posted on March 1, 2008 in Letters

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Re Full Time Cheerleader, January

Yes, the lord will always be with Patricia Schneider as she mourns and grieves the passing of her beloved husband. How wonderful it is to know the Lord Jesus Christ as our personal friend and Saviour of our lives. How I wish some of the other published articles in the Record were as uplifting and true as this one, not slanderous and full of untruths …

posted on March 1, 2008 in News

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The indefatigable Rev. Dr. John Johnston died on January 10, seven weeks after suffering major injuries in a vehicle accident. He was 80. About 1,000 people attended his memorial service a week later at McNab, Hamilton, Ont.

posted on March 1, 2008 in News

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Presbyterians Sharing … contributions were down slightly from 2006, but have surpassed givings for the three years before that. The final tally for 2007 is $8,734,120 – with almost $2 million of that received during the first two weeks of January.

posted on March 1, 2008 in News

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ENI – Lithuanian bishops are clashing with the country's media mavens over their support of laws restricting advertisements for alcoholic beverages.

posted on March 1, 2008 in News

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ENI – A proposal to make religion a required subject in the first seven years of school has triggered severe criticism from religious and secular quarters in Bulgaria – officially atheist in the years of communist rule but in which most of the 7.7 million population profess allegiance to the orthodox church.

posted on March 1, 2008 in Resources

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Who do congregations call when they have a problem, need assistance, or are seeking information? Regional staff, of course. Highly trained and deeply motivated, the 14 regional staff across the country encounter little they aren't capable of tackling. “I offer support, workshops, resource material and consultations among congregations and presbyteries in matters such as strategic planning, natural church development, elders, congregational and pastoral care, conflict resolution, evangelism and mission outreach, and session and presbytery retreats,” said Wayne Stretch, regional minister with the Synod of B.C. “I also support and encourage new church development and renewing church strategies, and offer pastoral care and support to clergy and other church professionals within the synod.”

posted on March 1, 2008 in News

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ENI – WCC general secretary Rev. Samuel Kobia, a Kenyan, said in January he hoped Kenya “will overcome the prevailing situation and that the churches will play an important part in speeding up that time.”

posted on March 1, 2008 in Youth

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Radical disciples. Counter-cultural prophets. Teenagers.

posted on March 1, 2008 in Pageants

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Presbyterians worshipping at St. Paul's, Leaskdale, Ont.

About a year ago, a friend of mine took me to see a new Presbyterian church built near her home in Uxbridge. “You've gotta see it!” she said.

As we drove up Main Street through the village of Leaskdale, we passed by the original St. Paul's church where Lucy Maud Montgomery worshipped when her husband was the minister many years ago. And then, there it was, the new St. Paul's, not 500 yards further up the very same street.
It was very impressive.

I thought, it looks like a recreation centre, or a library, or a concert hall – it's gorgeous! And I was right. We walked into the open building and as we looked around it was everything I imagined: a recreation centre with a gym, a library and a sanctuary with a raised stage large enough for a wonderful concert.

No organ. No altar.

State-of-the-art sound system and overhead screen.

How did this happen?, I wondered.

St. Paul's, Leaskdale, Ont.

Rev. Andrew Allison

My friend and I quickly connected with the associate pastor, Liz Honeyford, and when I asked the “how” question, she had one word for me: prayer. And then she went on to tell me that this church, which had dwindled to 35 members, had mushroomed into well over 500 people!

What are they doing here? I wondered.

Recently, I drove up to Leaskdale and walked through those doors again, on a Sunday morning.
The parking lot was full and people were spilling out of the building after the 9 a.m. service, while others were talking over coffee as they stood around in groups in the spacious foyer. There were people of all ages: families, teenagers and old folk walking in with canes. I could hear jazz (love it!) and when I looked into the sanctuary, I saw messages and reminders about church events flashing on the busy overhead screen.

I took my seat with those who had come for the 11 o'clock service and looked through the bulletin.

