2000s at Calvary - Part Two
In a joint message from Calvary’s ministerial team in the 2004-2005 Annual Report, Reverend Yun-Hee Noh-Perry and Reverend Terry Dunseith said, “We are thrilled that our Calvary family has Vision!” because both had new ideas to bring to their new ministries.
When Reverend Yun-Hee Noh-Perry became the Minister to Young People and Their Families in the summer of 2004 she was newly ordained, newly married and newly moved into her first Kitchener home. She described her first months of being at Calvary like being in a batting cage with balls flying at her from all directions, but she was learning to handle the busy-ness, one ball at a time. As a South Korean with a University of Toronto theological education she saw herself as a bridge between two cultures, in a position to help each understand the other.
A Korean tradition she once shared with the congregation during worship was one she would perform at a graveside when she officiated at a funeral. It was the Reverential Bow. With her hands crossed in front of her forehead and eyes looking down, she slowly went down on her knees and then slowly rose again to her feet and unfolded her hands. This was a solemn ritual honouring the spirit of the departed person and Yun-Hee performed it with grace and deep emotion.
Reverend Terry Dunseith moved closer to his hometown of Guelph when he came from Burford United Church to Calvary Memorial in August of 2004 as full-time Minister to the Congregation. He and his wife Diane and son Matthew, like other former Calvary ministers, were first introduced to the congregation on a Labour Day Five Oaks Weekend. Terry had a lot of experience not only as a congregational minister but also as a very active participant in the life of both Erie Presbytery and Hamilton Conference. You may recall hearing about the tragic night that Burford United Church burned to the ground in January of 2003. Besides dealing with his own loss, Terry knew that his role was “to help a congregation grieve the loss of their sacred space and struggle with them to find a faithful future.”
Terry’s experience with audio-video equipment and programs opened up a new world to Calvary. Screens were installed at both sides of the pipes at the front of the sanctuary, and the necessary projectors were put in place on the balcony level. This step into the 21st century was thanks to the generosity of an anonymous donor. It is remarkable how different singing sounds in the Calvary sanctuary when people are looking up at the screen rather than down at a book! Terry also introduced the whole congregation and Sunday School to a program called Akaloo, described as “imaginative, creative, user-friendly and technological”. For some of us who were still struggling at that time to use email, “technological” and “user-friendly’ didn’t belong in the same sentence, but we tried and adapted.
Although the church membership roll remained fairly stable, Calvary’s ministers, as far back as Dr. Kellerman, were concerned about declining attendance at worship. It was tempting to feel that this was only
Calvary’s situation but, in fact, it was a trend across all churches in Canada. Seven United Churches in Kitchener formed a group known as Cooperating Congregations that met to share concerns and to seek an answer to the question, “What should the presence of the United Church of Canada be in the Kitchener of the future?”. Financially it made no sense to have so many congregations clustered in one city with another four United Churches in its twin city. Options were proposed. Should there be mergers? Should there be one mega-church built somewhere on the edge of town? Could there be a team of ministers organized to serve all the churches.
No single answer has been found yet, but conversations were started and members from Calvary let it be known that Calvary would be open to having discussions with any church willing to chat. Bridgeport United Church was the first to approach Calvary with the suggestion of merging congregations and retaining the Calvary site and since repairs needed at Bridgeport seemed too extensive. For most of one winter there were meetings with representatives of the two churches and it looked like there could be an amalgamation; however, when a vote was taken, although Calvary was firmly in favour, the vote of the Bridgeport congregation fell slightly short of the 60% needed to proceed.
That was a disappointing result but a short time later 24 people from Bridgeport were ready for a new experience and carried on with their intention to join Calvary. Even after a long process that had ended unhappily, many got quickly involved in church life once again and took on leadership roles in the expanded Calvary. They were ready to volunteer their time and talent. How many of you remember how delicious the ham dinners were? Watching their crew prepare, serve and clean-up was like watching a well-oiled machine in motion. This, we knew, was not the first dinner they had served!
