Session Highlights 2016

Posted by Nonsequitor on Monday, January 16th, 2017 in Clerk of Session

Session Report Highlights 2016

The Kirk Session with 14 sitting Elders held 11 regular meetings during 2016. No special meetings were held.The Annual General Meeting was held in February. At the regularly scheduled meetings a wide variety of matters were discussed and resolved. Below is a recount of the highlights of these meetings:

January

The Hespeler Place of New hope Advisory committee – terms of reference were adopted as written [September 2015].

In January a group met to develop strategies that would underpin the budget process for 2016. This group (Rev. Scott McAndless, Rob Hodgson, Donald Paddock, Ray Godin, Bob Neath, Ron Paddock and Vern Platt) was assembled in a round-table discussion concerning 2016.

Four major fundraising Session initiatives outlined and defined for 2016.

Session announced “We are holding a special study based on the document Body, Mind and Soul: Thinking together about human sexual orientation in the Presbyterian Church in Canada. We are holding this study to help us to understand the issues in order to feedback to the General Assembly as they try to formulate a path forward for the PCC.”

Once again Session considered parking at worship this time due to the changes by the City of Cambridge initiated on Queen Street Hespeler. The parking spots immediately in front of the church on Queen St. have been posted “no parking” while traditionally “Sunday only” was allowed.

Session approved a portion of the Saint Andrews Endowed fund be actively managed by the Cambridge & North Dumfries Community Foundation.

February

Session approved the 2016 budget of $234,512 as presented. This constitutes the document to be forwarded to both the pre-AGM financial meeting and at the Annual General Meeting for budget review.

Planning for the Rev. Jeff Veenstra memorial Walk-a-Thon planned for October 16, 2016 at Crieff Hills was announced.

Session created the “160 Group” to plan and implement the 160^th Anniversary of St. Andrews Hespeler. This group in cooperation with the Mission & Outreach Committee are tasked to develop a creative, inviting and inclusive atmosphere for the July Hespeler Reunion festivities and the October Celebration of our 160^th year.

March

Elder/Deacon elections for 2016 are announced and approved. Elders serve on Session for a period of six years upon being elected unless they withdraw for other reasons. Elders may opt to be re-elected if they wish.

The Annual General Meeting passed a resolution to eliminate the recurring debt entries as seen for the last few years. The AGM resolution clearly stated that in 2016-2017 Session would research and develop a strategy to eliminate the debt and establish sustainable long-term funding. Session developed strategies throughout the year to meet these expectations.

Session authorized the insertion in the Bulletin on how the budget cuts impact: administration, the office, office hours and staffing. TBA weekly office hours and advisory the office will be closed Fridays (appointments only).

April

St. Andrews authorizes an independent contractor to do bookkeeping and financial services replacing the Administrative Assistant (vacant).This would be set up on a pilot or trial basis and would involve the contract period of April 11 through to July 15, 2016. That Human Resources Committee commences a recruitment process to fill the part- time position of Administrative Assistant with 9 scheduled hours of work weekly.

Session discussed: Amazing Shrinking Tea Party, a re-invention of the meat pie sales, the Christmas Dream Auction and we will creatively research fundraising in 2016 - 2017.

May

Session approved that the Stewardship Committee development of sustainable finances for 2016 and beyond. Inclusive of:

· compiling detailed projections of all expenses and expense timelines

· providing guidance on unfunded projects/liabilities and accumulated debt

· provide guidance on 2016-2017 revenue and expenses

· develop a process to create sustainable financial governance beyond 2017.

In association with the Operations Committee, Session formalized a cheque writing authority on behalf of St. Andrews Hespeler. This document outlines the procedures to be used to issue cheques and who may authorize a draft.

June

Session reviewed the status of the election of Elder/Deacons 2016. 4 Elders were to be elected – one new Elder (Randy Rattansingh) and two re-elected Elders were confirmed. One Deacon was found and confirmed. Kim De Boer has graciously joined the Deacons ranks in 2016.

The Clerk of Session briefed Elders on a working document called Revision of the Communion Serving Model. Congregational numbers have reduced the need for a large number of servers at communion.

Session reviewed the replacement of the Youth Group Co-coordinator (May 2016) upon the resignation of the current staff member. Session accepted a proposal from Joni Smith on to serve as an interim replacement up to June 2017.

Session approved the replacement of the addition roof by Thompson Roofing Inc. in the amount of $19,549.00 including HST to be completed as soon as feasible.

In realization of the AGM referendum to balance the budget and achieve sustainable financing, the Stewardship Committee delivered the following plan to meet goals.

· That remaining funds from Share the Warmth, the Capital Endowment Fund and any giving doors opened in response to the need to re-roof be used to replace the “new” addition roof in 2016

· We fundraise specifically for the Organ repair (“Buy a key” campaign)

· Invent a loose change ongoing Ministry

· We keep the Video projection system on a “warm pause”.

· We fund any shortfall in our commitment to Hope Clothing not raised by donations as follows (70% from the Mission Fund and 30% from the Memorial Fund).

· With respect to the loan from Presbytery, we recommend repaying it over the remaining term ($2,500 per year over next 8 years). No use of the balance is currently scheduled. Backup funding for extreme emergency use only.

· The schedule of Session approved fundraising be enhanced and promoted to achieve our goal.
Upcoming event: the Race to Eliminate Poverty a challenge to pit teams against each other in association with Hope Clothing and the Food Bank.

September

The Sustainability Task Team has been asked to; ascertain why attendance is falling, and reconstitute the task force to re-examine the funding new information received.

Updates for September: Loose change Ministry is currently underway, Meat pie sale - in recognition of traditional fundraising well underway and Christmas Dream Wish Auction will also be returning to St. Andrews.

Christian Education will be reviving the pop can drive for the fall – funds raised will be donated to the Jeff-a-thon. In recognition of this, a trailer will be parked in the upper lot on October 2, 2016 part of the challenge to fill it!

October

The fall joint Deacon/Elder Meeting was convened with: a general meeting to start, fellowship and team building activities for Elders and Deacons ending in each group separating to meet.

The Stewardship Report was discussed at length on some changes in financing that need to be enabled currently. Due to confidentiality requirements, these changes will be revealed at a later date.

