eNews: September 24, 2025 – Issue 175

This Issue:

• Letter from the Board of Trustees
• CUC Programming for the 2025-26 Year
• Taking Action on Anti-Trans Movements – Join Us in December!
• Congregations Experiencing Ministerial Transitions
• Meet a Lay Chaplain: Christina Swindells-Nader
• CUC Searching for Full-Time Communications Manager
• Sudbury UU’s
• Canadian UUs Read: First two books revealed
• Emergent Strategy Follow Up
• Charity of the Month: Indspire
• Things to Know About the CUC
• What’s Making us Smile
• CUC Events from September 25 to December 21, 2025
  

 

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Letter from the Board of Trustees
Rev. Debra Faulk and Margaret Kohr, Co-Presidents

September has always felt like the start of the new year for me, and with this sentiment it has always been a time of reflection. What have I learned since last September? Where have I grown (or failed to grow)?

My role as Co-President of the Canadian Unitarian Council with Debra Faulk, has challenged me to look inward at how I respond to change not only in the organization but in myself as well. 

There have been many opportunities during the past year when I’ve realised that change more often than not doesn’t involve a single moment or decision but rather it’s a process of listening, learning, and choosing, over and over, to show up with purpose.

Some of the changes have been related to how we operate as an organization, including some as simple as adjusting meeting schedules to fit the vast time difference across Canada, or as substantial as trying new ways of working together or seeking out fresh perspectives. Others have been at a more personal level like rethinking assumptions, letting go of old patterns, and opening myself to new possibilities.

So, at this time of year, when the leaves are turning and there’s a crispness in the evening air, and as I reflect on organizational and personal growth, I’m deeply grateful for the reminder that every action we take, within ourselves, within our Canadian UU communities, and in the lives we touch is an opportunity for growth and transformation.

Thank you for being part of this.
Margaret Kohr, Co-President

 

Four Canadian Community Ministers, coordinated by Rev Karen Fraser Gitlitz, create monthly theme packets, the Meaning Making Project. The October theme Embracing Change is very timely and offers several poignant quotes that both challenge and inspire. The one that is most salient as I reflect on this message is from Richard Buckminster Fuller:

You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.

While I do feel it is important to fight and resist the existing reality, to challenge injustice and be ever expansive in engaging the shifts in our collective understanding, the idea of building a new model is intriguing. It is also what we are trying to do intentionally.

This may mean that the existing model is obsolete or that there are parts of it that provide a foundation for the new model. It feels to me that we are currently inviting this process, looking at the existing model with the intent to innovate and live into our aspirations, the recognition of interdependence and the priorities we have set before us.

This work is not always comfortable, and I know I am becoming a little more comfortable with the discomfort. Doing this requires me to constantly challenge my assumptions, recognize differing perspectives and often yield to new ways and perceptions. This has meant an expansion rather than a diminishment of my own understanding, though there are moments of wanting to defend a position that still emerge. 

I am so inspired by the work we are doing and the people sharing this journey.

Please feel free to reach out to your co-presidents at president@cuc.ca

Namaste
Rev Debra Faulk

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CUC Programming for the 2025-26 Year

CUC staff are excited to begin the 2025-2026 program year, adding  new initiatives  to existing popular programming. We outlined plans for the coming year in our recent letter: here are some highlights of what we shared.

• • Recurring Programs: Rising Together, Connect & Deepen, Congregational Conversations, and Dismantling Barriers Events recur monthly. Details in eNews and on the Events Calendar. 
  • Join us for the CUC 2025 Fall Gathering – November 21-23! This year, we’re connecting, learning, and co-creating our way forward in these transformative times. Come explore how our diverse communities fit together to live our UU values in real, meaningful ways. Through hands-on workshops, big conversations, and bold visions, we’ll reflect, dream, and take action. Whether you feel steady, rooted, restless, or ready for something new– this weekend is for YOU.  Let’s explore the bigger picture, spark new ideas, and build connections that will carry us through the future! The weekend closes on Sunday  with a National Service: Turning Toward One Another, featuring Rev. Nicoline Guerrier and Camellia Jahanshahi.
    Programming is online, with in person satellites. Find out more and register here.
  • We’re excited to announce RAMP – the Reciprocal Annual Mentorship Program! Launching January–June 2026, RAMP is a bold, collaborative initiative from the Canadian Unitarian Council designed to help you RAMP UP your ideas, skills, connections and more by exploring sustainable, liberatory learning. This experimental 6-month pilot includes two parts: public skill-building sessions open to all, and a deeper intergenerational mentorship track for 16 selected participants (8 pairs) working together on real-time projects. Both are being designed as shareable, repeatable models.
  •  Activating the Canadian UU Ecosystem Project. The Canadian Unitarian Council is a proud partner in the co-creation of this project – working with Canadian Ministers, Religious Educators, and Lay Leaders from across the country. A broadly collaborative initiative using a Sociocracy governance model, the CUC does not ‘own’ this project; we are an enthusiastic participant and supporter. Currently in the design phase, planning circles are hard at work and detailed news will be soon coming to a communication near you! 

