A searchable, downloadable PDF of the original article appears below. A. Donald MacLeod is Associate Minister of Knox Presbyterian Church, Toronto.
Channels.
What does the name suggest to you?
You may think of the hymn. Childhood memories of singing, “Channels only, Blessed Saviour.”
You may have a word-association reflex. Channels. Television. Up-to-date methods of communication. The media.
Right on both counts! The Renewal Fellowship Within The Presbyterian Church in Canada has both in mind in choosing the name Channels for their new periodical.
We want to be channels. Channels of renewal and encouragement. Facilitators of renewal within our denomination. We desire to strengthen the means God uses to bring that renewal to His church – a recovery of the cutting thrust of Scripture, challenging our presuppositions, creating new hunger for truth, justice and righteousness.
We long to be channels of God’s blessing to our country. We wish Canada to be, what it was once called, a dominion. His dominion. “He shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth.”
We seek also to be contemporary. We want to speak to the present-day needs of the church. The “good-old days” are gone. We question whether they were always as good as we sometimes assume. Are we guilty of romanticising the past – whether it be the Reformation, the days of the Puritans, or even 1925? We need to look ahead, courageously and imaginatively, with the lessons of the past learned, anchored to the truth of the Scriptures, but confident in the sovereign Grace of One Whose Spirit beckons us to move ahead in power and confidence. Is He still Lord of the Church? Should we not then trust Him to guide us? “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.”
Channels is the latest in a series of periodicals stretching over the entire history of the Canadian Presbyterian experience that have been both independent and responsible. The most recent of these, Foundations, is our immediate antecedent and parent. We are grateful for their Editorial Staff and Committee in allowing us to take over from where they left off. We know we will be the stronger for their vision, helped by their example, and the leadership they provided.
“Channels Only” is the vision of our Renewal Fellowship in producing this magazine. We wish to join with you in seeing this great denomination an instrument of renewal within Canada. We wish the Lord of the Church to walk in our midst with a fresh touch of His authority, truth and glory.
Join us in prayer, and in commitment – through securing the widest possible distribution of this magazine, and in prayer and financial support – to see that this is truly the “channel” of renewal that we seek it to become.
Soli deo gloria – to God alone be glory.