In 1908, the Basis of Union was formulated that would eventually lead to the creation of the United Church of Canada in 1925. Coinciding with this spirit of unity, the first Union church (Presbyterian and Methodist) was set up in Melville, Saskatchewan in 1908, followed a short time later by the church in Frobisher. In 1912, a committee of Union Churches approached the national church courts of the Presbyterian, Methodist, and Congregational denominations in order to seek affiliation with the parent churches. This committee formed the nucleus of what would become the General Council of Union Churches of Western Canada. An Advisory Council, with representatives of the Union Churches and the parent churches, was established in 1914 as a means of creating the sought after link between the Union Churches and the parent churches.

The Cooperating committee of Saskatchewan was formed when representatives of the Presbyterian and Methodist Churches met at Regina, May 2, 1911, in order to facilitate cooperative activity in various localities in Saskatchewan. The formation of this Committee paralleled a similar action taken at the national level by the Presbyterian, Methodist and Congregational Churches. After mid-1923, this committee was called the Provincial Committee on Co-operation.

The Provincial Church Union Committee was formed on July 26, 1923, by representatives of the Saskatchewan Methodist Conference and the Presbyterian Synod of Saskatchewan to take preliminary steps to effect Church Union in Saskatchewan. Representatives of the congregational Churches were also invited to be on the committee.

R.W. Hardy was a Methodist and later United Church minister, who served congregations in Saskatchewan and British Columbia. He was born in 1890 and spent his childhood in Ontario, before attending the University of Toronto. He was ordained and married in June 1921, in Whitby, Ontario. He moved west and was assigned by the Methodist Church to the hospital in Hafford, Saskatchewan. From 1925 to 1930, Hardy served as a United Church minister in Speers and then Maymont, before transferring to Cranbrook, B.C.

The Joint Committee officially convened in April 1904, in Toronto, bringing together appointed representatives from the Congregationalist, Methodist and Presbyterian Churches, to negotiate church union. Meetings continued through to 1908, when the terms written in the Basis of Union were agreed upon and sent to the negotiating churches, for discussion and approval. By 1912, both the Congregationalists and the Methodists had agreed to the terms. The decision was more contentious for the Presbyterian Church, though in 1916, their General Assembly decided to go ahead with the union.
Between 1916 and 1925, the Joint Committee worked to complete the union and defeat those opposing it, including the newly formed Presbyterian Church Association.

Jesse H. Arnup, (1881-1965) was a Methodist and then United Church minister and later the Moderator of the United Church of Canada. He was born in Norfolk County, Ontario in 1881. In 1905, he was received on trial by the Methodist Church in Estevan, Saskatchewan. He graduated from Victoria College in 1909 and received his D.D. from Wesley College, Winnipeg, in 1924. From 1910 to 1912 he was Secretary of the Layman's Missionary Movement of the Methodist Church, Assistant Secretary of Overseas Missions from 1913 to 1925, and Secretary of United Church of Canada Foreign Missions from 1925 to 1952. He served as Moderator from 1944 to 1946.