October 2020

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“The thankful heart opens

our eyes to a multitude of

blessings that continually

surround us.” Faust

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Depending on your mood when you read that title, you might see it

as sarcastic. It might remind you of all the things you’re really not

thankful for:

Thanks a lot for ruined summer plans because of this virus that

keeps on going. Thanks a lot for missed social gatherings and trips,

for yahoos ignoring the rules or those who give us a hard time

about how we’re handling this crisis, for the delay of school going

back and too little information, for lost jobs and closing businesses,

for lack of contact with friends and family, for the 24/7 news cycle

about it all. Thanks a lot for church not happening, restrictions on

travel and delayed medical appointments and treatments. Yeah, thanks a lot. For many people,

this was the summer that wasn’t.

But when I write that title, even though it hasn’t been the best of times, I write it with a smile.

Because despite the inconvenience we’ve all experienced to varying degrees, my list of blessings

keeps getting longer. Here are just some of them:

Thanks a lot for people who step up to help those in need in countless ways, from delivering the Knox

News to those without computers, to praying regularly for those in need, to visiting and dropping off

prayer shawls, to phoning and checking in with people they know are lonely or struggling.

Thanks a lot for the staff team at Knox who week by week find creative ways to continue

ministries important to our family of faith. Thanks for George who edits together all the various

pieces of our worship recordings seamlessly and gives so much of his time for this and other

things around Knox. Thanks for Mark B. who is so dedicated to the stained glass windows project.

Thanks for those who continue to ensure that we are safe when we pop into the church and who

do all kinds of things behind the scenes without fanfare.

Thanks a lot for a congregation so generous in their givings. From the bequest we just received

that was sown in faith years ago to weekly and monthly contributions, we are in good financial

shape. Before we get too excited, remember that pulpit supply is much less than a full-time

minister and in this pandemic time other expenses are lower than normal. But this cushion we

have at the moment will help us weather whatever is coming. Your faithfulness in your gifts, in

whatever form they take and especially in a time when we haven’t been able to gather with each

other or worship together, is amazing.

Thanks a lot for the faith you speak to me when I call to check in or see you out and about. Thanks for

asking how I’m doing, how Knox is doing, and what the needs are. Thanks for sharing with me your

struggles and concerns. I don’t take that lightly. It’s a privilege to serve alongside you.

THANKS A LOT!... Anne Miller

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COVID UP-DATE AT KNOX… Anne Miller

Pew Cushions Pew Cushions Pew Cushions Pew Cushions RequestRequestRequestRequest

As we begin to look

towards worshiping

together, could you

please help us? If you

have brought in a pew

cushion from home at

some point, could you

please either come in

sometime this month to

pick it up, or make

arrangements with

Nancy to have someone

deliver it to you?

We will need to clean

the pews and rope some

of them off before we

gather for Sunday

worship. Once we’re

worshiping together

again, if you need a pew

cushion we will ask you

to bring it with you each

week during this

pandemic time as ushers

will likely seat you where

you normally don’t sit. It

will also allow for easy

cleaning of the pews

between services.

I’m guessing that Abram and Sarai didn’t say to God

“Thanks a lot!” with big smiles on their faces as they

were asked to pack up and leave everything that they

knew behind. But they had anchors to take with them –

their family history, the presence of their God, the

promise of doing something of significance for their

Creator. This month we will celebrate World Communion,

Thanksgiving, Anniversary Sunday and Reformation

Sunday. Our worship will be unlike other years for sure,

but the anchors of our faith will be the same and our

common story as the people of Knox and followers of Jesus

will remind us of what is really important. And we will be

filled with gratitude for it all.

Thanks a lot for walking this journey of hope together and

trusting that God is asking us to do something of

significance to the Kingdom!

You should all know by now that Session (our ordained

elders and spiritual leadership) will be discussing again at

their October meeting when we will begin worshiping on

Sunday mornings together. Some churches have been back

together at worship for a little while, and some are waiting

until 2021. Our elders will do their best to discern the

decision that is right for us. Please continue to pray for them

as they feel the weight of this responsibility.

When we do know the date for re-opening for worship,

know that:

a) you will be told what the protocols are either by e-mail

or a mailing so that everyone knows what to expect

when we gather – safety is key for all of us

b) we will need your help and patience to make this work

well and it may take a little while to find our rhythm –

grace will be important too

c) we will continue to send the worship link by e-mail to

everyone on our e-mail list so that you can watch

worship from home if you choose continued...