Mathew Brown has communicated that he wants to go the Knox College in preparation to become a Minister. The process starts at Session with recommendations forwarded to the Presbytery for intake. More information will be announced soon.

November

On Wednesday, December 14th we will be having a “Youth Ministries Potluck Dinner” for families with children Grade 7+. This dinner will be organized in a way similar to a LOGOS dinner; with a time of team/group building, food & fun. After eating we will brainstorm ideas and needs so that we can begin the process of rebuilding a Youth Ministry.

Session is recommending the congregation read “Reformed Worship.” “Beyond the Worship Wars; Building Vital and Faithful Worship” by Thomas G. Long. In the past, Session has had book studies and hope to open the door for the entire congregation to participate. Session is exploring how we can get books.

December

Christian Education will create a “Little Library” outside the church in a place to be approved soon. A little library is a lending are where books can be borrowed or donated to others. It is more or less an outdoor cupboard to encourage book lending. It will be monitored carefully to ensure that appropriate books are traded and available.

GOOD NEWS 2016

The Jeff-a-thon raised $30,000 for PWS&D and when matched 3 to 1 by the federal government this means a whopping $120,000 donated. Awesome. In the spirit of giving, St Andrews Hespeler won the competition for most dollars raised and a free luncheon in December.

The Stewardship Committee announced some very good news on the sustainable financing results. The meat pie sale and Christmas Dream Wish Auction have raised more than $8,000 in two events. More news is to follow on a significant change to this goal hopefully in the New Year. Certainly in time for the AGM.

The Mission and Outreach Committee move towards a Mission Trip in 2017 and had a full schedule in 2016. Ably led by co-chairs Pete Moyer and Elaine McLean ensure a visible footprint of St. Andrews in all Hespeler events. Most notable this year - The Great Hespeler Reunion.

St. Andrews has confirmed funding of Hope Clothing for 2017. From conception to established program only a little than 3 years has transpired. Jane Neath laid a firm footing with a business plan and financial framework in 2012-2013. And with that leverage New Hope Clothing is off to a running start. The other instrumental force has been Karen Kincaid. Her day-to-day-operations, bootstrapping the launch of New Hope have created a social network with her enthusiasm. Thursdays will never be the same! Of note in 2016 a simple announcement on the internet for help with Syrian Refuges brought over 3,000 visits and dozens of calls to donate to New Hope.

In 2016 Session discussed and researched the movement of the piano and the pulpit a number of times. Session did approve the moves and has heard that some members are troubled by this decision. In recognition of this discomfort, a process to define what the arrangements on the dais need to be made to serve the congregation better have been started. In the near future, Session will be asking for recommendations, consolidating the results and presenting the plans before further changes are made. Your participation in this process is greatly encouraged. Session thanks you for your input on this.

In the New Year, Session will invite Corey Cotter Linforth, Music Director to share the philosophy and workings of “Blended Worship Music” with Session. Session hopes to open up the understanding to the congregation on how blended worship music works. More information will be made available in 2017 on this.

The Clerk of Session has offered his resignation effective December 31, 2016. In respect to Session, I have confirmed I will stay COS until March 31, 2017 in an effort to select a replacement Clerk. I would like to thank the congregation, staff and Elders for the seven wonderful years I have spent.

The highlights provided are assembled chronologically to help communicate Sessions’ discussions to the congregation. In the course of the year many other topics were discussed, some of the minor significance and others of major importance. In this synopsis, you see the core of what happened excluding those issues that are confidential and must be protected and those too insignificant to include. If you have any questions I would be happy to respond.

Notes form Session and Blended Music

Posted by Nonsequitor on Monday, January 16th, 2017 in Clerk of Session

Notes from the Session

At the session meeting this week, Session discussed some important matters in the life of the church including:

· What our priorities in music and worship should be, and how we can to connect with the congregation to get effective feedback on proceeding.

· Budget priorities for 2017. The AGM will be held February 26 and the financial

pre-AGM meeting will be February 22. Please plan to attend.

· Elders agreed that we will read the book, “Beyond the Worship Wars: Building Vital and Faithful Worship” by Thomas G. Long together. Several copies of this book will be made available in the church library (shortly) and we hope that many congregational members will read it too.

· Session agreed to hold a special planning workshop on Saturday, January 21, 9 am to noon. We will be looking at many aspects of the life of the congregation and what can be done to improve. Please be in prayer for Session and what they seek to accomplish in this meeting.

You will hear the details of this important discussion and are urged to comment to Rev. Scott, Rob Hodgson or any member of Session or Deacons. If you are unsure who to communicate with, try the Church Office and ask for a list of Deacons and Elders.

In preparation for this renewed direction, Session would like to introduce you to a program designed to formalize music selection for worship. Session has endorsed a way to look at music as a component of worship for each Sunday. In effect, music will enhance worship and vice versa. It is called “Blended Music at St. Andrews”. This methodology is not new or even new to St. Andrews. Originally Rev. Linda Ashfield discovered that this systematic way to make worship “flow” led a deeper spiritual experience. In selecting Corey Linford Cotter as a Music Director we also hired a protégé of Rev. Ashfield. The significance of theses connections to St. Andrews has allowed Corey to find a kind of consensus to music selection. You may remember November 13, 2016 at worship when Corey explained the music selected by prefacing how and why it was included. On that Sunday you saw Blended Music deconstructed – previously Rev. Scott and Corey worked behind the scenes to ease the kinks out before we even knew of the change.

If you want more information on Blended Music you are free to ask any Session Member, Rev. Scott or Corey – all of us would be delighted to answer or find answers for you. The most significant component is the congregation, we want your ideas…we need your comments.

Below are a limited introduction and explanation of Blended Music

Introduction

Frequently, the congregation who are sharing comments are trying to make the music program better by making suggestions and criticisms. The problem has been that the ideas and dislikes have been highly contradictory. Music Directors have always done their best to include everyone's voice in our service musically and what has happened is that a practice of blended worship has naturally developed.

Definition

Blended worship means a lot of different things to different people and has a fairly broad scope. This definition will be limited to only music at worship. From a musical perspective, blended worship means including a variety of styles of music from different generations in most services. Generally, this looks like having at least one traditional piece and one contemporary piece in each service, using a variety of instruments (piano, organ, guitar, etc.), and using both old and new hymns. Because the service is stylistically disjointed, it becomes more important for it to be thematically unified.

