Worship materials from 190 congregations from every province in Canada will now be sealed in the Presbyterian Church's national archives for 50 years, preserving a “moment in time” for the future church.
“I hope this will be a valuable mine of information to tell people how we in the Presbyterian Church in Canada worshipped right now,” said Rev. Dr. Fred Rennie, the man who devised the Moment in Time project, and secretary of the Experimental Fund, which funded it. PCC archivists Kim Arnold and Bob Anger helped administer the project.
Rennie is surprised and pleased with the response, and said he hopes the materials will also give a sense of the church's social concern; whether congregations looked outward to help others, or were content with worrying about their own four walls. “It's also nice to look back and see what the preachers were preaching!”
Congregations submitted orders of service, church newsletters, sermons, congregation demographics, annual reports, music and hymns, photographs, bulletins, and videotapes of Sunday services.
Rennie hopes the project will also have taught congregations how important it is to “acquire and preserve” their records – something the archives has urged at the last few General Assemblies. Transferring records to microfilm, which can be done by the archives with the originals returned to the congregation, is the method of choice.
Though the project has officially ended, congregations can still submit materials and they will be added to the collection. AM
