Charleswood United Church

09/04/2026

Sunday, September 6th is the final day to donate much needed school supplies for the students of Westgrove School. Items will be delivered next week. Thank you for your generous and continued support of this neighbourhood school.

09/04/2026

Dear Friends
Welcome to worship for Sunday, September 6, 2026.

There is no mistaking September in Winnipeg. At least as far as the mailbox is concerned. Outside it is clearly still summer. The trees are full and green as they have been all season. The days seem a touch shorter but there is light aplenty. Grass still needs to be cut, gardens need to be tended, ice cream needs to be eaten.

However the mailbox tells a different story. Daily there is an invitation to add something to the calendar. Would I like tickets to the Symphony, the Ballet, the Theatre Centre? Have I considered Jets tickets this winter, a mini pack perhaps? Now is the time to plan for the season to come and…ACT FAST…BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE…GET THE BEST SEATS IN THE HOUSE.

And while I would like to do many of the things on offer, I have a choice to make about best to use my time and money. I don’t begrudge the marketers because at Charleswood United Church we want you to know what’s coming up as well. The program year of the church does begin in September. And for the sake of those who are new or less familiar with our offerings I would like to provide the briefest of detail about some of the things you might wish to be a part of.

SEEKERS – is our weekly Tuesday morning bible study. We gather informally for fellowship, prayer and to read through and discuss a chosen book of the Bible. It runs from 9:30 – 11:00 and begins September 8.

SENIOR CHOIR – provides musical leadership at worship services and sometimes more. Under the leadership of Shauna Sperry and Faisal Alsaidi they are 25+ in number and always open to welcoming more. Senior Choir rehearsals are Thursdays at 7:30 and begin September 10.

THE VOLUNTEER BOARD – at the north end of the Entrance Hall, in front of the large clear windows, is our sign-up sheets for numerous opportunities to expand your participation in worship. It includes readers, communion servers, greeters, ushers, and more. I might add that HeBrews/SheBrews Café doesn’t “start-up” because it tuns all summer but the opportunity to volunteer for this is open and to be found by the kitchen in the Van Roon Community Hall.

STILL WATERS – is a monthly grief support group on the third Wednesday of the month at 1:30. It is a time to sit quietly, share stories, remember fondly, and to listen patiently. Still Waters begins on September 16.

THE ABC’S of CHRISTIAN FAITH – it has been a couple of years since we had confirmation classes at Charleswood and to be fair we do not have a cohort ready to go each fall as we have had in years gone by. This year we are offering a six-week program that may be used to lead to confirmation but may also be of interest for those returning to church, coming from a different tradition, or simply seeking a refresher in the basics. ABC’s will run every other Wednesday evening beginning September 23.

SENIOR’S FELLOWSHIP – is six noon hour meal and fellowship events beginning in October and running through April. A different program (and a different menu) is presented each time. The first of the year will be held on Tuesday, October 20 featuring a guest speaker from the Canadian Foodgrains Bank.

Of course, our primary hope is that you will worship with us, in person or online. In the words of Curtis Mayfield from “People Get Ready” you don’t need no ticket, you just get on board!

At Charleswood United Church, your seat is waiting!

Grace and peace,
Michael

Share the service link:

Worship and Music for Sunday, September 6, 2026 from Charleswood Un...

09/04/2026

08/28/2026

Dear Friends
Welcome to worship for Sunday, August 30, 2026.

If given my choice, I wouldn’t write to defend Canada in a letter to a Christian community. At it’s heart Christianity is the faith of an individual lived out in a community of believers. There really isn’t such a thing as a ‘Christian’ nation, even among those whose majorities may claim to be followers of Jesus. For the most part, faith and patriotism don’t mix. They are largely at odds with one another. As Jesus famously says to Peter in Matthew 16 “What does profit a person to gain the whole world and lose their soul?”

But my soul is part of my whole self and my whole self has to live somewhere. I live in Canada and I feel more grateful for that fact than it is possible for me to say. It’s not that I think God loves Canada more than any other place or has blessed us in greater measure. But I believe it is easier to live out my faith here than perhaps anywhere else.

This odd introduction is my way of saying I am feeling…strongly…for Canada this week. I know that some people are bearing false witness against us and failing to recognize that for the sin it is. Most of us are powerless to do anything to change the present situation. But we can stand behind the people who represent us and we can prepare to stand arm in arm with our neighbours for the challenge that may lay before us. Even if that comes with a cost.

I am reminded that the testimony of scripture is mixed on the question of national politics. When presented with a coin and a question on the legitimacy of paying taxes to Caesar, Jesus didn’t condemn Caesar but simply stated the obvious, “if Caesar wants his coin back then give it to him, but do not give to Caesar the things that belong to God.” On the other hand, God speaks to Moses from a burning bush saying, “I have heard the cries of my people and have come to deliver them.” For Egypt, the biggest imperial power in the world at the time, this was bad news. God essentially tells Moses that the economics of enslavement are over and Egypt better get used to it.

