A Day With Dr. Kennon Callahan
Take advantage of this wonderful opportunity to hear Dr. K. Callahan this March in Waterloo.
Category Archives: WMS Archive
“Make Room” for a wonderful, new children’s Lent and Easter book
Presbyterian minister and mother, Laura Alary, has gifted the church once again with a wonder-filled, story-resource for families. Make Room: A Child’s Guide to Lent and Easter invites children and their parents to consider together the story of the life of Jesus during the season of Lent, and make room in their homes and hearts to welcome God in as they prepare for Easter.
From her perspective as a mother, Laura writes, “When my children were very young I always looked forward to the changing seasons. Inside and outside the church, the turning of the circle brought new colours and sights and smells – plenty of opportunity to explore and create. My little library of activity books kept us busy. But when it came to Lent and Easter I was never satisfied. The kids and I ironed grated crayons on to waxed paper to make stained glass crosses; we made purple paper chains, and hot crossed buns; we even blended and burned our own incense. But something was missing. Although we had plenty to do, we lacked a framework – something to hold the pieces together in a meaningful pattern. We were missing the BIG picture – a narrative which held the life, death and resurrection of Jesus as an integrated whole, and which invited children to become a part of the story.”
Make Room is written for children using a story format that gently weaves episodes from the life and ministry of Jesus with reflections on Lenten practices from the point of view of children. The rituals and practices revealed within its pages are simple ones for families to complete: cleaning our rooms; eating plain meals like bread and soup; giving up snacks and using saved money to help someone in need. They are all variations on the traditional Lenten disciplines of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, and they all centre around the theme of emptying out to make space. Woven together the practices find their meaning in the stories of Jesus as these events are brought together to become a part of the big picture of what God is doing in the world – through Jesus, and through those that follow him.
Please consider buying this resource for your own family this Lent and Easter, and also placing an extra copy in your church library for other families to discover for their homes.
Make Room: A Child’s Guide to Lent and Easter can be purchased from Paraclete Press at http://www.paracletepress.com/make-room.html, or through amazon.ca.
Introducing: The HUB
About The Hub
The Hub is an online space for women to share their Reformed faith and how it relates to their daily lives. It is a place to create relationships with women who identify themselves as Presbyterian.
Blog posts encourage you to feel included in this community. They should help you to develop a relationships with each other, grow in your faith, and deepen your relationship with God. They should encourage you to serve God in your daily life. They should also encourage discussion.
Many of our posts focus on ways that women reach out into their community (local and world) and work towards justice for the marginalized, neglected, or forgotten.
The Hub is a resource of a larger outreach: Women to Women (WTW). It is supported by the Women’s Missionary Society.
A Letter From Our WMS Synodical President
Synodical of Central, Northeastern Ontario and Bermuda
Women’s Missionary Society
January 20, 2016
Dear Friends of CNOB Synodical, Presbyterials and WMS Groups:
As we begin 2016 I wanted to be in touch and share some of the great ideas and plans your synodical executive is preparing for this coming year. As we are planning for our annual meetings, for synodical and our presbyterials, we face new challenges and changes in these days. We realize our groups are getting smaller, which makes it more challenging to carry on as we have in the past…but change can be helpful and rewarding in new and wonderful ways.
Synodical Task Team
Our Synodical Task Team is trying to make some changes that will make it easier for you to continue in your various groups. One of the most important aspects of our group meetings is the fellowship we all enjoy as we come together for study, prayer and service. We hope that groups make it a priority to continue to enjoy this important time together even as the activities of your group may transition toward a leaner and lighter structure. We hope the studies that are provided in the Glad Tidings are clear and easy to lead for the members of your group, and that you are also able to adjust them for your group’s specific needs and interests. Many of the things we have done in the past may need to be approached in new ways during these days, and we trust your faith and hope for the coming year will encourage you to carry on and enjoy your time together.
The Synodical Task Force has discovered some groups have moved to eliminate the position of Recording Secretary as they scaled back some of the executive positions within their group. These innovative groups have created an easy-to-use ‘fill-in-the-blanks’ template for their minutes that one person voluntarily completes at each meeting and then places in a binder for their record-keeping. This simple template for their minutes has helped groups keep a record of their meetings, while easing the load for everyone. The Task Force has revised this template to suit any group’s needs. If you would like a copy of this template please
click on the link following this letter.
Report Forms
When filling in your reports this year, know that the WMS National primarily wants to know the name and church home of your group, and the names and contact information for all of the members of your group (including each member’s address, phone number, and email address if they have one). The most important piece of information that everyone needs is the name and email information for a contact person for your group, so that you will be able to receive all communication from the WMS National, Synodical and Presbyterial.
The other information you include in your report comes to first to your Presbyterial and, through all of the presbyterials to the Synodical, so that they can share what you’ve been doing with other groups throughout the synodical, and so that you hear what the other groups have been doing as you make plans for years to come. We are aware that the reports can feel burdensome for some groups, and so we will be simplifying the report forms for next year. To help us develop a better, more useful forms let us know what information your group would find most helpful to hear about from your presbyterial and synodical. This is the material we want to make a part of the report forms and eliminate that which is unnecessary for your purposes.
Synodical Annual Meeting
CNOB Synodical Annual Meeting is Friday April 15th and Saturday 16th, 2016 at Elmvale Presbyterian Church. The Rev. Karen Horst, moderator of the 141st General Assembly, will be our Speaker and Bible Study Leader. Our theme is “Wandering Ways”. Our Poster and Registration forms will be available shortly.
The HUB
The Outreach wing of the WMS is also supporting a new way to keep in touch with other Presbyterian women………It’s called The HUB. The HUB seeks to encourage women to share their Reformed faith and how it applies to their daily lives. The website is www.womensHUB.ca. Please share this especially with other women in your church that are not members of WMS.
National Women’s Gathering
The WMS is also supporting the third National Women’s Gathering on the holiday weekend of May, 2017, at the Sheraton Parkway Toronto North Hotel & Suites in Richmond Hill with the theme, “Rooted in Love.” More information will be available soon.
Regional Ministry
We appreciate Tori Smit, our Regional Minister for Faith Formation, as she helps us in so many ways in our Synodical. She has given many workshops to various groups and encourages us in our meetings. CNOB Synod has a resource website www.cnob.org which includes a special tab just for the WMS groups of our Synodical to keep up to date on the news, programs, and ideas for our groups. Please feel free to contact her at torismit@gmail.com or 647-348-0879 for any particular need or question you may have.
I am also available to visit your presbyterial when invited, so please get in touch with me early to reserve a date. The same with me, if you have any questions please be in contact with me. My email is rrandall@eagle.ca or phone 905 372 6075.
May God continue to be with you in your groups and bless you in all you do as you serve God in ministry and outreach to others.
Sincerely,
Joy Randall
President of CNOB Synodical
Click here for a copy of the secretary’s template for keeping simple meeting minutes.
