I retired four years ago after 39 years as a minister of the Presbyterian Church in Canada (PCC). This naturally put me out of the loop for a while with much of what goes on nationally in our church. But my vantage point has improved due to a year of frequent online meetings with more than a dozen PCC ministers from British Columbia to the Maritimes. We are part of the recently formed PSALT organization. The acronym stands for "Presbyterians Standing for Apostolic Love and Truth". I am deeply concerned for the church that we share in common, and I hope that you are, too. If not, this article will further your awareness of developments within the PCC.

Since the 1980s, a persistent group within the PCC has continued to lobby for the acceptance, promotion, and celebration of homosexuality at the level of marriage and ordination. This may or may not be an issue for you, but it is now coming to a head in the PCC. Having only organized in the fall of 2015, PSALT is late in engaging this issue. PSALT is a national group which aims at building the Presbyterian Church into a thoroughly biblical and reformed expression of our Christian discipleship and witness. We seek to preserve the biblical, doctrinal, and personal unity that we all once valued in the PCC. We have designated representatives in most presbyteries and it is a growing movement.

If you disagree with me on this issue, God will be the final judge between us, and I'm good with that. My friendship and respect for you will remain, but this article reflects how I am compelled to act out my faith in Christ.

What have I seen as I look at the culture's impact on our church?

The culture:

The initial issue of homosexual ordination/marriage within society has become obsolete. It has morphed into one of "identity" which is now being reworked into a militant promotion of "gender neutrality", the obliteration of the personally obvious and doctrinally critical biblical identities of male and female. Something is broken.

The church:

For the PCC to accede to the demands that the culture is placing upon it would require our setting aside Scripture as the sole authority for faith and life, for the Bible nowhere endorses homosexual activity – nor lying, greed, adultery, etc., for that matter – but clearly condemns all. If the PCC decides to endorse and celebrate the phenomenon of the sexual confusion now so rampant in our culture, it would separate us from Scripture, and it is our adherence to Scripture that defines where and what the church is. We would also be set adrift from our biblically-based doctrinal standards such as the Westminster Confession and Living Faith, and alienate us from our international sister church partners.

What kind of responses have I seen and heard this past year from individuals and sessions regarding the leadership of PSALT in the PCC? There is anger at PSALT: "Why would you oppose what is so obviously acceptable?" There is bewilderment: "We are okay here at St. Andrew's, and we don't wish to deal with this." There is hope: "Can't we all just get along together?" There is sacrifice: "I will be (or my congregation will be) leaving the PCC if this passes General Assembly." And there is also relief: "I am so glad PSALT is there."

It would be naive of us to think that the systemic brokenness that has befallen the United Church, the Anglican Church, and the Lutheran Church could not happen to us. Even a small split in our now precarious national church would have a serious impact on Presbyterians Sharing, the Pension Plan, and Church Offices at 50 Wynford Drive. It will affect your congregation. I want to make you aware of the threat to your church, to encourage your prayers for the PCC, and to motivate you to take appropriate personal action as the Spirit leads you. Yes, I'll even come and speak at your church or else find someone closer to go.

Our role as Canadian Presbyterians is not to be as so many churches have become – "chaplains to the culture" – but to be fearless, prophetic voices proclaiming the good news of new life and eternal life through Jesus Christ as Lord. Scripture teaches us that our true identity is found when we are in Christ, and when it is, we experience what I have personally experienced and seen in so many others, and of which Paul writes so much: the Christian life is transformational.

Sincerely,
James Statham,
Peachland, British Columbia

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If you resonate with PSALT's mission and would like to stay in touch, please drop us a note at PO Box 15065, Aspen Woods PO, Calgary AB T3H 0N8

Sure, I'll come and speak at your church – or find someone closer to come.
J.S. <jhwstatham@shaw.ca>

Liwonde, Malawi Baptist College Class with teacher James Statham

Sweating profusely after the hot midday hike along a winding road, I carefully eased myself into the crowded and dilapidated Toyota minivan. The minibus was made for eight and had seen its better years in Southeast Asia as a taxi, but, like Abraham and Sarah, new life was being wrung out of it. Two nursing mothers and several preoccupied Muslims were my nearby companions. For the next hour, 18-20 of us lurched along the potholed highway, occasionally stopping at tattered villages to disgorge and then to swallow up eager new riders and often huge bags of maize.