This year, as we intentionally embrace a spirit of Transition – we hope that you will join the activities and conversations, so we might all build together. It will be the curious, creative, and caring connections among us that continue to inspire and sustain this essential faith. 

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Taking Action on Anti-Trans Movements – Join Us in December!

At a time when anti-trans legislation and hostility are on the rise, how do we live into our principles and values of worth, dignity and inclusion? Many have asked, “what can we do?”

In December, we’re bringing in the Transforming Hearts Collective, a collective of Unitarian Universalist queer, transgender and nonbinary faith leaders who provide support and educational programming, to offer Canadians a free 3-part program on building safer, more welcoming spaces for trans and queer people.

We’re inviting allies, accomplices, and advocates from each congregation and community to take part. All are welcome, and we especially encourage each congregation / community/ organization to send at least two ally representatives who can bring the learning back to their communities so we can flourish in this work together. In this time, we’ll learn from the program’s creators, connect across our networks, and equip our communities with the tools to act with courage and compassion.

Teo Drake and Alex Kapitan, two of Transforming Hearts Collective’s co-creators, invite you to join us for the sessions. Watch their invitation here.

“This course can help you understand what’s happening in the US, which can hopefully help you get ahead of it in Canada….and to think through how you can show up for trans folks in Canada in a way that is a refuge and shows deep care…. Really becoming a refuge takes work”
~ Teo Drake

Join CUC staff on December 2nd, 4th, and 9th from 7-9pm ET for this offering on Zoom. Plus a follow up discussion and Q&A with Teo and Alex on December 13th. Curious? To learn more now, follow this link. Participation is free – register now!

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Congregations Experiencing Ministerial Transitions

Several congregations across Canada called new ministers recently, with more transitions occurring in the 2025-26 congregational year.

• • Unitarian Universalist Church of Olinda: Rev. Paul Langston-Daley began serving in a two-year contract-to-call position September 2025.
  • First Unitarian Congregation of Ottawa: Rev. Lara Cowtan  began serving in a three-year contract-to-call* position September 2025.
  • Unitarian Congregation in Mississauga: Rev. DL Helfer will begin a three-year contract-to-call position in January 2026.
  • Unitarian Fellowship of Nanaimo: Rev. Ashley Burczak will begin serving the congregation in December 2025.
  • First Unitarian Church of Hamilton: Rev. Danie Webber will be installed as the settled minister on October 26, 2025.

*Correction – Rev. Lara’s contract was originally stated as a two-year contract; it is actually a three-year contract.

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Meet a Lay Chaplain: Christina Swindells-Nader

Christina Swindells-Nader has served as the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Winnipeg’s lay chaplain since June of 2024, performing weddings and memorial services for the surrounding community. Taking on the role came about unexpectedly, spurred by having to listen repeatedly to a recording of a service by the church’s then lay chaplain which she was editing.

“The more I listened to it, the more I was like, ‘oh, this sounds like something that I would enjoy doing and that I could do,” she says. “It felt like something that I wanted to explore more.”

Lay chaplaincy is a program of the Canadian Unitarian Council; lay chaplains are members of congregations and are trained to perform rites of passages like weddings, dedications and memorials. Although Christina hasn’t performed a huge number of ceremonies since her term began, she’s  found the memorial services she’s officiated at a particularly rewarding aspect of lay chaplaincy.

“The memorial services I’ve done, I haven’t known the person who died, but through helping prepare the service I get to know who they were,” she says. “I feel like I’m carrying part of their story, as well as everybody else who was there at the memorial hears more of the stories about that person.”

Christina believes a lay chaplain needs to be able to meet people where they’re at in order to succeed in the position, being able to bring UU values to those they serve while being careful not to impose their  worldview on people who may come from a different faith tradition. She would highly recommend lay chaplaincy to others who might be considering it.

“I feel like it’s been definitely part of my own spiritual growth and being able to provide this space and this service, it feels really wonderful to me,” she says. “It is work in some sense but it is probably the most fulfilling work I’ve done in my life.”

