Magazine

Continue to marvel

Wilma Welsh

What great stories I am hearing as I visit the Church. In January while in Prince Edward Island I visited two congregations, Tyne Valley and Victoria West. Despite their small numbers they share an enthusiasm and an excitement for mission. As we travelled through the countryside it was disappointing to see how many church buildings are no longer in use. However, at the presbytery meeting, we learned of one congregation that has gone from a half-time ministry to a three-quarters time ministry and now with the assistance of Presbyterians Sharing, through Canada Ministries, they proceeded with a call for a full time minister. It is good to be able to celebrate such great stories. I am not facing all doom and gloom but a new excitement for ministry within our Church.

Offering Sanctuary

Erin Joy

The sign outside the church lists what most signs say: the times of both the Sunday service and the usual seasonal greeting. Underneath, however, on the last line it says simply, “Sanctuary Week 23.”

Seeing and Believing

Will Ingram

We are told that seeing is believing which is interesting for those of us who are 'believers' living in a 'seeing' culture. We live in one of the most visually-based cultures in human history. Television has become the way that we see the world and filter truth.

A Fireman in Sudan

Angus McKenzie

I work for the City of London Fire Department and my captain on Engine 11 is Glen Pearson, Director of the London Food Bank and former missionary. Having served for many years in Africa, Glen and his wife Jane Roy are currently assisting the people of South Sudan. This is an area suffering the results of 25 years of civil war.

From the brink 1

communications

ENI – “We are at a point of no return,” said Bishop Wolfgang Huber, who heads the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), the country's main Protestant grouping. He was speaking to more than 300 delegates from throughout Germany gathered in Wittenberg, the town where Martin Luther launched the Reformation five centuries ago, to consider how to strengthen the profile of Protestantism in Germany.

Getting on with your Life

Vicki Homes

My church offered no support groups for the separated or divorced. My friends were all married. When your marriage breaks up there is an aloneness that you feel — it's as if part of your life has been torn away from you. It is unnatural and surreal. So how do you get on with life as you ride this emotional roller coaster of sadness and sorrow? You don't. You just go through it the best way you can and find help wherever you can.

God heard the prayer

Phil Callaway

Dear Phil,
My wife is due in a month, and I'm a little frightened. No, I'm a lot frightened. Friends of ours had their first child a year ago and they've hardly slept since. They think he's the cutest little guy on earth. I think he looks like ET. He requires more maintenance than their pickup truck, and he's already made a serious dent in their savings account. What can I do to prepare for fatherhood? Please answer — and please hurry.
— Sleepless in Saskatchewan

A Place to Call Home

Lynne Donovan

When I read my first book on mainline church renewal in the early 1990s, the operative phrase was “paradigm shift.” Churches were encouraged to develop new models for ministry and mission. It was time to “think outside of the box,” to start with a blank page. It was not an exercise that came easily to many churches struggling with grief and diminishing resources.

I Just Want to Belong

Calvin Brown

A sense of belonging is at the core of Christian experience. It includes not only the grace-filled belonging in the personal fellowship within the Godhead, as John speaks of in Chapter One of his first letter, but also belonging to the fellowship of believers. In the Apostles' Creed, which outlines the essentials of the faith, we declare our belief in the Holy Catholic church and in the communion of saints. These confessions affirm our basic human need to belong. Even in the creation story we are reminded that in the Creator's perspective, even though He was pleased with all He had made, yet it was not good for the man to be alone and so Eve was created from Adam's side to be a companion and helpmate.

Indigenous Appointment

communications

Mark L. MacDonald, former bishop of Alaska, has been named the Anglican Church's first national indigenous bishop with pastoral oversight over all native Anglicans across Canada, a move that was described by Archbishop Andrew Hutchison, as “an historic moment” for the life of the Anglican Church of Canada and the country.

Historical meeting

communications

For the first time in its history the Caribbean and North America Council for Mission met in Canada, at Crieff Hills Community last fall. The delegates seen here — including the PCC's Ron Wallace and Margaret Zondo, of International Ministries and Reuben St. Louis, of Youth in Mission — represent 12 denominations from nine countries.

Show the money

communications

ENI – Rev. Ishmael Noko, a world Lutheran leader, says that if the international community wants the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement for south Sudan to hold, it must meet financial pledges agreed to when the pact was signed. “When the Sudan conference took place, there were pledges made. Lots of money was promised and not much has been done,” Noko, who is general secretary of the Geneva-based Lutheran World Federation, told journalists in Nairobi. “If the international community really wants the peace to hold in southern Sudan and the tensions not to return again, then it needs to do something.”

Apartheid crusader dies

communications

ENI – Rev. Robert S. Bilheimer, an American Presbyterian minister who organized the first assembly of the World Council of Churches in 1948 and later was credited with helping turn South African theologian C. F. Beyers Naude into an opponent of apartheid, has died at age 89.

Historical record golden

communications

Presbyterian History turns 50 this year, first published in March 1957. The bi-annual publication of the Committee on History has recounted the stories of Canadian Presbyterianism, including tales of how congregations got started, biographies of lay and ordained Presbyterians, and the role of Presbyterians in the history of Canada.

The Path to Healing : I want to know there's a God

communications

Clifford Bear represents everything Anishinabe wants to accomplish in its ministry. Shy, quiet and an artist, Bear used to wander the Winnipeg streets with his gang members — a rival gang, it turns out, of Lenny McKay's former posse. The two men now frequent Anishinabe at the same time; previous rivalries long extinguished.

Nominees for moderator speak up : David Phillips

communications

For the past two years, David Phillips has acted as the Leading with Care coordinator for the denomination. During this time, he has visited or worked with more than 500 congregations. He is also convener of the Pickering Presbytery’s Leading with Care Committee, and serves as clerk of session, teaches the adult Sunday school class and convenes the mission committee at his home congregation.

Nominees for moderator speak up : Rev. Dr. Hans Kouwenberg

communications

Kouwenberg came to his current charge after 20 years at St. Giles, Prince George, B.C. He has served on a number of the church’s national committees, including the Assembly Council and the Task Force for the Revision of The Book of Praise. He has been clerk and moderator of the Synod of British Columbia and moderator of the Presbyteries of Kamloops and Westminster. Currently the convener of the Board of St. Andrew’s Hall and a member of the Committee on Theological Education, Kouwenberg has served as a member of the governing bodies of all three of the church’s theological colleges. In 2005, the Presbyterian College, Montreal, awarded him an honorary D.D. He has also been the editor of Channels and a contributing editor to the Record.