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Conversations with new ministers-to-be

I’ve been dividing my time between The Vine and the Communications Office here at national office, which gave me the opportunity to sit down with a couple of Vine staff who are new ministers-to-be. Both Dong-Ha Kim and Courtney Morris have accepted calls and are beginning their solo paster positions early this year. I thought it might be interesting to ask them a few questions about the transition from seminary grad to new minister, and they were happy to share their experiences about the process, a time of excitement, idealism and nerves.

Dong-Ha and Courtney spent some of the time between their graduation and ordination at national office working in The Vine, which, in case you’re unfamiliar with it, is a national access centre for The Presbyterian Church in Canada that provides information and resource support for congregations (thevine@presbyterian.ca). Dong-Ha volunteered his time by reviewing resources, doing research for questions, and wrote a script for a communion DVD to be produced this year. Courtney worked in a contract position; she answered support requests and wrote and designed several resources (including these men’s breakfast placemats). Both expressed an appreciation for the exposure to the work and resources at national office they gained from their positions.

: People

: Courtney Morris, Dong-Ha Kim, new ministers, The Vine

Money. Sex. Demonic Possession. A Presbyterian Experience

I’m pleased to present the first guest post at BeingPresbyterian.ca! Interestingly, Carmen is not a Presbyterian, but a self-described “lapsed Catholic” and blogger who literally wandered into a Presbyterian church one Sunday morning. This is her story. /Colin

I’m a cradle Catholic which, for those of you not in the know, means I was born and raised in a Catholic family. Unfortunately, I am now a lapsed Catholic and yes, I feel guilty about it.

Fast forward to 2007. I’d just moved to Toronto from Houston, Texas and was surprised at how few churches there were in the downtown core. Because of their lack of proximity to my house, and much to my parents’ chagrin, I had never quite connected with any local Catholic churches. After a while of not attending, I very much began to miss the ritual and community of attending church each week. More so, however, I missed my connection with God.

I began toying with the idea of trying a different faith. Initially, I felt like a traitor for even thinking about that and seriously questioned what it would mean as a Catholic, albeit lapsed. What would my friends think? More importantly, what would my family think? As much as everyone likes to joke about “Catholics versus Protestants”, I was truly hesitant about stepping outside my comfort zone and into a completely new one – a Protestant faith.

I’d passed St. Andrew’s Presbyterian hundreds of times. The church itself is a stunning Romanesque style built in 1876 and its beauty alone makes it hard to miss. I started doing some research. I googled “Presbyterian” and scoured the internet to find out everything I could about the faith. I felt like I could identify with the foundations of the church and my desire to return to church quickly began to outweigh my guilty feelings about not going to a Catholic-proper church. I decided I’d try St. Andrew’s.

As I walked to church that first Sunday morning, I got the familiar adrenaline rush knowing that I was walking into a completely new situation. Would they somehow know I wasn’t Protestant? Would they point and laugh? I reassured myself – I mean, we all believe in God after all – and headed inside. I found a seat, the service began and it felt very familiar, without the kneeling of course. “Maybe Protestants weren’t that bad after all”, I thought! It just so happened that the sermon that day was focused around things society considers taboos or sins – very apropos. The first three words out of the reverend’s mouth were “Money. Sex. Demonic Possession.”, and I knew I was home.

My decision to seek another faith wasn’t something I took lightly. It wasn’t some kind of social experiment and it certainly wasn’t meant to poke a finger in the eye of the Church I grew up in. It was the right fit at the right time. I’ve continued to attend St. Andrew’s each Sunday, as well as the recent LOVE event they hosted on Valentine’s Day. I simply love it. St. Andrew’s, and the larger community of the Presbyterian Church of Canada has embraced me in a way, and at a time, when I needed it most. I haven’t looked back since.

: People

: congregations, guestblogger, St. Andrews Toronto, Toronto, visitors

Enduring the Pastorate

I love those rare moments when I read two seemingly unrelated articles that, by the pure coincidence of the timing of my reading them, lead me to see things a new way. This happened to me today when I read a blog post by Tyndale Seminary grad and hospital chaplain Sam Williams. He wrote about and then quoted Presbyterian Minister, and Tyndale professor, Rev. Dr. Victor Shepherd.

