Our Statement of Faith
We are committed to creating a community that cares for one another and all God’s creation. We respect, value and celebrate people’s differences and their gifts.
We affirm publicly that we are all one in Christ regardless of sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, ability, age, colour, ethnicity, marital status, and social or economic circumstance. Valuing a fair and just world that reflects God’s realm on earth, we advocate justice for all persons. We commit to work for the full inclusion of all in the life and work of Grosvenor Park United Church. All are welcome to take part in every aspect of our church life and outreach including membership, leadership, stewardship and celebrations.
Recognizing that our Christian faith is an ongoing journey, we pray for God’s Spirit to renew and guide us as we listen and learn from one another.
Adopted March 21, 2009
Our Mission
Growing in Christian faith • Promoting justice • Reaching out to all
Our Vision
Through Christ, Grosvenor Park United Church is an inclusive community that celebrates in worship, grows in faith, affirms diversity, and reaches out in service to achieve justice for all.
Our Values
Faith - By the Spirit, we trust God, the Source of Life, through Jesus Christ who renews life.
Worshipping and Caring Community - We value community that celebrates in worship and cares for one another and all God’s creation.
Reaching Out - We believe that we are to serve and reach out to others with compassion.
Inclusiveness - We value the diversity of God’s world and affirm all people.
Justice for All - We value a fair and just world that reflects God’s realm on earth.
Our Mission, Vision and Values Statements were adopted on January 25, 2009
Our Affirmations of Faith
Recognizing that God can never be fully understood, and that our words can never match the awesome nature of God and that our individual beliefs are diverse and evolving, the following fairly describes what most, but not all, of our congregation believes at this point in time:
God is love, unconditional and all-encompassing. God works through the Spirit, giving us energy, comfort, hope and guidance. Living in the diversity and complexity of all creation, God challenges us to imagine, then create, a more just and sustainable world.
Jesus embodies God’s unconditional, holy love that accepts and celebrates each of us in our diversity. As our justice-seeking teacher and radical role model, he inspires us to be joyous agents of change.
Church is a welcoming, worshipping and caring community of Jesus’ followers who strive to love unconditionally and with whom we can be imperfect, diverse, inclusive and connected. Together we seek personal growth, spiritual understanding, deep healing, joyful and musical celebration. Rooted in The United Church of Canada and the Social Gospel, our church culture calls us to be both leaders and followers living out our faith in action, seeking Spirit-led transformation, social justice and peace.
Adopted October 16, 2016
Our Overarching Goals
In our ideal church, at Grosvenor Park United we strive to achieve these eight goals:
Everyone belongs.
We know one another.
Worship is at the heart of what we do.
We are life-long learners.
We are here for a long time.
We are in service to the world.
We work together effectively.
We know who we are, why we’re here, and project it beyond our walls.
The above states our goals in "plain language." To read the two-page version as found in our 2014 Visioning Report and adopted in October 2014, click here:
What's a United Church?
The United Church of Canada has been around since 1925, when Methodist, Presbyterian, Congregational, and other Christian churches united, becoming one of the first ecumenical unions in the world to bring together major Christian denominations into one body. There are approximately 3,000 United church congregations in Canada, serving over two million members and adherents. General Council, Broadview Magazine and Mission and Service (M&S) are three places where we connect as a nation.
Ours is a denomination with a rich, progressive and continuing history of welcoming people of all backgrounds and orientations in the name of Christ – wherever you are in your faith journey. Many of the initiatives of The United Church have been ground-breaking within the faith community, and life-altering for countless individuals. That said, our denomination has also contributed to the genocide laid bare in Justice Murray Sinclair's Truth and Reconciliation Report on the Residential Schools. We still have much work to do on the path to reconciliation.
Grosvenor Park is one of Saskatoon's thirteen United churches, all of whom belong to the Living Skies Regional Council of The United Church of Canada.
We're an Affirming Ministry
An Affirming Ministry is a congregation that works for the full inclusion of people of all sexual orientations and gender identities in The United Church of Canada and in society. To become designated as "Affirming" a congregation enters into a two year process of education and discernment before holding a vote to make the final decision. Our church family celebrated becoming an Affirming Ministry in May of 2009. We have an inclusive marriage policy, and we continue to find ways to publicly, intentionally and explicitly support the wider 2SLGBTQ+ community.
Becoming an Intercultural Church
In our inclusion journey, Grosvenor Park United Church has begun an educational process to better understand how to connect with people of different cultural backgrounds. We are intentionally experimenting with worship styles and creating social events of interest to a larger circle of people. The United Church of Canada's intercultural vision is about more than inclusion—it’s about a radical welcoming that calls all of us to change. Thanks to many resources provided by the national United Church office, we continue to move forward with this initiative.
Reconciling with Indigenous Peoples
We tried to make you be like us and in so doing we helped to destroy the vision that made you what you were. As a result, you, and we, are poorer and the image of the Creator in us is twisted, blurred, and we are not what we are meant by God to be.
- Moderator Bob Smith - excerpt from The United Church of Canada's apology to First Nations people, 31st General Council, 1986
Grosvenor Park United Church supports the efforts of the national church toward reconciliation and justice for First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples. We acknowledge our historical and present connection to these injustices, perpetrated through the claiming of land, violating Treaties, the Residential School system, and other systemic colonial and racist acts, whether they be overt or subtle, intentional or not. We join with other Saskatoon and Canadian United churches to educate ourselves, and to seek justice. We strive to build good relationships with Indigenous neighbours and all our living relations in this sacred Treaty Six land and the homeland of the Métis Nation.
Serving and Learning from the Disability Community
Grosvenor Park United is connected with the disability community through several initiatives: a Sunday program for adults with intellectual disabilities (since 1969); housing the Special Olympics office (since at least 1993); and providing a home for Kids of Note and The Notations (since 2005). In 2014-15 we helped to launch AIM - Ability in Me (a speech and language program for children and youth who have Down Syndrome) by providing the space AIM required at a manageable rent.
Parts of our worship services are created with the differently-abled in mind, and we continue to explore ways in which we can be accessible and establish best practices for this integral part of our church family. In 2022 we completed major accessibility renovations to the church sanctuary, adding a lift to the expanded chancel/stage area, replacing pews with movable cushioned chairs, new smooth flooring, a larger accessible kitchen for hospitality, a new accessible all-gender washroom adjacent to the sanctuary, and upgraded sound and lighting systems.
In January 2023 we hosted the Connecting Communities conference on disabilities, justice and living well.
The United Church of Canada is also taking leadership in this area with its Disability Ministries initiative.
