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By Michael Wilson Pastoral Letters January 24, 2025

Watch this week’s service on YouTube by clicking:

January 26 Worship Service Video

 

Join us for Worship Sunday at 10:00 AM followed by fellowship and refreshments in the He/SheBrews Café

 

  • LET’S TALK 2025 – MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS – Dementia Care -Last year we held our first mental health awareness evening to coincide with the Bell Let’s Talk Initiative. We are returning this year with a new topic and a guest resource person. On Tuesday, January 28  at 7:00 PM we will welcome Jennifer Licardo, Education Manager of the Alzheimer’s Society of Manitoba. Jennifer’s presentation is going to be on the topic We all have a reason to care.

 

  • Volunteer Opportunities – In advance of our Annual Meeting on March 9 we are looking for people to take the place of Council and Committee members whose terms are expiring. We hope to fill the following vacancies: Secretary of Council, Worship and Education (2 vacancies), Ministry and Personnel (1 vacancy), Gifts and Resources (1 vacancy). For information on the work of these committees please visit our website (Church Committees) or contact Michael Wilson.

 

  • Happy Birthday and many blessings to Rich Milne who is celebrating his 93rd birthday on January 25

 

 

Dear Friends

Welcome to worship for Sunday, January 26, 2025.

Last Monday was a significant day in the life of our only contiguous neighbour. It was a day of ceremony, of reflection, of contemplation. it was a day that fills some people with hope while others with despair. It was a day is clearly not Canadian in any respect but nonetheless has an influence on the direction of Canadian social life. Last Monday, was Martin Luther King Jr. Day. What else?

In 1967 Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered the seventh the Massey Lectures for broadcast on CBC Radio. The title of his series was “Conscience for Change” appealing as he often did to the idea that we know what is good and right (conscience not consciousness) but we are confronted by powers who make us afraid to bring about the changes that our conscience dictates. The lectures tend to focus on the matters that were most important to Dr. King in 1967, civil rights, violence and the Vietnam War, and poverty.

The fifth and final lecture was a sermon broadcast from his home church, Ebenezer Baptist in Atlanta, Georgia. In it Dr. King addressed the theme of peace and unity. I want to share three quotes from that sermon which provide glimpses of hope for humanity and compassion in a moment when such light feels faint.

Now let me suggest first that if we are to have peace on earth, our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation; and this means we must develop a world perspective. There was every reason for Dr. King to be a local thinker because, after all, his actions were very local. He acted for particular people in particular places with particular goals. But he thought globally. He believed the rights for which he struggled were the same rights that should be afforded to every person in every country. And he invited others to think likewise.

It really boils down to this: that all life is inter-related. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Dr. King believed in the beloved community. The language used in the 1960’s is not the same as today but it is hard to imagine that were he alive today he would be concerned for all of life in the environments human beings share. The single garment of destiny is worn by all living beings.

Every man or woman is somebody because he or she is a child of God. While a venerated public figure (MLK Day is a civic holiday and not a religious one) I can’t help think that one aspect of Dr. King’s life that is under appreciated with the passing of time is that he was an unfailing Christian and a prophetic theologian. He constantly appealed to our understanding of the transcendent as motivation for social, civil, and economic change. He saw humanity through the eyes of faith and this sustained him and gave him hope when other indicators were less encouraging.

 

A little lesson on grace…with a Canadian twist.

 

Grace and peace,

Michael

 

 

  • For news and events please have a look at Life & Work on our website: Life and Work

 

  • Did you know you can support this ministry by e-transfer, automatic withdrawal (PAR), and gifted securities, in addition to weekly or monthly cheques? For Offering Information please visit: https://charleswoodunited.org/support/  We have begun to receive donations for this summer’s Roofing Project which will be held separate from Operations and Mission & Service. Thank you for your generous support.

 

 

  • Read this week’s scripture lesson here: John 2:1-11

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Michael Wilson / About Author
Michael’s involvement in the wider church has included ministry with children and youth, membership on the National Division of World Outreach, supervision of campus ministry, and the Ten Days for Global Justice National Committee. He has been blessed by the opportunity to represent the United Church of Canada in the Bahamas, Cuba, and Africa on different occasions. Michael has taught at the University of Winnipeg – Faculty of Theology and is past President of the Conference of Manitoba and North Western Ontario.
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