Do either of these stories inform us on what to think and what to do in this moment? I don’t know. But the common ground between them is the idea that God’s people have every reason to believe that our lives are a gift and they should be lived by the promises of the gospel and nothing else. God has made us to love and if our neighbour does not love us, then we should love them all the more. We will not turn our back on the things that make Canada such an extraordinary place to call home any more than we will turn our backs on the gifts with which we have been blessed.

Grace and peace,

Michael

P.S. It feels a good time to share what I wrote for Canada Day this year, a response to a different type of threat, but a peaceful defence of our country nonetheless. If you remember it and don’t need to read it, bless you!! 2026 Canada Day Letter

Share the service link:

Worship and Music for Sunday, August 30, 2026 from Charleswood Unit...

08/21/2026

Dear Friends
Welcome to worship for Sunday, August 23, 2026.

I saw an ad earlier this summer that was titled ‘build community’. It was a further entry in the ongoing cultural conversation about the struggle to overcome loneliness and isolation, about our need to belong, to be part of something greater than ourselves.

It is an important and relevant topic. What I lamented in this particular ad was that it seemed to suggest that the burden lies on the lonely and isolated individual to take on the responsibility of creating community as opposed to discovering it. Building community from scratch is difficult work. What will be the parameters, the common interest, the ethos. And then how will it operate, how often, in what location. How will it gather, how will it hold members accountable, how will it demonstrate commitment to those who commit to it. Yes, building community where there isn’t one is exceedingly hard work.

And yet, discovering community by comparison is relatively easy. A lot of people and places do it very well. I was walking with my daughter in downtown Toronto a couple of weekends ago and saw a group unmistakably congregating. I asked her what she thought it was and said it was a community running club. What a wonderful idea (except that they were running Sunday morning at 11:00 but another subject LOL).

Choirs welcome people who don’t sing very well. Aqua-cise classes welcome people who don’t swim very well. Art classes welcome people who don’t draw very well. The common denominator of community, or should I say currency, is the welcome. Many places already exist that welcome people into community with goodness and grace. Community doesn’t have to be built, it needs to be joined.

Which brings me, not surprisingly, to church. Two things I believe are equally true. The first is that as church as moved further and further to the margins of society, fewer and fewer people know what church is about. They haven’t heard of it nor experienced it. Maybe there are rumours but I would hazard a guess that the vast majority of people today are ill-informed about what church has to offer.

The second truth is that church has community all figured out. We have what people say they are looking for. We have space and times and warmth and welcome and customs and tradition and depth and coffee and, and, and.

The best way to let people know that we may have what they are looking for is to show them (and by the way if Charleswood UC doesn’t scratch their itch then another church might). If you know someone who could benefit from the type of community the church has to offer then by all means invite them. Or ask me to invite them!! I would be delighted to do so.

Community is offered here. Thank God!

Grace and peace,
Michael

Share the service link:

08/14/2026

Dear Friends
Welcome to worship for Sunday, August 16, 2026.

I remember well how I was introduced to the writing of Bruce Feiler. My father picked up a copy of Feiler’s book “Abraham: A Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths” in the early 1990’s. After reading it he put it in my hands and said, “you have to read this”. And so I did, which resulted in a remarkable influence in my approach to the Old Testament that has lasted years.

It should be said up front that Bruce Feiler is not a historian nor a biblical scholar. He is a journalist and writer who lives in the United States and was raised in a Jewish family though he is not particularly religious. He writes as a journalist, trusting in what he has seen and the stories that have been told to him. “Abraham” was his attempt to reconcile how it is three religious traditions that often do not relate well to one another, nonetheless all claim a connection to this prominent character whose story is told in Genesis.

Christians, Jews, and Muslims all see Abraham as a spiritual ancestor but they approach and understand this central character in some very different ways. One of the clearest examples is that in Islam the story is told that Ishmael is the son bound and nearly offered as a sacrifice as opposed to Isaac as is recounted in the scripture of Christianity and Judaism. Feiler explores not simply what is written in the Bible, Torah, or Koran but how religious people of differing traditions think of this commonality.

“Abraham” was such a success that it allowed Bruce Feiler the time (and the money) to pursue his next project which was to retrace the stories of Genesis by travelling to the places where it was possible to go that are mentioned there. The result was another bestseller, “Walking the Bible”. In it Feiler leads the reader through his visits to the places the tradition says the stories of Genesis occurred. From the Eden/Mesopotamia of Adam and Eve to Mt. Ararat and the Noah story. Across the fertile crescent in the footsteps of Abraham and Sarah and the various places named in Canaan where an essentially nomadic people may have camped. And, of course, to Egypt.

