It's Your Call

It's Your Call podcast  talks with John Egger, who has recently returned from Korea, where he  served as an ecumenical Co-Worker in Mission with the Presbyterian  Church in the Republic of Korea (PROK).

John  is a lay person who considered ordained ministry in the United Church  while starting his career, but instead discovered a call that was  perhaps more "precarious," yet just as valid as a call to ordained  ministry.

As  a Co-Worker in Mission serving in Korea — a region with a long history  of missionaries from both the United Church and the Presbyterian Church —  some of John's work with the Korean church involved reworking  traditional missionary relationships and mindsets.

John  was excited about the opportunity to do something new in "mission,"  just as we are learning new ways to do church in a rapidly changing  context. John's service with the PROK was multi-faceted, yet soon he  discovered his primary call was to be present, connect with people, and  build relationships. These were valued roles in the PROK, a church  deeply committed to ecumenicism, human rights, and justice.

John  is back in Canada now, sharing what he has learned in Korea, and  continuing to be called to build connections and relationship between  Christians in Korea and Canada, and beyond. The work of mission, says  John, can be found all around us.

It's Your Call is a podcast from the Office of Vocation of The United Church of  Canada, hosted by Karen Medland and Andrew Richardson. It is available  on Google Podcasts, Spotify, Apple, and other podcast distributors.

"It's Your Call" podcast chats with Janet Gear, a theological educator  and ordained minister in The United Church of Canada. She speaks about  her call to ministry, which first began as an activist in ecumenical  social justice.

Janet  Gear sees call as more than just a call to ministry — instead, it is  the lived response of all of us to the question, "What does it mean to  side with life?" Call, says Janet, is "a holy beckoning into the  fullness of one's life."

Janet  Gear is the author of "Undivided Love: Navigating Landscapes of Living  Faith," which offers a guide for leaders working with people in  congregations to discover their own calls across a banquet of lived  faith: evangelical, ecclesial, missional, ecumenical, and spiritual.  Available from the United Church Bookstore, UCRDstore.ca.

"It's  Your Call" is a podcast from the Office of Vocation of The United  Church of Canada. It is hosted by Karen Medland and Andrew Richardson.

“It's Your Call” interviews Carmen Lansdowne for the second time —  this time as the Right Rev. Carmen Lansdowne, Moderator of The United  Church of Canada!

This time around, the Moderator discusses her unique call to become leader of The United Church of Canada.

Personal  challenges took her off the path of her calling for a while, but as  those were resolved, Carmen returned to the threads of her call that  weave together the things she loves with her natural aptitudes for  leadership, travel, ecumenical conversations, and more.

Find out  how Carmen has been living out her call since beginning as Moderator in  August 2022, and what she is looking forward to as her term as  Moderator continues in next three years — including anti-racism work,  combatting climate change, nurturing a new generation of leaders, and  more.

“It's Your Call” is a podcast from the Office of Vocation  of The United Church of Canada. It is available on Google Podcasts,  Spotify, Apple, and other podcast distributors.

Season Two of It's Your Call podcast begins with a conversation with Jim  Short, a retired clergy person who has an extensive and interesting  career in ministry, including years as a chaplain with the Reserves and  the Fire Department.

Jim grew up in a committed church family, and liked to say he was  "United Church in my mother's womb." Yet, his exposure to ministers  during the 1970s, when some of the cracks that were starting to appear  in the assumed "glamour" of the role, convinced him that that wasn't  what he wanted to do. But then a mystical experience changed his mind  and opened him to hearing God's call to ministry.

He has re-examined this call numerous times through the years to  make sure it was still legitimate, and a cloud of witnesses have  surrounded and supported him through this life-long discernment and all  the challenges that come with ministry.

Jim also discusses the difficulties of the transition to  retirement, and the opportunities this presents to consider a needed  role for elders in The United Church of Canada.

It's Your Call is a podcast from the Office of Vocation of The  United Church of Canada. It is available on Google Podcasts, Spotify,  Apple, and other podcast distributors.

In  this episode, It's Your Call podcast speaks with Aaron Billard about  his call to ministry in The United Church of Canada. Aaron is the  minister at St. John's United Church in Monkton, New Brunswick and is  also well-known for his online ministry through Unvirtuous Abbey on  Facebook and Twitter.

Aaron  speaks about his attraction to serving the church at an early age, and  some of the challenges he has faced in day-to-day ministry. Through it  all, he has found both colleagues and church members who have encouraged  him along the way when things got rough.