Benefits of Presenting to Congregation

The hope is that an understanding of the methodology and reasons will become a thing the congregation is excited by. Session would like everyone to be able to see how they fit in to the music program and how their preferences are being met. We also think this will bridge the gap between various generations and groups.

Resolutions 3) To Listen

Posted by Scott McAndless on Sunday, January 15th, 2017 in Minister

Hespeler, 15 January, 2017 © Scott McAndless

Mark 4:1-9, James 1:19-27, Psalm 116:1-8

esus, like many good speakers, had certain catch-phrases that he would use over and over again in his preaching and storytelling. One of his favourite lines, for example, was “the first shall be last and the last first.” It comes up so often in the discourses of Jesus in the gospels and in varying contexts (usually as the punchline of a parable) that it seems reasonable to conclude that it was one of those phrases that Jesus threw around all the time.

But there was another phrase that Jesus must have used even more – one that just seems to have slipped out all the time – not necessarily as a part of the parable or story he was telling but almost like punctuation or emphasis. That saying was, “Let anyone with ears to hear listen!”

It is an odd phrase when you think about it. I mean, very few people don’t have ears. Barring some birth defects, tragic accidents or the madness of Dutch post-Impressionist painters, ears are pretty much universal. Everyone listening to Jesus had ears which would make the saying seem like nonsense. But obviously Jesus didn’t keep saying this as a nonsense phrase. It is, in some ways, an expression of Jesus’ own frustrations. Here he was communicating vital truths that, as far as he was concerned, were quite clear. He was illustrating those truths with stories and parables that were really quite easy to understand and yet people weren’t getting his point.

Jesus was pointing out that it is one thing to have ears and to be able to hear what somebody is saying but it can be quite another thing to listen. Hearing is a passive thing. Hearing is actually something that can be very hard to keep from doing. If you are in the vicinity of a noise or of someone speaking, you can’t help but hear it unless you do something to prevent it like plugging your ears or shutting off your hearing aids.

Listening, on the other hand, is active. You don’t listen to something unless you choose to do so. Listening means attending to what is being said and acting in response. Jesus’ frustration was that people were hearing what he was saying but that something that was preventing them from actively listening. Often it was because they did not want to actually hear the truths that he was teaching and they certainly didn’t want to change their lives because of what they heard. It was just easier for them to hear what he was saying without actually listening because, if they listened they’d probably have to change in ways they didn’t want to.

And if Jesus were here today, would he continue to repeat that same saying? Would he be as frustrated with us over our tendency to hear without listening? I am afraid he probably would because things really haven’t changed all that much.

I wanted to start out this New Year by preaching about the resolutions that I’d like to make and that I’d like to see more people make that might create a real difference in the world. I’ve talked so far about resolving to leave some time and space to grieve losses and I’ve talked about being committed to the truth. I think that the third resolution that we could make that would make a real difference in our world is to learn to listen. I would even go so far as to say that the failure to listen is creating a number of crises in our world.

Take, for example, two of the most surprising political developments of the past year: the Brexit vote in the United Kingdom and the election of Donald Trump. Neither of those political developments were supposed to happen. They defied polling but also were contrary to what the “elites” and political “experts” and establishment said should happen. They are also events that will likely have some far-reaching effects on where the world goes from here for good or ill (and I don’t really have an agenda at the moment to say whether it will be good or ill).

But I think that we can say a little bit about why things unravelled the way that they did. Many people did not cast their vote because they were making a positive selection of a candidate or an agenda. Many, perhaps the majority, were voting to reject instead and what they were rejecting were the opinions of the elites, the experts and the establishment political leaders. The widespread perspective was that the elites and establishment didn’t care about the needs of the great majority of people and had not listened to them and their needs for a long time. Some really big things – world-changing things happened this past year because a lot of people felt like they were not being listened to. When I say that the failure of listening is important, that is the kind of thing that I am referring to.

But it is not just something that we see happening in big political events and movements. It is a something that affects people’s personal lives and struggles. How many people go through their daily lives without ever getting the sense that anyone is truly listening to them? How many have to pay money to go to a psychologist or counsellor just to have someone actually sit there and listen to them talk.

And what a difference that can make! I am not trying to put down the professions (like counselling and psychiatric analysis) that have a big element of listening to them. Such a level of listening does not come without a great deal of learning and practice and it truly can bring a great deal of healing into a person’s life. And there are definitely many people who will not be able to find the healing that they need without making use of such professional counsellors. No one should ever be ashamed if they need to access them. But I cannot help but think that such professions would be much less desperately needed if only more people put in the effort to really listen to people at all the various times in their lives where they really need someone to just listen to them.

And one place where listening is surely lacking is in the church and it is precisely on that point that Jesus was expressing his frustration with the people in his favourite saying. People of faith have the opportunity to hear the word of God, but how often do we listen? We believe that God speaks through the life and example of Jesus Christ. We believe that God speaks through the scriptures that bear witness to Christ. We believe that God speaks through the sermon. And this speaking is not something that is frozen in time. We don’t say, for example, that God spoke (past tense) when the Bible was first written. The word of God is nothing if it is not living and active in the present moment. So God speaks; that is not and has never been the problem. The problem is that we don’t listen.

So we really do need to work on our listening. How could we do it? How could we become a people who take the task of listening seriously? Well the first thing we need to recognize is that simple truth that was behind that saying of Jesus – that there is a difference between hearing and listening and that just because you have heard what somebody is saying, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you have listened to them. Hearing is passive but listening is active.

So how can we learn to be listeners? Well, I’ll start with one piece of advice that should be obvious, shouldn’t need to be said, but I’m afraid that it does need to be said. Listening means, first of all, giving undivided attention which means that when someone is speaking you turn off the phone, close the book, turn off the television or do whatever you need to do to shut out any distractions. If we are not willing to do that, we will not progress very far in our quest to learn to listen.

