heavily commercialized and popularly celebrated as a time to don costumes and collect candy, the origins of the holiday can be traced back to the British Celtic tradition known as Allhollowtide  or all hallows eve.  It was believed that the souls of the departed were most active from October 31st to November 2nd.

While it was also a time to remember friends and family that have passed, the Celtic tradition of Allhallowtide  also involved practices that were thought to protect themselves from souls that could harm them. Since then, the tradition has been incorporated into Christian tradition and the three-day holiday evolved to honor and remember saints as well as departed souls.

Halloween is just one of many traditions that honor the dead. Death is, of course, a reality of all living beings and human cultures around the world typically ponder on this cycle of life through special observances and traditions. The majority of these traditions focus on remembering lost friends and family members and honoring them for the impact they made in the lives of the living.

Dia de los Muertos,  or Day of the Dead, celebrated on November 1st, is a popular Mexican tradition that celebrates the souls of the dead. It is believed that remembering the departed in sadness would upset the souls of loved ones, so instead of mourning, the departed are celebrated with food, drink, music, and dancing; making for a uniquely exuberant celebration of life and death. The dead are celebrated and remembered with Oferendas, which are individual altars and offerings of food.

Araw ng mga Patay, also translated to Day of the Dead and held on November 1st, is a similar tradition in the Philippines in which Filipinos take time to remember passed family and friends by visiting their graves and praying for their souls. After cleaning the tomb of debris and weeds, celebrations are often held around the grave site of the departed. The dead are included in the celebrations with food offerings and prayers. Many people spend entire days and nights near the burial place of their departed loved-ones until the celebrations are over.

Mahalaya Amavasya (Pitru Paksha), is a tradition in India that also celebrates the dead. The belief is held that the people of the present owe a great deal to people of the past for providing them with the knowledge and tools to continue the cycle of life. The living honor the departed with offerings of food as a way to thank them for their contributions and continue to celebrate through community festivals.

Chuseok or the Harvest Moon Festival, is a traditional holiday celebrated in South Korea on 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar. Though the holiday mainly focuses on the season of good harvest, traditional practices include traveling back to ancestral hometowns and honoring family ancestors. In preparation for the celebrations, the graves of the departed are cleaned and decorated. A special breakfast and memorial service is also held to commemorate the dead and thank family ancestors for their guidance.

Indigenous peoples and cultures all over the world honor their dead ancestors in one way or another. In fact, many indigenous cultures invoke their ancestors daily through ritual. This is because without our ancestors, none of us would exist at all! Our ancestors also hold great wisdom; they each lived and learned before us, and we can call upon our ancestors to guide us with that wisdom.

These types of celebrations are an important part of various - if not all - cultures, as it reminds us of our human connection to the natural cycle of life and death. In our daily life, it is easy to forget and even harder to accept that death is a natural part of life; scientific advances and efforts to contrast natural processes instill in us a fear of death.

This week, take time to remember the friends and family who have died. Think about how much they have contributed to your life and remind yourself of their role in your life and the community. Celebrate our ancestors who have paved the way for us to be present where we are today, and honor them by being a positive force in your communities.

This week we will honour our ancestors.

In peace

Pastor Beryl

From a saved clipping written by S.L.D. Alea Oct. 29, 2014

 

Different Stages

As you know, the stage in the church hall is currently being used as our office space. But it has had many incarnations over the years. For years, the offering was counted there every Sunday morning, as the people in this photograph are doing. Can anyone identify them?
Also, does anyone know what happened to the portraits of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip that hung there for decades?

Here’s another view of the stage in the church hall from years past. This was a choir party in the 1980s, attended by, if I’m not mistaken: the Smiths, the Bowkers, the Lowsons, the Gillebrands and … well I can’t name them all. Can you?

Anniversary Service November 13

We haven’t done anything like this for a while, but 2022 is a special year. It is the last year we will be in our church but it is also a significant year in the life of our current building. The cornerstone of the then Crawford Park United Church was laid in 1947, exactly 75 years ago. We will be marking that anniversary on Sunday November 13th during the service. Anyone with a story or memory to share about this church or community will be invited to get up and tell it during the reflection time.

Moving Sale: Saturdays in November

In the next few weeks, we need to clear a lot of stuff out of the building in preparation for handing it over to the new owners.

The plan is to put items out on tables and offer them for sale over the four Saturdays in November, from 9am to noon.

Over the next couple of weeks, Dorothy Brown and other volunteers will pitch in to pull things out of cupboards and sort through what we have.

For the eventual sale, rather than put price tags on everything, it will be a “fill a bag for $5” format.

Spread the word and get those five-dollar-bills ready. It could change, but right now the plan is to have the sale on November 5th, 12th, 19th and 26th from 9:00 to 12:00.

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