Heard it at Council: March 2026

Our congregation’s Church Council met for the first time since our congregational annual meeting this past Wednesday, March 11th.

A highlight of recent work was affirming the hiring of Yumi Park, who has been serving on an interim contract basis as Intercultural Ministry Coordinator since the beginning of the year, as the new staffer to fulfill the role on the longer term basis going forward.

As our Intercultural Ministry Team, consisting of Bev Siggs and Christine Connal together with consultation from Pastor Matt, took time in January and February to revisit our overall vision and hopes for this important aspect of our life as a community of faith, a couple of key points became apparent:

• First, we wish to renew and reclaim an aspect of the vision for this ministry that sees it as trying to engaging with "newcomers to Canada" broadly speaking, and not only participants from a single ethno-linguistic origin background. That is to say, while we anticipate and celebrate that individuals from Korean-speaking background will continue to make up a significant number of the participants in ICM-sponsored programs and activities, we wish to make intentional efforts going forward to connect with people from other cultural/linguistic backgrounds as well.

• Second, we wish to re-invigorate the spirit of our congregation to see the initiative as an opportunity to engage our whole community in pathways of cross-cultural learning and relationship-making. The "onus" for this re-invigoration will be, and needs to be, on us, the longer-term congregants of our community of faith. We need to take collective and individual-by-individual ownership of a desire to engage, learn, and build relationship cross-culturally and inter-culturally, as something we want and are willing to take the time and effort for. We do not engage in something we call "intercultural ministry" simply to provide a program or service to get others in the door in the hope they'll "stick around" to increase our numbers. Our reason for engaging in this ministry must be for the sake of our own development and transformation as individuals and as a community, as much as it is for any perceived "benefit" to the newcomers or any potential numerical "gains" for our congregation.

With the timing of the re-eveluation and new hire, we also took the opportunity to adjust the compensation rate to facilitate an increased number of working hours within the same overall remuneration we had been devoting to the position in 2025.

As we finalized the position parameters and prepared to make a hire, we discovered a miscommunication and resulting error in the 2026 Budget approved by the congregation at the annual meeting on February 1. In that budget, the totals for the Intercultural Ministry Coordinator position were based on the parameters under which we’d hired for the interim contract for January to March, rather than maintaining the funding that the position had in 2025. Laurel Zulke, our Ministry & Personnel Chair, takes full responsibility for having not noticed the error before the budget was put forward to the congregation for adoption. Long story short, at the Council’s March 11th meeting, we took action to amend the 2026 budget to restore the compensation and benefits for the Intercultural Ministry Coordinator position for the remainder of the year to what they had been for 2025 (the overal 2026 totals will still be lower than 2025, due to the reduced rates in January through March).

The other items that took up much of our focus on March 11th were all related to various facilities matters. The past week has seen some unexpected issues with our heating system boiler, although as of this writing, things seem to be back in operating condition again. Our anxieties are admittedly heightened, as the manufacturer of our boiler has ceased operations in the wake of an extensive product recall situation, and thus replacement parts may quickly become difficult to obtain. Given that the current boiler is only 12 years old, though, we’re hoping not to have to rush into a replacement quite yet. We also touched on plans for a Spring Grounds Clean-up Day and ongoing tending to the Memorial Garden. Finally, we approved expending funds to purchase enough additional tables and chairs for the upper and lower halls so that these items do not have to keep being “schlepped” between the two storeys of the building based on event needs.

As always, your Church Council is open to feedback, questions, further conversation, and engagement! You can always reach out via Pastor Matt, council chair Daniel Ariss (arissd135@gmail.com), or any member of the Council (Christine Connal, Lewis Corkum, Marguerite Cryer, Sharlene Jonasson, Ursula Maxwell-Lewis, Glenys McFarlane, Lori Presunka, Laurel Zulke, and Pastor Youngsun).