Since 1922, three “Fs” -- food, finances, the furnace -- were certain to be topics of conversation at Calvary. Two of those were major concerns of the UCW – food and finances! In one year alone, 2006 for example, the Social Functions Committee provided lunch for three funerals, two birthday parties, one anniversary party, and a shower, while the entire UCW hosted the Strawberry Social, two dessert parties, and prepared and served a turkey dinner to 50 people from K-W Habilitation Services. That is a lot of food prep! To raise money, the quilters completed six quilts and the Tied Quilters made 43 quilts to be sold or given away. One somewhat puzzling entry in the record of a UCW unit’s activities says that they held “a sale of Thanksgiving calendars with price based on age”. In that year alone the UCW raised almost $11,000. After covering expenses they gave $5000 directly to Calvary Memorial and the rest to other charitable causes.
Outreach at Calvary was more than fundraising in the 1990s when we embraced two new opportunities to partner with others. One program close at hand began as a potluck luck supper at St. Mark’s Lutheran church. In a partnership that in 2022 celebrated 25 years of service to this community, many Calvary folks joined with neighbours from St. Mark’s to prepare a hot meal every week for anyone who came, as well as hiring a professional coordinator to provide assistance for those in need of help with issues like housing, medical concerns and legal issues. Perhaps most important of all, Community Ministry has given folks to place to develop a feeling of belonging in a safe community.
Another partnership called “Sharing from Our Closets and Our Hearts” was formed with Conestoga College that had a program called “Focus on Change” during a time when severe cuts were being made to social services. The program provided women with skills to enter the job market, but often they were without clothing appropriate for a job interview or job shadowing. Calvary responded as often as the program was offered with a clothing day called “Sharing from Our Closets and Our Hearts” when the students came to choose outfits from a huge selection of gently used clothing. The bonus was that women were there to make repairs and alterations so each of the guests left with clothing that fitted perfectly. After a lunch break they returned to the chapel to find other clothing they liked for themselves, family members and friends. “Shopping” for clothes was never more fun!
Two women in the congregation, in fact the wives of our Minister and Minister Emeritus, Diane Dunseith and Betty Seebach, who may have been accustomed to having their husbands tap them on the shoulder during coffee hour and say, “Guess who’s coming for lunch today, dear?”, organized a fundraising event they called, “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?”. People signed up to be either hosts or guests. The catch was that the guests didn’t know whose place they were going to and the hosts didn’t know who their company would be! It was fun to open the envelope as you left for dinner to find out where you were going, or to answer the doorbell to mystery guests. Guests were asked to donate to the church an amount that they would expect to pay for dinner at a restaurant.
How many churches do you know that have two groups called “The Romeos”
and “The Juliets”? Calvary does! The men of the church for a long time have had monthly lunch gatherings that feature a lot of laughter. The first letters of their full name, “Retired Old Men Eating Out”, seemed to suit them very well -- so “Romeos” they became! The Juliets were started by a woman in the congregation who had been recently widowed. She thought how supportive it would be to meet with a group of other women who had lost their spouses. The Juliets later expanded to include all single women. They continue to meet monthly at different restaurants and have enjoyed food and friendship for more than 15 years.
Through the 2000s Calvary enjoyed many happy times, but there was shock and disbelief when we heard the news that someone had defrauded the congregation of a large sum of money. Ron Plum, Laurie Forster, and members of the Trustees and Stewardship committees spent hours going over financial records and meeting with insurance representatives and police officers. The case went to trial but eventually the person pleaded guilty. The money was never recovered; however, insurance covered most of Calvary’s losses. The greater loss for Calvary was its sense of innocence and trust, and the result was much tighter control over all financial matters. What a sad chapter in the church’s history.
A much different sense of grief and loss was felt by the congregation when we learned of the sudden death of Matthew Dunseith in his sleep on November 14, 2009. Matt was the loving and beloved son of Reverend Terry and Diane Dunseith and a friend to all of Calvary, especially to those who came in for worship by the Gruhn Street entrance and were handed a bulletin by Matthew each week. Despite having serious disabilities, he participated in Sunday morning activities like the Christmas dramas, and could be heard guffawing at his father’s jokes. Matthew will always be remembered fondly by those who were blessed to be part of his church family.
Scripture tells us that there is a time for weeping and a time to rejoice. Events of the 2000s showed us how true that is. And because it is true, Terry included a message of hope in every sermon he wrote and his words through difficult times encouraged us to look to the next decade, the 2010s, with optimism.