What Presbyterians believe, and how they worship

Presbyterians belong to the Presbyterian Church in Canada, a Reformed church with Scottish roots, governed by elders and guided by the Westminster Confession and the modern statement Living Faith. Its stone churches are among the oldest congregations in Wellington County.

What Presbyterians believe

The Presbyterian Church in Canada traces its roots to the Church of Scotland and the Reformation of John Calvin and John Knox. Presbyterians confess the Trinity, the full divinity and humanity of Jesus Christ, the authority of Scripture as the Word of God, salvation by God’s grace alone through faith, and the church as the covenant people of God — the Reformed faith taught in the Westminster Confession of Faith (1647) and the Westminster Catechisms. The Shorter Catechism’s first answer is still the best-known line in the tradition: “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.”

The church holds Scripture as its supreme standard and the Westminster Confession as its “subordinate standard,” while granting liberty of opinion on points that do not enter into the substance of the faith. In 1998 it also adopted Living Faith (1984), a modern statement in plain, poetic language, as a subordinate standard. Living Faith speaks of the Bible as the rule of faith and life, to be read with the Spirit’s help and with attention to its historical setting.

Ministers train at Knox College in Toronto, Presbyterian College in Montreal and St. Andrew’s Hall in Vancouver. The church has two sacraments, baptism (of infants and of believers) and the Lord’s Supper. It did not join the United Church in 1925: roughly a third of Presbyterians stayed out, and the “continuing” church rebuilt from there, which is why many Wellington County towns have both a Presbyterian and a United church of similar vintage. Women have been ordained as elders and ministers since 1966. In 2021 the General Assembly adopted two parallel definitions of marriage, so that ministers and sessions may choose whether to conduct same-sex marriages, and opened ordination to LGBTQI persons, with liberty of conscience for those who hold the traditional view.

Worship: what a service is like

Presbyterian worship is orderly and Word-centred. A typical Sunday service runs about an hour: a call to worship, a hymn, prayers of adoration and confession with an assurance of pardon, a children’s story, readings from the Old and New Testaments, a sermon of about twenty minutes, the offering, the prayers of the people and the Lord’s Prayer, a closing hymn and benediction. Ministers commonly wear a black Geneva gown or an alb. The Book of Praise (1997), the church’s hymnal, opens with more than a hundred Psalm settings before the hymns — a mark of the Scottish habit of singing the Psalms — and most congregations use organ or piano and a choir, though some add a band.

The Lord’s Supper is usually celebrated quarterly or monthly. Often the elders serve bread and small cups of grape juice to people in the pews; the table is open to all who trust in Christ. Infant baptism takes place in the service, with the parents making vows and the congregation promising to help raise the child in the faith. The room is typically simple: a communion table, a pulpit and a font, often in a handsome stone church built by Scottish settlers in the nineteenth century.

How Presbyterian churches are organized

“Presbyterian” refers to the form of government: rule by presbyters, or elders. Each congregation is governed by a session made up of the minister, who moderates, and ruling elders elected by the congregation and ordained for life. A board of managers or similar body looks after finances and buildings. Congregations belong to a presbytery — Wellington County’s churches are in the Presbytery of Waterloo-Wellington — which ordains ministers, oversees congregations and approves pastoral calls. Presbyteries belong to synods, and the whole church meets each year in the General Assembly, which elects a Moderator for a one-year term and makes decisions binding on the church. Significant changes to doctrine or polity are sent down to the presbyteries as “remits” for approval before they take effect.

Compared with Reformed churches

Presbyterians are the closest relatives of the Canadian Reformed Churches. Both are Reformed and Calvinist; both confess salvation by grace alone, baptize infants as children of the covenant, are governed by elders in session or consistory, gather congregations into presbyteries or classes, and love the Psalms. A Presbyterian will feel at home with the shape of a Canadian Reformed service, the Geneva gown, the Scripture-centred sermon and the reverent tone.

The differences are mostly of family history and degree. Canadian Reformed churches come from the Dutch rather than the Scottish Reformation, so their confessions are the Three Forms of Unity (Belgic Confession, Heidelberg Catechism, Canons of Dort) rather than the Westminster Standards, and office-bearers subscribe to them without reservation. There are two services every Sunday, and the second is a sermon on a Lord’s Day of the Heidelberg Catechism. Singing is almost entirely Psalms to Genevan tunes with organ. Only men serve as ministers, elders and deacons, and the church holds the traditional definition of marriage. The Lord’s Supper is celebrated several times a year after public profession of faith. Presbyterians are especially welcome to come and compare notes.

What Presbyterians believe, and how they worship