The next piece of advice I am going to steal from the Letter of James. “You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak.” Our own speaking is one thing that most often gets in the way of our effective listening. How often, when you are hearing someone speak, is your brain engaged, not with what they are saying, but with your own speaking. You are thinking of what you are going to say in response to them – perhaps to defend yourself or to further your own agenda at the expense of their needs. This is a symptom of what James would call being “quick to speak.” It is not actually measured by how many words you say or how soon you say them but rather by how much brain power you devote to your own agenda.

Listening, real listening, is about being willing to put aside your own agenda in service to the needs of another person and, let me tell you, it is something that you have to work at. It does not come naturally and most of us will only be able to accomplish it by being incredibly disciplined in our minds.

One thing that can help us to do this is the use of a practice of active listening. The next time when you have a chance to actually sit down and listen to someone, try this: say nothing. If you have to say anything, let it be to ask questions and make sure that they are questions that are focussed on what the other person has said and that help you to understanding their concerns.

You can ask questions like, “It sounds to me like you are saying this event made you feel frightened or excited or whatever it sounded like they were feeling. Is that correct?” You can ask questions like, “What were you trying to do?” “Why are you interested in that topic?” and questions that focus on their personal background in whatever topic is being discussed. These kinds of questions will, more than anything else, convince someone that your really are focussed on what they have to say. And, what’s more, actually help you to be focussed on that very thing.

One mistake that people often make, and in my experience it is often (but not always) men who do this, is to think that listening means that you are trying to fix whatever you perceive to be wrong about the other person. If someone is describing a situation that they are dealing with, for example, you may jump to the conclusion that they are telling you about a problem and you break in and tell them what they should do to solve it. “Well, you see, all you need to do is report your co-worker to management and let them deal with her.” Or, if you perceive that there is some kind of flaw in the person you are talking to, you break in with a prescription for how they ought to change. “You just need to be more assertive,” or something like that.

But trying to fix people or their problems (unless that it what they are asking you to do) is not really listening to them because what you are actually doing is attending to your own agenda. You are trying to solve their problems and get them out of the way so that the focus can return to you and your needs. Most often what people need is for someone to listen to them, perhaps be sympathetic or understanding. Maybe then – maybe after they have been fully heard – you can work on solutions or changes together, but nothing important will ever happen until they have been heard.

Listening is not easy. It doesn’t come naturally to most of us. But, precisely because it is so rare, it is an extraordinary and sometime life-changing thing. So I resolve to work on listening this year. I hope you might too because how much could the world change if people only really listened.

140CharacterSermon Resolution for 2017 #3: Jesus is frustrated with us because, though we have ears, we so rarely use them to really listen.

Sermon Video:

Flapjacks anyone?

Posted by StAndrewsHespeler on Friday, January 13th, 2017 in News

Please mark your calendars.

Tickets are now on sale!

What does the Clerk of Session do?

Posted by Nonsequitor on Tuesday, January 10th, 2017 in Clerk of Session

What does the Clerk of Session do?

Over the years I have had occasion to notice that not everyone knows what the Clerk of Session does. Although you could glean some understanding that a clerk is an administrative job and Session is the governing body of St. Andrews. You might note I prefer to use COS – which is both friendlier and shorter when I’m writing. Well…it’s not always a book definition that applies because it is much more organic than that. You may have some kind of intuitive sense of what is involved in being a COS, but for anyone who is invited to accept this appointment it is difficult to know exactly what to expect. While recognizing that there is much more to being a COS than simply carrying out the prescribed duties of the office, it is nonetheless important to know what these are and what is generally expected of a Session Clerk. So below you will find the main duties and responsibilities:

The main duties of a COS are:

(a) with the Moderator (Minister) or Interim Moderator to call and prepare for meetings of the Session.

(b) to keep Minutes of Session meetings.

(d) to be responsible for all Records of the congregation.

(e) to submit the Records of the congregation annually to the Presbytery for attestation (a kind of test of completeness and form), based on hundreds of years of historical record keeping.

(f) almost any administrative job can be assigned to the COS as required.

(g) generally to see to the functioning of the Session, to be concerned for the welfare of the congregation, and to have a working knowledge of the Church’s practice and procedure which is called the Book of Forms.

It’s (g) where the unspecified responsibilities and tasks seem to go from textbook to less defined. It’s also the best part of the job and the most demanding. I won’t go much farther in how this works because tomorrow it will be different – just thought you might like to know that it is: rewarding, task heavy and exciting to be your COS. Sometimes I feel like somehow I was groomed for this role. Sometimes you end up exactly where you want to be. Funny eh?

2 Timothy 2:5
similarly, if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not receive the victor's crown unless he competes according to the rules.

A part of the COS’s job is to prepare the Kirk Report for the Year End Annual Report of Saint Andrews Hespeler. Which you will find in the church mid to late February or at the Annual General Meeting on February 26, 2017

Resolutions: 2) A Commitment to the truth

Posted by Scott McAndless on Sunday, January 8th, 2017 in Minister

Hespeler, 8 January, 2017 © Scott McAndless

Ephesians 4:17-25, Psalm 43, John 8:31-38

s you may have heard, the Oxford English Dictionary chooses a word of the year for every year that goes by – one word to capture the spirit of the age and mark significant trends in society. You may have also heard that the word that they chose for 2016 was, “post-truth.” They did not choose this word lightly or subjectively. They noted that the use of this word had grown enormously over the last 12 months – appearing 2000 percent more often in articles published over the last year.

The word, they say, is often used in the phrase “post-truth politics’’ and it has to do with the fact that we are living in a time in which truth has become largely irrelevant. The dictionary defines it as an adjective that relates to “circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”

Of course, the reason why this idea of “post-truth” has become so important is because it has driven events in a powerful way. We saw it in the Brexit campaign in the United Kingdom where the side that was campaigning to see the UK exit the European Union kept going on and on about all of the money that Great Britain was sending away to the European government in Brussels and how that money would be used to improve health services when they won. After the vote was over, they admitted that it that simply a slogan with no actual reality behind it and amazingly it didn’t seem to matter – at least it certainly didn’t change anything.

