Celebrating 65 Years of Gloria Dei!

Join us on Sunday, October 25 at 11:00 a.m. for our 65th Anniversary Festival Service, with Bishop Kathy Martin, Synod Bishop, preaching, and special music by our choir. If you can't join us in person, we will be livestreaming the event. Link will be posted on our FB page. 

Following worship, we’ll enjoy a catered anniversary lunch with guest speaker National Bishop Susan Johnson (retired).

Everyone is warmly welcome to join us for the Festival Service. The anniversary lunch is a ticketed event and, as we have now reached capacity, we are unable to accommodate walk-ins.

Come celebrate 65 years of faith, worship, and community with us!

- Canada had neither an official national anthem nor an official flag. (The Maple Leaf was introduced and became the flag in 1965; O Canada became official in 1980)

- Conservative John Diefenbaker was Prime Minister, and Liberal Lester Pearson was Leader of the Opposition. (In 1957 he had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for resolving the Suez Canal Crisis by creating the first United Nations Peacekeeping Emergency Force).

- Tommy Douglas was elected federal leader of the newly formed New Democratic Party.

- Saskatchewan moved toward government-run universal medicare, the first in Canada.

- Population of Canada was 18,238,247 (now 41,798,407, a 129% increase).

- Population of British Columbia was 1,629,082 (now 5,646,420, a 246% increase).

- CTV was launched, Canada’s second national television network.

- CBC created the Massey Lectures, an annual five-part series of lectures by distinguished writers, thinkers, and scholars exploring ideas and issues of contemporary interest (the Massey Lectures still continue, 65 years later).

- the 49th Grey Cup football game-- played in Toronto-- was the first Grey Cup game to go into overtime, after Winnipeg and Hamilton had tied 14-14 in regulation time. Winnipeg then defeated the Ti-Cats 21-14.

- Canada and the USA signed the Columbia River Treaty, laying the groundwork to develop cooperative water storage, flood control, and hydroelectric power across the Upper Columbia River Basin.

- The Transatlantic Telephone System was officially launched, with a phone call from Queen Elizabeth II to Prime Minister Diefenbaker.

- The first Canadian BOMARC surface-to-air missile squadron was formed.

Come celebrate Thanksgiving with us!

Our Indigenous art quilt, with its flying geese pattern inviting us to explore the many ways we might work towards reconciliation, reminds us that the invitation also calls us to action.

We have an opportunity to join members from Hillside Baptist church to learn about Sḵwx̱wú7mesh place names and village sites with Jordan Dawson, Indigenous Cultural Programmer for MONOVA (North Vancouver Museum and Archives). 

Learning the names and stories of the land on which we worship each week is one way to deepen our understanding and put reconciliation into practice. 

Come join fellow Christians on this journey of listening, learning and taking steps towards reconciliation.

In a time of deep polarization, how can Christians move beyond slogans and engage in the realities of Palestine and Israel with humility, compassion, and courage? Gloria Dei has partnered together with Lynn Valley United Church to explore this question. Come and take part in an eye-opening panel conversation exploring the complex intersection of faith, politics, history, justice, and peace. The event takes place on November 14 at 3:00pm, at Lynn Valley United Church, 3201 Mountain Highway North Vancouver. 

Doors open at 2:45pm and the event begins at 3:00pm. Click the button below to register today!

Come and join our panelists, Rabbi Laura Duhan-Kaplan, Shadia Qubti, and Ron Dart for a thoughtful afternoon of listening and learning through honest conversation.

Learn more about the featured speakers below:

Rabbi Laura Duhan-Kaplan, Ph.D. is Dean of the ALEPH Ordination Program, the Jewish Renewal Seminary. She currently teaches courses on the histories of Israel and Palestine, deep ecumenism, leadership, and modern Jewish environmental thought. Previously, she was Director of Inter-Religious Studies and Professor of Jewish Studies at Vancouver School of Theology, where her teaching and community work brought Jewish, Christian, Islamic, and Indigenous perspectives into conversation. An award-winning teacher of philosophy and religion, Rabbi Laura has written four books on philosophical reflection, spiritual practice, mysticism, and biblical ecology, including the recent Mouth of the Donkey: Re-imagining Biblical Animals. She has also brought scholars together to create seven collaborative books, including Encountering the Other, Spirit of Reconciliation, Regional Conflicts and the Philosophy of Peace, and Multi-Religious Reflections on Friendship. A dual citizen of the US and Canada, Rabbi Laura lives in Vancouver with her husband, Charles, a musician and retired psychologist.

Shadia Qubti is a Palestinian-Christian born and raised in Nazareth who has worked in faith-based peacebuilding and advocacy initiatives through local and international organizations in Israel and Palestine for fifteen years. Her academic and public speaking interests focus on theological conversations between Palestinian Christian and North American Indigenous understandings of land, explored in her Masters thesis at Vancouver School of Theology. She seeks to develop a contextual decolonial approach through Palestinian land-based readings of biblical narratives, including recent work on the Nativity story and an upcoming exploration of Jesus at Gethsemane. As a Palestinian-Christian and member of a faith community, she grapples with theological responses amid genocide. She is particularly dedicated to amplifying the voices and perspectives of women and other marginalized communities, which led to the co-founding of the Women Behind the Wall podcast. She is currently working as the Community Engagement Animator at Trinity Grace United Church in Vancouver and serves as a Commissioner to the 45th General Council of the United Church of Canada.

Ron Dart taught in the Department of Political Science, Philosophy, and Religious Studies at the University of Fraser Valley (British Columbia) for 33 years. Before joining UCFV, he was on staff with Amnesty International in the 1980s where he was the pointperson for a variety of states in the Middle East that were known as violators (in various ways and means) of elementary and fundamental human rights. He has published and edited more than forty books, including Canadian Christian Zionism: a Tangled Tale, and is a regular contributor to Clarion: Journal for Religion, Peace and Justice. Ron also teaches Classical Studies at a graduate level at St. Stephen’s University, and just finished instructing a 4-month class on Homer’s Odyssey. In his spare time, he is an avid mountaineer. 

A belated happy birthday to our September birthday celebrants! We may have missed the chance to send our birthday wishes last month, but we hope each of you had a wonderful birthday filled with happiness and special moments.

September

3 – Ken Junck

14 – Ellen Luthy

14 – Marta Zaliznyak

14 – Halen Storm

16 – Yuriy Zaliznyak

23 – Marcia Meyer

30 – Madeline Storm

And a very happy birthday to everyone celebrating in October!
Wishing you a wonderful birthday and a year ahead filled with happiness, good health, and many joyful moments.

October

4 – Ha Na Lee

5 – Al Jaugelis

7 – Wayne Cross

12 – Kathleen Stoll

13 – Carol Ruxton

26 – Harper Hutson

27 – Tanya Benzon

31 – Rolly French

Happy Birthday to all!