A searchable, downloadable PDF of the original article, with pictures from the Annual Meeting, appears below.
They came from all over Canada. British Columbia was strongly represented, and there were several from the Atlantic Provinces. The Third Annual Meetings of the Renewal Fellowship Within the Presbyterian Church in Canada were evidence of the remarkable growth of the movement in the past year.
One unusual feature of these meetings were the many clergy who attended. Up until now not only has the Fellowship been characterized by a large number of laypeople in both leadership and support functions, but most of those attending Renewal Fellowship meetings were from the pew, rather than the pulpit. During 1984, Basil Howell reported for the Membership Committee, about 10% of the ministers of our denomination joined the organization. Over 150 congregations are now represented with at least one member – some have more than one hundred paid up subscriptions.
There was a high level of enthusiasm and commitment shown to the goals of the Fellowship. One person commented that the 1985 meetings were “like a little bit of heaven”. Others were stimulated to find their role within the church, and were encouraged to see the diversity not only within the church, but also among those who call themselves “Evangelicals”.
Typical of the greater degree of acceptance and tolerance of such diversity was the warm welcome given to Don Williams and Mark Slomka, our theme speaker and his assistant. While many found Don’s messages different from their perceptions and while others may have found Mark’s worship leadership unusual, nonetheless there was a real bonding as all together recognised their common need for a fresh vision of the filling and power of the Holy Spirit of God.
Don Williams served as Minister to Students at Hollywood’s First Presbyterian Church during the tumultuous days in the late ’60’s when an entire generation was aflame. Burnt out by the sea of human need around him, he left the ministry – for good, he thought. Then several of his students at the college where he was teaching reached out to him and eventually the response of a dying Presbyterian church extension congregation in suburban La Jolla, California, to his Bible teaching gifts brought him back into the regular pastorate.
His burden as a Presbyterian minister, shared with us at the Annual Meetings, was well summarised in a statement he made to Leadership magazine recently:
“If we don’t have the power of the Holy Spirit to bring deliverance, if we don’t have the authentic joy that comes from entering the kingdom, we really don’t have anything to say to this generation. My denomination is a case in point: we are growing old gracefully . . . older and older and older. We’re not going to exist before too long if we don’t start ministering to the next generation.”
Authentic joy and a burden that the power of the Holy Spirit bring deliverance, were marks of Don’s ministry’ among us. Never before have we received so much comment after a Renewal event. Lives evidently were touched, decisions made, ministries rekindled. We praise God and press on . . .
Burnout among the clergy was the theme of another Renewal Fellowship event, this time co-sponsored by the Board of Ministry and the Board of Congregational Life of our denomination. We were this time grateful for the ministry of a Canadian. Roy Bell, of Calgary’s First Baptist Church, and latterly at Carey Hall in Vancouver. He was joined by Stanley Walters. Professor of Old Testament at Knox College, Toronto, and together they beautifully complemented one another.
The Conference, whose theme was “Hope In Our Calling” was a significant breakthrough in relationships, and represented some of the fruit of the conference held last year, also at the Crieff Conference Centre, near Guelph. Ontario. It built on the concern that had been articulated after Richard Hutcheson had last year encouraged us to develop communication right across the theological spectrum, and several had stated their felt need for the capacity to minister to one another, regardless of the labels we wear.
That those labels were discarded, that we were able to serve one another as the servants of a servant people, was in no small measure attributable to the remarkable cooperation and cohesion that has grown up between the members of the Crieff Planning Committee – Don MacLeod, Harry Waite and Tom Gemmell – together with the conference centre staff of Lynn Harris and Bob Spencer, Director. The recognition was apparent by all: that the things that we hold in common, the ministry that we share, and the needs we have, are far greater in their ability to unite than to divide.
Crieff 1985 was a success for those clergy and their spouses who attended. As well, we felt that there was a need for the word to spread. Already consideration is being given to “repeat performances” across Canada, particularly in the Atlantic Synod. It was a regret that not only were there fewer than we had hoped for, but also that those who most need “Hope In Cur Calling” were perhaps themselves too immobilized to get the help they could have both received and given. These are not easy days to be called to the Christian ministry. As Roy Bell reminded those of us whose ministry began when Canada was still ‘religious’, the rapidly accelerating secularization of our society inevitably refocuses and redefines our call. The Renewal Fellowship sees a renewed clergy as one essential ingredient of a renewed church.
At a renewal leaders’ conference held recently in Washington D.C., at what was originally George Washington’s coach house in Mt. Vernon, some thirty leaders of renewal organizations shared their collective wisdom. Generally Presbyterian organizations were bullish after the meetings in Dallas in January. The five groups serving the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America – the recently reunited denomination of over three million – represented the diversity of charismatic and non-charismatic, lay and clergy, political strategizing and congregational renewal, which such a large church can not only tolerate but encourage.
With our smaller size, those knowledgeable about the direction renewal organizations have taken in the United States were anxious to convey one common concern for our much newer agency: that we profit by their experience in developing within our membership a wide representation of those committed to renewal, but with a single foundation: the word of God allowed to speak in its objective authority without the theological compromise of the left or the cultural compromise of the right. From their American fragmentization they saw the Renewal Fellowship as an opportunity – to quote the wise words in our masthead for Channels to “represent something of the diversity of those committed to renewal” in Canada and among Presbyterians here.