It wasn't Canada. It was Africa, and I was way out of my comfort zone. It was Malawi, September 2014. I was neither safe nor comfortable, even though we passed nonchalantly through several police checks. Everybody knows that minibus capacity is "just one more". But I felt secure, for I knew Who had put me there.

Why was I in that land called "the warm heart of Africa" nestled next to Mozambique and Zambia where we Presbyterians have a lengthy history going back to David Livingstone? Presbyterians Sharing, for the last four years has been supporting my son, Todd, and his family, to teach Systematic Theology and Church History at the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian Seminary in Zomba. An hour's drive away in Liwonde is a Baptist College that also trains men for the ministry. "Would you be able to come and teach New Testament?" Todd was asked. His answer? "No, I can't, but I'll ask my Dad."

I retired from congregational leadership two years ago into a time of significant and unexpected spiritual renewal. I considered this request as a call from the Lord to step into the unknown. We had been to Malawi two years previously to visit family, but God had more for me to learn than what I was going to teach.

After the Baptist bishop (!) approved my coming, I was asked if I would also teach Homiletics. This College operates on ten-week semesters twice a year for two years and had been functioning for eight years. Out of deference to my being away from home too long, the Academic Dean compressed 36 hours of teaching Matthew to Acts into four weeks, necessitating three-and-a-half-hour seminars, less a fifteen-minute break. In addition, there were four seminars of preaching instruction. The twelve men in the class were mostly in their forties and fifties, and, as Malawi has a subsistence economy, being one of the poorest countries in the world, they were of necessity farmers as well. (Everyone grows their staple food, maize, and everyone knows what hunger feels like. Fifty percent of the population is under fifteen years of age. The national HIV rate is 18%.) What I discovered was that the students had been preaching, pastoring, and evangelizing for many years, but with little formal training. One man had been preaching and pastoring among several village churches for 17 years. To my surprise, only two men spoke sufficient English, so I made good use of an interpreter and a blackboard. I lived nearby in a typical African village with a most gracious family of seven.

Church women meeting on mats in the yard of my host family

Little in Liwonde was familiar to me except the passion that these men had for Jesus. The church in Africa is growing exponentially. I had been told that the church in Africa is "a mile wide and an inch deep". It's true. They are not a book culture and few Bibles abound. John 3:16 is the constant core of preaching. The African church is close to being a New Testament church. Should I be teaching homiletics to men who are doing a better job than me at bringing people to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ? My goal was to get them into the wonders of God's grace and love in Scripture, but not away from John 3:16. If we have grasped the gospel at all, the essential question will always be, "was Jesus necessary?" So when the goal of our preaching is no longer lives changed for Christ, we have stopped preaching. Jesus' message to Nicodemus was simple and unequivocal. Michael Horton, in his new book, Calvin on the Christian Life: Glorifying and Enjoying God Forever, writes, "The high minded of our age are offended by the simplicity of God's speech to us, which addresses the learned and the unlearned alike." Nicodemus was a changed man because "It's not the church that creates the Word, but the Word that creates the church" (p.59).

The church that I saw in Africa is rich with a passion for Christ, but lacks education. The church in Canada is rich in educational opportunities, but lacks passion. These twelve meagrely-educated men are passionate about the necessity of being born again/from above for themselves and for others. And they are now concerned about, as one said, "the looming Goliath of Islam in the villages". Thirty percent of Malawi's 14 million population is Muslim. Churches near Liwonde were torched last year. These men are front-line troops.

Spiritual battle is not comfortable, but if we seek only the comfortable, we will never find the Lord who meets us where He is – in strange places – often well out of our comfort zone. I had the privilege recently of listening to Bob Kuhn, the President of Trinity Western University, a college often found fighting for us on our front lines. We are not impacted by militant Islam here in Canada. Our "Goliath" is militant secularism and the narcissism born of excessive affluence. He said, "Christians in Canada fear standing up and standing out. We would rather head for the closets recently vacated by others."

