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

Hespeler, 1 January, 2017 © Scott McAndless

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).

Special Services

Posted by StAndrewsHespeler on Tuesday, December 20th, 2016 in News

Please plan to attend one or all of our special Christmas services this week,

beginning with the Longest Night Service on Wednesday, December 21 @ 7:30 pm.

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come

Posted by Scott McAndless on Monday, December 19th, 2016 in Minister

Hespeler, 18 November, 2016 © Scott McAndless

Luke 1:46-55, Luke 12:13-21

“Ghost of the Future! I fear you more than any spectre I have seen.” It is with those words that Ebenezer Scrooge greets the arrival of the Ghost who is called, “The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.”Scrooge is not alone in this. Nothing frightens us more than the dark unknown of the future.

Nevert heless, though his trembling legs can barely hold him up, Scrooge promises to brave the Ghost’s company and to pay heed to whatever it may show him. In this he lies, as we all probably would in his situation.

The ghost doesn’t speak but it shows him people reacting in various ways to the death of some wealthy person. There are some men of business for whom the death barely registers. Then Scrooge goes to see two women and a man who have pilfered various objects from the dead man’s rooms and his body and are seeking to sell them to a pawnbroker. Finally, he is shown a poor couple who are in debt to this man and who rejoice that his passing has given them a little more time to settle their debts.

Scrooge observes all of this but does not see any of it – at least, he does not see the central truth of it all – though it is obvious enough to us, the readers. The dead man is, of course, Ebenezer Scrooge himself. We all guess it within a few paragraphs, but Ebenezer misses it. He doesn’t even recognize his own laundress when she takes his bedclothes to the pawnbroker. For that matter, he doesn’t recognize his own blankets and sheets and the curtains that have hung about his bed for these many years. He neither recognizes his own buttons nor pins nor the debtors who owe him money.

How are we to explain this? Whatever else he is, Ebenezer is not a stupid man. But he is like us in this one thing: he has wilfully blinded himself to the inevitability of his own death. He just can’t see it. We hear him grasping at other explanations as unlikely as they may be: there just happens to be someone else standing in his habitual spot in town and the dead man is remarkably like him in every imaginable way but that is (Scrooge explains to himself) simply because the ghost has chosen for him the best possible morality lesson. The most obvious conclusion, that he, himself, Ebenezer Scrooge, has died, this he cannot see.

And I cannot blame him because I think that this is something I do – and you do it too. We will admit, of course, to the logical inevitably that we shall die some day. We know the statistics, the medical limits of the human body, the realities of life. We just don’t wantto see it. But, in the end Scrooge is put in a place where he cannot help but see it and it is a moment that changes his entire life. Such a reality, when we face it, can only do the same for us.

Jesus understood the power of seeing the reality of mortality. He told a story of a man who had done well for himself. He had a great deal of land and it produced a huge abundance of crops. He had everything that he could dream of and the only problem he had left was trying to figure out where to store all his wealth. The conclusion seemed obvious. If he had all of this, he must have deserved it. He must have done everything right and was being rewarded by God for it. But Jesus called him a fool because he had failed to take one thing into account: the reality of his own death – a reality that proved that all of his priorities were wrong and that he really was a fool.

Now, most often in the life of the church when we talk about the reality of death changing things, what we are actually talking about is what happens after death. It usually boils down to the idea that you should be motivated to do good out of a healthy fear of eternal punisment or (perhaps better) by the promise of an eternal reward in heaven. But actually that is not what Charles Dickens is talking about in A Christmas Carol (and I don’t think that it is what Jesus was talking about in his parable).

Dickens probably believed in heaven and hell, but he was not actually interested in motivating people by means of eternal reward or punishment (Nor, do I think, was Jesus). Heaven and hell actually have no place in Dickens’ story of Ebenezer Scrooge. The only punishment he sees is to be found in this world. We see that in the suffering of Scrooge’s very first ghostly visitor: Jacob Marley. Marley, Scrooge’s dead old business partner, is in agony, but it is not the agony of hell. His agony is discovered in this exchange:

Scrooge sees the suffering of his old friend and seeks to comfort him by telling him that he was always a good man of business. To this Marley cries out in deep pain: “Business! Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”

Marley’s agony is simply this. His life was the only opportunity he had to do good, to help the weak, to comfort the afflicted, to assist those in need and he didn’t use that opportunity. Now that life is gone and he has no more power to do any of it. His agony is now to see the starving people and have no power to give them food, to see the grieving and to be totally unable to offer comfort, to not even be able to weep with the one who weeps. His powerlessness to help, to respond with human decency, is what makes him suffer now.

Friends, life on this earth is a precious gift. And one of the things that makes it most precious is the fact that it is limited. Realizing that is a hard thing, no one can easily see the reality their own death, but it is something worth seeing because it allows you to learn what Scrooge learned and what Jesus was trying to teach in his parable: to invest however much time you have on this earth doing what really matters.

