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COMMITTEES
Welcome and Not Welcome:
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PRESBYTERIAN
WINTER 2022
presbyterian.ca
The Presbyterian Church in Canada’s Response to the Arrival of New Ethnic Groups
By the Special Committee re. Petitions 1 and 2, 2021
The question of welcome/not welcome has been with The Presbyterian Church in Canada throughout its history. The first Presbyterian arrivals in Canada engaged with the Indigenous peo- ples of Turtle Island in a range of ways. Some Presbyterians did so in good ways, while many other Presbyterians sought to assimi- late and colonize the Indigenous peoples who were the original in- habitants of the land. This article asks about the welcome offered to the waves of new immigrants who came to Canada following the creation of The Presbyterian Church in Canada in 1875.
Canadian Presbyterians sought to welcome these newly arriving groups. Efforts were made to have Sunday morning worship in the languages of the immigrants. In 1923, 23 different languages were being used in worship in Presbyterian congregations in Canada. It was one thing, how- ever, to offer worship in the lan- guage of the immigrants and another to allow various ethnic groups to bring their cultural ex- pressions of Christianity into the life of The Presbyterian Church in Canada.
In 1903, a bold experiment be- gan with the Ukrainian commu-
nity that had poured into Canada during the previous decade. The Independent Greek Church (Greek because it used the Greek Or- thodox liturgy) was created as a denomination within The Presby- terian Church in Canada. Using a liturgy dating back to John Chrys- ostom and preaching a Reformed theology, the Independent Greek Church grew to 40,000 members who worshipped in Ukrainian. They had their own synod that functioned as a presbytery, al- though it reported to the General Assembly and not to a synod. By 1912, the experiment was over, largely because the growing bu- reaucracy of the denomination could not imagine a way to man- age the Ukrainian-speaking synod outside the regular systems of the church. The Independent Greek Church was absorbed into the regular structures of the church and the bold experiment in wel- come was over.
In the 1950s, immigrants from Hungary started to arrive in Can- ada in significant numbers. Hun- garians had been in Canada since the 1880s, many of them part of the Reformed Church. They es- tablished congregations like the one at Bekevar, Saskatchewan. As The Presbyterian Church in Canada saw the new wave of immigrants coming, a memo- rial on “Usages and Practices
of Hungarian Churches” was brought to the General Assem- bly. The committee charged with responding brought a motion to the 1953 Assembly laying out a policy that would move Hungar- ian congregations “gradually to conform to Canadian practices” (A&P 1953, p. 90). The welcome offered was limited; the Hungar- ians would eventually conform to the patterns and practices of the Canadian church. In the process, pieces of the identity of the Hun- garian Reformed Church would be reshaped to conform to the dominant culture and in some cases that identity would be lost.
The first Korean congregation in The Presbyterian Church in Canada started in the chapel of Knox Presbyterian Church, To- ronto, in 1967. The Korean pres- ence in the denomination grew rapidly through the subsequent decades. When Korean pastors and elders attended presbytery meetings, they found the meet- ings unwelcoming. Translation of the discussion into Korean was not offered. The meetings had a focus almost entirely on busi- ness, whereas spiritual fellowship and relationship-building were central to the Korean experience of presbytery. Leaders within the Korean churches came to feel they had no place in the English- speaking presbyteries. The mar-
ginalization they experienced in the wider Canadian culture was also experienced within the Pres- byterian Church. As a result, a request was made for separate Korean presbyteries and the Han- Ca Presbyteries were established in 1997. The Han-Ca Presbyteries came into being in part because the wider Presbyterian Church could not find ways to become a welcoming place.
This brief history reveals the challenges The Presbyterian Church in Canada has had with offering welcome. Real welcome, true hospitality, as described by Jesus, invites the hosts to be- come guests. The host lives into the precarious position of being the stranger, the guest, in order that the guest can have a place to be at home.
The Special Committee on Lis- tening, Confession, and Associa- tions was established by the 2022 General Assembly to hear stories
of welcome and not welcome, so that a more complete picture of The Presbyterian Church in Can- ada’s hospitable and less-than- hospitable actions and attitudes can be revealed. To that end, the committee very much hopes to hear from individuals and groups in the church who have stories to tell of marginalization and of welcome, of being cared for and of being ostracized. Stories of what individuals themselves ex- perienced and stories of what people witnessed are welcome. To tell your story, please contact the Special Committee at special. committee.pcc@gmail.com. This email address is confidential; it is accessed only by the Rev. Linda Park and the Rev. Peter Bush, co- conveners of the committee.
For more information about the committee, or to tell your story, contact the committee through special.committee.pcc @gmail.com.
What Does the Trustee Board Do?
By the Trustee Board
The Trustee Board of The Presby- terian Church in Canada is usually unnoticed among the commit- tees and boards of the church. But over the last couple of years, the Trustee Board has had more visibility as matters linked to the board’s work have been topics of discussion at General Assembly. This article outlines some of the work and responsibilities of the Trustee Board.
The Trustee Board has a mem- bership of up to 15 people—11 members plus the Principal Clerk, the Chief Financial Officer, the
Convener of the Assembly Coun- cil (or their designate), and the Convener of the Pension and Ben- efits Board (or their designate). Unlike other boards and com-
mittees in the church, members of the Trustee Board serve for a six-year non-renewable term. The name is the Trustee Board (not Board of Trustees), because it is
the board as a single entity that is the trustee, rather than being a collection of individuals who are trustees.
Given the complexity of the investment portfolios maintained by The Presbyterian Church in Canada, the Trustee Board cre- ated the Investment Advisory Committee (IAC). The IAC is a subcommittee of the board. It is made up of members and non- members of the board, including people with work experience in capital markets, investments, ac- counting, audit, pension, law and risk management.
The IAC provides investment
advice to the Trustee Board as it manages two funds: the Consoli- dated Fund and the Pension Fund. Each fund has a Statement of In- vestment Policies and Procedures (SIP&P) that governs the invest- ment strategies and risk limits of these funds. The board contracts with professional investment managers to do the actual in- vesting of funds. The investment managers are in turn evaluated by a professional consulting firm on contract with the board. All of this is so the Trustee Board can exer- cise its fiduciary responsibility of ensuring that the church’s money
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