"The Kingdom of God and the Future of the Church" was the focus of recent discussions among leaders and followers within The Presbyterian Church in Canada (PCC). Dr. Dale Woods of Presbyterian College was the keynote speaker at the 2011 Annual General Meeting of The Renewal Fellowship, held at St. Andrew's, Etobicoke ON in March. Dr. Woods warned us that the Christian community may present itself in radically different forms than those familiar to us. He highlighted three trends that help us reflect on the future: Global, Emergent, and Missional.

The Global Church: Dr Woods pointed out that while we see a decline in the church attendance/interest/growth in western nations, the church has strong growth in Korea, China, Africa, and Latin America. In a study of churches in South America, Donald Miller highlighted these keys to church growth:

• visionary leadership with a humble expectation that God will act through His people;
• passionate devotion to God through a deep spiritual life;
• vision for transforming people in the world; and,
• a spirit of expectancy.

Their focus of leadership is to train the people to do the work of ministry. Academic qualifications take second place to spiritual experience and a passion for Scripture. Growing churches need creativity, imagination, and faithfulness.

The Emergent Church is a new way of "being church" and of practicing Christianity. Supporters of the Emergent Church believe that the old model can't last, and no-one knows what the new one will look like — hence "Emergent" or "Emerging" Church. They compare the present church to pay phones — there are still some in use, but fewer and fewer people are using them. The new way, emergents argue, will not emphasize denominational distinctives but will embrace a more generous orthodoxy. The gospel today has become encrusted like a volcano — the crust that prevents the flow is dogma, bureaucracy, institutionalism, individualism, and consumerism. The Emergent Church looks for new ways for the gospel to break through. The church of the future will not be identified with a building, but will operate as an open source network more than a bureaucracy. It will need to be more open to the work of the Holy Spirit rather than dependent on methodologies and formulas.

The Missional Church distinguishes itself from the attractional church which seeks to draw people into church. The Missional Church says we need to listen to the culture. Supporters of the Missional Church say this is the church God wants for the world. The Missional Church emphasizes God at the centre of all activity. Two key questions are asked: "What is God doing in the world?" and "What does God want to do in His world?" Pastoral parishes ask, "How can we save the church?" But Missional churches ask, "How can we save the world?"

This is about spiritual and theological realities with profound consequences. Leonard Sweet argues that the future church will be EPIC: Experiential, Participatory, Image-oriented, and Connected. Leadership will need to be apostolic. Followers will need to have a deep sense of call by God.

Following Dr. Woods' presentation, three PCC leaders offered their views on a panel moderated by Calvin Brown, Executive Director, The Renewal Fellowship within the PCC.

The Panel members were Charles Fensham of Knox College, Jeremy Bellsmith, pastor of Burns Presbyterian Church (Ashburn ON), and Rick Fee, General Secretary of the Life and Mission Agency. Fensham began by saying that the future of the church is in the hands of God but in a secondary way — how we respond to God — we can also say the future depends on us. He quoted numerous times in the history of the church when renewal was necessary and God raised up strong new leaders. When we think of renewal we think also of the past. This affects theological colleges looking to train ministers for the future by reminding them that renewal comes through profoundly committed leaders — not just intellectually trained but people whose daily lives are shaped by their devotion and commitment to the mission of God. Fensham asserted that his heart is with the Missional Church. Where will we be in thirty years?

Jeremy Bellsmith, a new pastor, began by saying that in thirty years he would be retiring! He affirmed his desire to see the church become all she can be. He said, "I'm a dreamer. Dreams are a form of prayer to get us moving." He wants the church to be a people united in a common desire, to be a church deeply connected with God, with each other, and with their communities. We are called to diversity if we are to connect with our communities. Each congregation recognizes a mission calling unique to their setting. This may mean new worship forms and a new understanding of mission. This is the emphasis of the Emergent Church. As pastors, we need to "do" Ephesians 4 — train the people to do mission and think theologically in their lives. All of this happens in congregations. Jesus Christ and the mission He came to the world for is worth living for!

Rick Fee led with the quotation: "The church is the only institution that exists for the sake of serving its non-members." He noted that if we place an emphasis on the institution and the maintenance of that institution, we may be misleading ourselves and missing the mark. The issue is not decreasing membership and lack of people in the pews, it is our failure to recognize how our society has changed in seismic ways. Society has gone through major secularization and we have not yet learned how to be church in this society. Fee believes that we will learn, but we need to learn to speak the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ in a radically new culture. The work of the national church is to try to get resources to people in congregations struggling to comprehend what they should be doing, who feel they are caught in a hurricane, hiding in the basement as the hurricane is threatening to lift their house off the foundation. The national church tracks and reports on the progress of the hurricane. Congregations need help to get outside themselves to become engaged in society around them. Fee asserted his view that a Presbyterian renaissance will demand that we dig deep into the very core of our religion, re-experience it in the content of full modernity, and assume that nothing is too sacred to be questioned, reinterpreted, or modified. We need to be an open and collaborative church that depends on all its members — not just the leaders — to discern our faith. We need to grow up. We do find emptiness, but it's an emptiness that holds open the possibility for the divine to emerge. That is what the national office seeks to do — to engage all of us in working for that nothingness to determine where the PCC will be in thirty years' time.

The Renewal Day was challenging and hopeful — an important beginning in helping the church understand itself and focus on some questions that need addressing.

