Annual Report 2020

COVID-19 Memorial Tree ANNUAL REPORT 2020 March 21, 2021 March 6, 2021 2020 Glebe-St. James United Church Annual Report TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 Who are we? Glebe-St. James United Church Mission and Vision Statement 2 Glebe-St. James and the Spirit of Reconciliation 3 An Affirming Congregation 5 Living Ministry profile 6 A Sustaining and Sustainable Glebe-St. James 11 Glebe-St. James and the COVID-19 pandemic 12 Looking to the future 13 HALO report 14 Church Roll / In Memoriam 15 What are we doing? Our staff From the Minister’s desk 16 Minster’s Benevolent Fund 17 Our staff 17 Our ministries – Glebe-St. James as a community Christian Development Ministry 18 Men and Friends’ Group 19 Ministry of Pastoral Care and Visitation 19 Friendly Callers 20 Prayer Circle 21 Quilting and St. Mary’s Home 21 Welcoming and staying in touch 23 Communications 24 Our website 25 Women’s Intergenerational Group 27 Worship Ministry Worship Committee 28 On-line Worship 31 The Labyrinth 32 Music – ministries serving Glebe-St. James and the wider community Ministry of Music 34 Music Committee and Program 36 Organ renewal 37 Glebe St. James United Church - 2020 Annual Report Page 1 Our ministries – Glebe-St. James in the wider community Christian Outreach Ministry 38 Mission and Service Fund 39 Central Ottawa Outreach Cluster 40 Christian Outreach in our Community in 2020 40 OMRA Refugee Housing Program 43 Refugee support FACES 44 Eritrean refugees 45 Our community partners 45 Glebe Montessori School 46 Glebe Neighbourhood Activities Group 48 Stewardship of Glebe-St. James Annual Planning Meeting, January 2020 48 2020 Annual Congregational Meeting – postponed! 49 2019 Financial Review report 50 Approved 2020 Budget 53 Report from Council 54 Glebe-St. James volunteers 55 Building congregational partnerships – discussions with St. Paul’s-Eastern United Church 60 Glebe-St. James governance – organizing for the future 60 Eastern Ontario and Outaouais Regional Council (Region 12) 61 Accessibility and Glebe-St. James 62 Board of Trustees 62 Building and Property 63 Property Guild 64 Greening our building 65 Report of the Safety Coordinator 65 Cleaning services at Glebe-St. James 66 Finance and Administration Committee 67 F&A – 2020 67 Fundraising 68 Home Services Guild 69 Doug Davidson Building Fund 70 Ministry and Personnel Committee 70 Treasurer’s Report 72 Annex HALO final report https://www.glebestjames.ca/governance-and-stewardship#GuidingDocuments Glebe St. James United Church - 2020 Annual Report Page 2 Introduction An annual report is an opportunity to remember and to celebrate what we in Glebe- St. James have done in the past year as a faith community. As will be clear from this report, 2020 was a year unlike any other, shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic and our response to it. This is reflected in the COVID-19 tree, photographed on the front cover of this report, that Glebe-St. James created in 2020, with one ribbon tied for each Ottawa life lost to the pandemic.” It is also an important vehicle for us to tell our story to others. It will be posted on our website. In its final form, it will be available to the wider United Church of Canada. In the longer run, it serves as an historical record of who we are and what we did in 2020. This report includes material from all the major groups and activities within the congregation that will serve as a resource for our annual congregational meeting on March 21, 2021. That meeting will elect a new Glebe-St. James Council and take decisions about the budget, governance and other matters relating to the congregation and its work. It will also approve a final version of the annual report for submission to the Eastern Ontario and Outaouais Regional Council. The 2020 annual report is divided into two parts. The first is intended to provide the touchstones of who we are as a faith community. The second presents our staff and our work in ministering to Glebe-St. James as a community and to the wider community, in Ottawa and around the World. It also describes our stewardship of the resources – the people, the finances and the building – that enable us to be a church. I will be finishing my term as Chair of Glebe-St. James Council at the March 21st annual meeting. It has been an honour to serve in this role. I would like to express my appreciation for all their hard work – recorded in this annual report – to my fellow members of Council, to the many other members of the congregation who have volunteered their time and energy, and to the church staff, who make all the rest possible. David Brown Chair of Council Glebe-St. James United Church *********** If you would like a printed copy of this report, or if there is anything, you would like to know about what is