Christmas Basket Night

Posted by StAndrewsHespeler on Saturday, December 17th, 2016 in News

Last week we had our annual Christmas Basket night for our Thursday Night Supper & Social guests. Many people from our congregation donated items to make up these baskets. The contents of the baskets included practical and fun items for the adults. Many thanks to all who provided the items for the baskets, they were wonderful and very much appreciated. Lots of fun was had by all!

God is with us: Special reflections on the Christmas story and a baptism

Posted by Scott McAndless on Monday, December 12th, 2016 in Minister

Hespeler, 11 December, 2016 © Scott McAndless

Isaiah 7:1-4, 10-16, Matthew 1:18-25

Sunday, December 11, 2016 was a very special day at St. Andrew’s Hespeler. We celebrated a baptism (that had, as you will see, an interesting back-story) and had our children present to us their version of the Christmas story. This all came together in an unusual message that offered a unique perspective on ancient Biblical passages. As this message was integrated throughout the service, I present more of the service, particularly the Baptism, than I usually would.

Note that the names of the parents and child have been change to preserve their privacy on the internet.

Reflections on Isaiah 7:1-4, 10-16

ing Ahaz of Jerusalem was in a bit of a bad spot. Two powerful kingdoms, the kingdom of Israel and the kingdom of Aram had entered into an alliance against him and they were coming to attack. Things looked bad. The heart of Ahaz and the heart of all his people were shaking like the trees of the forest shake before the wind.

But that was a long time ago in a very different world. How are we supposed to understand what it was like for them to be frightened of kings and armies that we have never even heard of? Well, think of it this way: what if the presidents of Russia and the United States made an alliance together and decided to invade Canada in order to gain control of our water supply? How would you feel? Are the leaves of your forest shaking in the wind? That what what King Ahaz and his people were feeling.

And God wanted to help the king and comfort him and so he sent his prophet, Isaiah, to the king while he was out inspecting the defenses of the city. And Isaiah’s message was pretty simple. Don’t worry, don’t shake like a leaf, he said. The enemy nations that you are worried about, they are about to be destroyed.

But maybe that all sounded too good to be true for King Ahaz and his buddies. And maybe Isaiah could see that he didn’t believe it. So Isaiah said that the king could ask for a sign. It could be anything in the whole world from the deepest depths of the earth (which they called Sheol) to the highest point in the heavens. But Ahaz wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t ask. And so Isaiah said, “Okay, then God will choose the sign.” And guess what the sign was:

Leader: People of God, Robert and Susan have some very good news for us.

People: What’s the good news?

Parents: We have a son!

L: Praise the Lord! There is new life among us. Let all God’s people say, “Amen.”

P: Amen!

L: What is his name?

Parents: He is called Ryan ______ ______.

L: And why do you bring him here?

Parents: That he may take his place among God’s people.

People: Do you know that he needs to pass through the waters of baptism?

Parent: Yes we do, may we proceed?

L: May they?

People: Yes! We rejoice with you in the gift of your child, Ryan, and we promise to provide you with a circle of belonging in which he will have a place. As friends, we will offer a home to worship God and learn the Sacred Story.

Hymn #138 While Shepherds watched

Affirmations:

L: Please join me as we welcome this new life among us using the words printed in the bulletin.

P: Little child, welcome to this world, this amazing and scary world. Welcome to light and dark, hot and cold, good and evil. Welcome to love and hate, truth and lies, good times and bad. Welcome to the long human pilgrimage from birth to death. Anything can happen here; everything is possible. Some things must be chosen; others left behind. Welcome to the real world and this circle of friends. Here we turn to God for help in making the choices that lead to life.

L: Ryan, for you Jesus Christ came into the world; for you he passed through the waters of baptism; for you he broke bread with sinners and outcasts; for you he endured the agony of the cross; for you he triumphed over death. You, little child, know nothing of this. How will you ever know? Who will ever tell you?

Parents: We will!

L: Ryan, this is too big a job for your parents alone. Who is going to help them?

People: We will!

Witnesses: And so will we!

L: Ryan, who will protect and nourish you until that day when you turn to God and say yes to God’s life of compassion, justice and peace?

Parents: We will!

L: Who is going to help them?

P: We will!

Witnesses: And so will we!

Prayer of Approach

God, sometimes we look around at the world where you have placed us and we are dismayed. We see leaders and events that make us shake like the leaves of the forest shake before the wind. We worry for the future. Thank you that you understand our fears and that you meet us with the assurance that you are with us – that you even sent your Son, Jesus Christ, into the world that we might know you in him.

Thank you for the gift of this child, Ryan, who teaches that truth to us again: God is with us. May we all experience the renewing power of that truth here today. Amen.

L: The peace of the Lord be with you always.

P: And also with you.