And then, as we in Canada looked on, the American election rolled out with a post-truth approach taking centre stage. Now, I am not naive. I realize that politicians have been lying and stretching the truth to win elections probably ever since the Greeks first invented democracy. But something unprecedented went on in that vote. As one news organization documented it exhaustively, one of the candidates was saying something that was either partially or completely untrue 70 percent of the time that he opened his mouth. But what was really unprecedented was not necessarily the number of lies but how little they mattered. In fact, you might even make the case that telling the truth was far more likely to get you defeated than telling lies.

But the post-truth reality is not just found in politics. It was actually even more important to journalism. With traditional news media failing all over the place (especially, sadly, in Canada) we saw a powerful new kind of media come on strong as news stories that were blatantly false – that could easily be proved as false with a moment’s research – spread far and wide and were read and largely believed by more people than ever saw much more important legitimate news stories. For example, a story that reported that Pope Francis had endorsed Donald Trump as president was read by millions of people and widely believed even though all you had to do was google the Vatican website to know that it was fake.

The people at Oxford were right, I think, to underline the importance of post-truth as a significant development in our day. Lies are nothing new; they have always existed and they have always been powerful. But we are dealing with something new here – something that will undoubtedly shape our society in significant ways. I am not concerned, at least for the moment, with what this means for the careers of particular politicians. I am more concerned with why it has become so powerful at this particular moment in time.

It doesn’t seem to make sense. We live in an age when people have more information available at their fingertips (literally) than ever before in the history of the world. Never has it been easier for people to do the necessary research to discover the truth or lack of it behind any story, but people seem less inclined to do it than ever. What we have seen is that people are far more likely to connect to and share a story that just feels right to them or that confirms what they have already decided is true about the world. Even more important, a well-established fact or truth that is inconvenient to them or that means that they will have to change their mind or something about their life, they will be very likely to dismiss out of hand.

Truth, it turns out, is simply a lot harder than we all thought that it was. We thought that all you had to do was expose the truth, make it accessible to people and the truth would just prevail from there. Apparently it doesn’t just work like that, at least not anymore.

I decided that I would start out this New Year of 2017 by preaching about the kind of resolutions that we could make that would actually matter. I realize, of course, that New Year’s resolutions have a bad track record. For years millions of people have been making vows on the first of January with the best of intentions that just don’t seem to carry until the end of the month. The impulse is good, but the follow-through just seems to be lacking. But, I thought, what if we worked on changing the underlying attitude rather than just focussing on the outward actions. Maybe that would lead to real and lasting change.

And, given some of the events that have unravelled in politics and media in the past year, it would seem that a dedication to truth is one attitude that we definitely need to be working on. In particular, it would seem that Christians need to be working on it. I would like to be able to say that Christians should be immune to the lures of the post-truth era, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. In fact, it would seem that Christians (in general – I’m sure present company is excepted) have fallen victim to this more often than the general population.

I did my undergraduate studies at the University of Toronto and, over the years, had a number of courses at Victoria College. Every time I would enter into that beautiful old building, I would look up and see the words that were inscribed over the entrance: “The truth shall make you free,” it said. It is, I assumed, at least the unofficial motto of Victoria College. I wonder how many students who have looked at those words over the decades and were inspired by them know where those words come from. It might surprise many of them to know that that inscription is actually quoting Jesus of Nazareth as reported in the Gospel of John. I’ll bet that, if you went to that University campus today and asked the students, many of them would tell you that the last place they would look to find the “truth” would be in religion or the Bible or Christianity. That is, to a certain extent, a result of the general cynicism of our age but part of that is also on us as Christians. Christians have had a certain history (maybe especially in recent years, of being more interested in being right or in getting their way than that are in being committed to the truth no matter what.

But what Jesus says in that passage in John is something that goes to the heart of our faith. Jesus really believed that anything that he came to reveal and represent was not at odds with the fundamental truths of the universe. To embrace the truth was to embrace him, of course, but truth was not exclusive to the revelation in Christ. All truth that might be discovered in this world (even truth that would be discovered in future centuries by the scientific method) was part of that larger idea of truth.

Even more important, Jesus declared that there was a connection between truth and freedom – that those who remained dedicated to truth would remain free while those who didn’t care about it would become slaves. This is a very clear warning and one that we need to take very seriously.

I think that this is something that we see very clearly in what is apparently our modern post-truth reality. Because we are now in an era where people don’t seem to care about the facts behind a report so long as it feels right and reaffirms their previously conceived notions, the population is just that much easier to manipulate so that they act and vote in the ways that the people who are publishing the fake news want. I don’t think that there is any doubt that this kind of manipulation with falsehood did play a role (though it would be hard to quantify how much) in some of the surprising political outcomes in the past year including the Brexit vote, the American election, Italy, Greece, Turkey and a number of other places.

If people were willing to look further than their Facebook feed to figure out whether a story was true or not, the populations would not be so easily manipulated. I wouldn’t say that any of this has yet led us to a place where we are literally enslaved to the whims of powerful masters or that that will necessarily happen, but I will say that I am more concerned that that could happen than I would have been a year ago.

In such a world, I would suggest that one of the resolutions that we as Christian people – as people of faith – should make at the beginning of this New Year is to be committed to what is true. We, the followers of Jesus really ought to be the first to make such a commitment. But what would such a resolution really look like. How would we work it out in practical terms?

Well, first of all, being committed to truth means valuing what is true more than our own comfort. We have all experienced, I am sure, that discomfort and resistance that often comes with being confronted with a truth that we have not heard before or that contradicts what we had previously believed. It is irritating and annoying and it is often just so much easier to simply reject the new information out of hand. I am sure that I have often been guilty of that as have many of you. It is a human reaction, but it is not the reaction of someone who is truly dedicated to the truth. Being such a people means being willing to consider new truths, especially those that come in a convincing way, even if they are uncomfortable or inconvenient and maybe especially when they mean you have to rethink everything that you had always taken for granted. Jesus never promised that the truth would be easy, only that it would set you free.

Being committed to the truth means being willing to use the critical mind that God has given you. I know that sometimes people think that having faith means that you should never have to deal with any doubts or questions. But that is not faith. That is simply certitude – often a foolish certitude because the truth is rarely that simple. In many ways, not having any doubts or questions is the opposite of having faith. Faith is actually about a relationship of trust between you and God and no truly healthy relationship can ever come when you are afraid to entertain questions or doubts. So use that brain that God gave you to ask questions and to seek answers that make sense to you. We ought not to be afraid to engage in such quests for true understanding because God can never be at odds with truth. Questing earnestly for truth can always be a part of your journey towards God.

