AFFIRMING PIE DAY 2019!!!
We celebrate and honour the full inclusion at Cole Harbour Woodside United Church of LGBTQ+ individuals, the aboriginal community, individuals of colour, and those individuals with mental or physical challenges.
Please join us Sunday 24 March after 10:30am worship service for tea, coffee, juice and a piece of pie.
Wonderful News!
At our Annual Congregational Meeting, the culmination of a year’s study, discernment, prayer and conversation resulted in a vote that saw 95.5% of our congregation vote in favour of becoming an Affirming Congregation! There were tears of joy and celebration that day! We would love to share that joy with you and invite you to share in the joy of our official recognition service on Sunday, April 7. 2019 at 7:00 p.m. at Cole Harbour Woodside United Church, 15 Bissett Road, Dartmouth.
Please help us spread the word but putting up this poster or by putting the information in your announcements.
We look forward to worshiping with you.
4 Hands & 1 Piano
Cole Harbour Woodside United Church
Postponed…stay tuned for new date to be announced!!
15 Bissett Road, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia
Don’t miss the amazing talents of Charles Myra & Greg Myra!!
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.
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
January 27th 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
Cole Harbour Woodside United Church 