“My priority is to give native people hope and a future,” said Rev. Hoosik Kim, director of Edmonton Urban Native Ministry. “Sticking to the past cannot draw people into a better future. I recognize that aboriginals in this land need both physical and mental healing. They also need reconciliation in various relationships. Going one step forward, they require leadership for the generations to come.”
Most Presbyterians have probably heard of native residential schools and the various abuses suffered by children who attended them. Most probably know their church had […]
In the north end of Winnipeg, the aboriginal population — many of them poor, homeless, hurting — continues to grow. Drugs are rampant, violence is a constant threat, and absent or addicted parents fail to provide a warm and positive environment for their children. Enter Flora House.
When Frehley McKay died last year in a gang war, no one wanted to host the funeral, fearing retaliation from McKay's gang rivals. With nowhere for friends and family to gather, nowhere to lay the coffin for its last rites, the people of Anishinabe Fellowship Centre stepped forward, offering the centre as the place where the 22-year-old's loved ones would say farewell. Police in bullet-proof vests camped out at each corner to ensure no more violence ensued.
Last January, a rotting old building used for low-rent apartments in Kenora, Ont., was destroyed by fire. Forty tenants were left homeless, their few belongings ruined. With nowhere else to go, they made their way to Anamiewigummig, or the Kenora Fellowship Centre, the town's only overnight emergency shelter, where they can find coffee and a warm meal, comfy couches with a view of pristine waters, company from the resident pet turtle, and most importantly, someone to talk to about their problems.
This summer I spent time with the statistical report of The Presbyterian Church in Canada. One-quarter (25.7 per cent or 238) of PCC congregations reported […]
Tuesday June 19, 1894. The 20th General Assembly of The Presbyterian Church in Canada, meeting in St. John, New Brunswick:
In a growing region that has several universities and colleges, it's no surprise that children and youth ministries are the focus for numerous churches in the Waterloo-Wellington presbytery. Sunday schools are being renewed and some congregations are offering innovative mid-week family programs.
Big city, big problems. Living amongst the wealthy and powerful of Toronto are the poor and helpless. According to the City of Toronto's homelessness report card in 2003 nearly half a million households had incomes below the poverty level. Over 30,000 individuals, including almost 5,000 children, stayed in a housing shelter at least once. Over 70,000 households were on the waiting list for subsidized housing.
Some stopgap. Some band-aid.
The Presbytery of Niagara was host to the national church twice this year, bringing hundreds of volunteers together. Brock University in St. Catharines was the site of the 132nd General Assembly in June and Canada Youth 2006 in July. The presbytery has 19 charges and 23 congregations, some with a handful of adherents and others with more than 400 members. But each shares the goal of congregational renewal and re-visioning. Many churches are looking to expand their outreach. Rev. Tijs Theijsmeijer, presbytery clerk, says a future project with Arabic ministries is under consideration. “Hopefully within the next year it'll be an established ministry,” he says.
Tara Bentall King, co-ordinator of student recruitment at the Vancouver School of Theology, recently attended a conference on spirituality in the Pacific Northwest.
If you go down to the mall today, you're in for a big surprise. If the mall is somewhere in Ajax, Ont., and if it's 1 p.m. on the first Saturday of the month, someone may just hand you a Tim Hortons gift certificate and say, “Have a coffee on us.”
The Presbytery of Algoma and North Bay is very big — not in number of churches or ministers but in sheer physical size. The challenges […]
A father's death. A mother's mission. A family's desire to share its music with others. Put these ingredients together and you get The Scott Woods Show — a six-person ensemble playing old-time fiddle music, helping churches raise money, and hopefully drawing non-church-goers into a sanctuary for the first time. “This is music that brings fellowship, and brings people together who may not otherwise come to church. It's uplifting, and maybe we're making things seem a little brighter, and maybe people leave with a bit of inspiration,” said Scott Woods.
Argyle Presbyterian Church, in the former hamlet of Crinan, now under West Lorne, Ontario has celebrated its 145th Anniversary.
Paris is a peculiar presbytery. Situated in south-western Ontario, its demographics, in many ways, reflect presbyteries across the country: several larger churches working alongside a greater number of rural and small-town congregations. But in other ways, the presbytery is quite different. While its attendance and members both dropped between 2003 and 2004, its number of adherents increased. It also has several congregations whose numbers reflect a growing trend in many denominations; that of more adherents than members. Paris Presbyterian and Calvin, Delhi, are examples of this, and Innerkip actually has more in attendance each week than is listed on the constituent roll.
When ministers are on holiday or maternity leave, at home sick in bed, or when the pulpit is simply vacant, congregations are missing a main ingredient for Sunday service. Not content to leave congregations without worship each week, the Presbytery of Cape Breton, currently faced with six vacant charges, found a solution in lay worship teams — groups of trained, educated and commissioned lay persons who conduct worship services for congregations in need. “Equipped, enabled, empowered,” is their mantra.
“I submit that since 1925 our church has wandered somewhat haphazardly, goaded by the memory of certain heroic events in our past, feeding on the manna of our own history…. I want to see our church set free from preoccupation with her own past and her own future, free to emerge from that wilderness of her own choosing and enter the modern city, the terrible and wonderful new world where one thing above all is required from Christians — a celebration of the Christ who is already there, waiting for His followers to come out into the tempest of living.”
Four years ago not one of the six charges and seven congregations in the Presbytery of Temiskaming had a full pulpit. One of the smallest presbyteries in the church, with 301 members in 2004, was having a near-death experience.