Emerging Spirit @ The United Church of Canada Emerging Spirit @ The United Church of Canada

Leadership is the most critical, strategic dimension of the future of The United Church of Canada. Fair or not, theologically precise or not, it remains true.

One of the comments we hear most frequently from leaders is that they feel ill-equipped to deal with the challenges and opportunities before us.

Some blame their training; some blame the church; some blame themselves; some check all of the above.

The truth is though that even if we were able to provide a means for leaders to go online and download the latest leadership skills and thinking we would still be more than a step away from utopia and conflict free congregations.

These are uncertain times. Various images are used in their description.

As we travel across the country offering the Living the Hope events we hear stories. Some provide kindling for hope; others fall into the category of "Things that can't be that bad, but are."

A woman in her late thirties came for a job interview. The interview was held in the Christian Education building of a United Church. As it happened, the congregation was the one in which she had been raised but no longer attended.

As she passed time waiting for the interview she toured. Later she commented that everything was the same as when she was 10 years old, including the paint colour and the posters on the walls.

We live in a visual age. Sight, sound and sensation are more important than linear written text. For those between the ages of 30 and 45, meaning arises through experience and encounter. As we have heard thousands of times, people seek an experience of God, not information about God.

Will mainline denominations such as The United Church of Canada survive? 

The question becomes increasingly urgent. We are long past the critic's quip of the mainline now being sidelined. More is at stake than pride of place.

The question gains energy not simply because of financial and membership numbers. The real crisis grows from a sense among membership that the mainline version of the church has lost or is losing its way.

Within The United Church of Canada, periodic laments that the church lacks vision, does not know what it stands for or is unable to mobilize members around a mission testifies to this anxiety.

Ironically, this spiritual astigmatism occurs at a time when many of the peculiar gifts of churches, like The United Church of Canada, are needed more than ever.