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Thank you to everyone for following the protocols when they pop into Knox – signing into the

visitor log for contact tracing, filling in the checklist, using hand sanitizer or washing hands

thoroughly, and putting on a mask. This really does keep us all safer in this time. It is an important

way of caring for each other and ourselves. Thanks to Marg D. and Carrie for continuing to provide

masks for us.

Thank you to our scripture readers and to our guest musicians, praise team members, and Nora

and Steve, who have led music with Janet and me over the last while in worship. Thanks to those

who have sent in photos of gardens and summer fun. Please continue to send photos of what you

are up to so that we can see your faces, whether that’s back to school pics or leaf raking or the

harvest from your garden.

Nancy is now back to her regular office hours of 9-12 and 1-3:30, Monday to Friday. Please

continue to phone in prayer requests, news of those who are sick, in hospital or bereaved, and

any other needs.

COVID UP-DATE AT KNOX (CONT’D)… Anne Miller

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SESSION NOTES SEPTEMBER 9, 2020

Josie Miller, Clerk of Session

Elders in attendance: 15

Membership:

• Frank and Elisabeth Wicks were welcomed into membership by act of session.

Interim Minister’s Report

• Pastor Al has been enquiring about current restrictions set by the local and provincial

boards of health and asking other ministers about their experience in opening for worship.

There are differences in guidelines across the health regions.

Search Committee

• Earlier in the summer the team had found no candidates they wanted to pursue. Over the

summer more candidates' profiles were received. The team will meet during the week of

September 21 and will have more news at the October meeting of session.

Protocols for Reopening the Church for Worship

• Recommendations made by the team of Gord Taylor, Mikayla Voortman, Anne Miller,

Josie Miller and Nick Hardeman were discussed. The team was thanked.

• The consensus among the elders is that we are not yet ready to open the church for worship.

We shall revisit the question of reopening at the October Session meeting.

• It was decided to approve the recommendations as a guideline for when we consider

opening the church.

• We shall present our plan to Southwestern Public Health for approval.

Trustees

• We received $960,000.00 from the Isabel Johnson bequest.

It was decided that the money be invested in the Presbyterian Church Consolidated

Investment Portfolio while decisions are made about it.

Board of Stewards

• The office photocopier has broken and needs to be replaced.

• The office washroom needs to be refurbished, at an estimated cost of $7,000.00.

• The cost of these two items will be taken from the remnant of the funds in the Harvey

McKay bequest.

Coats for Kids Campaign

• People wishing to donate good used winter wear for children and adults

will be directed to contact Operation Sharing directly.

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We are planning to celebrate World Communion Sunday during

the service on October 4th. We will join with Christians around

the globe in celebrating our common faith, even and especially in

these challenging times.

As we will not yet be back in the sanctuary, this will be similar to

our celebration of Communion back on June 7th. The Rev. Al

Brouwer, our Interim Moderator, will lead the Communion part

of the service and Anne will lead the rest. You are invited to take

part from home. Like last time, if you don’t have wine or grape

juice or bread on hand, don’t worry. If you have apple or orange

juice or crackers instead it doesn’t matter. What matters is the

words from scripture inviting you to partake and the openness of

your heart.

You are invited to start watching the service that day at 11:00am

so that those participating can share in the Lord’s Supper at about

the same time. This will draw us into community among our

homes. We know that for some this will not be possible, and

that’s alright too. Participate when and how you are able.

For those without computers and internet access, you can still

take part. If you know someone from Knox with internet nearby

or in your building, phone to see if they would allow you to sit

safely distanced from them and watch. Or see if they would let

you listen to that part of the service (or the whole thing) over

their phone line by putting the receiver up to their computer. Call

Nancy in the office if you’d like to listen in or offer your phone

line and she can match people up if need be. Those whose news-

letters are delivered will also receive some printed instructions so

that they can take part in a modified way at 11:30am, knowing

that it’s at the same time as their brothers and sisters from Knox.

Please participate as you are comfortable. We look forward to

being physically together again to celebrate communion. Until

then, we hope that this fills a spoken need and brings peace and

comfort in this time.

COMMUNION ON OCTOBER 4TH

“As we will not yet

be back in the

sanctuary, this will

be similar to our

celebration of

Communion back on

June 7th. The Rev.

Al Brouwer, our

Interim Moderator,

will lead the

Communion part of

the service and

Anne will lead

the rest.”

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Winter Wear for

Kids & Adults

If you wish to donate,

please contact

Operation Sharing

directly.

(519) 539-3611

WMS WMS WMS WMS –––– October, 2020 October, 2020 October, 2020 October, 2020

Susan McLennan, Secretary

May the peace of our Lord, Jesus Christ, be with you all.

Greetings to members and friends of the Women’s Missionary Society,

Campbell Afternoon Auxiliary.

