News Blog

The Session Year in review

Posted by on Wednesday, January 20th, 2016 in Clerk of Session

Session 2015 the Year in Review

The following details are in chronological order (February – December omitting July & August summer hiatus).

Rev. Scott brought Session up-to-date in the 2015 General Assembly in Vancouver - he has been confirmed as the Representative Minister for the Presbytery of Kitchener-Waterloo; June 1st to 7th, 2015.  Rev. McCandless and David Krueger would be traveling to the general assembly. 

Great Hespeler Reunion slated for July 8th, 9th and 10th of 2016. Elders heard how this would be a significant event with Saint Andrews as a central participant in the festivities.  Outlined how Rev. Richard Warne has been contacted and approved as guest speaker at worship service on Sunday, July 10.  Rev. Warren is a homegrown Hespeler boy with significant contacts within Cambridge.  A variety of events will be hosted during 2016.

In support of the Great Hespeler Reunion 2016 and in recognition that St. Andrew’s approaching its 160th anniversary Session discussed envisioning a yearlong celebration inclusive of: homecoming, worship service homilies, multiple planned evens throughout 2015-2016 and culminating in the Great Hespeler Reunion July 8-10, 2016. This celebration slated to run June 7th, 2015 until the church picnic to July 10th 2016.

The 2015 target for Presbyterian Sharing was set at the actual amount from 2014 which was $18,210. The budget 2015 was passed at the AGM shortly after this.

Session approved the Music and Worship committee recommendation to re-direct $25,000 interest free loan offered by the Presbytery for heating/reno (unspent – not required) to the audio/visual install. A request to Presbytery on re-directing the loan elicited a favorable response with no reservations. The loan is interest free and the payback terms are 10 years. There is a possibility that this loan may be a forgivable debt although no information is currently available. Session will schedule a Congregational meeting to approve up to $25,000 spent on A/V project at an appropriate time.

Approved by Session - the Human Resources Committee recommends that a revised User Fee/Charges Schedule for 2015; use of St. Andrews Church facilities be approved. This revision is based on a task group noting that many years have transpired since fees have been increased.
A workshop was facilitated at the Joint Deacon/Elder spring meeting. Rev Scott led us through a process of establishing key traits of Saint Andrews.  The rotating and changing groups were directed to eliminate lesser strengths while submitting group consensus on what were key before them. The process went through five iterations that reduced the 60 some key traits to five indicators of significant values are at Saint Andrews. The results were: Honesty/Integrity, Trust, Respect, Spirituality, and Service (not in any specific order).

Session implemented an open-ended schedule of joint Deacon/Elder meetings and workshops to develop:
1.     Share experiences and get to know each other.
2.     A better understanding between the two group’s duties and co-duties.
3.     Implement “best-practices” leading to new or better practices.
4.     Discover how to best communicate to the Districts of faith and congregation.
5.     Review accomplishments the have been discovered along the way (feedback). The next meeting is February 8, 2016.

Jane Neath has led the re-branding of the Hespeler Clothing Closet for 2015 by: outlining the history, detailing the evolution and endorsement of a strategic mission upon the insolvency of the former financer. Jane has been invaluable in creating a structural support inclusive of fund raising to make it all happen.  Details are as follows:  Elders agreed to rename the mission formerly known as the Clothing Closet to Hespeler Place of New Hope (HPNH). From this conception to established program two instrumental forces has shaped the success so far. Jane Neath has leveraged her time and talents to provide a business plan and financial framework that, although still early in the development seems to be off to a running start. The other instrumental force has been Karen Kincaid. Her talents at facilitating the day-to-day-operations, bootstrapping the launch of HPNH as well as an enthusiastic go-to-gal of the highest order are unequaled. People skills and work ethic are no stranger to her either.  Her team building skills are equally well developed. These two ladies have created an enduring mission at St. Andrews. Possibly one of the greatest happenings in recent times – due to the greater need now, compared to The Great Depression of the 1920’s.

As initiated by the 2014 AGM a task group to explore how to replace the church Auditors has been selected and met a number of times. Led by Donald Paddock and assisted by, Ray Godin and Glen Nixon have researched the best course of action. This Stewardship’s sub-committee recommends that appointing independent auditor(s), beginning in January 2016 to review the financial books for 2015 is the best solution. It is estimated that the ½ day review of the books and statements by independent auditor(s) will enable a surety report on the books. This new paradigm is necessitated by the need for oversight by qualified professionals.

