One of the exercises in my Intro to Pastoral Care and Counselling course down at TST is role-playing.  Over the course of the semester, we will have conducted four role play scenarios where a number of us are actors in the midst of a situation, three rotate in and out as "spiritual care providers", and the rest (only two or three) observe and make ( Read more... )

I've had a couple of experiences with "silence" this week.  (Which is to say, as close as we can get to it without being in a true anechoic chamber where there is no radiant noise from outside your own body ( Read more... )

This is the consolidated report about the 144th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, as reported to the Presbytery of Brampton on June 26, 2018.  Yours truly was first-named on the list of commissioners from the Presbytery and, thus, had the responsibility of synthesizing all of the reports into one for the Presbytery's records.  ( Read more... )

So comes to an end the 144th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, my fourth as a Commissioner, and sixth as attendee in some capacity (1993 as a YAR "mascot", 1998 as part of Local Arrangements before I was ordained ( Read more... )

Churches are at war within themselves, the PCC being no different.  Our current 'war' is over same-sex ordination and marriage.  It's not a new war, but it's a timely one.  The world speaks very loudly that "all are to be included, all are to be accepted, all should be free to be loved..." with a relatively few exceptions, and those exceptions ( Read more... )

I'm planning out my Holy Week services right now.  It's interesting being over a week ahead of things in my thinking - God occasionally delivers me my sermons in a blind panic on Saturday evening or, most irkingly, Sunday morning.  I say "irkingly" because I like to be prepared.  My wife likes me to be prepared.  I'm a rabbit-hole-diving squirrel- ( Read more... )

Yesterday morning, I shaved my beard off ( Read more... )

This is very long ( Read more... )

When I was much younger, I remember a Miller Lite ad that featured football star LC Greenwood crushing a beer can flat with just one hand.  It was followed up by Baltimore Colts quarterback Bert Jones “replying” and then failing to crush a can of his own (I believe his can was still full, while LC’s was empty), and then a third one where he ( Read more... )

A friend of mine had a situation recently where she was going to post something, decided to check it on a well-known fact-checking site, and eventually posted thanks for *not* posting it due to information that she read on the secondary site.  I've often found myself doing that - a friend re-posts something, I go to this site, see that the post is ( Read more... )