In conversation with Rev. Jack Spencer
Robyn of Iridesce: I’m with Rev. Jack Spencer at Berwick Camp. Thank you Jack, for taking the time to share this story. Jack began by...
The church has been a safe place...
My partner and I grew up in the Roman Catholic Church and made a conscious decision to join the United Church in the wake of the 1988...
We should have been friends.
Full disclosure: I am a white-straight-male in my 60's. The most vilified and blamed group for all the problems that have come to be in...
Like Paul, A Conversion
I was there in ’88 and ’84 and before, and I remember… grace. Yes, there was fear, lots of it. I’d been captive to it earlier, but I was...
I was amazed at how ‘cool’ we were, but then…
At first I was very proud of my church. I was amazed at how ‘cool’ we were. Then I went to worship in my local congregation and the...
Gay and Able to Minister
The story made me remember what my father said about ministers who were gay even before 1988 and in ministry with a congregation who did...
I am still here. I am still faithful.
I remember... Theological school... ...the last semester and reading/hearing about the movements against the church if it accepted...
The hurts of white patriarchal culture
I was not ‘there’ in 1988, wherever that location was; neither General Council, pastoral charges, boards or sessions. I was not in a...
Not welcome in leadership
I was there in 1988 and I remember… …one of the strongest objectors to the issues being raised in the discussions/studies leading up to...
Church on fire: a poem remembering 1988
I was there in 1988 and I remember… the congregational meeting and my shock that my dear congregation could rise up with words of hatred...