Sunday, July 5, 2026 - Go Small
July 5, 2026
Deborah Laforet
“Go Small”
Let us pray. May the words from my lips and the meditations of my heart be guided by your
Spirit and be words of wisdom for this day. Amen.
Last weekend, three of the Laforets were in London for the Horseshoe Falls Regional General
Meeting. Jeff and I were there as your representatives and Seann was there to help lead the children and
youth program. It was a full weekend, with lots of singing, making connections, and celebrating new
ministers in the church. Some of the business can be quite dry and we do a lot of sitting, but if this kind
of work interests you, talk to me or Jeff. We’d love to have another St. Paul’s representative to the
Region.
We were fortunate during our time together to have the Moderator of the United Church,
Kimberly Heath, join us. She was our keynote speaker and we got to hear a lot of stories and wisdom
from her. One of her reflections inspired me to create a summer sermon series, entitled, Go, Go, Go,
Go! On July 5 and 12, and August 9 and 16, I will be unpacking the four Go’s that the Moderator
shared with us: Go Small, Go Deep, Go Preach, and Go with a Buddy. So, today we’ll look at Go Small.
What did the Moderator mean by going small?
In 313 CE, the Roman Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity, and, only 67 years later, in
380 CE, the emperor Theodosius made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. This was
not even four hundred years after Jesus’ ministry. Whether you see this as fortunate or not, Christianity
became linked with power. We had popes linked with royalty and monarchs, sometimes combining the
leader of the church with the leader of the land. We’ve had holy wars and inquisitions led by the church.
Church has been intertwined with empire, imperialism, and colonialism.
In Canada, church and government have been linked from the beginning, even more so than in
the states, where separation of church and state is a guiding principle. The church, until recently, has
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had significant influence on the government in Canada. Moderators of the church used to sit down with
prime ministers. Church members would write letters and petitions to their MPs and MPPs and they
were usually taken very seriously.
The church was a big deal, not only in numbers but in influence and in power. Because of the
connection and integration with government, the church was tied to many of the abuses in our history.
I’ll stick to just those in Canada. Governments may have instituted residential schools for indigenous
children, but it was the church who carried it out and managed these schools. Homosexuality was illegal
and it was the churches who spearheaded conversion therapy and who called homosexuality a sin.
People complain about all the apologies that have come through the United Church, but there’s a reason
for them. There’s another one coming to our next General Council in two years on the church’s role in
slavery and the slave trade. A lot of people have been harmed in the name of religion and in the name of
God. Christians has been the bullies on the playground and we are now having to come to terms with
the harms that have been caused.
The moderator said that maybe we need to go back to basics. Why are we here? Who are we to
serve? If we’re taking our example from Jesus, a carpenter turned rabbi, a teacher and a non-violent
resister, a person of faith and one who was killed for his views of empire and privilege, how far has the
church strayed?
John read for us a passage from a letter Paul wrote to the community in Corinth. In this letter, he
talks about boasting, and I wonder what was going on in Corinth to make Paul write so extensively on
the values of boasting. In this passage, he writes that he is happy to boast about other extraordinary
individuals but he will not boast of his own experiences unless it is to boast of his weaknesses.
In fact, he says, in order to keep him from being conceited, he was given, “a thorn in my flesh - a
messenger of Satan to beat me - to keep me from exalting myself!” He writes that he begged that this
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‘thorn’ might leave him, but God said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in
weakness.”
“...for power is perfected in weakness.” What an interesting thought with which to wrestle,
especially living in a world where might is right, where strength is celebrated, and where power is highly
sought after. Wrapping our heads around the idea that power is perfected in weakness might be a
challenge for us.
We are a community of faith without a building or a property. This might make us seem weak in
the eyes of some. Many churches are loathe to be separated from their property and some see it as a
death sentence. How can one be a church without a church building, a steeple, pews, or an organ?
Don’t get me wrong. We are also a church with more than 11 million dollars in the bank, so we are still
strong in resources, but when people hear we have sold our building and property, they just assume we
are closing, that our ministry has come to an end.
We are also small in numbers. Comparatively, we might have more than many smaller United
Churches, and we have people of all ages that many churches envy, but many churches might look down
their noses at the sixty people that might show up on a Sunday for worship. One of the reasons we are
exploring amalgamation is because we know that in ten to twenty years, many of our population will not
have the capacity to manage and care for a church community.
Being small can be difficult when we struggle to find volunteers or receive donations that
support the ministry of the church, but being small also makes us nimble. A few years ago, we decided
to change the organizational structure of our church. We used to have a board of 20-30 people that
worked alongside a whole lot of committees. Not only do we not have the volunteers to fill all those
spaces, but it was also a much slower moving body. Like the Titanic, that spotted the iceberg but
couldn’t veer away from it in time, a large church can be unwieldy and more difficult to steer, especially
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in treacherous waters or in times of great change. Being small gives us the means to be flexible, to be
more nimble, and to be able to make changes in a timely fashion.
One other way, I want to point out power in weakness is our Affirming stance. Many
marginalized circles have been seen as weak, including women, the disabled, indigenous people, those
with mental illnesses or those who are neurodivergent, and children. As an Affirming church, we
profess that all people are made stronger when we are together and when we can create a space where
anyone can belong and all have value. Our work is to lift up, affirm, and value all those who have been
seen as weak, as not good enough, as less than, as unworthy, and who have been constantly left out and
excluded from society.
Paul was strong in his faith, and before he converted to being a Jesus follower, he was an
oppressor. He used his strength and power to abuse those not following the strict letter of the law. After
his conversion, when he became a follower of Christ, and as he travelled from community to
community, professing the resurrection of Christ, he became the persecuted one. He was jailed, and he
was beaten. Eventually, he was killed. He wrote to those Corinthians, “I am content with weakness,
mistreatment, with distress, with persecutions and difficulties for the sake of Christ; when I am
powerless, it is then I am strong.”
Can we be content with weakness, with mistreatment, with persecutions and difficulties for the
sake of our faith? Can we find strength in our powerlessness, in our smallness?
May God give us the strength we need to be weak for the sake of our faith. May Christ be our
example as someone who found strength in teaching and healing and in non-violent resistance. May the
Spirit be with us in our smallness, in our humility, and in our longing for justice and peace in our world.
Amen.