Being committed to truth also means, Jesus tells us, being committed to freedom. If ever you find yourself being drawn to a story because it just feels right to you, a good question to ask is if this story is leading you closer to freedom or to slavery. Is someone manipulating me with this story? That is always a question worth examining. If they are, chances are that they are not dealing in an entirely truthful way.

It would seem that our world is in desperate need of someone to lead us into a dedication to what is true. My dream is that the Christian church could be a key leader in this journey towards a commitment to truth whatever the cost. To do so would be faithful to the calling and example of Jesus. To do so might just help to change the world in a way that truly matters.

140CharacterSermon Resolution for 2017 #2: God’s looking for people who are committed to truth (even if uncomfortable) in a post-truth age.

10 Predictions about the Future Church And Shifting Attendance Patterns

Posted by Nonsequitor on Wednesday, January 4th, 2017 in Clerk of Session

This isn’t about why people have left the church (that’s a different subject.) This is about church attenders who love God, appreciate the local church and are even involved in the local church, but who simply attend less often. This trend isn’t going away…in fact it’s accelerating; it impacts almost every church regardless of size, denomination or even location. It probably marks a seismic shift in how the church will do ministry in the future.

So…why are even committed attenders attending less often? There are at least 10 reasons.

1. Greater Affluence

Money gives people options.

2. Higher Focus on Kids’ Activities

A growing number of kids are playing sports. And a growing number of kids are playing on teams that require travel. Many of those sports happen on weekends. And affluent parents are choosing sports over church.

3. More Travel

Despite a wobbly economy, travel is on the rise, both for business and pleasure. And when people are out of town, they tend to not be in church.

4. Blended andSingle Parent Families

Church leaders need to remember that when custody is shared in a family situation, ‘perfect’ attendance for a kid or teen might be 26 Sundays a year.

5. Online Options

Many churches have created a social media presence. There are pros and cons to online church and there’s no doubt that churches with a strong online presence have seen it impact physical attendance.

6. The Cultural Disappearance of Guilt

Back in the day people felt guilty about not being in church on a Sunday. The number of people who feel guilty about not being in church on Sunday shrinks daily.

7. Self-Directed Spirituality

People are looking less to churches and leaders to help them grow spiritually, and more to other options. The church in many people’s minds is seen as an institution.

8. Failure to See a Direct Benefit

People always make time for the things they value most. If they’re not making time for church, that tells you something.

9. Valuing Attendance over Engagement

The most engaged people—people who serve, give, invite and who are in a community group—are our most frequent attenders. The church in many people’s minds is seen as an institution.

10. A Massive Culture Shift

All of these trends witness to something deeper. Our culture is shifting Seismically.

10 Predictions about the Future Church And Shifting Attendance Patterns

http://careynieuwhof.com/10-predictions-about-the-future-church-and-shifting-attendance-patterns/

by Carey Nieuwhof. February 23, 2015

My name is Carey Nieuwhof. I'm a husband, a dad to two sons and a daughter-in-law, and the founding and teaching pastor of Connexus Church north of Toronto Canada. I'm also incredibly passionate about helping leaders lead like never before. That's why I write this blog, write books, host a leadership podcast and produce courses like the The High Impact Leader Course.

Surprise! Oh no

Posted by Nonsequitor on Tuesday, January 3rd, 2017 in Clerk of Session

Recently I realized that change was harder than it used to be. In my formative years change was always exciting, new and neat. Now-a-days change strikes me as not so exciting and sometimes a little threatening. Sometimes the sheer pace of change seems troubling. Technology seems to demand attention unlike the passive TV or radio we grew up with. The world is changing from what I am comfortable with. I'm sure many of us have read the headlines and have seen the dramatic things happening that clearly are not how society used to be. Sadly churches seems to have the similar challenges with change. The article below helped me in some ways to understand and I hope you might find a little to encourage you to be a change master too.

Churches Can Handle Change, But They Don't Like Surprise

Introducing big changes is much easier if we give church leaders and members the time to process them.

by Karl Vaters

Churches can handle change.

If you’ve tried and failed to change things at your church, that may not feel true, but it is.

The problem in many churches isn't that they can't handle change. It's that they don't like being surprised by changes. And they shouldn't have to.

Wise leaders work very hard to reduce surprises as much as possible.

The more changes are needed, the more critical it is that church leaders and members know what’s happening and why.

A Promise Made and Kept

When I first arrived at my current church, a lot of changes were needed. The church was discouraged, unhealthy and broken. But they had a long, bad history of changes being attempted before the church was ready to receive or implement them. So, in my first church leadership meeting, I established this principle.

Never ask for a decision on a big issue in the same meeting in which the issue is introduced.

On small issues, it's not a problem. But big issues need time to simmer.

After all, most big issues have been simmering in our hearts and minds for weeks, months or years before we're ready to present them to the leadership team. We need to give those leaders some time, just like we needed time.

A Matter of Respect

We’ve made a lot of changes in our church in the last two-plus decades. Some good. Some not. But no one was ever surprised by them. Using that principle has been a credibility builder like no other. Even when people disagreed with the changes, they understood the process. They knew what was happening and why, and they had the opportunity to give input and state disagreements without fear of reprisal. In short, the lack of surprise gave the congregation one essential ingredient. Respect. Everyone deserves it. Leaders require it. Churches will turn inward upon each other in dangerous ways without it. But when people have it, it’s amazing how much change they’re willing to take a chance on.

If pastors respect the church's need to process the issue, church members are more likely to respect the pastor's leadership through the change. Then we can discover the joyful truth that most churches are far better with change than we give them credit for

Give People Time to Ponder

Here's an example.

Over a decade ago, I was considering changing the name of the church. So I brought up the possibility to the deacon board. I told them I didn’t want any feedback right then. I asked them to pray and ponder it until the next meeting.

At the next meeting, the longest-serving, most respected deacon spoke up.