In the summer of 2015 Session implemented the following ideas for deficit reductions from the Brainstorming Workshop recently held:
a.    Target deficit elimination communications to families to support St Andrews with hoped for $150 step increase.
b.   Hold an auction (walk-a-thon) and one other signature event for 2015/2016.
c.    Implement Fundscript Gift Card program – ongoing incremental income.
d.   Invite as many people as possible who have had an affiliation with Saint Andrews in the last 160 years to visit in 2016 and possibly make a donation towards eliminating our debt.

Early winter a task group was struck to explore the: Audio/Visual Project, roof repairs on the new addition side of the structure and any high priority projects for Session. The listing of projects and priorities for completion would be presented at a Congregational Meeting for review. In the interim Session postponed most significant expenditures in light of the recurring year end deficit.

Rev. Jeff Veenstra memorial walk-a-thon has been OK’d by both the Veenstra family and Session for 2016. This event was conceived by KW Presbytery but will be held in association with St Andrews – at a to-be-named site in or near Cambridge. In adjunct a tree planting service to be designated in memorial will be planned.

The General Assembly 2015 of the Presbyterian Church of Canada has embarked on defining how the LGBT community will play a role in the church in the near future. A support document Body, Mind and Soul – Study Guide on Human Sexuality has been produced by the church as announced at worship by Rev. Karen R. Horst on Anniversary Sunday.  The church is interested in ideas on the topic. Various avenues to express your thoughts will be made available.  Individual churches may, and can respond in a formal way before March 2016. St Andrews can meet to explore local thoughts on this transitional change. If support is found a group discussion and documentation recorded thoughts forwarded for incorporation into the final results.

The 2016 Budget process was discussed in light of the ongoing deficit contained within the Stewardship Report. Elders agreed that the budget controls that served for a number of years are no longer representative of changing economies. Elders agreed that help in defining a new working model, which takes into account: the congregation’s outlook; that annual shortfalls need to be rectified, Human Resources projections of 2015 and 2016, capital expenses both scheduled and some unexpected requirements (roof replacement on new section, AV Project currently on hiatus and uncertainty of utility increases) need analyzing. Expenses need to be optimized in addition to commencement of significant fund raising 4 or 5 times a year to offset these recurring negative balance sheets. By consent Session created a task group to deliberate what needs to happen. 

     Due to some “glitches” in executing meaningful communication directly from Session to the Congregation a revised communication channel was discussed. Session approved the launch of a Clerk of Session blog that would be available on-line and mirrored on the Saint Andrew’s web site.  Further, it was proposed that the Clerk of Session deliver to the congregation at worship an announcement of the blog on December 6, 2015. http://standrewsnews.blogspot.ca/  link

As part of the 160th anniversary discussions Session sponsored of two ¼ page advertisements in the Hespeler Reunion 2016 official guide. The first ad in recognition of Saint Andrews Presbyterian Church and the second ad to support/communicate the ongoing efforts of Hespeler Place of New Hope were approved. Cost $250 each.
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Book Review: Searching for Sunday by Rachel Held Evans

Posted by on Monday, January 18th, 2016 in Minister

I do not make it a habit to review or recommend books, but reading this book by Rachel Held Evans has made me think that it might well be time to think of changing that policy.

Searching for Sunday is the story of one woman's journey from her beginnings in the American Evangelical Church tradition through doubt, crises of faith, rejection, despair and hope. It is a very contemporary story of Christian life that has many parallels in the lives of various people I have known. The subtitle of the book is, "Loving, leaving and finding the church," and I just find that there are so many of us who are living in the very difficult and challenging space between those three verbs.

While Evan's book ventures into a number of areas of doctrine, theology and especially sacramental practice, it is at it's heart the story of a personal journey of disruption of what was once taken for granted, the loss and despair that come with that, and an unrelenting faith that prompts her to hold onto what the church can be and not fall into despair. Evan's very personal journey will definitely find many parallels in the lives of Christians everywhere.

So here is my recommendation: You need to read this book if...

You are someone who is completely committed to the church as it is.


Perhaps you are completely happy with the church as it is. If that is who you are, you need to understand what many people in the church and on the margins of the church are struggling with these days. I'm not sure that there is anyone out there who can show it to you in as compelling and as interesting way as Rachel Held Evans does.

You are someone who is wavering


Maybe you are struggling with the church. Reading Searching for Sunday will reassure you that you are not alone. Evans may even help you to find words for some of the dissatisfaction that you are feeling. It is very helpful to follow in the path of someone who is struggling with the things that you are struggling with.

