Response to the commitment forms has been wonderful, Thank You Everyone!!  We are still accepting past the original date for anyone who would like to respond and may not have had the chance as yet.

Focus On Our Future Mission – Commitment Form

As a community of faith, Cole Harbour Woodside United Church reaches out to our congregation and the wider community through the many ministries in which we participate. Your contributions help to fund such things as Sunday School and Youth Programming, pastoral care through Pastoral Care Team, Prison Ministry, Worship at local long-term care facilities and funeral ministries, as well as many other ministries as part of our mission of ‘Offering the Care and Comfort of Christ’. Your offering supports the work of our Unified Board and Committees to maintain our building and support our staff. In recent years, together we dreamed of adding a half-time Associate Minister to our ministry team.

To fulfill these dreams, you have given generously of your time, your talent and your treasure, and we thank you. To enable us to continue the amazing ministries we have, requires a financial commitment from all of us.

By using this Commitment Form (link below to printable document), you are letting us know we can depend on your ongoing support so that we can budget for 2019 Mission and Ministry expenses. We are asking you to increase your offering to Local Expenses in 2019 and in following years.

Commitment Form

Feel free to contact the office by phone 902-434-7714 or email chwuc@eastlink.ca if you have questions for need any assistance.  Thank you!!

This year, Cole Harbour Woodside United Church is hosting World Day of Prayer service 01 March at 7:00pm.

At the core of the theme for WDP 2019, an invitation – Come. And to enable the response – Everything is ready. Come to praise, thank, and proclaim the kingdom of love.

The invitation is grounded in the parable that Jesus told about a great dinner which was attended by the ones called off the streets, as the ones invited excused themselves. The community formed around the table is not enough to fill the house – there is still room. Who are missing from the table in your community?

The artist, Rezka Arnuš, wanted to present two topics with her artwork pictured on the right. The country of Slovenia and the main biblical story of the worship service. At the top there are women dressed in national traditional costumes. The semicircular ornament with Slovenian folk embroidery represents a plate or a table with their best known national dish – potica – and grapes from various wine producing vineyards. Partly under the table, one can see the children from the margins of the society. They heard the invitation to the feast. The red and white colors used reflect Slovenian folk embroidery.

The green background color emphasizes the green Slovenia, fields and forests. The warm colors of children express the joy of heartfelt invitation.
For more information on the World Day of Prayer, visit https://worlddayofprayer.net/slovenia-2019.html

The Blog post from February 4th was missed as my computer needed a trip to the MacBook spa after I put it to work on my study leave last week! Please forgive the missed post. Thank you, ~k

January 27^th the congregation of Cole Harbour Woodside United Church voted 95.5% in favour of becoming an Affirming Church. This means that we now declare ourselves to be fully inclusive of people of all sexual orientations and gender identities. We have made a commitment to back up our words with action. So, what does this really mean? And, why does it matter?

According to the Affirm United/ S’affirmer Ensemble(AU/SE) website “all gender identities and sexualities are a gift from God and <…> churches should be a safe and fully welcoming space for LGBTQ+ and Two-Spirit people to worship.” A group of volunteers representing this congregation worked tirelessly this past year through what is known as the affirming process. By doing so, they were able to present a motion to our congregation requesting that we become an Affirming Church. By exclaiming “Yes!” with its overwhelmingly positive vote, this congregation has committed to being held publicly accountable to Practice What We Preach!

This process took time, dedication, and hard work. The requirements of the process are too many to mention in this short post, but please review them here: Affirming Ministry Requirements. You will notice that the last step listed under the requirements (but, certainly not the last step in an ongoing Affirming Ministry) is to publicly celebrate this ministry.  You are ALL invited to attend this celebration on Sunday evening, April 7 at 7 pm!

This post is offered in the Care and Comfort of Christ, 

~kim curlett

Minister of Spiritual & Pastoral Care

Jesus said, “…I was in prison and you visited me… Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” (Excerpts from the gospel of Matthew chapter 25, verses 36 and 40)

At Cole Harbour Woodside United Church (CHWUC) we are committed to following the teachings of Jesus Christ and each week this blog will share some of the ways that we are putting our faith into action in our community and in the world. We believe that church should not just be a place where we come on Sunday morning for an hour (or so) and then ignore everything we hear and learn until we are here again the following week. Many of us desire to come to worship each week to realign ourselves with God’s will for our lives. This is hard work in a world that works to pull us away from God’s message of abundance and love and wants to steer us in the way of scarcity and fear. To learn what God’s message might be we turn to scripture.

The Bible tell the stories of our faith and for the stories about the birth, life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ whom, as Christians, we claim to follow, we turn to what we call the New Testament. One of the ways that we follow and honour Jesus as the true head of the Church is by practicing what we preach. In the Gospel of Matthew we read that Jesus said, “…I was in prison and you visited me…Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” To be in right relationship with God is to be in right relationship with all people.

At CHWUC we have an active Prison Ministry Team that works in partnership with other Christian churches in our area to lead a worship service at the The Central Nova Scotia Correctional Facility in Burnside Industrial Park in Dartmouth on a rotational schedule. Each team leads a Monday evening service in a 6-week rotation with the support of the onsite Prison Chaplain in the chapel. Joanne Chapman recently adopted the role as chair of the CHWUC team. Joanne shared with me that the worship service that she and the team create and lead is always something she looks forward to. This service is attended by an average of 7 men (at this time the women in the prison do not have access to this service). As one would expect, the worship time includes prayers and a reflection on a theme, but one of the biggest surprises for Joanne is how much they sing! “We sing A LOT,” she says, “like 9 hymns in the hour, they really like to sing!” She says the men have their favourites and come with their requests, which the team feels blessed to honour. Singing lifts the spirits and even when there is only one person brought to worship, the prison ministry team is there to support them. Being in community together is moving for everyone there.

As Joanne and I spoke, I was reminded of the hymn that says, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there.” When the team visits and leads worship in that space, the men that attend may be reminded that God is still with them even in their darkest hours and that is what Jesus’ example calls us to do – to bring the light of God with us wherever we go, and to bring it with intention to lift and inspire people when they are feeling low. To be a member of the Prison Ministry Team is a commitment that requires vigorous background checks and training. Jails are not safe spaces and it is a risk for everyone who enters them – visitors and prisoners alike. Those who choose to dedicate themselves to this team are truly practicing what they preach and are working as the hands and feet of Christ in the world.

(Posted by Kim Curlett – Minister of Spiritual and Pastoral Care)