Rhoni,

You have grasped the situation perfectly.

Hey Nanook!

I happen to know that Bro. Monkey has an inside track. I'll wait for his answer.


May I ask one more question: "When will the American church be nationalized?"

Monk may not have understood the Exec Presbyter was not a Canadian GS. This is forgivable.

Typical of yet another UNCONFIRMED Thad-flash was the deleted thread and the opening statements of this one.

Thank you for the clarification!

:canada

The only election at a Canadian Conference is the ratification of the board of directors (the Canadian Superintendents.)

The UPC of Canada is roughly the same size as the ACOP, perhaps a little bit smaller. We seem to function very well on a national level. I personally believe an independent Canadian organization would serve the best interest of future growth in the Canadian church.

I would be interested in specific commentary on the points I have made in the earlier post. Why would Canadians not want to be a national body like every other UPC cosnstituency? Have they become so dependent upon Hazelwood that they simply don't believe in their own potential?

:girlpopcorn Good question...would be interested to see the comments you get on this one.

I would say TB; there are many more benefits to being in a larger organization than just fellowship. There is access to much more resources isn't there?

Blessings, Rhoni

I for one am for having our own national body in Canada.

2006 Canadian populatio-33,098,932
2006 UPC churches 223
1 church for every 148,426 of the population

2006 American population-295,934,134
UPC churches -4277
1 church for every 69,192 of the population

The production rate in Canada is 2.15 times slower than the US

This is purely an academic discussion for me, but one that interests me enough that I'll play devil's advocate for the sake of conversation.

The first point that should be clarified is that Canada is not a mission field to be nationalized, but a partner in the UPCI. The UPCI is not an American organization, but a joint Canadian/American organization.

It could as easily be argued that the American churches need to be nationalized as to argue for the nationalization of the Canadian churches. The UPCI is an international organization, not a national body.

Removing the Canadian component from the UPCI would limit opportunity for Canadian missionaries. There are 15+ Canadian missionaries in the UPCI, with an approximate total annual budget of 1.8+ million Canadian dollars. The total Missions giving for the Canadian churches, for the last year reported on UPCI.org was 1.2 million Canadian dollars. Canada does not produce enough missions revenue to fund Canadian missionaries.

An independent UPCC would be faced with the choice of reducing the number of missionaries, or slashing the budgets of the existing missionaries.

The argument could be made that Canadians have been ineffective in reaching their nation with the resources made available to them by the UPCI, and that a separation from those resources would be disastrous to Canadian evangelism.

I would be interested to know if the Home Missions giving by Canadian churches would be enough to fund even a single metro missionary.

Canada is so large geographically and has such a low population density that a separate Canadian organization would be ineffective in providing fellowship.

The United Pentecostal church in Canada is an Eastern organization. A full 75% of its churches, and an even larger percentage of its constituents live east of the Manitoba/Ontario border. For most Canadian United Pentecostals, Hazelwood is closer than the ACOP headquarters in Calgary, Alberta, and, for those in New Brunswick, Hazelwood is more than 2000 KMs less driving than Calgary.