You are giving up


Maybe you've had it with the church. Maybe you just find that it is easier to stay away than it is to deal with the things that cause you frustration, pain or annoyance. I think that you will find this book especially meaningful. Evans can be brutally honest about the flaws of the church, but here is the amazing thing about her writing: the grace of God just continues to shine through. Even when the church had let her down completely, she just can't stop finding evidence of God's grace and love. She continues the conversation with the church despite disappointment. I find this very inspiring.

She may be brutally honest, but I've got to say that this is one book that gives me more hope for the future of the church than any that I have read in a while. That alone makes it worth the read.



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It’s like these Christians have a different word for everything 3) Faith

Posted by on Sunday, January 17th, 2016 in Minister

Hespeler, 17 January, 2016 © Scott McAndless
Matthew 21:18-22, James 2:14-26, Romans 10:11-17
D
o you remember the first time you read this morning’s passage from the Gospel of Matthew? I sure do. I don’t know how old I was, but I must have been fairly young when I came across it because I remember finding it pretty darn exciting.
      When I read that Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt… if y ou say to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ it will be done,” I was all ready to go. Jesus’ instructions couldn’t have been more clear. All I had to do was believe – I mean be really certain without even doubting a little tiny bit that I could do it – and I would have fig trees and mountains and pieces of chalk and blackboard erasers flying through the air in no time. Ha, ha! People couldn’t help but notice me then! (I was a bit of a shy and retiring child.)
      Did I try? You bet I did! Come on, admit it, you tried it too, didn’t you? I remember sitting there and
staring at some random object and trying to convince myself that if I only really believed that I could do it and especially banished all doubt that I couldn’t, it would happen.
      It never did. And, at the time, I just figured that it was because somewhere deep inside I had some little tiny grain of doubt and that is why I never succeeded. It was only in later years that I began to consider that maybe my problem was that I never really understood what Jesus was trying to say at all.
      I have done a lot more reflection on what Jesus had to say on the topic of faith since those days and I have learned a few things. What we often don’t realize is that the meanings of the words, “believe” and “faith” have actually changed a great deal over the years.
      Our modern English word, believe, comes to us from an Old English word “geleafa” which means to hold something or someone dear. The second syllable, “leafa” actually comes from the same Germanic root as the word love. So, in its origins, belief was much more about giving your heart to something than it was about being certain about it. It didn’t have anything to do with evidence or intellectual choice. It was about your heart’s commitment.
      That is a far cry from how people use the word today. In fact, people often use “I believe” to explain the opinions that they hold or the facts that they hold to be true. It is primarily an intellectual activity, not really an action of the heart.
      The other word that we use to talk about belief (and especially religious belief) in English is faith. That word didn’t come into English from German but rather from Latin via French. The original Latin word was fides the same Latin root that we find in words like fidelity and fiduciary. So faith, at least the original word for it, doesn’t mean the act of accepting certain opinions or ideas, it refers to the choice to trust in someone or in something like a bank or an institution.
      So both the word believe and the word faith came to English with the sense of giving your heart to or placing your trust in someone. And in the language that Jesus spoke and the language of the New Testament, the same concept was in mind. But somehow today both words mean something quite different. Today we mostly use them to talk about intellectual opinions or convictions.
      Even when we talk about religious faith, we generally talk about it in terms of the things that we believe about God, about Jesus, the Bible or other spiritual matters. But this kind of intellectual assent or conviction was not really what Jesus was talking about. For him, believing was about giving your heart and not merely your assent or opinion to God.
      I have often spoken to people who are concerned that they can’t be Christians or that they aren’t good Christians because they can’t bring themselves to be completely certain about at least some of the things that people in churches believe. I mean, there are lots of reasons to doubt some of these teachings of the church. It is not as if anyone can offer you conclusive proof that Jesus was born to a virgin or rose bodily from the dead or stilled a mighty storm with a few words. So, yes, it is not uncommon for people to struggle with specific beliefs.
      But someone who struggles with or even rejects some specific thing that the church has traditionally believed is not necessarily someone who does not or cannot have faith. Faith as Jesus understood it and proclaimed it was not a matter of believing or accepting certain things on an intellectual level. It was about giving your heart to someone – the old sense of believing in Old English. It was about being willing to trust someone as the origin of the word faith means.
      So, while it may matter to a certain extent what you believe about God or about Jesus or about various points of doctrine, none of that matters anywhere near so much as the question of where you put your heart and in whom you place your trust. And, you know what? It is possible to love God even though you are not entirely sure of some of the things you believe about God. It is possible to trust Jesus without having everything that you believe about Jesus sorted out in your mind. Thank God it is. Otherwise, I’m convinced, a lot of us wouldn’t be here.