“When you brought up a possible name change, I was opposed to it,” he said. (Uh-oh) "But when my wife and I were on vacation, she found a pamphlet with the names of some local churches. When she read the name of one church, I told her 'I don’t want to go there. It sounds dull and boring.'” "My wife looked up from the pamphlet and said 'that’s the same name as our church.' “It hit me like a ton of bricks,” he admitted. “That’s how people see us. We need to change our name.”

If I’d asked for comments on the possible name change when I brought it up, his negative response would have been the first seed planted. And, like a weed, it would have grown and choked out any chance for change. Instead, I gave him a month. And in that month, everything changed. Within a year we had a new name for our church. And we’ve made a lot more changes with the same process.

Take Your Time – And Give Some to Others

People need time to process big changes. After all, I’d had months to ponder it before I’d brought it up to them, and I still wasn’t sure. How do we, as pastors, expect people to make the right choice in 20 minutes, when we’ve had weeks, months, sometimes years to consider the question ourselves?

Most churches are far better with change than we give them credit for. As long as the church is relatively healthy, that is. If the environment is not just broken, but toxic and dysfunctional, different rules apply. But the leaders and members of a relatively healthy church want what every pastor wants. Necessary changes, properly understood, with enough time to think, pray, learn, discuss and implement them. Yes, this process takes a little longer. But doing something slowly and right is always better than doing it fast and wrong.

Resolutions: 1) To leave space to grieve

Posted by Scott McAndless on Sunday, January 1st, 2017 in Minister

Lamentations 1:1-7, Matthew 2:16-16, Psalm 44

t is a good thing, I suppose, that God made sure that Jesus, Mary and Joseph got out of Bethlehem before King Herod’s murderous men arrived. Three innocent lives were saved and, even more important, everything that the Messiah had been sent to accomplish was saved. But most people who read this part of the story (which, of course, we often don’t read at Christmas time because who wants to dwell on such things!) – those who do read it can’t help but ask: “Excuse me, but what about all of those other children two years old and under? Couldn’t they have been saved too?”

We modern people are not the first to be scandalized at these events. From ancient times, this little episode has been called by the name, “The Slaughter of the Innocents,” and considered to be one of the more scandalous events told in the Bible. In thousands of years, nobody has been able to come up with any good reason why innocent children should have been left to be slaughtered apparently just to cover the escape of the Christ child.

But, as awful as this story is, the Bible simply does not stop to explain it. God apparently knows that it’s coming – is able to send Joseph a very explicit warning in a dream – but doesn’t do anything to save any other children, and yet the Bible offers not a single word of explanation.

But that is, unfortunately, how the world generally works. Tragedies do happen. Crimes against humanity are committed. Terrible disasters take place and as much as we grasp for an answer to the question of why, we often just don’t get it. That doesn’t necessarily mean that there isn’t an answer, of course, just that it isn’t coming our way.

And we hardly have to go travelling back in time two thousand years to find such a reason to be scandalized. I know that we are standing here on the very threshold of a new year, 2017, and that all kinds of people have been looking back at the year that just passed with a real spirit of “good riddance.” I know that lots of people have wonderful things that happened for them or for the people they loved in 2016, but the overwhelming story that seems to have been told on the year was pretty negative. We lost huge numbers of beloved celebrities and some of them in pretty shocking ways. The story of Aleppo and most of Syria went from bad to much, much worse. Many people are incredibly disturbed by the global turn in politics to what seems to be a particularly dangerous brand of right wing populism. So, while we’re not talking about events as egregious as the slaughter of the innocents here, we can understand the idea of not looking back on the recent past with a great deal of nostalgia.

So what are we to think of the idea that the Bible lets the slaughter of the innocents go by without a commentary? It would be a big problem, I think, if it did. But, the fact of the matter is that it doesn’t. Yes, it is true that the Gospel of Matthew doesn’t pause to explain the slaughter, but it does do, I think, something much more important: it pauses to lament. This is the commentary on the events that it does make: “Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah: ‘A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.’”

This is actually a remarkably significant response to a tragedy, but we might not recognize it as such because we live in a society that does not really acknowledge the importance of the activity known as grieving.

Oh, we do recognize that it is necessary, from time to time, to give some people a certain amount of time and space to grieve a significant loss. People are allowed, for example, to take some carefully restricted time off of work when someone they love has died. We tolerate a certain number of tears, a limited amount of time when a grieving person may indulge in a reasonable amount of melancholy. But we don’t really have a whole lot of patience for that kind of thing. If people let it go on for what we consider to be “too long,” we don’t have any trouble telling them so.

Even as we engage in pop psychology which talks about the various stages of grief that people have been observed to go through, we tend to turn that into a prescription for where people are supposed to be in their process of grief – telling people, “Don’t you think that you have spent enough time engaging in ‘anger’ and ‘bargaining’; isn’t it time that you moved on to ‘acceptance”?”

Underneath all of our thinking on the subject seems to be the assumption that grief is actually a sign of weakness and that we really ought to put it aside as quickly as possible so that we can get back to being productive contributors to the economy. And this is probably especially true when it comes to our response to negative events and horrible crimes such as the slaughter of the innocents. The time spent mourning the disaster is considered to be wasted time and the assumption is that it really only gets in the way of the work of retaliation which usually includes declaring some sort of war upon the people or ideas that are held responsible for the disaster. (Think, for example, of how western nations dealt with the terrorist act on September 11, 2001. That was the pattern.)

And, frankly, the people who wrote the Bible (such as the writer of the Gospel of Matthew) would look at our attitudes and find us extremely foolish. They recognized that grief was extremely important work; work that (if it wasn’t done) would definitely get in the way of the kinds of solutions and responses that were actually helpful. You see, they understood some things about the human condition that we seem to have forgotten.

It works this way. We human beings have been designed by God in some pretty ingenious ways. I happen to believe that the particular mechanism that God used to design us was the process that modern science has come to call evolution and because of that, science has given us some wonderful new tools to understand that design. One thing that has become clear, for example, is that we have been designed to prioritize survival. What that means is that, when you are faced with a dangerous or traumatic situation or when people or things that are important to you are taken away, there is a process that takes over your brain in order to help you to survive that.

The part of your brain that takes care of this is actually a fairly primitive part – a part that you can also find in far less sophisticated animals than humans. But that is fine because higher brain power is not what is needed immediately in that kind of situation.

