I was pleased to be able to spend a week with 18 new friends at General Assembly. YARs we were called – Young Adult Representatives. Our days were full of activities. Starting Sunday morning with a buffet breakfast with anything you wanted then heading straight to St. Andrew's, a truly beautiful church. Sederunt One began that evening in Knox, another beautiful church.
Saw Winning and Wah Lay Ray are amongst about 100 Karens who live in Thunder Bay, Ont., because of sponsorship led by a Presbyterian church. Karen are an ethnic people from Burma, who comprise about 15 per cent of the population there. Winning and Ray happened to be in neighbouring Thailand when the devastating Cyclone Nargis tore through Burma in early May killing an estimated 100,000 people and leaving tens of thousands of others without food or water.
Four downtown Kitchener congregations, who had signed a covenant in 2001 to work together, met in May to discuss the issues they face. St. Andrew's Presbyterian, St. Peter's plus Zion and Trinity United Churches, held an architectural competition at the University of Waterloo in 2004 which resulted in a plan to raze several church wings, and build high-density housing while conserving sanctuaries. This year's conference sponsored by Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation sought to hear about other downtown church projects and consider future options.
"If you invite someone to be open and honest about wounds you've inflicted on them, either personally or through identification, then you also have the responsibility to ask for forgiveness from the individual or group you have wounded," said Rev. Dan MacKinnon of Grace, Ottawa, following his request that the moderator apologize to General Assembly's aboriginal guests.
As I write this it has been a month since my induction as the Moderator of the Church and I may be more familiar with new title but it was like getting a new name. Sometimes you really have to force yourself and others to accept that you are 'it', not 'that'.
Rev. Karen Bach, currently director of the Evergreen Centre for Street Youth at Toronto's Yonge Street Mission, was honored in May for her contribution to the ecumenical chaplaincy at the University of Toronto. Presented at Victoria College, the Legacy Award was created this year to celebrate leadership in the work of the university's ecumenical chaplaincy. The chaplaincy board said there "was no question" that Bach should be the award's inaugural recipient.
Rev. Dr. Hans Kouwenberg expressed concern the Presbyterian Church may have more of an institutional stance rather than that of a movement. "Although our new national resource centre, the Vine Network Helpline and The Vine Leadership Links sound promising, I continue to be concerned about adequate advocacy within the national offices for ongoing local congregational development, worship and evangelism, as well as for developing new national and regional strategies for new church development," Kouwenberg told commissioners in his closing speech as moderator of the 133rd General Assembly.
The enthusiastic congregation gathered at Knox, Ottawa, for the opening of the General Assembly experienced a worship service that was memorable. The presence of several hundred ready-to-sing Presbyterians put the average karaoke bar to shame. The Knox organ and choir were properly "classical" in that wonderful building and brought sweet memories to those who are weary of the 7/11 songs of seven words sung 11 times.
ENI – Rev. Samuel Kobia, general secretary of the World Council of Churches, which supported comprehensive sanctions against apartheid South Africa, has issued a warning against imposing an economic embargo on Zimbabwe.
ENI – World religious leaders who met in Sapporo, Japan, in advance of the summit of the Group of Eight industrial nations, which included Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper, urged G8 countries to cut military spending to finance environmental protection measures.
Mr. Moderator, let me begin by saying thank you for the opportunity to come and observe the court this week, and for the chance to share my reflections with the venerable assembly.
I have the flu. Symptoms include everything from voice loss to a lack of enough physical stamina to hold up a paperback. Painfully, I muster up enough energy to reach for the remote control.
The rest of the magazine will no doubt give greater detail of the Assembly in Ottawa, so I have picked just a few highlights to share with you.
A coalition of Chinese language churches in the Greater Toronto Area met in the immediate aftermath of the worst earthquake to hit China since 1976 and issued a cheque for $10,000 to a Christian relief fund.
The longest debate at this year's assembly was an extension of issues raised last year by the Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations Committee. An overture asked assembly to reaffirm the uniqueness of Christ because the committee's revised mandate "included words that left people confused in terms of our relationship with people of other faiths," Rev. Shannon Bell-Wyminga, of B.C.'s Cariboo Ministry explained to the Record.
In May we read Observer Backs Darwin. Hopefully those presenting the exhibit will present both sides of the theory since, as quoted from Genesis and the Big Bang by G. D. Schroeder, an applied physicist and theologian, the fossil record has failed to confirm Darwin's theory. Furthermore, the DNA code is so complex that there has not been enough time for evolution (Darwin's) and the odds are also against it. Consider this: a simple human cell measuring 1/1000 of an inch across contains instructions within its DNA that would fill one thousand books of six hundred pages each!!
Spiritual ipod:
I'd like to suggest a few songs that could be added to the list.
I found the The Theological iPod by Andrew Faiz, June Record, very interesting and have a number of songs to add to the list. My Christian faith began to mature in the late eighties. At that time I had the pleasure of travelling across Canada and the U.S. with Spectrum Productions, which was an arm of Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship. Spectrum had a multi media show called In Search of the Sun which used secular music to pose questions about science, sex, love etc. This was followed by a second show which looked at the Christian faith. This experience along with the influence of certain people in my life at that time profoundly affected me and introduced a faith that allowed questions.
On May 25, Mary Fontaine, director of the aboriginal outreach Hummingbird Ministries, was ordained Minister of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church in Canada. The service took place in Mistawasis, Sask., at the First Nation Community Centre. Following her ordination, Rev. Fontaine proceeded to baptize her grandson and oversee a communion service at the Mistawasis Memorial Presbyterian Church. "I'm proud of being Presbyterian and glad that I can be both a Christian and a Cree woman," she says.