No order of service. No list of hymns. Instead, pages about St. Paul's This Week and Gifts of Change from PWS&D and other church agencies, plus appeals from Africycle, Sketch and the Canadian Foodgrains Bank.

And then a woman's face appeared on the screen above me and she described, with tears in her eyes, her experience helping HIV/AIDS victims. And when it was over, worship began.

Honeyford began with announcements, a call to worship and a gathering prayer delivered in a gentle, low-key fashion and then, with Pastor Andrew Allison as lead guitar-and-vocals man, we all began to sing. And I mean sing. And I mean joy! Throughout the whole service, which was continuous praise, and prayer, and love (dare I say it), seven musicians worked up there with Allison.

During the service when Allison invited people to come up closer to the front, I just had to move from where I had been sitting in the back row, as an observer, to be more a part of all that freedom in worship, and yes, again I say, all that joy.

Yes, there was a prayer of confession.

And yes, the sermon was Bible-based. And made me laugh. And allowed me to hear some of Allison's faith story. And touched my heart. I saw in his eyes vulnerability expressed with humility, and his compassion for all who were there.

What I experienced included a relevant openhearted message and the sharing of personal journeys of faith from many who were present all wrapped up in an atmosphere of welcoming acceptance.

It did not feel like a show or a rock concert; there was no applause. Most of the time Allison, and the others leading in worship, sang with their eyes averted, or closed, and I knew that they were praying with us, not getting between us and the Lord. I felt a strong connection and empathy with everyone in that holy space and yet, somehow, I felt alone with the Lord and very much at peace.

Near the end of his sermon Allison asked, “Stand if you are grateful to God for doing something unexpected in your life which cannot be called a coincidence.” I stood with many others. And later he said, “If you need healing of any kind come forward at the end of worship.” Several people did.

The service closed with a benediction and then those who felt the need of healing or private prayer stayed to be ministered to by Honeyford, and Allison, as well as Allison's wife (and mother of their four young boys), Colleen.

Afterwards I sat with Andrew Allison and asked him all my burning questions. “Evangelism,” he told me is “about telling people about Jesus. It's not about asking people for money, or handing them a tract. We're about reaching out to people so that they hear what Jesus said. Repentance is also a necessary part of the package. It's about real life. We call it 'lasagna ministry.' When people have heard Christ's message and then choose to follow what He taught, what we want them to do next is to get into discipleship of some sort, discipleship that connects with who they are.

“The PCC tradition comes from a history of risk-taking, of unashamed faith with great expectations. We are building on what began long ago.”

Honeyford added, “The Presbyterian Church was evangelical in the '50s. Preachers spoke with fire in their bellies and passion in their sermons!”

Honeyford and Allison admit that demographics are in their favour in this suburban community. Younger families have come in large numbers to live in the less costly areas north of the GTA. The location of this new church was carefully planned.

But, Allison insists it was more than just location. “All this began with a core of seniors who prayed and prayed some more, at every opportunity, asking God to show them what had to be done. And yes, some people did leave when we got our answers.” To which Honeyford adds, “And we have prayerfully helped people to find a church that they need if it's not this one!”

I believe this lasagna ministry is about waiting on the Lord and then being willing to take the risk of going wherever He leads. What a privilege it was to worship with this daring, eager-to-please-the-Lord congregation.

