Author: Éric Hébert-Daly

Based on readings from Isaiah 40:1-11 and Mark 1:1-8 Préparez le chemin pour le Seigneur… À chaque année on a l’occasion d’entendre Jean crier dans le désert… préparez le chemin! Rendez les sentiers droits! Et Ésaïe qui nous parle d’abaisser les montagnes et de lever les vallées pour rendre le chemin plus facile d’accès. Dans chacune des quatre évangiles… dans les livres des prophètes… Préparez-vous! C’est tellement commun qu’on risque perdre le sens de cette préparation qui nous incombe. Et...

A few weeks ago, I came to Ayer’s Cliff with two members of the Partner Council of the United Church… these are people who come from outside the church and offer their perspective on the church and our ways of doing things. This Regional Council, which covers most of Quebec, was chosen as one of two across Canada to host members. The two people I was travelling with were from India and from the Middle East. When I put together the agenda for the tour, I wanted to give a fuller picture of what...

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be the response to the Word that you hope to hear from us O God. And we humbly ask for your corrective whispers in our ears so that we might adjust the trajectory of our journey in a way that aligns with your life-giving wish for us. Amen. The scripture story we’ve just heard is filled with impatience. There is a sense that this journey through the desert is just taking far too long and isn’t providing the promised result that the...

Matthew 9:35-10:8 The harvest is plenty, but the labourers few. Since I began to fulfill my responsibilities as the Regional Executive Minister in January, I’ve become particularly worked up about the future of the church. We all know the stories: a church closes every week across Canada. Ministries are having to move to hiring part-time ministers because they can’t afford full-time ones. Some have decided to try to make it work without a minister, without a building or by sharing ministry...

Genesis 1 Matthew 28:16-20 The passages we read this morning are, in many ways, a model for planning our lives together as a church. In the United Church’s New Creed, we talk about God who has created and is creating. God has created in the past and continues to create today. It’s an important reminder that God was there at the start of all things when the world was being created, to set everything into motion… and at the same time God is working in our world today and is accompanying us in...