UCiM’s Small Group Ministry Affirm Team would like to highlight an upcoming learning opportunity called “Open Hearts.” The vent is described in the following manner:

One of the blessings about being Church in our world today is that we enable each other to engage in what Martin Luther called “beloved community.” It is a privilege to be God’s people together as we explore what it means to be a community of joy, resistance, and justice

The Conference Visioning and Critical Reflection (VCR) Committee is sponsoring a community building event entitled “Open Hearts”. – Friday, November 4 at 5p.m. to Saturday, November 5 at 4p.m. at Augustine United Church, It is a chance for us to think about what it might mean for us to be an Affirming Ministry in our home context, and also to network with other ministry settings that are Affirming Ministries. We will hear personal stories, highlight what it means to have scripture as an authoritative source, and all the while building community in a larger context. Our resource person for the day will be Alyson Huntly who is a staff person at United Theological College in Montreal.

If you are interested in attending with other UCiM members, please contact Dea. Richard (rmmt@ucim.org). For more information about this event, please see the Announcement on the Conference of Manitoba and Nortwestern Ontario’s website.

The following update has been shared by the UCiM Gardeners, which is a part of our Small Group Ministry!

Last week, we were fortunate to have John Badertscher deliver for us 2 bags of peas and beans to West Broadway Community Ministry.

Today, I took to West Broadway more of our produce – quite a bit more than last week. The basket in this picture is large and I was able to make up 6 bags of beans. Each bag contained about two generous helpings of beans. They were being scooped up at West Broadway as fast as I could place them down. How exciting.

There has been such pleasure working with the gardening group, hearing reports on the work in the garden, harvest alerts, efforts to intervene rabbit invasions, and so on. And it is a real joy to experience delivery of our produce into grateful hands.

Bev Hindle

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UCiM’s Affirm Group would like to welcome, on Oct 22/11, the United Church of Canada’s (UCC) National Consultation with GLBTT members of the UCC & GLBTT Allies. For more information, please see the poster for the event and the letter that describes some of the context of this faithful work!