I believe that one way to approach the stories of Abraham, Sarah, and their descendants as found in Genesis is to see them serving a single purpose which is to locate the children of Israel in Egypt where the Exodus can occur. It is Exodus that forms this people into a nation and a religion. It is in the Exodus story and under the leadership of Moses that God makes a covenant with Israel on Sinai. In one sense, Exodus is where Judaism is born.

But back to Bruce Feiler. “Walking the Bible” became a hit PBS docu-series. We have done a couple of studies at Charleswood using it as a resource. Every time I return to it (or the follow up book “Where God Was Born”) I become more fascinated with the ancient stories that are the foundation of our faith and their connection to culture, geography, archeology, and history. That may be especially true in what Feiler says about the Joseph story, the geographical transition from Canaan to Egypt.

When we come to the story of Joseph (with or without his coat of many colours) something in the text changes. The storytelling becomes richer. The action is more intense. Themes and imagery that have not been part of the earlier stories now come to the fore. Dreams, for example, become prominent and their interpretation is a sign of God’s grace. That has not been the case before or after. Bruce Feiler suggests that the narrative itself may be the best evidence of Israel in Egypt. That the story of Joseph and his brothers reads and feels in so many ways like an Egyptian story where dreams and divination were common.

It reminds me that we do not need evidence for our faith. We do not require proof that a person or people were where the Bible says they were in order to believe. Testimony is something different. We hear the story and we take it into our heart. And when our heart grants it’s consent, we say ‘we believe’.

Grace and peace,
Michael

Share the service link:

Worship and Music for Sunday, August 16, 2026 from Charleswood Unit...

08/07/2026

Apologies if you checked in on a Friday afternoon for theological insight. Michael is away and that is above my pay grade. Instead you can watch the video and come to church. We welcome Robert C. as our guest minister on Sunday; he'll handle the insights. Either way, have a great weekend.

Share the service link:

Worship and Music for Sunday, August 9, 2026 from Charleswood Unite...

07/31/2026

Dear Friends
Welcome to worship for Sunday, August 2, 2026.

Three Sundays ago the Old Testament reading in the lectionary was the relatively benign story of the birthright of Jacob and Esau. It can be told fairly simply. Jacob and Esau were twins but Esau was born moments before Jacob and thus was the ‘oldest son’ is a culture where that title carried some significance. Genesis 25 says that the name Jacob literally means ‘he supplants’. In other words the text prepares us for the story that follows with the naming of the child.

As if to illustrate that Jacob was well named, the first episode in the life of the twins is told when they are essentially adolescents. Esau had been hunting but returned empty handed. Jacob, as was his nature, remained among the tents and was cooking ‘red broth’ or ‘lentil soup’ (depending on translations). Esau was famished and exhausted and asks for a bowl of his brother’s labour. Jacob, ever ready to live up to his name, seizes the opportunity to make a deal. Esau can have a bowl of soup in exchange for his birthright.

The exasperation of Esau shows forth in his response, “What good is a birthright if I starve to death?” and the deal is struck. In fairness, this does not reflect well on Esau who clearly would not have starved to death in a household full of food and perhaps was blind to the implications of his brother’s offer. But neither does Jacob come across well as he fails the first rule of hospitality among nomadic people, feed the hungry. It is a story that serves mostly to move the narrative forward. Here is Jacob seeking to supplant his brother in a story with echoes of Cain and Abel, Isaac and Ishmael, and the forthcoming Joseph.

But it is also a story that allows us to pause and reflect on the question of birthright. What are the rights to which we are endowed and/or enabled simply as a consequence of our birth? For the moment let us set aside the idea that those rights differ depending on gender or birth order. And we need not be sidetracked by the question some raise about citizenship and birthright. If we are not citizens of the place we are born, we are citizens of no-where. But to what are we entitled by virtue of our existence?

If I take the gospel to heart then I begin by saying that simply because of my birth I have the right to be accepted. This right cannot be taken away by race or class or colour or orientation or identity. We are made, each and every one of us, in the image of God our Maker and thus are born with the right to be accepted as such.

We have the right to be joyful. Jesus says that he came that we might have joy and have it in abundance. In story after story Jesus greets people with grace and grants them healing with no regard to whether they believe the right things or say the right things or do the right things. As the song says God is the ‘giver of immortal gladness’ a gift I argue, given from our birth.

We have the right to be forgiven. It is a right the world would like to take away. But it is not a right the world has to give. It is inherent that from our birth that we are redeemable creatures.

I suppose a list of birthrights could be long if not endless. But any rights we would add to the list are but variations on the first. We are accepted, loved, forgiven, and free.

Thanks be to God.

Grace and peace,
Michael

Share the service link:

Worship and Music for Sunday, August 2, 2026 from Charleswood Unite...