discussed in it, please get in touch with our church office: 650 Lyon Street South Ottawa, Ontario K1S 3Z7 (613) 236-0617 E-mail: [email protected] Glebe-St. James United Church – 2020 Annual Report Page 1 Who are we? Mission & Vision Statement VISION: Reaching – Into Faith, Out to Others VALUES: Openness and Inclusion Love and Respect Curiosity and Courage Justice and Hope MISSION: Glebe-St. James is an Affirming congregation of the United Church of Canada. We strive to accept each other as we are, and we seek to be a welcoming space for people of all sexual orientations and gender identities, indeed for all people. We also remember that we meet on traditional unceded lands of the Algonquin. We come together – To be an open, safe place to explore spirituality and faith, To sustain and deepen that faith through joyful worship and robust reflection, To put that faith into action as a community of healing and of loving resistance, daring to speak out for justice and healthy outcomes for all, and To work with other organizations as partners for the common good. Glebe-St. James United Church – 2020 Annual Report Page 2 Spirit of Reconciliation The United Church of Canada, and Glebe-St. James as part of it, is going through major changes as it responds to the changing nature of Canadian society and the role of religious institutions within it. At least as profound – and as a central part of this transition – is a spiritual and cultural change that grows out of the longer-term process of reconciliation with Canada’s Indigenous communities. The United Church has had a relationship with those communities since well before Confederation that stretches through the history of residential schools but that has many other dimensions – both good and bad – as well. Glebe-St. James is part of this journey at several levels. A respectful and healing United Church of Canada The United Church has embarked on the process of creating a new relationship in which the Indigenous church is both a distinct but also an integral part of who we are and how we operate. At its most basic, it involves a redefinition of the United Church, of who it includes and how it practices its faith. An important step – symbolic in the best sense – was taken in 2016 to incorporate the four sacred colours of Indigenous spirituality into the United Church logo. At the 43rd General Council in July 2018, the Caretakers of Our Indigenous Circle presented Calls to the Church, which asked the United Church to recognize and foster Indigenous ministries and faith communities and through that to create a Healing Church that embraces past and current experience in looking to the future. Our Coordinating Minister, Rev. Teresa Burnett-Cole, was an Urban Indigenous member of the Caretakers. In response, General Council adopted the multi-faceted program proposed by the Caretakers, summarized in the circle diagram, Dreaming New Relationships for the Indigenous Church. As part of this initiative, Rev. Teresa Burnett-Cole has provided an Indigenous voice on the executive committees of both the United Church General Council and the Eastern Ontario and Outaouais Regional Council, helping to ensure that Indigenous perspectives, including those of urban Indigenous residents, are part of the work of the national church and of the region. Glebe-St. James United Church – 2020 Annual Report Page 3 Glebe-St. James and the new relationship While many of these developments relate to the emerging Indigenous church and its part in the wider United Church, they also call for individual congregations to take their own initiatives. For Glebe-St. James in 2020 it has been the continuation of a series of steps in a longer journey. ASWA.ca Each Sunday, a red dress is placed in the Sanctuary as a visual reminder of the need for redress for the missing and murdered Aboriginal women, who are a silent reality of Canadian society. Each Sunday, as well, at the beginning of the worship service we acknowledge that our worship space is built on lands that have never been ceded by the Indigenous communities that lived here when colonial powers and settlers first arrived. In recognition of this, we have adopted the practice of making an annual payment of $2000 to the Odawa Native Friendship Centre, which serves the Indigenous community in the Ottawa-Gatineau area. A fuller account of the work of the Odawa Centre is found in the Christian Outreach committee report. In addition, the Rev. Teresa Burnett-Cole and Dietlind Gardell, a Glebe-St. James Licensed Lay Worship Leader, have been working with Église Unie St-Marc and the Odawa Centre in the development of a support centre for Indigenous individuals in dealing with the Justice system, including the near-by Elgin Street courthouse.

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