The  COVID pandemic revealed that it isn't just the "why," but also the  "how" leaders do ministry now in today's post-Christendom world.

One  way how Aaron has pursued ministry even before the pandemic is through  Unvirtuous Abbey (@UnvirtuousAbbey), a very popular online ministry  offering a humourous and sometimes sarcastic take about the life of  faith and the church that can help ministers and all of us view faith  from a refreshing new perspective.

It's  Your Call is a podcast from the Office of Vocation of The United Church  of Canada, focusing on call to ministry. It is available on Apple,  Google, Spotify, and other podcast distributors.

It's Your Call podcast speaks with Rev. Dr. Catherine Faith MacLean. Catherine is a theological pastor in The United Church of Canada, currently serving at St. Paul's United Church in Edmonton.

Originally  from the Maritimes, Catherine grew up in the church, so the concept of serving in ministry was always there. Even with several family members in ministry, it was her local congregation that sensed a call in Catherine's life and encouraged her to pursue it.

She saw the church as a place where her gifts could be used, and her interests in theology and religious history could be explored.

Catherine's ministry has a strong emphasis on academics, writing, and speaking; yet she honours the importance of balancing the disciplines of theology and doctrine with mysticism and spiritual experience in the church. Each path compliments the other.

Rev. Dr. Catherine Faith MacLean is the author, with John H. Young, of "Preaching the Big Questions: Doctrine Isn’t Dust," (United Church  Publishing House).

It's Your Call chats with Andrew Hyde, an ecumenical chaplain at Guelph University. Andrew is the first United Church Designated Lay Minister (DLM) to be interviewed on the program.

Andrew is a United Church preacher's kid and grew up in the church. As a 10 year old, the 1988 United Church decision to open ordained  ministry to all, regardless of sexual orientation, was a formative event  in his own call and showed him just how complex and challenging  ministry could be.

While taking time to choose between becoming a minister like his  father, or becoming a teacher like his mother, Andrew took a job as a  youth minister, and he's still involved in young adult and campus  ministry today.

Andrew says, people are always called to where there is a need, and in his case, that was ministry with young adults, which is a specific niche that is both undeserved and a challenge because many young adults are seeking a spiritual home, but not active in congregational life.

This generation of young adults has a strong desire for  authenticity, Andrew has found, and this is both a gift and a challenge to the church, as it compels us all to live out our faith everyday, everywhere, not just on Sundays in church. Responding to this challenge  has the potential to help us rethink ministry as we know it and embrace  change by meeting people where they are at.

Andrew Hyde is the author of My Daily Discoverment: 40 Days of Vocational Discernment with Young Adults, available from UCRDstore.ca.

On this episode of "It's Your Call," hosts Karen Medland and Andrew  Richardson have a conversation with "Padre" Megan Jones, a Canadian  Forces chaplain based in Cold Lake, AB. Being called to serve as a chaplain in the Canadian Armed Forces is very different from what most  people think of when they are discerning a call to ministry. Captain Megan Jones shares how she received her call to ministry while she already a  member of the Armed Forces, and describes the unique way a military chaplain walks with people of many different faith backgrounds during  their service in Canada and overseas. Megan tells about her experience as a woman serving as a spiritual leader in diverse ecumenical and  interfaith contexts, and how that offers  distinctive and, perhaps  unexpected, opportunities for ministry. Military chaplains, she shares,  get to walk with people during their most sacred and life-changing  moments just as others in ministry, but aren't exempt from the regime of  the marching or push-ups required of those they serve either! We invite  you to listen in on their conversation.

It's Your Call is a podcast from the Office of Vocation of The United Church of Canada.

For this episode of It's Your Call, hosts Karen Medland and Andrew  Richardson have a conversation with Rev. Dr. Carmen Lansdowne, who has  been nominated for Moderator of The United Church of Canada. Carmen shares the exciting story of where her call to ministry has taken her, including work with the World Council of Churches, studies at Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, activism in local B.C. Indigenous communities, and  leadership with several environmental non-profits. Carmen is a member of the Heiltsuk First Nation and currently is in non-traditional ministry as Executive Director of First United Church Community Ministry Society, which serves the people of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

Your  hosts, Andrew Richardson and Karen Medland, sit down for a chat with  the Moderator of The United Church of Canada, the Rt. Rev. Richard Bott,  talking about his call to ministry — and specifically about his call to  the role of Moderator.