I was ashamed of myself in Malawi. I met again a part of myself that I do not like. Too often, I counted the days until leaving. Too often, I summoned dogged perseverance. The long flights, the intense heat, the squalor, and the boredom stretched me emotionally and physically. I lost ten pounds. I suppose I'll get that back, but I don't want to lose what my students taught me.

Editor's Note: This article was received at the Renewal Fellowship early in 2012. With the upcoming General Assembly likely to spend considerable time invested in considering the many facets of renewal, it is felt appropriate to share this with our readers at this time.

Gordon Haynes, who was retiring as Associate Secretary in June 2012, sent the following invitation to the Presbytery of Kamloops:

I want to invite members of your presbytery to a roundtable discussion we will be holding at Gordon Presbyterian Church, Presbytery of Westminster, on Wednesday, January 11th. I will be present to be part of the discussions so that the issues facing the church in 10 years – and facing each presbytery – might be openly shared.

This event was one of a number held across the country in preparation for his final report before retiring. Approximately 25 people attended, including three who braved the snowy roads through the mountain passes from Kamloops Presbytery.

What impacted me the most was the introductory comment by Gordon indicating that there are already on file precisely 16 similar reports to the national church dating from 1964 on, indicating that change needs to happen in the Presbyterian Church in Canada to reverse our declining membership!

The participants rotated through five tables, each one having a question to be answered. Our comments were written on the newsprint that covered each table. The five questions focussed us in the area of where God might be calling the Presbyterian Church In Canada today and what our barriers are to following Jesus Christ and to growth.

The event was personally significant for me as it was at Gordon Church, my home church, where it all started for me. It was there that I felt and initially resisted God's call to the ministry. In the fall of 1958, our family left Kelowna, where I was attending grade six, to move to Burnaby. Then as a married student, we left Gordon Church in 1970 to attend Knox College in Toronto, Ontario. Now I was living in the Okanagan again and went as a newly-retired minister to speak on what I had learned and observed about my Lord and my church over almost 39 years of pastoral ministry. The recently-heard words of Tony Campolo resonated with me deeply. Speaking of the church in general, Tony said, "My mother is a whore, and I love her very much." Yes, and so I write these words with a prayer for the Presbyterian Church In Canada to find faithfulness.

At the end of the event, I spoke of how impressed I was with the passion of the attendees to seek ways to bring our beloved church to faithfulness. But with 16 reports already on file, what was the point of adding another? Ought we not to be arranging hospice care? Our problem is not with analysis but with a lack of courage to pay the cost of change, I commented.

Gordon Haynes will have collected hundreds of comments from the various Presbyteries. But to demonstrate accountability and for the information of Kamloops Presbytery, I raised the following needs apparent to me:

1. More significant roles for the laity in ministry through less emphasis on the narrow stream of "Ministry of Word and Sacrament".

2. The need for more practical training at the seminary level for our clergy and laity, particularly in the areas of evangelism (and I don't mean pancake breakfasts but rather how to effectively talk with people about coming to faith in Jesus Christ); and as well, we need training in how to lead effectively in a culture that is suspicious of authority and where everybody is an "expert".

If we are willing to pay the cost of significant spiritual revitalization, we will not need renewal (sewing a new patch on an old garment) but instead experience "renaissance". We will need to be willing to think of, and do, ministry in altogether new ways. For that to happen, I must be certain that I am first personally committed to Christ and only then to the church. The church is no substitute for Christ. In baseball terms, the church may be first base, but it's not home plate.

The reason I resisted God's call to ministry in the Presbyterian Church In Canada in my early years at Gordon Church was that to me, church was about church, and I wanted no part of it. It wasn't until I was converted during my Simon Fraser University years that I came to discover that which has been reinforced to me many times over in pastoral ministry: church has never been about church. It's about Jesus, and it's about whether or not I will seek to know Him and love Him.

Will The Presbyterian Church In Canada pay the cost of renaissance? We are all familiar with the seven last words of the church, "We've never done it that way before." I would like to propose the six first words of a new church. They will also be familiar to you: "Untie him and let him go." (John 11:44)