Act of Baptism:

Minister: Ryan, the God who created you has made this promise; Don’t be afraid; I have rescued you. I have called you by name; now you belong to me. When you cross deep rivers, I will be with you; the waters will not overwhelm you... I am your God, the One who saves you. (Isaiah 43:1,2)

Ryan ______ ______, I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God, Mother of all.

Ryan, know that you are now in the care of all who surround you. Know that you belong to God and to this household.

As I cup my hand around your head little one, may God hold you and keep you.

As I rock you in my arms little one, may Christ shield you and encompass you.

As I bend to kiss your cheek little one, may the Spirit bless you and encourage you.

Welcome:

L: Friends, this is Ryan, a son of God!

P: Welcome, Ryan!

ou see, that was the sign that Isaiah offered to King Ahaz as he trembled like a leaf. He turned around and pointed to a woman just like Susan – a woman who was pregnant (or who maybe soon would become pregnant – the Hebrew is not quite clear) and he said that when she had her baby, Ahaz would have his sign. The sign would be the child himself. For the child would be called Immanuel and Immanuel means “God Is With Us.”

And he explained that, by the time that child had grown up enough to know the difference between right and wrong (maybe by the age of thirteen), the world would have changed and the kingdoms that were threatening King Ahaz would have been destroyed. Isaiah was absolutely right. Within a few years, the world did change. Aram and Israel where destroyed and there was a whole new political landscape.

But you know what? That wasn’t just a prophecy for that particular time and place. This was a Word from the Lord and the Word of the Lord has this way of remaining alive and active long after it is first spoken. That was why centuries later a man named Matthew would pull out the ancient words of the Prophet Isaiah – words spoken to King Ahaz when he and all his people were shaking like leaves in the wind – and speak them to people in this own time who were shaking like leaves in the wind.

Video Presentation of Matthew 1:18-25

When Matthew told the story of how Jesus was born, the ancient words of the prophet would suddenly mean a whole lot more than they had ever meant before. In particular, that name, “Immanuel,” was important to Matthew because he knew that he (and all Christians like him) had experienced something special in the person they knew as Jesus. Somehow, in Jesus, they had experienced God like they had never experienced God before. Somehow, in this flesh and blood man, God had been present. For Matthew and the people of his church, Matthew’s story of how Jesus came to be conceived and born explained that: it was a new fulfillment of an ancient sign given by the prophet Isaiah to King Ahaz.

At the end of the service, Robert, Susan and Ryan return to the front and take Ryan to the manger.

Final reflections on Ryan

am going to tell you the amazing story of how Ryan came to be here today. Seven months ago, Robert and Susan were living in a city in Alberta that you may have heard of: a place called Fort McMurray. They had gone there after school here because there was lots of work there and the pay was good. Many others from across Canada had done the same as Alberta had one of the few booming economies in the country.

But, seven months ago, things were maybe not so bright. The petro-powers of the world (especially Saudi Arabia) had made an alliance together against Alberta. The price of oil had dropped like a stone taking much of Alberta’s economy with it. The future of Fort McMurray was not looking so bright as it once had. And that was before seven months ago when a massive, nearly unprecidented fire came sweeping through the city.

We can’t blame one fire on global climate change, of course. Climate doesn’t create individual events, but it is true that that fire is part of an overall trend towards bigger and more destructive fires around the world. A dangerous sign for the future!

We all saw the pictures and the video footage. It was positively apocalyptic. It was like the end of the world. And people were shaking like the leaves of a forest shake before the hot, burning wind. And, of course, people were asking where God was in the midst of that crisis.

And I believe that God has sent us an answer: The young woman conceived and bore a son and called him Ryan. And, no, Susan didn’t conceive Ryan at that very moment when Fort McMurray looked like hell on earth. Ryan had actually been conceived about four months earlier. But does that matter? No, because the message is still the same. The world may change but this child, like the one born in Isaiah’s time and even like Jesus, is a sign to us from God – a sign that means that God is with us.

How do I know that? I know it because that is how God works. I know it because, by the time this child grows up and is old enough to know the difference between good and evil, the world will have changed. I don’t even know how. Trump will not be president of the United States. Trudeau will likely not be our Prime Minister. The economy will have changed and I wouldn’t mind if oil isn’t such a big part of it. We don’t know. But the key thing is that the things we are worried about now, the things we are afraid of, may not matter by then. Yes, maybe we’ll have new things to worry about, but even that may not matter because of one key truth that God has sent Ryan to remind us of: God is with us.

And so it is Ryan who will lead us out into the world today. As you follow this child into the world, May God make safe for you each step; may Christ make open to you each pass; may the Spirit make clear to you each road; And may you travel hand in hand with your God.

Communion Schedule 2017 Deacons & Elders

Posted by Nonsequitor on Friday, December 9th, 2016 in Clerk of Session

click to enlarge

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