posted on March 1, 2008 in For the Journey

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Photo - istock

March comes in as winter and then it goes to the birds, at least in our neck of the woods. Ever since my pubescent period, I have revelled in March and what comes quickly on its heels. Then, as now, I lived on the swampy end of a lake, which is to say, the productive end when it comes to birds and wildlife. A lot of the birds that strongly influenced my youth were shore birds. None were more influential than the killdeer.
When the killdeer returned from wherever they spent their winters, drama season was officially upon us. At first they just ran along the shoreline, picking up worms and uttering thin piping cries. Soon they began to mate and that's when the drama really began. When I was a kid, you couldn't go anyplace around the shore of the Wasa Slough without a sandpiper kill-dee-ing at the top of its lungs and looking like it was weak and wounded near to death. One or both wings would be hanging like they had been shot off. And oh, the limp! The limp was so pathetic it almost brought tears to your eyes. If you didn't follow the bird to try and catch it, it would literally fly into your path and throw itself at your feet trying to get you to give chase. I usually did. Then the horribly wounded bird would lead me off on a tangent, looking for all it was worth like death was imminent. When I was led suitably far away from the eggs or the young, the bird would suddenly lose every vestige
of being wounded and fly off with a victorious cry. I would look then, as I still do today, and marvel at how the vanquished is the victor in this drama. It was never in doubt, and it was wonderful. It is kind of like Easter.
The writing down of the Easter story in all four Gospels has a context. In all four Gospels, to one degree or other, that context is the persecuted Christian community. Mark's Gospel, very likely written down for the Christian community in Rome close to the time of Nero's persecutions (sometime after 64 AD) would have been blown away by the Easter story.
In the Passion (Mk 15:6ff), Jesus is forced to be an actor by the whole cohort of Roman soldiers (that's about 600 soldiers or 1/10th of a legion, for us military buffs). They forced him to act like the Emperor of Rome. They forced him to wear purple like the Emperor of Rome, they forced him to wear foliage as a crown like the Emperor of Rome, they hailed him like the Emperor of Rome, they knelt before him like he was the Emperor of Rome. This forced act was to mock Jesus, to make Jesus, whom the Roman procurator Pilate has called King of the Jews, appear vanquished.
The forced act of weakness goes on with more mocking by everyone at the cross, from the casual passerby, to the chief priests and the scribes, to the voyeurs who try and keep Jesus alive to see if Elijah will actually show up. Even the two men who are crucified on either side of Jesus mock him. Everyone mocks Jesus as weak and vanquished. But when he dies, when he gives up his own life and breathes his last, something else seems to be going on.
Paradoxically, the first to catch wind of something else going on is the company commander of the Roman soldiers, who is doing his duty, standing before Jesus to watch him die, and when he does die, marvels: “Truly this man was the Son of God” (Mk.15:39). But the something else going on isn't fully realized until three days later. Three days later the word is out: “He is risen; He is not here.”(Mk. 16:6)
“He is risen; he is not here.” Mark's persecuted Christian community must have marvelled at how the vanquished is the victor in the drama they had just participated in by hearing the Gospel. It was never in doubt, and it was wonderful. It is not just a resurrection; it is the flat-footed defeat of Rome. Some of Mark's community were being martyred for following Jesus. All of them were, to some degree or other, being mocked for following Jesus. That's how religious persecution works. What really ends up being feared is the mocking. But Easter is all about the mocked one winning; the vanquished is the victor. In the drama of the Gospel, or in the dramatic living out of their faith in first-century Rome, the vanquished is the victor. From first century Rome I can almost hear “Hallelujah!”
Oddly enough, it is being mocked for my faith that is a big issue for me in my time and place. I like to think I am in no danger of religious persecution physically, and thankfully in Canada, I probably am not. But the reality is, if I am to speak outwardly about Jesus in most secular corners of my society, I will quite possibly be mocked. And the fear of that causes me to go about incognito in my faith, feeling publicly vanquished, feeling a huge disconnect between my Christian faith and the society where I am trying to live it out. And in that sense, I am strangely like the people that Mark's Gospel was written for.
But wait a minute. Like Mark's community, I am invited to participate in the Gospel too. Mark didn't write the Gospel just for his community to read, but to fully participate in. I am positive that's the reason he emphasized the Roman emperor so clearly in the Passion narrative. The vanquished is the victor. It is Christ's story; it is Mark's community's story; and it is my story. And in the face of that, and in the face of my own fear of being mocked for my faith, I now personally can appropriate those most precious Easter words, “Be not affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: He is risen; He is not here: behold the place where they laid Him” (Mark 16:6).
Epilogue: In 1951, Peter Ustinov played Emperor Nero in Quo Vadis, about Nero's madness and his persecution of Christians in Rome. As it progresses, Nero burns Rome and blames it on the Christians, who make up the lowest and most vulnerable section of Roman society. As a result, Nero begins to slaughter Christians to justify himself and to satisfy his psychotic madness. One online reviewer (amazon.com) writes: “But the slaughter of the Christians brings no satisfaction to the Emperor. The Christians sing as they go to their slaughter, inspiring the reluctantly impressed Marcus to snap, 'These people know how to die, Nero. You will squeal like a hog.' Nero cannot understand how the Christians can sing as they are being killed. After the slaughter, he goes at night into the arena and is appalled to find that they are all smiling in death.”

