Opening Worship
The 139th General Assembly began with song and prayer. A praise band summoned the more than 200 commissioners to the gymnasium of Seneca College in […]
Magazine
Your Turn
We have shied away from issues of sexuality and gender. Readers get riled on either side of the political spectrum; they say nasty things to each other and subscriptions are cancelled en masse. It has made us overcautious; but, is it time to talk about this in our church?
A Work in Progress
I stopped going to church when I started high school. I didn’t feel it did anything for me at all. Then a couple of years ago, two events started to gradually put my life into a new perspective.
Intentional Community
As I write this, the March issue of the Record has been available for only a couple of weeks. In that time I have had more feedback than I have received for all the things I have ever written combined. I hit on something significant: many ministers are burning out.
The Good News
I am not grateful each morning as my feet hunt for my slippers. I don’t thank God for delivering me safely through the night.
Theological Conversation
The city of Geneva has not forgotten John Calvin. His name appears on street signs, plaques and bottles of beer (along with the slogan “in birae predestines.”)
Our Comfortable Pew
I can still remember reading Pierre Berton’s The Comfortable Pew. Berton was nothing if not prophetic. Perhaps not in all the details, but he did have a sense that organized Christianity, at least among Protestants and Anglicans, had lost its way.
Best Practices
Over the past six years, I have been in literally hundreds of churches. Many are in gradual decline and are searching for solutions to reverse direction. Sadly, almost all are going about it in exactly the wrong way.
Community News – May 2013
Ploughshares Applauds Treaty Project Ploughshares, a peace and justice NGO supported by the Presbyterian Church, celebrated the adoption of the Arms Trade Treaty at the […]
Broken Yet Beloved
What if we shifted our approach to becoming smaller and more focused in our mission and ministry? What if we shifted our vision of church to a fellowship of communities less dependent on money?
Visible From Outer Space
One spring night a fully loaded freight train was derailed on the other side of the lake. It was the beavers.
Pension Board Explores Options
Faced with a $45-million deficit in the church’s pension fund, the Pension and Benefits Board is exploring options for how best to deal with the […]
Justice Comes Slowly to Pakistan’s Prisoners
In Pakistan an accusation is enough to make an arrest. That’s what happened to Rehmat Masiah, 75, who was accused of blasphemy after a land dispute went sour.
The Cost of Discipleship
It was on the night of my mother’s 16th birthday, May 10, 1940, that the small kingdom of the Netherlands was invaded by neighbouring German troops. So instead of happy birthday greetings by family members, my mother was glumly told that morning: “It’s war.”
Maturing Your Faith
Is it possible that faith and doubt can exist together?
From Islam to Jesus
The name Lamin Sanneh is hardly a household one for most Canadian Presbyterians, but he is someone worth getting to know. His autobiography is a compelling read, simply in terms of the unlikely and remarkable trajectory of his life.
Death Becomes Us All
Death stirs up many emotions. Whenever I prepare to preach at a funeral, or attend a memorial service, I often find my thoughts moving in different directions, swirling really.
The Rev. Stuart Bowyer Coles, B.A.
Was the eldest of five siblings born to Murray McCheyne Coles and Jennie Bowyer on a farm near Woodbridge Ontario. The Church Union struggle attending […]
Assembly Council Prepares for Future
The Assembly Council’s March meeting began with presentations from three ministers working in thriving churches. It continued with a time of silence the next morning; […]
Poet, Pastor, Activist
Rev. Stuart Coles, pioneer-activist, poet and pastor, passed away March 23.