When you are threatened, your brain knows that what you actually need is not to waste a lot of brain power analyzing what is happening to you or even making sense of it all. Instead your brain concentrates on two key things. First, its priority is to make sure that you simply survive. This primitive part of your brain takes over and leads you through your initial response. In a situation of threat, that may mean helping you to fight back or, if that is not the best solution, run away from the situation. In a situation of loss, that means doing whatever you need to do to get through the loss.

The other job that is very important at such moments is memory storage. Very clear and precise memories of the traumatic situation are stored in a part of your brain called the amygdala. These memories are not analyzed or interpreted, they are just stored there as episodes in living colour. This is also a matter of survival, of course, because once you have survived a dangerous situation, the important thing to do is to remember precisely how you did it because you may face such a situation again. This is why the memories of traumatic events are often so clear and vibrant even though you don’t really want to remember them at all. This is how we have been marvellously and beautifully designed for survival by a loving God.

But there is one problem with this design. It means that, after you have gone through a certain amount of loss, danger or trauma (things that are an inevitable part of life) you end up with these powerful and clear memories stored up in your amygdala. But, as they are not particularly pleasant memories, the tendency is to avoid them, keep them locked up and pretend that they are not there. But they are so powerful that they do not stay locked up forever and they don’t just go away. So the more you try to repress them, the more they manage to sneak out. They are often triggered in unexpected ways and that means that you can continue to react to the trauma or loss that you have suffered long after the original events in ways that can be destructive to yourself or others.

There is only one known solution to this problem and it is in a process that has also been graciously provided to us by God. That process is called grief. Going through grief is something that human beings have been doing since the dawn of civilization and probably long before. It is an activity that was very well known and seen as an essential part of life throughout Biblical times and, in fact, every scripture passage that we read this morning was an example of someone working through their grief by putting it into words.

We read from the Book of Lamentations which is an entire book that was devoted to someone (traditionally identified as the Prophet Jeremiah) expressing his grief over the destruction of the City of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. Our psalm reading this morning is an example of an ancient communal exercise of grief as all the people come together before God to mourn something that they had all lost: a national defeat or setback. And then, of course, we have Rachel weeping for her children in the Gospel of Matthew: the ancient matriarch of the nation of Israel mourning for her lost children down through the ages.

Grief work is so important because what it does is takes those memories of trauma and loss that you have stored up in your brain – in your amygdala – and actually allows you to move them into a different part of your brain where they can actually be analyzed and given meaning. This is how you were designed to deal with these memories – to wait until the crisis is over and then take the time to take out those memories that you stored up in the time of loss or danger and figure out how they fit into the overall story of your life. This is exactly the kind of process we see people going through – with God’s understanding and help – in these biblical passages and similar ones to those we read this morning.

So when we see the writer of the Gospel of Matthew, and Rachel the ancient Matriarch and God himself joining together to mourn the terrible events of the slaughter of the innocents, this is not a failure to respond. It is a very important response. It is about processing such terrible events, finding their meaning and taking serious steps to destroy the power of such terror (which is, of course, what the entire rest of the gospel story is all about).

It is the first day of January, a day, traditionally, to make resolutions – to decide what changes you would like to make in your life in this New Year. That is why I have decided to spend several sermons this January talking about some resolutions we could make for 2017 that could really make a difference for good.

I would suggest that the first and maybe most important resolution you could make for this New Year is to practice some good grief. After all, how can you possibly do better at anything in this year that is coming until you first put aside the negative things, the losses and the disappointments of 2016 and, as I say, people seem to be saying that there have been a lot of them. Don’t be afraid to deal with what you have lost or feared in this past year. Don’t be afraid to grieve and mourn in whatever ways are necessary to you despite what anyone may have to say about it. Most of all don’t be afraid to ask for help as you go through such processes if you need it. May 2017 be a time of great blessing, especially, maybe, as you learn to grieve whatever there was in 2016 that needs to be grieved.

140CharacterSermon Resolution for 2017 #1: God wants you to take whatever time you need to grieve the losses and disappointments of 2016.

Beyond the Worship Wars; Building Vital and Faithful Worship

Posted by Nonsequitor on Saturday, December 31st, 2016 in Clerk of Session

Session received a book review from Family Ministries Co-ordinator, Joni Smith in December. Joni is working towards completing another course from Knox College entitled “Reformed Worship.” Part of this study included a required book called

"Beyond the Worship Wars; Building Vital and Faithful Worship” by Thomas G. Long. A very interesting read that explores the nature and best practices of churches that are growing in vitality right now. This book addresses a lot of issues that we have been hearing about.

“In brief there are 9 Characteristics of Vital Congregations listed with explanations. They are:

o Vital Congregations make room, somewhere in worship, for the experience of worship.

o Vital and Faith Congregations make planned and concerted efforts to show hospitality to the stranger.

o Vital and Faithful Congregations have recovered and made visible the sense of drama inherent in Christian worship.

o Vital and Faithful Congregations emphasize congregation music that is both excellent and eclectic in style and genre.

o Vital and Faithful Congregations creatively adapt the space and environment of worship.

o Vital and Faithful Congregations have a strong connection between worship and local mission, and this connection is expressed in every aspect of the worship service.

o Vital and Faithful Congregations have a relatively stable order of service and a significant repertoire of worship elements and responses that the congregation knows by heart.

o Vital and Faithful Congregations move to a joyous festival experience toward the end of their worship services.

o Vital and Faithful Congregations all have strong, charismatic pastors as worship leaders.

“I would recommend that you read this book. It is easy to read and not terribly long, but will make you think about why we do, or should do, some things and the theology behind the reasons.” Says Joni.

Session Elders have committed to read this book in 2017 and invite you to join us in exploration of real Vital and Faithful Congregations in the world today. Session is actively exploring how we can make the book available to the entire congregation. Imagine a book study open to everyone focused on intentionally making St. Andrews Hespeler a Vital and Faithful Congregation for future generations.

To quote an Elder at Session in December 2016 –“We know that the Presbyterian Church of Canada is struggling to keep members, just as most organized churches in North America are. This does not mean St. Andrews’ Hespeler has to follow this pattern. We have choices.” The quote above is a recount of the discussion and may not be 100% verbatim (Rob).

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