posted on March 1, 2008 in News

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ENI – Turkey's small Roman Catholic community hopes to mark the 2,000th anniversary of the birth of Paul of Tarsus by reopening a church at his birthplace. They also hope to improve the status of the country's Christian minorities.

posted on March 1, 2008 in News

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An aboriginal and church leaders' tour is scheduled for March 1-10, and will give participants a chance to visit community programs, and meet with media, local government, church and first nations representatives along the way.

posted on March 1, 2008 in Features

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'I am sure God has a plan for my church. And, I'm pretty sure what we're doing isn't it.” These are two of the three concerns I heard repeatedly while doing a congregational visit where I met with every member one-on-one. (It was a very small congregation and that was possible.) The third, however, was the punchline: “And, I'm the only one who feels that way.”

posted on March 1, 2008 in For the Record

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Jesus wouldn't have said things like “take your light out from underneath that basket and let it shine” or “move into all the world and make disciples” if he was content with a church plan of maintenance or gradual decline. God wants our churches growing and alive.

posted on March 1, 2008 in Discernment

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Back in the early 1970s William Stringfellow, a tenacious lawyer and lay theologian, contended that what the church most needed was the spiritual gift of discernment. That is, one should exercise the gift of spiritual insight that truly engages the particular times in which you are living. Now, in the listing of spiritual gifts by the apostle Paul, discernment is not explicitly mentioned. But Stringfellow, speaking at a Presbyterian College convocation in Montreal, made a compelling case. The social upheaval of the 60s, the long drawn out Cold War and profound questions raised by the Vietnam War were among the growing challenges to face those who would soon enter ordained ministry. For him the witness of Scripture to the Gospel of Christ compelled discernment of the times as a spiritual discipline.

posted on March 1, 2008 in Progressive Lectionary

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Matthew 28:1-8 (9-20)Easter Day, March 23, 2008

posted on March 1, 2008 in News

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The Women's Missionary Society has decided to cut back its grant to regional staff beginning in 2009. The yearly grant will be $200,000, representing a 50 per cent cut in funds. The change is mainly due to decreased givings resulting from dwindling membership.

posted on March 1, 2008 in News

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Adam Parsons was the 2007 recipient of the peace and human security internship program with Project Ploughshares, an ecumenical peace centre of the Canadian Council of Churches and sponsored by the Presbyterian Church. A member of Gale, Elmira, Ont., Parsons was completing his Masters degree in international relations when he heard of the opportunity, and contacted Ploughshares immediately to find out more.

posted on March 1, 2008 in From the Moderator

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I write to you in the dead of winter. Even in Abbotsford, B.C., as in the rest of Canada, the leaves have fallen from the trees, some snow has fallen on the ground, the temperature dips a little below freezing and the wind is often cold. Getting up while it is still dark to face the short, often dreary, days of winter is a bit tougher for most of us.

posted on March 1, 2008 in News

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Deadlines are approaching for this year's mission trip opportunities, which cover a wide range of locations and mission work. Confirmed trips are: