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Nature
By Michael Wilson Pastoral Letters September 18, 2026

Watch this week’s service on YouTube by clicking:

September 20 Worship Service Video

 

Join us for Sunday morning worship at CUC at 10:00 AM
with the He/SheBrews Café following in the Van Roon Community Hall

 

 

  • A search for a new Children’s Ministry Leader is underway. The posting can be found on our website:  Children’s Ministry Leader Position  Unfortunately during this time we are unable to provide a church school program. Games and crafts are available for children at the back of the sanctuary and in the nursery. We are sorry for the inconvenience. Children are always welcome at Charleswood United Church.

 

  • The ABC’s of Christian Faith is a six-week course of the foundations of our faith for people interested in confirmation, adult baptism, or simply as a refresher. It will include sessions on Bible, theology, prayer, history, ministry, and mission. The ABC’s will be held every other week beginning this Wednesday, September 23 at 7:00 at the church. Please register by contacting the church office (204-832-3667 or office@charleswoodunited.org )

 

  • The Charleswood United Church – Shaarey Zedek Synagogue Exchange and Dialogue – Thank you to everyone who has responded to this invitation. We are delighted that our delegation of 25 people is full. If there are openings later, we will announce it in church and by email.

 

 

 

 

Dear Friends

Welcome to worship for Sunday, September 20, 2026.

 

This week I read about the peculiar and unexpected way Season of Creation began. In 1989 Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios I of the Eastern Orthodox Church proclaimed September 1 as a special day of prayer for the environment. A single day in one particular Christian tradition. I don’t suppose in 1989 anyone was using the phrase “going viral” but the idea did catch on.

 

By 2007 the Third European Ecumenical Assembly proposed expanding the single day into a multi-week celebration and a short time later the World Council of Churches adopted the idea of a five-week Season of Creation which would end on October 4. This date was chosen because it was the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of ecology in the Roman Catholic tradition. In 2015 Pope Francis officially established the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation for the Roman Catholic Church on September 1, aligning with the Orthodox date. Soon after the Vatican joined the month-long observance.

 

In Canada, and in the United Church in particular, Season of Creation was slow to catch on. Which doesn’t mean that we were not engaged in the issue as early adapters. The best selling and influential book “A Place in Creation” by United Church national staff person on energy and environment, David Hallman was published in 1992. In it Hallman, using the language of the day of global warming, drew our attention to the imbalance of our life in creation and wrote with great hope that the challenges of that day could be overcome. Still we were not paying any special attention to lifting up this issue as a worship priority.

 

When Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth” was released in 2006, it was used as a means of reflecting on environmental issues in many corners of the church but we were not attentive to how worship could be integrated into these reflections. And we were not at the forefront of Season of Creation.

 

When Season of Creation did begin to catch on with Canadian churches, we did a most Canadian thing. Rather than end it on the feast day of a saint, we bent it to our own context and stretched the season to end on Thanksgiving, the Sunday before the second Monday of October. Given that harvest festivals, fall suppers, farmer’s markets, and autumn decorations were already the range in many parts of the church this made sense.

 

For the last ten years or so, we at Charleswood have lifted up the Season of Creation during the period between Labour Day and Thanksgiving. We sing the extensive and beautiful hymns of our tradition that explore the idea of God’s Spirit present in nature and the created order. Our prayers and lessons lean into our care for all that God has given.

 

This year our Mission and Social Action is providing an option to do something some of us may not have tried before. On Sunday, October 20 they will be handing our compostable bags so that we can re-direct food waste from landfills into compost depots (including the one near the church at Roblin Park Community Centre). The bag will be accompanied by an information card on how to use the bag and where it can be taken.

 

Wishing you blessings in the Season of Creation as we sing, All nature sings and round me rings, the music of the spheres.

 

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/   Thank you for your generous support.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Michael Wilson
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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