The Assembly Council of The Presbyterian Church in Canada is currently holding its November meeting at Crieff Hills. During a break in the proceedings, I was able to get this photo of the entire group – with the exception of yours truly.
A full report on the proceedings of Assembly Council will be published at Presbyterian.ca in the coming weeks.
I had the pleasure of having lunch on Tuesday with Andrew Faiz, Managing Editor of The Presbyterian Record, the national magazine of the PCC. Andrew, a life-long member of Gateway Community Church in the Flemingdon Park area of Toronto, is clearly passionate about the PCC and its future in Canadian society. He is equally passionate about his magazine and its place in the Presbyterian community.
Our lunch gives me a perfect excuse to share a little information about the Record and its role in the denomination. I don’t think most Presbyterians realize that the Record is not the ‘official’ magazine of the denomination – it is, in fact, an independent publication devoted entirely to the Presbyterian experience in Canada.
The Record’s independance can be both a blessing and a curse for a guy like me who is responsible for communicating on behalf of the denomination. The blessing, of course, is that the Record provides a direct line of communication from the national office to the pew. This is an incredibly useful tool for us in the Life & Mission Agency to spread the word about the programs offered through the national office and to educate the denomination about the great work being done on behalf of Presbyterians across the country and around the world.
The curse, though, is that the Record is under no obligation to simply regurgitate the messaging coming from my office or elsewhere. They are free to challenge our thinking as a denomination in a way that most other Presbyterian organization can’t. The Record is also free – and has a moral responsibility – to report on what is going on in our churches and our communities, warts and all.
This is how it should be. The Presbyterian Record is representative of the principles of a free and independant media that western society, I think, now takes for granted.
As long as I’m talking about the The Presbyterian Record, I should mention that they are currently in the midst of their annual appeal for financial support. The magazine is facing dramatically rising costs associated to changes Canada Post has made to postal rates. The Record has also embarked on a ‘greening’ of their operation by moving to recycled paper which has also increased costs.
I encourage you to consider supporting the work of the Record in addition to all of the other wonderful work we Presbyterians support. A publication devoted to reporting on the work of the PCC deserves our consideration.
Any guesses who the first blogger of the Reformation might have been? I’ll admit that it’s a bit of a trick question, since there were no bloggers in the 16th century. Not literally, anyway.
I’ve always maintained that social media in general, and blogging in particular, are nothing new. The ‘conversational web’ is merely the continuing evolution of how we communicate with each other. I’ve used a phrase from time to time that goes like this:
Social media is merely the latest cave wall.
All that’s changed is everything.
From cave walls to quills to printing presses to telephones to the web, the tools of communication have evolved steadily, sometimes slowly but often quite rapidly. You could add a church door to that list of communication media through which blogging can trace its ancestry. (your first clue to the question posed earlier.)
The PCC national office conducts a worship service each Wednesday morning just before lunch. It’s an opportunity to enrich our work by worshipping God with our co-workers. 
This morning we were blessed to be led in worship by Rev. Gordon Timbers from Unionville Presbyterian Church. During the service Rev. Timbers talked about how small and seemingly insignificant actions can lead to great and unexpected results. A simple smile at a stranger, for example, can have a cascading effect that might dramatically change the life of another.
One of Rev. Timbers’ examples, given that this Sunday is Reformation Sunday, was the relatively small act of Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the church door. The unexpected result, of course was the reformation movement that continues to this day in the form of the Presbyterian Church in Canada and the other Reformed churches worldwide.
I argue, therefore, that this Being Presbyterian blog traces its ancestry directly back to those 95 theses posted on the church door by the first blogger of the Reformation, Martin Luther. Metaphorically speaking, of course.
[photo courtesy of unionvillepresbyterianchurch.ca]
Last wednesday Reuben St. Louis, the PCC’s Youth-In-Mission Coordinator, kindly took me out for lunch half way through my first (almost overwhelming) week at the PCC national office. Reuben and I have been friends for many years and it was nice to catch up over a meal.
Among other things, we chatted about the upcoming Canada Youth event that he is responsible for organizing. In July of next year a few hundred Presbyterian young people and youth leaders will gather for five days of worship, education and fellowship. The potential for life-changing experiences is high and Reuben’s enthusiasm is even higher!
The website for Canada Youth 2009 is now up and you can find more details there, or give Reuben a call at (800) 619-7301 ext.249.
I encourage anyone who is involved with youth in church to give Reuben a call and get your church’s kids registered!
Welcome to the Being Presbyterian blog. The purpose of this little corner of the web is to offer my readers a glimpse into The Presbyterian Church in Canada and all of the work it does across the country and around the world.
When I was appointed Associate Secretary, Communications earlier this month I thought I had a fairly good understanding of the Presbyterian experience in Canada. I was raised by two Presbyterian elders and have been an elder myself for a few years. I had even been to the national office several times to consult on matters where my expertise in web development was useful. I knew my church. Or so I thought.
As it turns out, I know very little about the work of the Presbyterian Church in Canada. One of the best primers on the Presbyterian Church in Canada is John Congram’s “This Presbyterian Church of Ours” published in the mid-nineties. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand how the PCC has developed over the centuries and what makes it unique in the Canadian Christian landscape. Early on in the book, Congram makes reference to the Presbyterian stereotype of being rather cold and drawing the metaphor of an iceberg.
During just the first week of my appointment, I have discovered that the PCC is indeed an iceberg not because it is cold but because you only ever see just the very tip. The vast majority of the life and work of the PCC sits just below the surface – in appropriately Presbyterian modesty.
My job now is to help that Presbyterian iceberg float a little higher in the water and expose more of the wonderful work that is going on under the surface.
The Being Presbyterian blog will be your insider’s look at the PCC as I spend the next several weeks, months, and years learning about every nook and cranny of this Presbyterian church of ours.
PCC News & Events
This site is one of 90 on the PCCWeb network; a service of the Communications Office of The Presbyterian Church in Canada.
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