What – Annual PCC Pastor Retreats have been held the first Monday in November since 2022. They are organized primarily by The Renewal Fellowship, with inspiration and primary financial support from Vaughan Community Church. All ministers and pastors in PCC congregations or aligned ministries and expressions are welcome. Content and worship is firmly rooted in reformed Christian orthodoxy.

This year’s theme – “The hope within you”, based on 1 Peter 3:15 – As followers of Christ and as pastoral leaders we are invited to celebrate the hope that is ours in Christ – a hope that is intimately ours and also mysteriously ours. In our time together, we will consider the nature of our Christian hope and also explore what it means for us to nurture this hope. Our cultural moment is one in which it is easy to lose hope, and one in which many experience life precisely as hopelessness. As we face this challenge we will remember our hope and claim our hope and be encouraged to live in hope, through the One who is our hope.”

Speaker – Rev. Dr. Roland DeVries, principal of Presbyterian College in Montreal.

Schedule and Program – The retreat kicks off at noon Monday Nov. 2 with lunch, and ends with lunch on Wednesday, Nov. 4. Each day will include worship, presentations from our speaker, small group discussions and generous opportunities for quiet time. Two spiritual directors will be present for one-on-one sessions, if desired.

Location – Queen of Apostles Renewal Centre.

Cost – We are holding the registration fee at $100. We are able to do this because of the generosity of Vaughan Community Church, along with Knox Spadina in Toronto, Toronto Korean, St. Paul’s Ingersoll, St. Paul’s Simcoe, St. Andrew’s Welland, and many faithful individuals and families. The actual cost for this year’s retreat will be approximately $570 per person. We are asking pastors to prayerfully discern whether they can make an additional donation of any amount. (Please consider sharing this request with your Session.)

Travel subsidy – This is available for those travelling from 500 km or more. To calculate, take the one-way Google Map driving distance and divide by 10. For example, if the driving distance is 500 km, subsidy would be 500/10 = $50.

To Register: Fill out the Registration Form below, and send the refundable Registration Fee of $100 by eTransfer to the Registrar at renewalfellowshippcc@gmail.com, or send a cheque to the Renewal Fellowship Office.

Organizing committee – Rev. Allan Brouwer (convenor), Rev. Andy Cornell (secretary), Rev. Paul Johnston, Rev. Sandy Copland Dufour, Rev. Jinsil Park, Pastor Ronda Bosch, Kyoungsoo Hwang (administrator), Pastor Temeka Williams (music/worship director), Rev. John Baik, Rev. Joe Bae.

In these days of relativism, deepfakes, and social media, young people are looking for truth that they can believe in and real people that they can connect with. The future of the church is with the young, and God is definitely at work on university campuses! Our guest speaker this year was Rev. Dr. Todd Statham, who shared from his experience as the Christian Reformed campus pastor at The University of British Columbia (Okanagan), where he coordinates the Multifaith Chaplaincy and also teaches as a sessional lecturer. Todd is a graduate of The Presbyterian College (2003) and served with the PCC in Malawi as a lecturer at Zomba Theological University (2011-14). He and his family live in Kelowna, B.C.

The Annual Reports for 2025 presented at the Annual General Meeting can be viewed or downloaded in printable PDF format.

The Renewal Fellowship within The Presbyterian Church in Canada relies entirely on grants, gifts, tithes, and bequests. We receive no funds from any denomination. This allows us to operate independently but does not provide any ongoing security. Your gift allows us to continue to do what we are doing. Go to our Support Renewal page for various options on how to donate. If you have not renewed your $10.00 membership or donated in the past year, the easiest way to renew or donate is by Interac e-Transfer to renewalfellowshippcc@gmail.com or go to our Membership page for additional options.

Watch the video of the Annual Meeting, including Dr. Todd Statham’s talk, which starts at the 24:54 mark:

Download the entire Winter 2024 issue of Renewal News in PDF format, or read and comment on the individual articles as follows:

• Renewal renewal – RF proposes a new way forward
• In Joyful Expectation – Rev. Sandy Copland-Dufour, RF Board Chair
• Holy Imagination! – 2023 Pastors' Retreat report
• Introducing Andrew introducing – Rev. Dr. Richard Topping
• Get back to where we once belonged – Rev. Paul D. Johnson

Download the entire Fall 2023 issue of Renewal News in PDF format, or read and comment on the individual articles as follows:

• A new front emerges – Opposition to Physician Assisted Suicide/MAID by Rev. Andy Cornell
• Bread in the wilderness by Rev. Sandy Copland-Dufour
• Physician Assisted Suicide: Readers respond
• Retreat needs financial support by Rev. Andy Cornell
• Go to the desert road by Rev. Dr. Joon-ki Kim
• Good news, but challenge remains
• Thanks to our Supporting Congregations!
• Become a Supporting Congregation
• Christianity and Liberalism by Rev. Andy Cornell

Decline slowed after increased financial support from congregations.

Thanks to our faithful supporters, the decline in our finances for the first half of 2023 was not as bad as we had expected. Renewal Fellowship lost $17,288 from January to June compared to a budgeted loss of $26,552.

