Broadview

By Janice Young

Growing up as a United Church kid in the ‘80s, summer camp was a formative experience. As soon as the announcement appeared in the Sunday bulletin that registration forms were ready for pickup, I’d start my packing list: sleeping bag, pillow, flashlight, soap, shampoo, bug spray, rain gear, Bible. (It was the early ‘80s, so I may or may not have packed sunscreen.) And on the appointed day in July or August, I’d join the thousands of youth across the country being dropped off at camp. 
 
The United Church runs the largest faith-based camping organization in Canada, founded in the 1930s. In its heyday, it boasted 75 camps and more than 20,000 annual campers. Though the numbers have dropped in recent years, there are still 54 camps hosting about 15,000 youth each year. They are led by thousands of paid and volunteer counsellors.
 
So I felt their disappointment when the Wellman Lake United Church Camp in Manitoba recently had to cancel their entire season due to extreme flooding in the region. As the thought of a flooded campground brings fresh sorrow over last summer’s Camp Mystic tragedy in Texas, it was the right call to make for everyone’s safety. But that didn’t make the decision an easy one, according to WLUCC vice chair Breanna How, who says “it absolutely breaks our hearts not to have camp this year.”
 
Read our full story on the devastation in the region, the struggles faced by the camp, and organizers’ hopes to salvage their 75th anniversary plans.
 
Let Me Know: Was church camp a big part of your childhood summers? Tell me about it, and we might publish your response in the next newsletter. Email me: j.young@broadview.org.
 
Letters
In our last newsletter, we asked you what your community would lose if your church were to close. Here are some of your impassioned responses, which have been edited for length and clarity.
 
The Vancouver east end Longhouse (Council of Native) Ministry — formerly Hastings United — is a multi-use, live-in/on-site, volunteer supported and yes, ailing, church. It provides virtually free hospitability to various community activities including Bible study, addiction recovery, music practice, healing circles and after-school programming for 30 children. If the church had to close, the user groups would be instantly homeless. 
—Barry Morris, Vancouver
 
It might interest you to know that our congregation recently put a call out to our community via the local newspaper to help us with a leaky roof we simply could not afford to fix ourselves. We made the appeal very much on the basis that the church is a vital third space for our community.  The result was affirming, to say the least! Between the congregation and community we have raised $31,000 in a matter of months, and an anonymous community member has offered to cover any of the cost we are unable to fundraise. Not that long ago I had a conversation with a regular to our community dinners, who said we’re known in the community as “the church that cares.” Because we care, others do as well.
—Rev. Heidi Koschzeck, Langford, B.C.
 
Our church, Wild Rose United in Calgary, has intentionally opened its doors to many community-based organizations such as cadets, Ukrainian dancers, a playschool and a Swedish language school. It would be very difficult for these groups to function without the kind of space we offer. We also host a “no questions asked” food pantry, knitting groups and a professional clinical psychologist who offers her services to the community on a pro bono basis. Without our church, the community would be less cohesive, less collaborative, less “tuned in” to the common needs that are shared in any human community.
—Rev. Linda C. Hunter, Calgary
 
Firstly, this has already happened! St. John’s Anglican West Toronto has been deconsecrated, and all sorts of things went with it. For the neighbourhood, there are no more bells on Sunday or special occasions. I first heard classical music, namely Bach and Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance,” played on the church's Franklin Legge pipe organ. Sunday school was at 3 p.m. and the hall downstairs was simply packed with young people from many different churches. In its later years, the pews were mostly removed and replaced by chairs that could be configured for mother-child play groups or other activities in the church nave. Scout troops met in the parish hall, after the quilters’ guild. I have since moved away and joined a thriving United Church, but I am saddened to see so much of my early history fade away.
—David L. Bythell, Thunder Bay, Ont.

In this deep dive for the July/August issue, journalist Julie McGonegal traces the complicated history of religious programming aired by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. In a timeline punctuated by past programs (remember Man Alive and Hymn Sing?), a story unfolds of message control, uneven representation and an evolving demographic. 
 
Religious groups were refused their own broadcasting licences, and access to the public network remained tightly controlled.