It was a special spot embedded in the wilderness of the Rocky Mountains. It was a hot spring nestled in a cliff on the edge of Sheep Creek. My Dad and I lived in a shack without running water, so we went there every Sunday for our weekly bath. Even when it was 35 below (Celsius) and the snow was three feet deep, the hot spring maintained lush green vegetation and warmth for a few metres around, an oasis in the icy desert of winter.
ENI – Two of the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian synods in Malawi which are at loggerheads with one another over boundaries, have rejected offers from the country's civil society to act as arbitrators.
The Life and Mission Agency Committee met outside of Ontario for the first time, gathering at Surrey Presbyterian Church in British Columbia in November. The Korean congregation offered the invitation, and hosted the meetings. Committee members visited area congregations, missions and schools. Mary Fontaine, founder of the native Hummingbird Ministries mission in Vancouver, visited the committee.
The Sense of the Call: A Sabbath Way of Life for Those Who Serve God, the Church and the World
Barbara Edmonds, co-founder of Edmonds, Gallagher and McLaughlin Insurance Brokers Limited and Royal Lepage Edmonds and Associates Real Estate, Pembroke and life member of Petawawa Presbyterian passed away peacefully in a hospital, in March last year, at the age of 74.
The Lord would not have said “My Father who is in Heaven” unless he had had another father, but he would have said simply “My […]
“Sabbath is a time of realizing that we do not run the world. It is a time to recover the rhythms of Grace, as we trust in God the Creator. It is a time to realize our responsibilities to the poor and the lost as we look around us. We recommend a Sabbath rest for the people of God.
What is the Sabbath? Who is it? Why is it? When, how and where is it? These days, many books and studies try to find the answers.
Christian bookstores in the Montreal region report that while the sales of Da Vinci-related books geared to believers have been good, these have been dwarfed by the much brisker sales of the smaller booklets and evangelistic tracts that were obviously being distributed to the public at large. Rather than dealing with the background debates and the Gnostic controversies, both the books and the tracts tend to become academic listings of historical errors in a book that the world at large and the secular media have already understood to be intended as fiction. The church is responding to questions that nobody seems to be asking.
Four Christian movements were needed for Christianity to take hold in China. As a result of a colonial past, a Communist government, cultural revolution and a history of a patriarchal and culturally obedient society, Christianity has come and gone several times as the political and social contexts in China change. Below is a brief outline of major events in Chinese-Christian history:
She grew up in China — her parents devoted members of the country's Communist Party and therefore unsupportive of her Christian faith. Rev. Ying Gao, recently appointed vice president of China's Nanjing Theological Seminary, remembers the roadblocks along her journey of faith. “My mother was so angry,” said Gao, about the day in 1980 when she told her family she became a Christian. “She conceptualized it as superstitious, backwards and counter-revolution, which was the perception of Christianity then.” Despite her mother's warnings that she would sever their relationship if she went through with it, Gao enrolled in seminary, following God's call to be ordained.
During these past few weeks, my travels as moderator have taken me to Alberta, Nova Scotia, and British Columbia as well as to several places in Ontario. I have visited synods, presbyteries and congregations. I have participated in meetings of the national church and the Women's Missionary Society. I am encouraged by the life and vitality of our Church and its congregations; the faithfulness of our members, their warmth and their caring for each other. I have come away from each visit with a feeling of excitement about the health of the congregations within The Presbyterian Church in Canada.
The African drumbeat beckoned the delegates from the hallways of a Halifax convention centre in November into the large meeting room. As we followed the drumbeat, it drew us to an open area where African dancers were performing. Later I came to the conclusion that the passion and the power of their dance expressed the synergy that took place at the Summit. It was the kind of synergy that happens when people from around the world come together for a noble purpose — assisting the poor. The cynical were inspired by the idealists and the idealists (like myself) got a taste of reality and practicality.
ENI – An east African church grouping has joined with an inter-religious council and a leading NGO to urge religious leaders from the Horn of Africa to help avert a looming regional military confrontation in Somalia.
ENI – The presence of African churches is considered urgent and important at this month's World Social Forum.
If you are around long enough, you will always get one, and the village of Grand Valley has been around more than long enough to have earned a considerable one. Once you get it, it is often hard to shake. It sticks like epoxy to a broken hoe and hardens like Cambrian rock once the glue dries. Most folks simply call it a reputation and it is as visible as a multi-coloured tattoo on your bicep and as permanent as a bronze plaque in a rural church sanctuary.
I couldn't believe it was happening. Oh, how I wish I could turn back the clock. It was Maundy Thursday — it was indeed the last supper that I would have with my husband.
We met one another in 1962. It was not long before our two families became good friends. Raymond and Cindy lived on Isle Jesu in an area called Duvernay. He had been appointed the minister of St. John's there. The two families visited one another until Raymond and Cindy left Montreal for California.
During the restless rule of Emperor Tiberius, a Jewish Nazarene by the name of Yeshua bar-Joseph began teaching and preaching in Palestine. He was but one of many whose messages were variously political and religious, challenging the depth of people's faith as well as prophesying the end of the Roman empire under whose yoke they laboured.
“Children are a great comfort in your old age — and they help you reach it faster too.” – Lionel Kauffman