In the excerpt from Dr. Shepherd’s sermon the following line caught my eye:

as often as I’m thrilled I’m also startled, sobered and awed, for I recall Jean Vianney: “If we really knew what it is to be a pastor, we couldn’t endure it.”

I might not have taken much if I had not also recently read an article in the Presbyterian Record about the difficulties faced by pastors in our church:

While many Christians struggling with mental illness turn to their minister for comfort and help, our clergy themselves are suffering. A recent survey conducted by the Centre for Clergy Care on Clergy Well-Being (led by Rev. Andrew Irvine of Knox College, Toronto) revealed some disturbing trends. In their survey of more than 300 ministers from six Canadian denominations, they found that the number of those who had been diagnosed with clinical depression was double the national average.

Dr. Shepherd’s quotation of Jean Vianney is too easily dismissed on its own. Add to it the weight of the research behind the Record’s article and it becomes an sweeping indictment.

: People

: Presbyterian Record, Rev. Dr. Victor Shepherd, Samual Williams, Tyndale Seminary

I’m a lonely Presbyterian blogger

I’ve been erratically posting to this blog for several months now and, frankly, I’m lonely. To cure my loneliness, I’ve been working away at finding some additional bloggers for this space. I’m happy to announce that BeingPresbyterian.ca will very shortly evolve into a community blog. Some will post occasionally, while others, I hope, will become regular contributors.

I’m not quite ready to announce who has agreed to join my quest here at BeingPresbyterian, but l hope to have the first non-Colin post up sometime next week.

Stay Tuned!

P.S. If you have something to say that even tangentially helps answer the question, “What does being Presbyterian mean in Canada today?” let me know! I’m always looking for contributors for the blog!

: People

: blogging, community

Lessons from McDonalds

Yes, that McDonalds.

A few minutes ago, Rev. Matt Brough, minister and blogger at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Winnipeg, had this to say on Twitter:

When we talk about communications in the Church, we usually think about bulletin inserts, the website, the projector screen, and the monthly newsletter. But what does your parking lot communicate to prospective pew-dweller about your priorities as a congregation?

We’re all familiar with the notion that non-verbal communication is far more telling than verbal. So what other “non-verbal” messages is your church sending besides who gets priority parking?

: People

: communications, congregations, Matt Brough, Trintity Winnipeg

First Presbyterian Church of Facebook

The Facebook phenomenon has begun to (finally) find its way into the Canadian Presbyterian community. This means that Presbyterians from across the country have begun to experience the fellowship opportunities that social networking sites like Facebook offer.

There are currently ~~at least 25~~ close to 50 groups on Facebook related to the Canadian Presbyterian community – and I’m sure there are many I haven’t found. Here are just a few:

If you don’t spend much time on Facebook, you might think that we must have had an explosion of university students in The PCC. As much as we would welcome such a blessing, the demographics of Facebook now are much different than they were just eighteen months ago and conventional wisdom hasn’t yet caught up. In fact, most Canadian adults on Facebook are over 25.

What is even more surprising is the sheer number of Canadians that spend some of their time connecting with friends and family on Facebook. About 11 million Canadians now have Facebook accounts – that represents well over a third of Canadian adults. Using demographic information extracted from Facebook’s advertising system, I was able to determine the size of each age group on Facebook for Canada. The results are:

Age Range	Number	Percent
13-17	1,553,300	14.00
18-25	4,004,200	36.10
26-35	2,906,640	26.20
36-45	1,421,520	12.81
46-55	691,760	6.24
56-65	372,940	3.36
65+	142,320	1.28
Total	11,092,680

While it’s clear that the university crowd is the largest single age group on Facebook, Canadians over the age of 25 represent about half of the entire Canadian Facebook population. To me, these numbers represent a huge ministry opportunity for The Presbyterian Church in Canada.

