Journeying Indigenous Pathways

Strategic Objective: Deepen Indigenization and healing in The United Church of Canada towards self-determination and the possibility of reconciliation.

Self Governing

A fully self-governing Indigenous Church within the United Church will be created and developed, implementing the Calls to the Church.

Accomplishments

In this period, the National Indigenous Elders Council has been meeting bimonthly to provide leadership to the Indigenous Church, recently reaching out to expand the number of participating Elders.  In addition, the regional Circles of the Indigenous church have been meeting monthly. Indigenous commissioners have been named for General Council 45, and preparations are under way for an Indigenous pre-event. 

Staff have supported the implementation of a significant property assessment process across the Indigenous church, which is coming to a conclusion.  Community Capacity Development Coordinators are working on a proposal as to how the Indigenous church might best benefit from the percentage commitments, related to sales of property, that are part of regional council policies. 

Finally, in this quarter the Healing Fund, entered into a very positive 2-year commitment with United Church Women to support Indigenous healing and justice.  

Challenges

For future decision about the Indigenous church to be informed by data, as one factor, there needs to an investment in greater data collection related to Indigenous congregations.  Community Development Capacity Coordinators are working on this, and this will permit an independent but connected process, linked to the data-informed vision and strategy of Toward 2035 anticipated by the denomination.  

Looking Forward

Work is underway with Philanthropy to support another Indigenous ministers’ retreat following on the positive experience of last year.   Town Halls are being planned for the Indigenous church to inform communities about Mission and Service grant application processes. 

** Note that Indigenous pathways is using another process other than key results methodology for their reporting. **

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