It is with sadness that we report the passing of Renewal Fellowship member Ken Wilson on October 31. Perhaps it is significant that Ken passed on All Saints Day, and I can almost hear him chuckling about that. It was also on a Sunday, and I suspect he would mention that it was his time to lie down and enter into the eternal rest. Ken had a keen wit and a dry sense of humour that delighted those who knew him. The funeral service was held in a full church at St. John and St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Hamilton on Thursday, November 4, and led by the Reverends George Beals and Gordon Fish. Two of his grandchildren, Andrew and Brandon, read the Scripture lessons, and his sons John and David shared a moving tribute to their father. He was the beloved husband of Donna (nee Truscott), loving father of John (Charlene), David (Liz), dear grandfather of Andrew, Brendan and Christian.

Ken had served as minister in several congregations including Buchanan; St. Andrew's, Kirkland Lake ON; Westminster-St Paul's, Guelph ON, and in retirement at Calvin-Grace in Hamilton ON.

I knew Ken best after he recruited me to assist in renewing Dorothy Lake Camp. When he was minister at Kirkland Lake, he had been instrumental in working with others to acquire the land and build the initial buildings at camp. After serving the Presbytery of Temiskaming for a number of years, the camp fell into disuse. In an effort to revive it, a committee was formed and it came under the Synod's Camping Agency CAIRN. One day, Ken called me up and asked, "You do renewal don't you?" I replied that indeed we did, as God enabled. He said, "I have something for you to renew." He then went on to explain the situation and hoped we could help. We connected with the Dorothy Lake Committee and offered to help by being the teacher for family camp, advertising the camp, and having Bill Harrison, my Administrative Assistant, come and do the canoeing. We have been doing that every year for well over a decade.

At our suggestion, a partnership was formed with the Renewal Fellowship, Dorothy Lake Camp, and Georgian Native and Outreach Ministries, and for the last several years, camps have been held for aboriginal children and teens.

Among some of my fondest memories of camp was hearing Ken sitting out in the birch grove or in the tepee lodge playing hymns and songs on his keyboard — sometimes surrounded by others joining in the praise, and sometimes just sitting alone. One wonders if he won't be given a keyboard to join in the heavenly chorus.

Ken and Donna were always hospitable, and one thing the Fellowship was thankful for was their hosting of a monthly renewal prayer luncheon in their home in Hamilton for several years until poor health prevented them from continuing. We look forward to a glad reunion.

This book, Refusing To Milk The Sacred Cows (Low fat protests from a fed-up Christian) is published by Kendal House Publications Incorporated, Regina, Saskatchewan.

Author, David MacKenzie is a former United Church minister who currently pastors Regency Christian Church near Edmonton, Alberta, and is a member of the National Board of the Congregational Christian Churches of Canada. This book comes out of the personal wrestling of someone who has lived in a "waffle filled" mainline denomination and who knows both the anguish and foolishness of living in the midst of the half-truths that pass for wisdom. Rather than becoming bitter, he has exposed these half-truths with dry humour, wit, and hyperbole. He uses creative images like God as an auditor and then challenges the whole church to consider what sort of things God might look at to test our "success." He challenges also such popular ideas as those that see us all as Children of God — de facto. He challenges the new psychology that urges us to see God in our "higher selves" or such other theological travesties, such as that we aren't all that bad, or questioning the authority of Scripture or the essence of orthodox faith. He argues that some of what many want to speak of as merely a matter of emphasis are really matters of black and white truths and falsehoods, and we must make a choice. He says, "Make no mistake, in cases like these, an evangelical Christian is no longer dealing with a curious point of theological or ethical friction. This is not about liturgical style. It is not about mission focus. Or to return to my original premise, this is no mere 'argument of emphasis'."

Instead, it's a core-belief issue. Faith or apostasy hang on the outcome. This is a book written with humour, but it will nevertheless challenge those tempted to compromise when faithfulness is called for.

Published 2008 by Clements Publishing, 6021 Yonge Street, Box 213, Toronto ON, M2M 3W5

Zuidema has written this encouraging biography of his friend and colleague, David Craig. David was in ministry in the latter half of the twentieth century, at a time when the church, culture, and missions were all in crisis. He traces the early influences on David: David's growing experiences as a young missionary in Nigeria, where his life was threatened several times before a firing squad; and his heart rending days of evangelism and schism in the French work in Quebec. Reading his biography reminded me of much of my own journey as a student and minister within the Presbyterian Church in Canada (PCC), attending WLU (Waterloo Lutheran University), participating in Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship, attending seminary, serving in missions, and wrestling with theological issues centering around faithfulness to Scripture that the PCC was dealing with. The two struggles, especially around the frustration that the church was not flexible enough in doing evangelism on the one hand, and still being fearlessly loyal to the reformed faith of the PCC on the other, may be especially relevant and poignant for readers. It is significant that the book is dedicated to young Christians throughout La Belle Province. I suspect David would have liked that. Zuidema manages not only to chronicle David's life from 1937-2001 but also to develop his character as a man of both earnestness and humour. This book will be of special interest to members of the Renewal Fellowship, not only because David was a member and he was well loved and respected by so many who were in leadership, but because David was, I believe, the one missionary that the RF made earnest efforts to support financially, although recently, there is a new mission emphasis by the RF in reaching out to aboriginal youth in northern Ontario through camping. For a number of reasons, all support for evangelism to the French-speaking people of Quebec ceased after David was no longer under the sponsorship of the PCC.

Zuidema ends the book with one of David's sermons: The First Mark of the Church. In this review, we, too, will give David the last word, and as we reflect on his life, we will remember that "God's Son, Jesus, prays for us right now — he prays that we be a joyful people! Amen."