Page 34 - Presbyterian Connection Fall 2025

34 FALL 2025
ConnectionP R E S B Y T E R I A N
Not Your Typical
History Book
By the Rev. Peter Bush, St. Andrew’s
Presbyterian Church in Fergus,
Ont.
Recollections + Reflections
150 Years of The Presbyterian
Church in Canada
Edited and compiled by
Ian McKechnie
Design and layout by
Ekaterine Alexakis
The Presbyterian Church in
Canada, 2025
Recollections + Reflections is a
beautifully designed and laid-out
book, not the usual church his-
tory book. There is a brief his-
tory of The Presbyterian Church
in Canada (nine pages), but it is
not the purpose of the book to tell
the history of the denomination;
rather, the book gives readers a
collection of people’s stories—
people who sought and still seek
to follow Jesus as part of con-
gregations of The Presbyterian
Church in Canada. That is the true
strength of the book, reminding
readers that the PCC at its core is
not General Assembly or national
office, nor is the denomination
even synods and presbyteries.
None of those would exist with-
out the individuals and the groups
who make up congregations. This
book reminds us that any ac-
count of the PCC is rooted in the
life of congregations. For it is in
the life of congregations where
people hear the good news of Je-
sus read, preached and studied;
where they gather around the ta-
ble to celebrate communion, and
join in the holy tasks of rejoicing
with those who rejoice and weep-
ing with those who weep.
The book begins with a hymn
and ends with a hymn—and be-
fore the history and stories unfold,
a 6th century painting of Jesus
reminds readers that if congrega-
tions are central to the life of the
PCC, Jesus Christ is central to the
life of those congregations.
The brief history includes the
statement: “To say that the PCC
has a checkered heritage would
be an understatement … It has
sinned multiple times over and
fallen well short of the glory of
God.” The section of the book
immediately following the brief
history explores the ways the
church has sought reconciliation
in its relationship with Indigenous
peoples. A later section docu-
ments the denomination’s strug-
gles regarding the role of women,
the place of LGBTQI2S+ persons
within the church, and the wel-
come offered to people of other
races, ethnicities and cultures.
The book does not avoid identify-
ing the church’s failures.
Also told are stories of faithful-
ness and resilience, of ordinary
people committed to living Chris-
tian lives in their congregations.
Ian Grinnell of Trinity Presbyterian
Church in York Mills, Ont., tells of
growing up in that congregation.
After mentioning two ministers,
Ian turns to reflect on Aubrey
Lewis-Watts—an elder, Sunday
school teacher and mentor. It was
Aubrey who made an impact in
Grinnell’s life. This story and oth-
ers in the book declare the truth
that the strength of the church
runs through faithful, committed
lay people who do not usually
show up in church histories but
whose impact is written in the
lives they have touched in often
unnoticed and unheralded ways.
Mona Harris concludes her ac-
count of Camp Churchill near
Campbellton, N.B., with an almost
apologetic paragraph outlining
how Knox Presbyterian Church,
in Campbellton, no longer has
a church building but meets in
a seniors’ complex where they
“now have a seniors ministry”
for residents. They are faithfully
resilient and committed to serving
others in the name of Jesus.
The photographs and images
throughout Recollections + Re-
flections are well chosen. A full-
page display advertisement in-
vites 800 members of the Toronto
PYPS to fill the ship Dalhousie
City for a picnic at Port Dalhousie.
The date of the picnic was June
3, 1939—three months later,
Second World War would begin.
Reflecting that some 800 PYPS
members on that ship would lose
their lives or be in other ways
REFLECTIONS
Preaching in
a New Key
This is an adapted excerpt from
Dr. Mark R. Glanville, Centre for
Missional Leadership, St. Andrew’s
Hall in Vancouver, B.C., and author
of Preaching in a New Key: Crafting
Expository Sermons in Post-Christian
Communities
One damp afternoon during the
fall of 2016, I was sharing a
pastoral conversation with Kate,
a professional artist in her late
twenties. Over years of meals and
conversations, we had formed a
trusting relationship, and the pre-
vious year Kate had shared with
me her growing doubts in her
journey with Christ. “Evangeli-
calism seems so cold-hearted,”
she would say. “Why doesn’t the
church care about the creation?
