My interest was piqued by the Education for Discipleship report to General Assembly. The report noted that nearly 20 per cent of congregations in the Presbyterian Church had no Sunday school in 2005. In 2006, 164 out of 932 congregations (reporting statistics) were in that situation. This suggests that Presbyterians are not reaching the next generation of Canadians.
ENI – The Vatican says it respects and esteems Judaism, despite tension over a Good Friday prayer revived by the pontiff which some Jews say demeans their religion.
I am not one prone to enjoy what I consider the trashy touristy things in life, so it was with a real sense of reluctance that I agreed to visit there at all. However, She Who Must be Obeyed (both of them) insisted that we take the time during our Ontario deputation tour to visit Niagara Falls.
ENI – Christian journalists meeting in divided Cyprus urged unbiased and well-informed reporting on divisive issues founded on principles of equality, accessibility and dialogue.
A document that has “the capacity to change the World Council of Churches” was the subject of discussion at a series of meetings held in Toronto in early April. Called To Be One Church challenges churches to act upon the unity they seek with each other, Rev. Canon Dr. John Gibaut, Director of the WCC's Faith and Order committee, told an assembly of members from the United States and Canada. The brief document – at 2,300 words it is a filtering down of various other statements on the nature and purpose of the church dating to 1998 – “challenges us with 10 questions” that set the WCC's 349 member churches on “a call to journey … an arduous yet joyful path.”
Reconciliation: Grand Chief Ron Evans called it a “journey we have to take” in his welcome to those gathered at the Remembering the Children event at the Forks Market in Winnipeg. Comparing reconciliation between the church and First Nations people to a journey did not surprise me, realizing it was a journey I myself have to take. I was prepared for polished presentations from church and aboriginal dignitaries signifying their willingness to cooperate with each other. As the Gaudry Boys opened the evening with fiddling, I settled into my chair prepared to observe the production with polite detachment.
Presbyterian Record readers are familiar with Phil Callaway and now so are American soldiers. The U.S. Army has purchased 30,000 copies of Callaway's Be Kind, Be Friendly, Be Thankful, a children's book about two best friends who are forced to say goodbye and the lessons they subsequently learn.
The timing was surreal. Remembering the Children: An Aboriginal and Church Leaders' Tour to Prepare for Truth and Reconciliation concluded mid-March. A week later, Ontario judge Patrick Smith sentenced six leaders from Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (Big Trout Lake First Nation) in Northern Ontario to six-months' jail for contempt of court. Their crime? Failure to abide by a court-ordered injunction aimed at preventing them from peacefully protesting against mining exploration on their traditional lands.
It was a “historic and sacred moment in the history of Canada,” said Rev. Dr. J. H. (Hans) Kouwenberg, reflecting upon the second stop of the Aboriginal and Church Leaders' Tour to Prepare for Truth and Reconciliation, held at the University of British Columbia on the evening of March 5. Beginning at the Vancouver School of Theology, well over 300 attendees were led by the beat of a Musqueam drummer, Victor Guerin, on a ceremonial walk to the Museum of Anthropology. It couldn't have been a more suitable setting for this time of truth-telling, listening, learning and healing – sitting in the great hall with the totem poles as a backdrop, in the area that had once been the site of a Musqueam warriors' village. Garan informed the audience that his people's warriors were first and foremost peacekeepers.
May 25: Matthew 6: 24-34
“There is an emerging and compelling desire to put the events of the past behind us so that we can work towards a stronger and healthier future. The truth telling and reconciliation process as part of an overall holistic and comprehensive response to the Indian Residential School legacy is a sincere indication and acknowledgement of the injustices and harms experienced by Aboriginal people and the need for continued healing. The truth of our common experiences will help set our spirits free and pave the way to reconciliation.”
The United Church Observer, the independent magazine of the United Church of Canada, is sponsoring a traveling exhibition focusing on the life and work of Charles Darwin currently on display at Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum.
Alex Macdonald is the new program coordinator for work in Central America at Presbyterian World Service and Development. He has been the program assistant for communications since June 2006, and will fill the position effective June 2. He is fluent in Spanish, and has already been busy travelling to Central American countries to meet the church's partners and familiarize himself with the projects there. The Central America portfolio was previously managed by Guy Smagghe, who also coordinates PWS&D's work in Asia and government relations. According to Ken Kim, PWS&D's director, the change “reflects the increase in complexity and scope of our programming throughout the region.”
The number one passage in the Bible that has been a substratum for my vision of ministry has been Acts 2:42-47. Here is how Eugene Peterson renders it in The Message):
When I applied for the internship offered by Presbyterian World Service and Development to work with the Institute for Women's Research Training and Development in El Salvador for nine months, it was not done on a whim. I had spent the last three years looking forward to the moment that I would apply for a position overseas. In my final year of undergraduate study – majoring in International Development and Women's Studies at Dalhousie University in Halifax – a friend told me about an international internship program funded by the Canadian International Development Agency. I immediately did some research and decided that I too would participate in an overseas internship following graduation.
Earlier this year I had an email exchange with my favourite sparring partner, Rev. David Webber, over the fact that rural issues are not well covered in the magazine. A few weeks later I had a passionate email from a lady in Saskatchewan who was expressing the opinion of her friends that the Record does not do enough stories about the western part of this country.
The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” – Ezekiel 37:1-3
Norman Wirzba writes in Living the Sabbath of “the principle that was well-known in ancient or traditional cultures: bodily health includes the health of many bodies, human and non-human, we necessarily live with.” He echoes the teachings of Canada's First Nations that everything around us, animate and inanimate, is “all my relations.”
ENI – CNN founder Ted Turner, who once called Christianity “a religion for losers,” has launched a joint initiative with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and the United Methodist Church to raise US$200 million to fight malaria in Africa, which kills more than one million people each year.
ENI – A new reference book lists 648 denominations and movements, making the Netherlands the country with the second-largest number of Christian groups in the world, after the United States which tops at 2,000 in a similar book.