While a conversation about colonialism in the PCC is vital and overdue – as described in my May 2nd column – there’s another dynamic begging to be addressed. Mostly absent from April’s Renewal Day discussion was the voice of those in orthodoxy who believe they have no future … Read more
As I write this, the March issue of the Record has been available for only a couple of weeks. In that time I have had more feedback about my article, Minding the Minister, than I have received for all the things I have ever written for public consumption combined. I hit on something significant: many ministers in our denomination are burning out. This is a problem worthy of our attention. What is needed is focus and strategy. After consultation with our national board over the past year … Read More
What was there about this man that God used him so mightily? There was an essential humility, a self-effacing, even self-deprecating, inability to take himself seriously. His ability to cross time zones and emerge from intercontinental air flights was an act of heroic proportions. … Read More
I retired four years ago after 39 years as a minister of the Presbyterian Church in Canada (PCC). This naturally put me out of the loop for a while with much of what goes on nationally in our church. But my vantage point has improved due to a year of frequent online meetings with more … Read more
In 2004 as a meditation at a ministerial meeting, our local Catholic priest read us this powerful story. I often think of it and it challenges me and should challenge us all. (Many unattributed versions of this story exist online; it was written in 1953 by Rev. Dr. Theodore O. Wedel, a canon of the … Read more
I had the opportunity to hear Rodger Nishioka (Associate Professor, Christian Education, at Columbia Theological Seminary) speak this past fall. One story he told was about a research interview he did with a woman who lived in an apartment building across from a church. She told him that nothing that happened there had any effect on her life. She said that if that local church ceased to exist, it wouldn’t make any difference to her. Dr. Nishioka then challenged us to think about whether … Read More
Like many Canadian Presbyterian Churches, St. Paul's, Simcoe, Ontario, has had a shrinking Sunday School over the last couple of decades. In less than a year, they have increased their average attendance of 3 or 4 students by 400%. How did this happen? Well of course they prayed, but they also took action. … Read More
We love what’s new – cars, homes, clothing, technology. It’s what fuels the entertainment industry and the news business. It explains the vast success of the Internet, social media, fashion and entertainment industries, and our appetite for news. It also (partially) explains why many in the church are so vocal in their campaigns to change … Read more
The articles that were published online by the Renewal Fellowship from 2008 to 2016 are indexed on this page. … Read More
Theology matters – more than you might think. In 2016, a group of university professors published a groundbreaking study which linked mainline congregation growth to traditional, conservative theology. It compared the demographic and religious characteristics of ministers and attendees of growing mainline Protestant churches in southern Ontario with those of declining churches from the same … Read more