M&S Ideas

The 1920s

In 1925, the newly formed United Church combines all of the funds of its founding Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregational churches.

In 1928, the United Church outlines how it will fund its mission through a unified fund. The 1928 United Church Manual states, "There shall be a cooperative and unified plan for financing the work of the Church through a fund to be known as the Maintenance and Extension Fund ...the plan will provide for...a united appeal to the whole Church for the entire amount required."

In the same year, the name of the Fund is changed to the Missionary and Maintenance Fund.

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The 1940s

Deeply hit by Depression and war, the Church is plunged into near bankruptcy. Members rally and buy war bonds payable to the United Church. By the end of the decade, the United Church budget deficit is erased. The Missionary and Maintenance Fund supports home and overseas missions in India, China, Angola, Trinidad and Korea. The Sunday Schools Special Project buys specially equipped station wagons for the overseas missionaries so they can "put the Church on wheels and "Go and Teach."

At home the Missionary and Maintenance Fund supports over 1,200 home missionaries to cover over 800 preaching centers in "unchurched" rural communities. An 1948 Bulletin asks readers to: "Imagine living where there is no church, no Christian fellowship, where no Christian minister is ever seen...all our Home Missionaries -- as is the case with our Overseas Missionaries -- are supported by what we contribute to the Missionary and Maintenance Fund. Do we care enough to share -- MORE?"

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1950's

This is the decade of tremendous growth, expansion and resource sharing. The Missionary and Maintenance Fund is helping to build new churches, colleges, training centers, senior citizen homes, outreach ministries and summer camps. "At the height of a decade of unprecedented church building, the United Church opened one new church, church hall or manse every week" (Fire and Ice, John Shearman, p.13)

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1970's

The name of the Missionary and Maintenance Fund is changed to the Mission and Service Fund.

The United Church's overseas mission is characterized by global justice and peace initiatives. Appeals for Humanitarian relief efforts in Nigeria, India and East Pakistan become the precursor to what is now the World Development and Relief Fund (WDR). The United Church declares its dual mandate to be "doing mission" and "doing justice".

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1980's

Overseas missionary workers are now officially called overseas personnel.

The United Church redefines its overseas missionary work by establishing long-term global partnerships with agencies and churches already within mission countries. The emphasis shifts from sending people to also sending grants that overseas churches use according to their priorities.

Patti Talbot, Global Mission and Personnel Secretary, notes that in the past the United Church felt that "We had something that other folk in other parts of the world did not. We took [the] gospel to places where it didn't exist. Now we understand mission to be the sharing of people to be a response to the call of our partners to share in that mission. We don't create the need. We don't go with a sense of something superior that we need to share with others. In fact we go with service."

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2003

75 Years of Connections

• 176 congregations receive crucial funding from the M&S Fund.
• 103 Community outreach and social support programs are supported by the M&S Fund
• 53 Hospital, nursing home, community, and university chaplaincies
• 36 Overseas personnel and partners in 39 countries receive language, training, airfare and salaries paid for by the M&S Fund
• over 146 Indigenous churches, Christian councils, and agencies that minister in partnership with The United Church of Canada
• over 37 countries in which the United Church of Canada supports ministry, training, development or relief projects.