All Things Are Possible By Ken McMillan
Here is a reader-friendly, truth-seeking, insightful story, which locates its genesis in not yet disheartened times (1916 to present). The author is a man of words—a gifted preacher—but also a man of action. For instance, he helped the Canadian colonial branch of the British and Foreign Bible Society mature and become the Canadian Bible Society. In his book, Kenneth McMillan recalls and reports on those events and experiences, which taught him most deeply during his 96 years of living learning.
With excellent editorial guidance from his daughter Catherine McGee, McMillan gets an achievement-studded story onto 185 pages by focusing on the good news from God. In his teens, in accordance with the Presbyterian rite of enlisting as a member in the Body of Christ, Ken took a vow to focus on that good news; and that is the story this book leaves us with. Clearly, he meant his boyhood vow to be a life-long and life-embracing commitment. At 96, he still sees life as a discipleship, and his talents as gifts entrusted to him, a steward by the Holy Spirit. His ethos echoes St. Paul’s understanding of ministry, brought alive for Ken and his classmates at Knox College, Toronto, under the flame-throwing theology and personality of Rev. Dr.Walter Bryden, who was appointed principal in 1944.
During all but the first of his six years of university and theological studies, McMillan supported himself by serving in—and learning from—Board of Missions appointments as a student minister with a charge in the Presbytery of Grey-Bruce-Maitland. In 1944, he emerged from his farming community’s youth and apprentice training for 70 years of ordained ministerial service. For 65 of those years, Ken had the immense benefit of a blessed partnership—his 1942 marriage to a gifted, avid, beautiful Burgoyne parishioner, Isobel McCannel. Ken dedicates his book to Isobel’s life.
An unsolved puzzle for our time is why springtime for churches like mine and Ken’s were so quickly turned into the cultural winter that perceptive prophets like Douglas John Hall and Charles Fensham discern as the onset of a new Dark Age.
One of the few ambiguous or questionable judgments in the book comes on page 52: “It all came crashing down in the 1960s.” Much of Christendom has indeed turned to dust but attributing that word “all” to an historic transformation contradicts the reality. There are islands of ongoing renewal and reformation—for example, in his own post-1957 pastoral engagements. Judging by the dynamic effectiveness of Ken McMillan’s own ministries through what he designates as “the crash,” his years with World Vision and especially his finale with St. Paul’s, Vaughan, Ont., the fire of his faith seems to demonstrate that the word “all” in his verdict is excessive.
On the whole, this book is an important and well-presented story. McMillan made creative use of opportunities in the Presbyterian faith and, in turn, his story deserves a wide and attentive study.
