Some
Social Concerns of the Church
in
Canada
|
Many social initiatives of the church within Canada are described
on the web-sites of the United Church
of
Canada, BC Conference, and Vancouver-Burrard
Presbytery. The efforts of our own church include donations
of
food and clothing to the needy served by the Mission and Service Fund
of the United Church of Canada, First
United Church on the East side of downtown Vancouver, and our own
church in Squamish, as well as providing facilities for the local
foodbank, soup kitchen and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.
The women our church also participate
in the "prayer shawl"
ministry, and have already visited and donated over twenty beautiful
shawls to grieving members of our community. Each week, a portion
of the morning
service is taken to detail service initiatives of the United Church.
February 8th, 2005
Local churches
stage 40-day protest
A coalition of Lower Mainland
Christian churches - including the Anglican, Lutheran, Roman Catholic
and United Churches - will hold a 40-day vigil to call attention to the
widespread suffering caused by government cuts to the social safety
net.
"The Christian faith calls us to stand
with the poor and vulnerable" says Pastor Brian Heinrich of the
Lutheran Urban Mission Society. "Our experience is that so many people
have been affected by the financial and political agenda of
governments. The churches have to speak out."
Sister Victoria Marie of the Vancouver
Catholic Worker movement explains "The number of homeless people in
Vancouver has doubled, far too many people cannot access welfare,
low-wage working parents have to go to food banks to feed their
families, seniors and the disabled cannot get home care, education
programs for special needs children have been cut - the list of people
affected is huge. We must bear witness to this suffering and call our
public officials to account."
The idea for the vigil originated from
the church members' frustration with the deaf ear they encountered
whenever they attempted to bring the many problems they saw to the
attention of government officials. "Effectively, we were silenced,"
says Rev. Brian Burke of St. John's United Church. "We were told there
was no real problem, that one particular individual might have a
problem, but that overall, things were just fine. The people suffering
were also silenced by this dismissive approach."
The 40-day "Vigil for the Silenced" will take place on Robson Street
behind the Vancouver Art Gallery. It will happen every day (except
Sunday) from noon to 1 p.m. throughout the season of Lent, starting on
Ash Wednesday, February 9th and ending on Good Friday, March 25th . For
more details, please contact Pastor Brian Heinrich 604-682-2363; Rev.
Brian Burke 604-685-9726; Sister Victoria Marie 604-255-1555 ; or Susan
Henry, First United Church 604-681-8365.
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