      But don’t just take my word for it. Take the word of the Letter of James. James writes this to the church, “You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder.” Do you realize what James is saying here? He is taking what is for us, one of the key tests of faith, the question, “Do you believe that God exists,” or “Do you believe that there is one God,” and he is saying: “Big deal! Who cares if you believe that God exists? I can show you demons who believe that.”
      So Jesus isn’t looking for you to hold certain opinions or to accept certain propositions. What is he looking for? He wants you to trust him. But that also implies one more thing. James writes this in his letter, “But someone will say, ‘You have faith and I have works.’ Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith.” You see, trusting someone, really trusting someone implies that you will do something about your trust.
      Let me give a simple example. Say that I have this chair here. It is a good chair, a solid chair. I can tell you all kinds of wonderful things about this chair.  But here’s the thing: if I stand here saying wonderful things about this chair, even talking about how sure I am that it is sturdy and able to hold me up, does that mean that I have faith in the chair. Not really. The one thing that would demonstrate that I have faith in the chair would be that I actually do something about what I profess to believe about the chair. I need to actually sit in it.
      Well, that is basically what James is saying about having faith in God. It doesn’t really matter what you say you believe about God. Professing to be certain of all kinds of things about God doesn’t prove you have faith. The only thing that would prove that would be if you took what you profess to believe about God and did something with it – if you chose to put the things that you profess to believe about God into practice by putting your trust in God and doing some good in the world. That is what James means when he says that faith without works is dead and amounts to nothing.
      In the church we have actually reduced and impoverished the meaning of the word faith. We have made it to mean only that you must accept certain propositions or ideas about God, Jesus and other things. What’s more, you are not really expected to do anything about those propositions – just believe them. That was never what Jesus was looking for when he was looking for faith in the people that he met.
      So let’s return to that saying of Jesus that I started with this morning. What did Jesus mean when he said, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt… if you say to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ it will be done”? He was saying that you need to have faith. But faith, as we have been saying, is not a matter of being certain about things as I thought in my youth. It is a matter of trust.
      And it is not even a matter of how much you trust. This same saying of Jesus comes to us in the Gospel of Luke in a slightly different form. In Luke, Jesus says, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.” That is kind of the lite version of the saying because it doesn’t just go from moving a mountain to a mulberry tree but also talks about the faith that does the moving as a very small thing – as a little, tiny mustard seed. So clearly the amount of faith that you have doesn’t matter.
      So what does matter in faith? Only one thing really: where you choose to place your trust in action. I mean, you can see that in my example with the chair. If I find another chair that is all old and rickety and falling apart, that only has three legs left and I tell you that I have all kinds of faith in that chair – tons of faith – and so I plunk myself down on it, will that chair hold me up? Probably not. I end up sprawled on the floor.
      But then I find another good and sturdy chair. I look at it and see that it is well-made but because, you know, last time I trusted a chair it let me down, I don’t have near as much faith in this chair. In fact, I am so lacking in faith that I am unwilling to sit on it. Will it hold me up? No, because I am not sitting on it. But if I have a little tiny bit of faith – faith, say, as small as a mustard seed – but enough trust to persuade me to actually do something and sit on the chair, will the chair hold me up? Of course it will, because it is a good chair! So we see what matters is not how much faith you have but that you actually choose to place your trust in a trustworthy thing.
      That is the kind of faith that Jesus talked about all the time. And it is a kind of faith that can move mountains, but not by me being certain and sure and having lots of it. The only way that faith can move mountains is when it persuades you to place your trust in the one who made the mountains in the first place.
      So that is faith as we must begin to understand it and as we must practice it. Your assignment this week is to actually use faith. I want you to move a mountain in your life. I’ll bet you’ve got one. I’ll bet you’ve got some great big problem or barrier in your life or in the life of someone that you love that you have been trying to move. Can you picture that mountain? You know what it is.
      I’ll bet you have been trying to move it with your own strength or determination. But it hasn’t worked and it won’t move that way. Here’s what I want you to do this week: give up on moving that mountain in your life by your own determination, and chose instead to see it moved by faith.
      How do you do that? By telling God that you don’t have it in you to move it but that you will trust God to move it instead. Now that can be a scary thing to say because you are leaving the biggest problem in your life in someone else’s hand. What if he doesn’t move it in the way that you think he should? What if he moves it to a place you don’t want it to go?
      Well, that it how you know we’re talking about real faith because it means that you have to trust God for all of that – give up control of it and trust God. It means giving your heart to God not just your understanding. And I’m not saying that God will move your mountain in the way that you think it needs to be moved. You may be surprised at what he does with your mountain.
      But I promise you this, if you choose to trust God for one of the biggest mountains in your life, you won’t regret it because you will be choosing to place your confidence in the one who will never let you down.
     