Although it is still not safe to meet together, the national office of the

WMS has sent information to keep us all informed and ‘virtually’

together. Worship services, study materials and a letter from the new

President, Cathy Reid from New St James in London, have all been

included.

Elaine Stevens and I met this week and we have a plan! Each month,

around the time we would normally meet, we will mail or deliver to

each member a little package of readings to enjoy. Our first ‘delivery’

will take place in a couple of weeks.

Now, perhaps more than ever, it is important to remember our mission

is “to encourage” those around us:

The Women's Missionary Society is a community of Christians whose

purpose, in response to the love of God in Jesus Christ, is to

encourage one another and all the people of the church to be involved

in local and world mission through prayer, study, service and

fellowship.

Stay safe until we can meet together again in person. Blessings...

Hilda’s Dishcloths

$2.00 Each

3 for $5.00

Available in the

Church Office.

Proceeds to WMS

Please continue to send us

photos of what’s happen-

ing in your household,

including first day of

school pictures.

We would love to see you!

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I’ve had lots of questions about how soon a new minister will come and how this all works. I’ll

try to help with some answers here. If you have more questions let me know.

In our denomination, the Presbyterian Church in Canada, when a minister leaves a

congregation, another minister is assigned from the Presbytery to be what is called the

Interim Moderator. A Presbytery refers to the ministers and representative elders of each of

the churches within a geographic area who gather several times a year to support and

oversees the congregations they serve. We belong to the Presbytery of Paris, which includes

Ingersoll, Innerkip, Embro, Harrington, Ratho, Tillsonburg, Norwich, Bookton, Mount Pleasant,

Paris, Simcoe and Brantford.

The Interim Moderator meets regularly with the elders of the congregation without a minister

(also called a “vacant” congregation). Elders are the ordained spiritual leaders and voted on

by the congregation. Together they form the Session. The Interim Moderator also works with

the Search Committee, a group of people representing the congregation’s diversity, to

consider what the congregation needs in a minister at this time. They get input from the

congregation and prepare a congregational profile that is sent to the national denominational

office and circulated. Interested candidates then forward their own profile to the Interim

Moderator. The Search Committee carefully considers these profiles. This is the stage Knox is

at currently.

Searching for a Minister Searching for a Minister Searching for a Minister Searching for a Minister

as Presbyteriansas Presbyteriansas Presbyteriansas Presbyterians Anne Miller

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“It is the Search Committee’s job to pray, listen to each other and the

needs of the congregation, interview candidates carefully and keep all

information about them completely confidential.”

In non-COVID times, Search Committees would often go to hear a candidate preach in their

current church and to see how they interact with their congregation. This is not possible at

the moment. Candidates also often send video of themselves leading worship, especially if

they live far away.

It is the Search Committee’s job to pray, listen to each other and the needs of the

congregation, interview candidates carefully and keep all information about them completely

confidential. This is especially important if a candidate is still serving a congregation and

unsure if they are being called somewhere new.

After interviews take place, once the committee feels they are led to a specific person,

arrangements are made through Session for this person to come and “preach for the Call”.

Often this involves a whole weekend of meeting the church’s leadership as well as leading a

worship service. After the service, the congregation gathers for a meeting and votes on

whether they believe that this is the person God has called to be their minister. A high

percentage of support is needed. If that percentage is reached, then this goes to Presbytery

for approval. If this person is currently serving a congregation, their own Presbytery has to

approve this change as well. Once this happens, arrangements start to be made for the person

to come to the church as their minister.

Congregations can be vacant anywhere from one year to three or more. We are just now

closing in on a year since Rev. Mark retired and nine months since his last Sunday preaching.

This time of COVID-19 has definitely made the work of the Search Committee more

challenging. They need our thanks, support and prayers as they do this critical task. We all

should be praying for the right candidate to apply, for all involved to follow God’s leading, and

for Knox to be ready to welcome someone new who will probably be different than any other

minister we have had before. Whether this happens in the next few months or it takes longer,

may we remember that God’s timing is always right.

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Knox Sunday School… Mikayla Voortman

It seems that COVID now causes many to have to think very creatively to do what used to be very

basic tasks. Sunday school has been no exception to this. When planning the summer curriculum,

I knew many parents were overwhelmed from having just finished at home online learning, so at

home Sunday school would need to be different. We settled on sending video lessons from one

of the curricula bases we have access to along with some colouring pages and some suggestions

for discussion and activities to do. Our hope was to make at home Sunday School easy for parents

to do with their kids and not be stressful for families.