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CUC Searching for Full-Time Communications Manager

JOB SUMMARY

The Communications Manager is a hands-on role with the overall responsibility for managing communications, positive image and branding of the Canadian Unitarian Council for member congregations, stakeholders, and the general public. This includes the creation and implementation of a communications strategy, fundraising communications and managing the content lifecycle which involves ideation, creation, curation, publication, distribution, evaluation, and archiving content.

A primary responsibility is working with the staff team in planning, creating and implementing the promotion and publicity of CUC events.

The Communications Manager works closely with a small part-time team and is actively involved in designing, creating, and managing communications channels and tactics, including websites, newsletters, blogs, social media posts and profiles, email correspondence and communication hubs, media statements and advertisements.

COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS

Salary is in the range of $63,000 to $68,000 depending on experience and skills. After a satisfactory probationary period, this position is entitled to the CUC benefits package, which includes RRSP contributions and health benefits.

APPLICATION

Please send a letter and CV to jobs@cuc.ca. Interviewing has started and will continue until we have a successful candidate. Apply ASAP! We will contact only those applicants selected for interviews.

We hope that the successful candidate will be available to travel to Edmonton for an in-person meeting in mid-October. Check here for the full description.  

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Sudbury UU’s

 Looking for UU community in or around Sudbury, Ontario? Know someone who lives in Sudbury who might benefit from a UU connection? An emerging group of Sudbury UUs would love to grow their circle.

Contact Chasse or Jessica at: SudburyUU@gmail.com

 

 

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Canadian UUs Read: First two books revealed

Join us online on Saturday, November 1, 1 pm PT / 4:00 pm ET* as a panel of ministers each propose the book that will help us embrace this moment as Canadian UUs. 

Members of the panel will each pitch their book proposal. Audience members (that’s you!) will  be able to submit questions. At the end of the event, everyone will vote on the book that will help us meet this moment, setting the theme for 2026’s Sharing Our Faith packet, and selecting the book that we will read nationally.

This experiment in engaging in a national conversation is part of the “Activating the Canadian Ecosystem,” a year of connection, experimentation and learning.

Two of the proposed books highlight the importance of Indigenous wisdom and experience:

• • Rev. Debra Faulk is championing Embers: One Ojibway’s Meditations by the late Richard Wagamese (2016). Debra says that Embers provides inspiration, comfort and direction. It is filled with practical  advice for responding to hard times. 
  • North of Nowhere: Song of a Truth and Reconciliation Commissioner by Marie Wilson (2024) is proposed by Rev. Samaya Oakley.  Samaya chose this book because it shows the importance of seeing the world with new eyes.

Which book will make it into our Sharing our Faith packet? That depends on how you vote. Get your ticket here.

*Please note time has been corrected to 1pm PT / 4pm ET, and not 3pm ET as originally published.

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Emergent Strategy Follow Up

Did you miss our book club session on Emergent Strategies: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds by adrienne maree brown? Well don’t worry, we’re sharing the fun of interconnectedness with you all through the joy of bingo!

We invite you to see how many things you can check off your card in this curated card combining the work of Emergent Strategy with CUC programming between September and December of this year. We’ll be posting on social media and encouraging people to share and celebrate their wins, we hope you join in on the fun!

 

 

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Charity of the Month: Indspire

Each month, the eNews will be profiling a different Canadian charity. We want to showcase the wide range of charitable organizations in Canada that align with our values and offer opportunities for UUs to give and serve.

Indspire is an Indigenous national charity that invests in the education of First Nations, Inuit and Métis people for the long-term benefit of these individuals, their families and communities, and Canada.  It serves First Nations, Inuit, and Métis students in remote communities, rural areas and urban centres across Canada. 

With the support of its funding partners, Indspire gives out financial awards, delivers programs, and shares resources with the goal of increasing graduation rates for Indigenous students. Its Educator Resources serve educators, communities, rural areas, and other stakeholders who are committed to improving kindergarten to grade 12 Indigenous student success. In 2024-25, Indspire provided more than $31.6 million through over 8,800 bursaries and scholarships to  First Nations, Inuit and Métis students across Canada.

Indspire was one of two charities for which the CUC raised funds at the May 2020 virtual national service, receiving roughly $4500 in donations.

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Things to Know About the CUC

The CUC’s Congregational Life Leads are on hand to respond on a wide range of topics, but for those who want to crowd-source answers to certain questions, there’s an additional option.

The CUC Leaders’ List offers a great opportunity to connect with UU’s across the country and share information and ideas. If you aren’t already a member, please message info@cuc.ca to join today.

 

 

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What’s Making Us Smile

With students returning to school this month, here’s some education-related humour to mark the occasion.

You’ll laugh so hard you might just need a shoulder to CRAYON.