What do you think? In what ways could we, as a denomination, reach out to the Presbyterian community that already exists on Facebook?

In February, I’ll be speaking at an unconference called PodCampToronto where I’ll be leading a discussion called “First Church of Facebook: an Exploration of Faith and Social Media.” We’ll be talking about the ways that Canada’s faith community are (or could be) using social media (like Facebook) to engage and minister to their constituents. If you have a story about how social media played a part in ministry, please share it with me either in the comments below or by email: ccarmichael@presbyterian.ca.

: People

: congregations, Facebook, podcamptoronto, social media

Doing versus Being

The title of this blog pretty clearly sets out my perspective on communicating what the PCC is all about: the most important story about The Presbyterian Church in Canada is the illustration of what it is to BE Presbyterian in Canada today.

I came across a blog post written last year by Bruce Reyes-Chow, who is now the Moderator of the PC(USA). In it he outlines what he sees as the obstacles that are killing the Church. He does this by pushing several issues through the dichotomy of the modern and post-modern worldviews. One in particular seemed particularly relevant to the BeingPresbyterian readership:

OBSTACLE // We value the DOing of the institution over BEing in relationship:
Modernity says that community is in the methodology and ways we DO church; Postmodernity says that community is about BEing church.

We Presbyterians are gooooooood at this one. Our Book of Order is "clear" and we can use polity to create community. We can structure our way into being the body of Christ. Buzzzz. Thank you for playing. Now don’t get me wrong. I love our polity, the spirit in which it was and is written, the guidance it gives, the bounds it helps to set, etc. but it will NOT create community. The ways we DO church should only be lifted up in as much as the DOing helps to sustain the BEing.

At the same time, if a church community believes that it’s ministry is worth outliving the people who are there at a particular moment and time, some kind of structure and DOing church must take place in order to create sustainability. In the end though, every time we face a choice, we should be about BEing church.

Until today I had considered doing and being to be interchangeable. Bruce has successfully challenged that part of my thinking, and I thank him for that.

: General,People

: Being Presbyterian, Bruce Reyes-Chow, PC(USA)

Ballot Set for 2009 Moderator of Assembly

In a message sent to the denomination through the PCC website at presbyterian.ca, Rev. Stephen Kendall, Principal Clerk of the General Assembly, announced the names that will appear on the ballot for the Moderator of the 135th General Assembly.

Those names are:

Ms. Marilyn Clarke, Elder, Knox Presbyterian Church, St. Catharines, Ontario
The Rev. Karen Hincke, Minister, St. Stephen’s Presbyterian Church, Peterborough, Ontario
The Rev. Richard Sand, Minister, St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, New Glasgow, Nova Scotia
The Rev. Harvey Self, Minister, Tweedsmuir Presbyterian Church, Orangeville, Ontario

The ballots will be counted and the Moderator of the 135th General Assembly will be announced on April 1st, 2009.

: Events,General Assembly,People

: ballot, General Assembly, Stephen Kendall

Specialized Ministry in the PCC

I had the pleasure this morning of speaking to a group representing the various specialized ministries in Canada. The group is comprised of staff from church camps, native ministries, urban ministries and others. The discussion was primarily about the the denominational website at presbyterian.ca which gave me a great opportunity to hear the concerns of a group that is sometimes missed.

A photo of the group is below. If you have any questions about the various specialized ministries operating within the PCC, please ask in the comments below and I’ll do my best to get your questions answered.

Update: If you were at the conference today, please leave a comment below describing your ministry.

: Events,People

: camping, Crieff, native ministries, presbyterian.ca, specialized ministry, urban ministries, website

Deck the Holodeck

The staff of the national offices of The Presbyterian Church in Canada gathered this morning to celebrate the season of Advent and the coming of Christmas by decorating the area affectionately called “the holodeck” at 50 Wynford Drive.

While I haven’t yet discovered how this central section of the building acquired this Trek-inspired nickname, I can say that it looks significantly more festive now than it did last week. Here are some photos of the decorating in progress: