Ethno-cultural Associations

Ethnic minority peoples have a long history with The United Church of Canada and its denominational predecessors. Union United in Montréal, now Canada's oldest Black congregation, began as Union Congregational Church in 1907 with a congregation of peoples of African descent from Canada, the Caribbean, and the United States. That same year, a Welsh congregation, Dewi Sant Welsh, was formed in Toronto.

In the 1940s, the Church of All Nations in Montréal, whose original mandate had been to minister to "non-Anglo-Saxons," became Hungarian United Church. And a German congregation of The United Church of Canada was formed in Toronto in 1959, called Deutsche Evangeliums Kirche German United.

Although Chinese, Japanese, and Korean communities within The United Church of Canada had organized national Associations, other ethnic communities within the church, some with roots in Canada predating church union in 1925, found themselves without specific ethno-cultural Associations of their own. In the early 1980s, at a convention of ethnic minority United Church congregations, several of these groups expressed their need for fellowship, networking, and support.

As a result, the Euro-Caribbean Group of United Churches was formed in 1982; its original membership included Armenian, Caribbean, Finnish, German, Hungarian, Italian, and Welsh congregations. In its early years, the association had little funding, and could only meet to share ethnic cultures, linguistic issues, and pastoral concerns every four years in conjunction with National Ethnic Committee conventions of The United Church of Canada.

In 1990, Taiwanese members joined the group; hence, in that same year the group renamed itself the Coalition. It continued to grow in membership as congregations with heritages in Zaire, Ghana, and Uganda joined the diverse group. With the creation of the Ethnic Ministries Council in 1996, the Coalition became a funded part of the Council's ministry, meaning it could now hold its own annual meetings and continuing education events.

The Coalition focuses on identifying common goals and common challenges, and on celebrating the different gifts they bring together. Participants at Coalition events have expressed the need for congregational support, lay and clergy education, support for youth and young adults, resource sharing, and communications to connect their congregations on a national level through Ethnic Ministries.

Though committed to a common vision, there is tremendous diversity within this group of ethnic minority congregations. Recently, three smaller and more specific cluster groups have formed-African/Caribbean, European, and Taiwanese-to provide continuing supportive fellowship between larger Coalition events.

The Coalition, which currently has 14 churches in the provinces of British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, and Québec, exists to support its members through prayer and celebration, to maintain and nurture its members' heritages, and to provide a sense of belonging for ethnic minority congregations who feel isolated in their ethno-cultural identity in the church.