To help our small church respond to changing times and to better serve our local community, we opened our “Gathering Place” to welcome more people. The Gathering Place is a comfortable space for meetings, creative endeavours, workshops and retreats. For many years it has been home to our island quilters and now there are many other, diverse users of the space.
At this place, people are welcomed into a property where Spirit has been cultivated for 130 years. We hope that people feel nurtured by spending time in the Gathering Place, whatever the activity.
We live close to nature on Denman Island and many of our community members connect to Spirit through the natural world. We have been newly encouraged by our First Nations peoples to appreciate that Spirit runs through all living things and that the whole of our natural world is interconnected, sacred and deserving of reverence.
The “Gathering Place” emerged from approximately 2 years of visioning process. It reflects what has been organically happening at our church, with recent successful workshops, art events and collaborative leadership. Our “Gathering Place” also flows from new meaningful connections with the United Church of Canada innovation community and the other communities of faith across Canada who are creating ‘hubs’ at their churches.
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Mission
The Gathering Place provides safe meeting space for diverse groups and nurtures and protects diverse connections to Spirit within the DIUC and the broader Community. It was born of a desire to revitalize the DIUC and to heal historical wounds between the Christian church and pagan and spiritual non-religious people. And, we welcome peoples of all spiritual traditions. We enter into partnership agreements and provide physical space and opportunities for us and out community to meet, create, celebrate together, exchange ideas, and earth-based wisdom and teachings, and to explore Mystery.
Denman Island is an integrated community with members who value the environment, social justice, creativity, family and Spirit. We have many new young families moving here and we have many seniors who are retired on the island. Through sharing this space, we hope to help improve our community, enhance communications and build our community’s capacity.
COVID protocols for gatherings at DIUC are frequently changing to comply with Provincial Health Orders. We try to make the space as safe as possible. Please contact us at info@denmanislandunitedchurch.ca for current rules and Covid protocols for using the Gathering Place or Sanctuary space. The following protocols were initially put in place to deal with the Covid reality.
