St. Paul’s United Church Spiritual Nurture Committee

Annual Report 2017

One major task for the year was the evaluation of the Christian Education programs for adults. As with our evaluation of the children and youth programs in the previous year, we took a qualitative approach to this effort, largely through a survey of the congregation. This survey was developed and distributed on-line using SurveyMonkey. Paper copies were also made available. In all, there were 53 responses. We are currently in the final stages of preparing a report to the Board.

We oversaw the Children’s and Youth Programs, liaising with Denise Davis Taylor and Rondy Kyle, and supporting their work. “Church in the Woods", a summer day camp program led by Denise and Rondy, was offered again, and is becoming a fixture in the church calendar. Recruiting people to help Rondy with Godly Play and to staff the nursery on Sunday mornings remains an ongoing challenge, and the committee is in communication with M&P committee to address this. Gail and Denise also drafted a Policy for Nursery Caregivers, which has been forwarded to M&P.

We organized Day 5 sessions each Thursday evening from January through April, and again from October until Christmas, for a total of 28 sessions.Topics included theology, spiritual practise, social justice, Bible study, LGBTQ* issues, interfaith community building, not to mention art and music.As well, there were worship services for Maundy Thursday and winter solstice. Some recurring topics returned for another year, such as walking the Labyrinth and a Death Café. Most sessions involved an invited speaker, either from within the congregation or from some organization in the wider Edmonton community. We also used video series, exploring religion and science in the Painting the Stars video series, and hearing new perspectives on Jesus and the Kingdom of God from Marcus Borg and Dominic Crossanin the Living the Questions series, First Light. Attendance ranged from 4 to 46 participants (average=14).

In the fall, we offered a half-day retreat under the title, “What Do You Want for Christmas”. Offered in late November, the retreat was an opportunity for participants to reflect and prepare for the coming season of Advent. The retreat was planned and organized by Gail Burns and Darren Nichols, with assistance from Denise Davis-Taylor and Kayleigh Cline.

We helped the ministers develop spiritual practicesfor meditation for use in worship and at home during the Lenten and Advent seasons, the latter drawing on material from the November retreat.

The St. Paul’s Library is under the purview of the Spiritual Nurture Committee, and has long been in the expert care of Gerri Young. With her passing, the responsibility for the Library has been taken up by Karin Stewart, who has been busy inventorying and updating the collection, which numbers about 1100 items. Recently, Lucie Gamache has stepped forward to assist Karin with managing the Library.

Our committee holds the budget for the Observer program, which organizes the subscriptions for the United Church Observer magazine. This program is administered out of the office and, thanks to Joan and Anna, does not require us to do much.

This year saw the usual turnover in committee membership. Gail Burns, who had long been a frequent participant and enthusiast for the Day 5 program, joined us in May. On the other side of the ledger, Lee Foote and Paul Preston decided to hang up their respective Spiritual Nurture hats after many years to focus their energies on other commitments. Lee chaired the committee for a number of years, and always had a knack of asking questions that challenged our assumptions, and making observations that deepened our appreciation of life and the Divine. Paul brought both rigour and compassion to our discussions, and not least a sense of humour that leavened our meetings. I will be stepping down as chair of the Spiritual Nurture Committee, and taking up that role on the Stewardship Committee. I will miss the great energy and creativity of this committee. It has been a great pleasure to work with anexceptional group of people over the past half-dozen years. Kayleigh Cline, Jack Jervis, Darren Nichols and Denise Davis Taylor remain as committee members.

Respectfully submitted,

Jim Stewart, Chair