My decision to join SSUC (Spiritual Seekers United in Community/Southminster-Steinhauer United Church) when I began retirement nine months ago feels ironic to me. During the years in which I worked as an ordained minister (2011 to 2022) one of my goals was to focus the United Church and the four congregations I served on the denomination’s imminent demise. But now I find myself happily ensconced in one of the largest, most spirited, and most engaged UCC congregations in the country.
The vibrancy of SSUC shone bright in the January 22, 2023 retirement service and celebration of the ministry of Rev. Dr. Nancy Steeves. I loved the service, the fact that more than 250 people were there, and the celebratory lunch that followed.
Compared to some non-UCC communities, 250 people might be no big deal. For instance, both Hope City Church (formerly Mill Woods Pentecostal Assembly) and Beulah Alliance Church have an ambition to serve 1% of Edmonton, or 10,000 people. But for a nearly extinguished denomination like the UCC, 250 people is a big deal.
To gain a sense of how many of us loved Nancy’s nearly 20 years as a minister at SSUC please check out the messages collected on a Kudoboard — including submissions by both myself and Kim.
Part of the success of SSUC – before Nancy, during her time there, and now under the continued leadership of Rev. Chris New – has been its willingness to experiment, and to expand theologically.
I no longer expect the UCC or any other rapidly declining and aging denomination– whether Anglican, Catholic, Moravian, Lutheran, Presbyterian, or whatever – to awaken to their near-term demise and then to follow the Christ stories on a path of death and resurrection. Beyond that, there are much more important crises about which to worry – whether species extinction, the death of the oceans, or climate- and pandemic-induced calamities. But I don’t worry about SSUC.
For one, it has shed much of its denominational baggage. Last September, I sang at SSUC at a fall retreat of Edmonton’s Richard Eaton Singers, and one of my friends in the choir, who is a minister in another denomination, asked if SSUC was still part of the UCC. I said “yes,” but I also see the relevance of this fact shrinking.
I will continue to follow the UCC’s progress with interest. But mostly, I am glad that, through some set of miracles, SSUC exists; that it is a mere 10-minute drive from where Kim and I live; that Kim is the Treasurer of SSUC; that it is where we met in May 2015, at a meeting of the Edmonton Progressive Christian Network; that Chris and Nancy married us in a splendid wedding ceremony there on November 12, 2016; and that Kim and I get to sing in its choir with passion and joy each week.
Given the vagaries we all face – like the ongoing and strange trajectory of COVID-19; the potential for other pandemics; the war in Ukraine; the rising of so many fascist politicians like Premier Danielle Smith here in Alberta; and unstoppable climate disaster – I cannot see into the future with any confidence or equanimity. But with a queer-friendly, expansive, and vibrant community of faith just down the street, I am confident that I can dance with love in the gathering darkness with fellow travellers and so find better ways to cope, and even thrive.
And for all of this, I give thanks to the Ground of Being, Life, and Love we call God.
Ian
Notes and sermons from Edmonton 