Peter Coutts

Video Clips for Advent from The Work of the People For those using projection, a great website for short video clips is The Work of the People. You will find clips from Walter Brueggeman, Richard Rohr, Parker Palmer, NT Wright, Peter Rollins, Phyllis Tickle, Brene Brown, Barbara Brown Taylor, and on and one. You will find excellent visuals for the seasons of the liturgical year. Search for Advent resources at from their site: http://www.theworkofthepeople.com/

My latest Blog post: "Encouraging Congregant Engagement in Church Life"

A Missional Church Possibility: Community Hubs Another blog posting on a recent workshop hosted by Knox Presbyterian Church in Calgary.

Rev. Matthew Brough was in our presbytery recently as the speaker for our fall youth event. He has a thoughtful blog on leadership that gives special attention to leadership as a faith practice. Check it out. http://mattbrough.com/

Here is my latest blog posting on volunteer engagement.

Supporting Boards of Managers Last Sunday at Centennial Church the convenor of the Board made a helpful observation. "There are so many great resources for Sessions out there but so little help for boards." She's right. As we talked an idea emerged: how about we hold a facilitated conversation of people from different boards to discuss common issues and share solutions? Sounds like a great idea to me. What do you think?

Half of Calgary Macleod's congregations now use projection weekly during worship. This is St Giles. They have an interesting solution for accompaniment for their contemporary worship service. The congregation does not have people for a band so YouTube videos are used instead. The video presents a band, plays the music and includes the lyrics. A simple solution.

Knox Calgary, Sunday 14 April 2013. Social Media Sunday. "So what is social media and why is it important for congregations?" This was the topic of a pre-worship workshop presented in the First Hour Program at Knox Church. The guest presenter introduced participants of all ages to the importance of social media today. Members were next provided assistance in signing up for Facebook and Twitter. Next, worshippers were spit into two locations: the sanctuary, and the hall. Those in the hall listened to the service via audio, and everyone had the opportunity to engage the worship interactively through tweeting. Mark preached an excellent sermon on making the Christian faith relevant. Well done Knox!! An admirable venture into the 21st century.

St. Andrew's Calgary: a few years ago the bomb squad made two visits in response to overly cautious police officers. In April 2013 the city's SWOT team showed up! They kindly asked permission to use the parking lot as the staging ground for a drug bust. St. Andrew's: a dangerous church!

Welcome to the new new Facebook page for the General Presbyter of Calgary-Macleod Presbytery! The plan is to use this page to share my experiences, learnings, suggestions and requests with those of our Presbytery and beyond.