United Church moderator shares her vision for a smaller denomination: Being small doesn’t mean being insignificant

“We May Not Be Big, But We’re Small.” 

That was the motto of The Vinyl Cafe, a fictional record store owned by Dave, a character featured in the stories of the late Canadian author and CBC radio host Stuart McLean. 

It could also be the motto for the United Church of Canada, according to moderator Kimberly Heath. 

I spoke with Heath last September, after she was elected to that position. Looking ahead to her new role, she noted that United Church members still liked to think of their church as big — even though that was no longer the case. 

But being smaller doesn’t mean being insignificant, she said. 

“There are plenty of examples in the Bible of God using things that were small,” she said. “We shouldn’t bemoan we are not the church we were in the 1960s. Yes, we are small now. But maybe that is what we are called to be at this time.” 

Read my column about Heath and her vision for the United Church of Canada in the Free Press.