And about art and artists?” We
both knew that our own church
cared about these things, but the
negligence of the broader church
on these issues worried her. In
fact, it rocked her faith. This day
she told me hesitatingly that she
was going to take a year off from
attending church to give herself
space to sort out her faith. We
are still good friends, but Kate
never returned to worship regu-
larly. Kate no longer identifies as
Christian.
Kate was experiencing a pro-
found disconnect between her
values and the wider church:
values around beauty, justice,
community and creation, and of
course, these values are found
throughout scripture.
This disconnect of values am-
plified a disconnect that was al-
ready there, a baseline of discon-
nection between Christian faith
and her life experience. “What
about other religions,” Kate would
ask. “How can we presume that
we are right and they are wrong?”
For Kate, Christianity didn’t reso-
nate at the level of plausibility.
Through coffees and conversa-
tions with dozens of people, I
learned to recognize this discon-
nection of plausibility and values
that Kate experienced. I realized
that this is the experience of many
people who remain in the church,
not only young people, but people
of all ages, including Boomers.
Many people in your church are
struggling with doubt: not a doubt
that can be solved at a rational
level, but a doubt that resides at
the level of plausibility and values.
How do we preach in our cul-
tural context today, where peo-
ple’s experience of faith is so
contested? How can we preach
when many of our people don’t
assume that scripture is authori-
tative? Rather, they have complex
relationships with scripture.
There is a lot to it, to be sure.
Our role as preachers is to nour-
ish faith. Nourishing faith today is
less about evidence for the res-
urrection, and more about valu-
ing justice and compassion. It is
less about faith vs science, more
about nurturing communities of
hope. One key strategy is what
I call “reversing the direction of
flow.” Reversing the direction of
flow lies at the heart of my book,
Preaching in a New Key: Craft-
ing Expository Sermons in Post-
Christian Communities.
Reversing the direction
of flow in preaching
For the most part, it isn’t help-
ful to preach sermons on doubt
presbyterian.ca
changed by the war is sobering.
An interesting addition to the
book is the collection of recipes
taken from various congrega-
tional recipe books, some dating
back to the early 20th century.
René Schmidt’s story reminds
readers that the Holy Spirit still
draws people to become fol-
lowers of Jesus in the congre-
gations of this awkward and at
times faltering denomination we
call The Presbyterian Church
in Canada. Nudged by the Holy
Spirit, Schmidt ended up going
to a “dark and gloomy” church
building “that did not look prom-
ising.” The congregation was “a
few dozen grey and silver head-
ed souls outnumbering just one
family with small children and
another with teenage girls.” The
music was “surprisingly” good,
the preaching “Huh! Not bad.”
Over time, Schmidt was drawn
in, found a mentor, joined the
choir and grew in faith. In this
way, readers are reminded of the
real history of The Presbyterian
Church in Canada: people meet-
ing and following Jesus.
This is not your typical history
book—and is worthy of serious
engagement. Ian McKechnie, as
compiler and editor, and Ekaterine
Alexakis, as designer and layout
artist, are to be thanked for their
gift to the church.
To order a copy of Recollections
+ Reflections, visit presbyterian.
ca/order.
(though, you may do so with
high emotional and relational
intuition). Rather, we assume
doubt and curiosity and allow
that to shape the way that we
approach every sermon. The key
question is: How can we display
the wisdom of Christ and the
beauty of scripture in contexts
where these can’t be taken for
granted? Be encouraged: we can
learn to hold out the word of life
in a way that is responsive to the
complex relationships our people
have with scripture. This is an
art, not a science, and one-on-
one pastoral conversations are
key to growing a pastoral intui-
tion for the task.
We desire to preach from
scripture into the church, do
we not? And, when I started out
as a preacher, that logical flow
worked well: simply declaring
God’s word to us in scripture.
We were heralds of the King. Yet
how people come to church has
shifted. If in years past, people
walked to church with the Bible
in their hands, in post-Christian
cultures, many of our people
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