Faith Formation Activities
The Faith Formation Committee is actively committed to the development, encouragement, oversight of programmes fostering fellowship, education, and fun, all the while engaging the spirit of the Wilmot community.
Programmes to be offered this fall:
Messy Church
How much fun can Messy Church be? What is Messy Church? It is a form of church for children and adults that is held once a month at a time other than Sunday. It involves story-telling, singing, actives, celebrations, and food.
For dates and more information contact Mary Tingley or Amy Foster-McAllister.
Godly Play
What is Godly Play? Godly Play is a creative, imaginative approach to Christian formation and spiritual guidance. Using the Montessori foundation, it values process, openness, community and relationships. It is being offered to our children on Sunday mornings during the scheduled Sunday school time.
More information or if you would like to help with leadership we would like to hear from you.
Contact Mary Tingley or Amy Foster-McAllister.
Youth Groups
In collaboration with St. Paul's United Church there will be groups for middle school and high school students. A time for gathering, conversation, learning, mentorship, fellowship, outings and activities will be offered.
Contact Amy Foster-McAllister for more information.
Wilmot Bible Conversation
The Wilmot Adult Bible Conversation is an opportunity to deepen faith, broaden understanding, sharpen commitment, and drive action through weekly engagement with the Bible. We start either with our own stories of the week and relate them with the Bible stories, or we start with the Bible stories and relate them with our lives. Either way we end up with a creative mix of the two useful for every life.
This basic approach provides opportunity for thoughtful engagement
with the current readings and with the key events and themes of the
Christian story which lie behind them going back several thousand
years, as helpful for comprehension and relevance of the stories for
today.
The Conversation uses the three-year cyclical lectionary of the New Revised Common Lectionary shared by Christian churches throughout the world. This usually integrates with the theme and focus of public worship of the day.
The group seeks to provide a safe and welcoming environment for meeting each other, and the exchange of often strong and differing opinions concerning the life of faith. It uses a regularly reviewed series of self-developed guidelines about how we want to be with each other. A general resource for background reading this year, helpful to the Conversation is "Reading the Bible Again for the First Time" by Marcus Borg.
This will be available at the church office for $20.00. Participants can
either use this as background reading, or write a brief review about it which will be responded to by one of the leaders. There will also be opportunity this year for some who wish to take turns leading the group and receive feedback on effective leadership.
This group relates the Bible to life and life to the Bible using weekly readings. Conversation starts where we are, not where we should be. It's for people who are interested, curious and want to deepen their faith and understanding in an open, unassuming conversation.
Contacts: Don & Lois MacDougall, 455-2157
Wilmot Seekers
The Wilmot Seekers Group is for those adults who are about deepening and broadening their human spiritual journey through reading and conversation in community with others. We take after those hangers-on in the first century of two of the church's life, who though they were not fully Christian or Jewish hung around the church's periphery as "God-fearers": or "God-Seekers". We use literature relevant to the Christian human journey today.
This Fall we will be considering Freeing Jesus by Diana Butler Bass. One day Diana Bass was wandering in the great open spaces of the National Cathedral in Washington, a magnificent religious edifice of white stone She was wondering where one would find Jesus in such a place and she heard a voice saying to her "Get me out of here!" Whatever else that might have been about she took it as a call to free Jesus from the constrictions of a too formal and structured institution. She set about trying to "free Jesus that he might roam in the world with the rest of us", this book is the result of that. We will take it up this Fall 2022.
There will also be a general resource book Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time by Macus Borg (eventually available through the church office). Interested people might want to read this as well, simply as interesting background, or it could serve as the focus of a reflection paper. Leaders of the group would comment on the reflections for writers for the sake of deepening and understanding.
There will be opportunity to speak but no pressure to do so.
Contact: Don MacDougall, 455-2157
The Cuba Connection
The Cuban Connection supports a mutual relationship of understanding between Wilmot United Church and the Seminary in Matanzas, Cuba. The relationship has grown to include many opportunities to understand issues and concerns. As well, there have been many opportunities for personnel growth.
If you want more information about this endeavour contact Greg Black or Norm & Meca Laverty, 455-3349.
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