Part of the reason for this is the increase in donations from supporting congregations. We received an additional $4,300 over 2022. (This does not include gifts received during the summer.) And while individual and family donations are lower overall, we did receive some significant increases from a few donors. God bless our donors. The support is humbling.

Unfortunately, the financial decline continues. Our cash reserves – which keeps us afloat – continues to decline. During the first half of 2023, the bank balance went from $46,200 to $34,600. Clearly, the current rate of spending is unsustainable.

Some other notable facts:

• From January to June, our membership declined 18 per cent, which is not quite as fast as expected. On the positive side, our remaining members are on average giving a bit more.
• January-June we lost $17,300. We had expected to lose $26,600. Last year in this period we lost $14,700.
• The Annual meeting and Renewal Day did not attract as many people as planned and as a result, costs were much less than we planned. Our plan was to break even but we made over $700.
• The executive director’s road trip to General Assembly in Halifax cost $300 less than budgeted.
• Renewal’s cash reserve exists largely due to two sizable bequests: $50,000 in 2016 and the same amount from another estate in 2020.

Renewal Fellowship’s board of directors meets in person November 4-5 at St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church in Simcoe Ontario. Our future will be the main item on the agenda. Please pray for the board. Their names are listed on Page 8. We ask that you grant them the ability to clearly discern God’s Holy and Perfect Will for our mission to the PCC.

How do we adapt to a different financial climate and yet remain as a voice of encouragement for those who adhere to authentic Biblical thinking, who practice powerful and Spirit-led prayer and effective Gospel witness?

A Confession
From the majority or dominant group within The Presbyterian Church in Canada to its minority and marginalized communities, adopted by General Assembly on June 7, 2023.

Preamble

Reading and responding to this confession cannot be done with an unredeemed heart, still filled with prejudice, judgment, and self-righteousness. To read and understand this document is going to require a transformed version of ourselves, cleansed and renewed by Jesus Christ. Racism is deeply rooted in Canadian culture. That racism has infected the church in Canada, including The Presbyterian Church in Canada, its congregations and people. Racism is to regard our own race as superior to other races, leading to actions and attitudes of prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism against a person or people on the basis of their membership in a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized. These minority and marginalized communities become racialized by the majority or dominant group who judge those they have racialized through particular pre-determined criteria. Colonialism, rooted again in the assumption that one’s race and culture is superior to others, gave permission to the colonizers to subvert the colonized peoples denigrating their views, experiences, and expressions of worship. While the church has said it rejects racism and colonialism, the tendrils run deep, and the church desires to be changed by the power of the Holy Spirit. This confession is not the final word, but rather is part of a process in the continuing conversion of the church into the community who bears witness to the Lamb and to the one who sits on the throne of heaven, the Triune God of grace.

The Confession

Before God, our fellow siblings in Christ, and in the community of the church,
We confess we have not been the church we have been called to be,
for we have failed to live into your desire “to unite all people in Jesus Christ” (Living Faith 7.1.2).

In our cultural blindness we have judged people by the colour of their skin instead of recognizing them as a fellow child of God. We have not humbly listened to those of other races and cultures, in our pride assuming the supremacy of our race and culture. We have been shaped by the racist values of the dominant culture, rather than being transformed by the gospel vision of persons “from all nations, tribes and peoples and languages” gathered in praise and worship of the Triune God of grace. (Revelation 7:9)

We confess our racial bias.
We turn from our sin of racism and seek to live into your vision.

In our ministry we have not embraced the spiritual gifts brought to The Presbyterian Church in Canada by persons “from all nations, tribes and peoples and languages”, instead we have acted as gatekeepers of the gifts of Spirit. In our arrogance we have elevated persons of the dominant culture, overlooking those of other races, languages and cultures. Our words and actions have told people of some other races that despite their spiritual gifts and their qualifications they can serve the church in some tasks, but that they are “not good enough” to really belong, “not good enough” to be allowed to lead. We have treated some congregations of the Christian community as outsiders, as tenants, marginalizing them, rather than recognizing them as members together with us in the body of Christ.

We confess our racial bias.
We turn from our sin of spurning the Spirit and seek to live into your vision.

In our Assemblies, synods, and presbyteries we are consumed by doing the business of the church, rather than living out the gospel’s call, such as showing hospitality to the outsider, offering sympathy and empathy to the alienated among us, and protecting the stranger. We have placed our culture’s way of decision making above the patterns used by other cultures represented in our congregations. In the process, we have blocked the full flourishing of people of every tribe and language and race within the life of the church.

We confess our racial bias.
We turn from our sin of cultural arrogance and seek to live into your vision.

May the Holy Spirit transform us. Holy Spirit, move us beyond the limitations of accommodation and co-existence into the wonder of engagement and empathy. Teach us to die to our sin of racism, so that with the people of every ethnicity and language we can be drawn beyond the divisions of race into the reign of Jesus Christ.

Then together with the great multitude that is beyond number, we shall sing, “Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honour and power and might be to God forever and ever.” (Revelation 7:12)