Sermon Video:

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Some reflections on a first session working on “Body, Mind and Soul”

Posted by on Thursday, January 14th, 2016 in Minister

Last night we held our first session at St. Andrew's Hespeler to start to work through the document, "Body, Mind and Soul: Thinking together about human sexuality and sexual orientation in The Presbyterian Church in Canada." I must say that I found the session a little bit hard to prepare for and that I didn't know what to expect going in.

The discussions that we held together were held in an intentional atmosphere of openness and confidentiality so that people could be able to speak freely and not fear that their words or views would be shared. So I am not at liberty to share any particular words or views expressed. But I know that a lot of people who are leading these discussions are having a hard time figuring out how to do them well. So I would like to at least share a few observations and insights that might be helpful to others who are planning or preparing.


1) Questions of why we are doing this


I thought that I had a pretty good understanding going in of why we were going through this exercise. The General Assembly is going through a process of discerning where the Holy Spirit might be leading us to change (or not change) our approach to issues around human sexuality and needs congregations like our own to participate in that discernment. In order to help we need to go through a process like this. But a discussion of that sense of purpose was important. Perceptions of what we were doing were not necessarily shared.

There was suspicion expressed by some. There were feelings that the study had been written with a bias towards certain conclusions. There were feelings expressed that the decision had already been made and that this process was simply designed to get us to that foregone conclusion. These views did come out of one particular perspective on the issues, but I can well imagine that, in some other context, people coming from the opposite point of view might well feel the same thing.

A discussion of bias and expectations was therefore necessary. I appreciate all of the work that went into this document and how well it is done given the time constraints on it. I also don't think that it is possible to create such a document without some bias seeping through from time to time. Given that there are multiple authors, I expect that different biases will come through at different points. I think we can acknowledge that without getting hung up on it.

As to being able to come up with something coherent to feed back to the national church committees, I must say that I cannot see at this time how we may come up with a consensus response. Pray for us!


2) People prepared and engaged!


I planned to start by dealing with the section on Scripture. I made pages 14 to 37 available to people on the previous Sunday to read in preparation and also directed them to the downloadable document. I also had pages 89 - 97 printed up for our first session as a handout.

I had my doubts and questions about whether people would read that pages in preparation. None of it was necessarily very easy reading, but they all did it. Some acknowledged that they had to read it in small bites but they were all committed enough to do it. Always a good sign.

I started by going through the listening circles group guidelines (pp. 87,88). A very good place to start. In retrospect, I likely should have printed that up too, or put it up in a poster format.

It took some time to get people engaged, but once we got going, engagement was good, respectful, truthful and positive. Some did not speak up. I may need to check in with a few to see if they are looking for someone to help them to find those openings to speak or if they just need us to respect their silence.


3) My role as a leader


I struggled and expect I will continue to struggle in my role as a leader. My issue is that I do have opinions and, even more important, convictions around these issue. I also feel that I have a right and a duty to share those convictions that have come out of thoughtful reflection and scriptural study. But I am also aware that, whenever I speak, there is this danger that it will be received as the authoritative and definitive answer or opinion which may cause others to feel that their opinions or approaches are being squelched. Because of that, I felt that I maintained a light touch on moderation and leadership. I do not regret that and feel that it was the most helpful approach at least this time.


4) Our progress


We specifically discussed Leviticus 18:22 and Genesis 19:4-8. We discussed related issues like the Holiness Code, cultural assumptions around homosexual activity in the ancient Mediterranean world, the dimensions of hospitality and the larger Biblical context of the Sodom story.

We branched off (necessarily, I think) into discussions about the assumptions that people were bringing to the table. There was certainly diversity in the approaches.

I used only one of the supplied discussion questions. Other prompts to continuing discussion were not a big problem. 

We ended after about and hour and a half (but before running out of steam) by deciding that next week we would try to deal with the passages from the New Testament Letters and the whole Normal vs. Normative discussion. (p. 92). I feel that I have a bit of a better handle on how to prepare for that.

5) This will not change anyone's mind.


