It was Sunday morning, the setting a serious Church of Scotland Service in a formidable stone building several hundred years old. As the minister, I stood to read the announcement which the elder handed me. "Yesterday's kirk fayre was a huge success. Great crack was enjoyed around the tables." His face drained of all of its colour as he realized that my Canadian accent brought a somewhat North American interpretation to the Gaelic word craik. My Highland vocabulary was expanding, but not without a lot of concern on my part over what I had just read and gales of laughter from the congregation. Craik means a good chat, a conversation to catch up on all that has been happening.

Many congregation members often wonder, and worry about what goes on in theological colleges. Where do ministers come from? What do they learn? Why do they have to go to Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal for at least three years? I hope I will provide some answers by providing a brief history of theological education, to which I have added some proposals.

Ministry during a vacancy. Education for ministry during a vacancy. It seemed like a simple enough article when I agreed to write this, but the more I got into this, the bigger it got. Huge. Still, at the risk of over simplifying, and looking at this from an educational perspective, there is only one major difference between a congregation with a minister and one that is without one. Attitude.

Here is an unabridged letter of appreciation received from a returning camper in the Intermediate II Camp at Camp Geddie.