Canadiana Pulpit

On our way home from vacation, Bonita and I meandered down Highway 2, enjoying a relaxing drive home. We stopped off in Brighton, at an antique shop and found this beauty. After a bit of negotiation, I purchased it. (A brother in our congregation offered to go 50/50 on it.) I can add this to my "collection" of lecterns. I have a small stand alone oak lectern; a small tabletop lectern (which we use every Sunday) and now this beauty.

Check out the beautiful work on the Alpha and Omega!



I'm looking forward to preaching from it. A few weeks ago, I published a post, "The closing of a Presbyterian pulpit. This one is about the call from retirement of another!

Diamonds in the Rough

A member of my congregation emailed the following to me....

Inspired by your write up in last weeks bulletin, my younger brother
and I went over to our old rental church property on Lasalle following
Sunday afternoon's service. We found the sanctuary still intact although
stripped from the inside; our walk through the building triggered many
memories, probably more for myself than for him. That building remains the
source of many memories for me and probably quite a few others in the
congregation.

What we found among the rubble struck a nerve, neatly stacked by one of the
wreckers was a stack of about 5 - 10 Bibles. They seemed out of place in
the mess. Steel was piled with steel, rubber with rubber, glass with glass,
however it was obvious that whoever had stacked the Bibles couldn't quite
figure out where they belonged, but knew they didn't belong in the rubble.

The Bibles were older and well used, all RSV version and all taped along
the spine indicative of their use over the years. It was inspiring to see
them stacked there. There it was, the word of God, the only book that
matters and was inspired by Him lay amongst the rubble on the floor of this
dirty construction site. We couldn't help but take them with us.

The Closing of a Presbyterian Pulpit

Fellowship Canadian Reformed Church is in the community of Aldershot, in Burlington. It was 50 years ago that Aldershot village joined Burlington City. And as near as I can tell the Aldershot Presbyterian Church was built in 1957, the year before. The congregation had been formed a few years earlier: likely in 1954. The Canadian Reformed Church of Burlington South, now known as Fellowship Canadian Reformed Church rented the facilities for 17 years: fully 1/3 of the time since the inaugural service in January 1957. In January 2008, 51 years after the dedication of the building, the pulpit was closed, and the Presbyterian congregation merged with Knox Presbyterian in Waterdown.

The last times Fellowship congregation used this building was in April and June 2006. Rev. J.L. van Popta held his inaugural sermon there on the Sunday he was installed as the pastor of Fellowship church, and then in June, Rev. Chris Bosch led a Public Profession of Faith service there.

At the time we did not know that those two services would mark the passing of an era for Fellowship Church. The new pastor and the emeritus pastor both preaching there about six weeks apart.

In 2007 Fellowship congregation put an offer to purchase the building, but a developer was able to offer more.

Today the building is under the wrecking ball. One of our members who lives nearby told me that he could hear the excavator taking down the building, so I dashed over with my camera, to capture the closing of a chapter of Fellowship Canadian Reformed Church life.

It is a sad thing when Reformed and Protestant pulpits close. Fellowship Church hopes and prays that it can serve as that confessionally sound Reformed witness in Aldershot for many, many years.