A New Creed

We are not alone, we live in God¡¯s world. We believe in God: who has created and is creating,

who has come in Jesus the Word made flesh, to reconcile and make new, who works in us and others by the Spirit.

We trust in God. We are called to be the Church: to celebrate God¡¯s presence, to live with respect in Creation,

to love and serve others, to seek justice and resist evil, to proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen, our judge and our hope. In life, in death, in life beyond death, God is with us. We are not alone. Thanks be to God.

Welcome Everyone!

Toronto Conference has remarkable gifts of diversity. When we recognize them as God's gifts and value them, we will experience that we are blessed. How can we experience this? As I mentioned several times in various occasions, when we encounter each other heart to heart, face to face, hand in hand, and feel the sense of one body we live out the good news of God. It is one of many ways we can coexist with diversity. Therefore unity in diversity points to a concrete way of life. We dream to live this wonderful life. However it is not easy to live out this way of life in a pluralistic society with many fast changing factors. We have been careful when we plan to do any new venture.

A few years of feasibility and implementation study in any process had been requirement and common exercise in our church. But in this fast changing world, time is another crucial factor. We are forced to do fast thinking and engage into fast communication to meet both crucial element, time and accuracy. We also need to have flexibility to change or adjust to ongoing change without sticking ourselves rigidly to any decisions made.

At this moment, I would like to raise an old question: Does church bring the vision to the society or barely catching up the change of the society or even far behind? The rasin detre of the church is to bring the vision from the future. If we are far behind from the fast changing world, we are not doing the right job. We need to find ways to promote fast thinking with accuracy through fast open communication. I believe that utilising internet related communication will enhance the speed of our thinking and working with accuracy.

We know that having website will help the local churches by giving information to many who are interested in to know about us. On top of this we can share our stories and concerns. When we activate this contemporary tool, we cannot imagine all the benefits we will receive as the result. We will know each other regardless of physical distance. We will share the joy and pain at the same time and feel as real one body.

We all agree with the benefits of having websites. However, making one is not an easy job. Promotion of financial and human resource are not easy tasks. As beginning, I will help the congregation to create 2-3 web pages within this website, which is like many branches on one tree. When you have one through this offer, then simply click the "Churches in TC", and click your church title. Then you will see your church home page. Although these will not give bulky information and stories, but we will have enough to enjoy and to test out the possibility in our future coming church.

My dream is that we, The United Church of Canada, become energy filled God's body as we strive so that "we all may be one" by develop communication through our story sharing and building a trusting network.