Now that we are in a new school year, we took the time to re-evaluate what we were sending

home over the summer and felt we could be doing a little more. Starting October 11, Sunday

school will still be digital but very different. We will now be using Google drive to send a “Digital

classroom” to families through email. These classrooms will include a video of the story being

read aloud, a written version of the story, an animated lesson video (from Holy Moly curriculum),

discussion topics and questions, colouring pages, a song with lyrics, and instructions for a small

activity that families can do with no-to-little materials that they would already have on hand at

home. This is going to be in a simple and interactive format that kids can click through on their

own or with their family. This is designed to be done whatever time works best for each

individual family at their own pace. When we are able to re-open, we plan to also add some take

home materials. More information on this will come when we are closer to re-opening.

Our goal is to make at home Sunday School as easy on families as possible. We know so many are

overwhelmed and anxious right now with school starting back up, and we want to support our

families and get our kids engaged in solid Bible lessons while not adding to the stresses on

families right now.

How the new format will look

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From Our Music Director… Janet vanderSpek

The Harvest-Thanksgiving hymn

"Come, Ye Thankful People,

Come" (802 in the Book of

Praise) is a favourite of many

and it appears in most hymn

books.

Two of Christ's parables are

echoed in the hymn: the story

of the wheat and the tares in

Matthew 13:24-30, and the

story in Mark 4:26-29, which

tells of the seed which springs

up without the sower knowing of it. The writer of the words, Henry Alford (1810-1871), was the

son of an Anglican clergyman and became Dean of Canterbury Cathedral in 1857. He was a

distinguished scholar and wrote numerous books, including an important critical commentary

on the Greek New Testament.

The tune which is universally associated with this hymn, “St. George's Windsor” by Sir George

Elvey (1816-1893) was actually composed for another hymn, "Hark, the Song of Jubilee". Elvey

was organist and choirmaster at St George's Chapel, Windsor for forty seven years.

I wish you and yours a Blessed Thanksgiving. In spite of the unsettled times in which we are

living, there is much to be thankful for.

"There's always a blessing to thank God for; the ones you are aware of, and the ones that you

are not. Be grateful to God everyday."

Hand-Crafted Afghans! As a Knox fund-raiser, Nora Martin has offered to make an

afghan of your colour choice for $75.00. A great Christmas

gift, or an opportunity for you to spoil yourself! She will only

have time to do two at most by Christmas, so get your

request in as soon as possible! Please call the church office

if you are interested.

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Squirrels Find

Religion

As a band of squirrels had become

quite a problem, the Presbyterian

Church called a meeting to decide

what to do about their squirrel

infestation. After much prayer and

consideration, they concluded that

the squirrels were pre-destined to

be there, and they shouldn’t

interfere with God’s divine will.

At the Baptist Church the squirrels

had taken an interest in the

baptistery. The deacons met and

decided to put a water-slide on the

baptistery and let the squirrels

drown themselves. The squirrels

liked the slide and knew

instinctively how to swim, so twice

as many squirrels showed up the

following week.

The Lutheran Church decided that they were not in a position to harm any of God’s creatures.

So, they humanely trapped their squirrels and set them free near the Baptist Church. Two

weeks later the squirrels were back when the Baptists took down the water-slide.

The Episcopalians tried a much more unique path by setting out pans of whiskey around their

church in an effort to kill the squirrels with alcohol. They sadly learned how much damage a

band of drunk squirrels can do.

The Catholic Church came up with a very creative strategy. They baptized all the squirrels and

made them members of the church. Now they only see them at Christmas and Easter.

Not much was heard from the Jewish synagogue. They caught the first squirrel and circumcised

him. They haven’t seen a squirrel since.

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“Whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Our sincere sympathy to Warren and Irene Brown on the

death of their brother-in-law, Al Barnim, on September 12.

John & Lynn Dobbs

33 Years - October 13

Ron & Margaret Gregor

65 Years - October 15

Alex & Mikayla Voortman

1 Year - October 19

October 6

Mikayla Voortman, 25

October 29

Cliffe Jewlal, 76

October 30

Mavis Armstrong, 92

September 8, 2020

Frank & Elisabeth Wicks

We’re Glad You’re Here!

July 28

Kane Kennedy

son of Brittany & Ty Kennedy

grandson of Deb & Gary Masters

great-grandson of June Masters

September 8

Isaac Lincoln Campbell

son of Ryan Campbell & Ellen Davidson

sibling of Henry, Emma and Jonathan

great-grandson of Gwenlynn Little

If you know of someone who is ill

or in hospital, please be sure to let

Anne (519 533-0767), or Nancy

(519 537-2962) know. Thank you!

Births

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