I went into this saying that I don't expect that, ultimately, we will all agree about what to do and that it is okay that we don't agree. This was certainly confirmed. Even more important, I think that this idea was embraced by everyone. There were attempts, of course, to get other people to appreciate someone's point of view. There were critical discussions about where certain approaches would lead us and what the consequences might be. But everyone could respect where people were coming from.

One thing that is clear coming out of this discussion is how very segmented everyone is around these issues. Everyone -- conservatives, traditionalists, progressives or whatever you want to call people -- tends to read and follow only those sources of thought and learning that confirm the point of view that they already have. This can lead to one person stating something that is, in their mind, an established fact while someone also cites a totally contradictory datum as an established fact. This is a big issue in all kinds of ways for the church -- perhaps an inescapable effect of our segmented information age.

Nevertheless, none of that means that this exercise is fruitless. The dialog is important, engaging and worthwhile. It was also uplifting and I am very thankful for that.
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Be a guest blogger

Posted by on Tuesday, January 12th, 2016 in Clerk of Session

     Yes you can. It's easy...you or your group can email or call the Clerk of Session with your story, share your groups good news, ask a question and even write about the people that make Saint Andrews a special place.  


     Share with others and we all grow!

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I heard it through the grape vine

Posted by on Monday, January 11th, 2016 in Clerk of Session


I heard it through the grape vine....

OK 2016 is just starting and we have many adventures before us:


Coming up in just a week or two Saint Andrews will launch an exciting and innovative event that has a chance to remove the debt accumulated in 2016.  No we are not asking you to open your purse or wallet. This opportunity allows you to have a spectacular time with family and friends and still help out with our missions. This event is called the "Amazing Shrinking Tea Party" and is being perfected right now!  You will see the details shortly.

Stewardship has advised me that equally fun events like:

  • Food trucks pulling into our parking lot and encouraging you to sample their wares could very well be seen in 2016.
  • Antique cars and or even a car rally could be in the offing
  • Silent auctions or the hugely popular Time and Talent Auction might return
  • Even eating in the dark could appear (OK I made that up)

  Watch the bulletin or this site for the skinny!




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Refugee sponsorship and the 106 group

Posted by on Monday, January 11th, 2016 in Clerk of Session


Updates and News

Refugee Sponsorship

The Presbyterian Church in Canada is an official Sponsorship Agreement Holder with Citizenship and Immigration Canada. This enables Presbyterian congregations to sponsor refugees to resettle in Canada. PWS&D advocates for refugees through a number of Canadian refugee advocacy groups, including the Canadian Council for Refugees. For more information or if your church is interested in sponsoring a refugee, contact Rob Shropshire by e-mail or phone (416-441-1111 or 800-619-7301 x249)

Session has discussed the involvement of Cambridge becoming part of the solution to the needs of millions of displaced people. It is a crisis unlike any the world has seen. In response the Presbyterian Church of Canada has posted the announcement above. The need is great; the mission is obvious; let's start a dialogue on how we can help. Is it possible a coalition of Cambridge churches could sponsor a family or more?  There is help provided by the PCC all we need is someone to start the ball rolling. Step forward and make a difference today.

The "160 group"  

There is a group of individuals that are organizing the celebrations surrounding the 160th year of Saint Andrews in Hespeler. Coincidentally the 2016 Hespeler Reunion is also taking place with St. Andrews as part of the focus.  The 160 group is encouraging anyone who has an interest in helping both our individual celebration and the 2016 Reunion to contact Rev. McAndless or Joni Smith to volunteer time and talents.  
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Body, Mind and Soul 2016

Posted by on Monday, January 11th, 2016 in Clerk of Session

Introduction:   Body, Mind and Soul  http://presbyterian.ca/sexuality/

Thinking together about human sexuality and sexual orientation in The Presbyterian Church in Canada

People throughout our denomination are wondering if there is a conflict between loving and affirming LGBTQ persons and being faithful to the Bible. Numerous commissioners at the 141st General Assembly expressed this struggle. Many have friends, neighbours, children or grandchildren who are gay or lesbian whom they love. They also believe that the Bible is “the standard of all doctrine,” the foundation of our ethics and the Word of God. Some faithful Christians aren’t even sure exactly what the Bible says or how to understand it. 

Saint Andrews Presbyterian Church Hespeler  "Body, Mind & Soul" study

When: Wed, January 20, 7:30pm – 8:30pm
Description:  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 feed back to the General Assembly as they try and formulate a path forward. The study will begin this week and continue on from there based on participation and how quickly we are able to work through the materials.
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