Our Worship, Faith Development, Care, Outreach & Service
Overall leadership of the congregation is provided by the Session. The Session is comprised of lay persons called Elders, along with the Minister. There is usually approximately one Elder for each ten households in the congregation. Elders, in addition to their overall leadership responsibilities, have pastoral responsibility for about ten households each, and many of the elders have leadership positions in the various organizations and activities of the congregation.
A Worship Coordinating Team works with the Minister and Worship Arts Team to provide feedback on planning for worship services and occasionally to design special services. We try to combine traditional and modern innovative elements in our Sunday worship services – also integrating some of the worship practices familiar to our many new Canadians. Our minister is assisted, in leading worship, by members of the congregation. Music offerings are provided by a small group of Dayspring Singers and various other members of the congregation with musical gifts, who provide solo vocal and instrumental offerings. See here for more information.
A Christian Education Team works with the Church School Coordinator and the Youth/Young Adults Coordinator to plan and carry out programs for children, youth, and young adults. See the relevant pages at this website for program information. Dayspring is also quite actively involved with Camp Kannawin, the Church Camp of the Presbyterian Synod of Alberta and the Northwest – which is located on the north shore of Sylvan Lake. In addition, the minister and others lead adult study programs.
The Mission/Outreach Team and the Pastoral Care Unit of the Congregational Life Team, along with teams formed to look after specific projects, ensure that Dayspring is responsive to opportunities to care for others as Jesus cares for us. Our Food Bank Team is a unit of the Edmonton Food Bank, making available to people of the local community the basic essentials of life. Some of our members have worked with Habitat for Humanity, recruiting build teams from the congregation. Health professionals on the Pastoral Team assist the minister with the care of persons made vulnerable by illness. And we reach out across the world in mission and service through our offerings given to Presbyterians Sharing and Presbyterian World Service & Development.
Dayspring has always been an extraordinarily hospitable congregation. The Fellowship unit of the Congregational Life Team provides leadership for ministries of hospitality after Sunday worship, after celebrations of life (sometimes called funerals), and at other times, and encourages various activities such as those of our Craft Group.
Dayspring has welcomed into our community of faith and care persons from many parts of the world and reaches out far beyond the congregation’s immediate geographic boundaries.
We support the many functions of our denomination, the Presbyterian Church in Canada (PCC), through our contributions to Presbyterians Sharing. We also contribute to the PCC’s World Service & Development fund, through which relief is provided to nations in crisis and development projects are carried out. We have reached out to Mexico to build homes in partnership with Live Different and have partnered with the Likomba Presbyterian Church in Cameroon in Mission and Friendship. Our children support a child through World Vision Canada. We provide meals for the Edmonton Urban Native Ministry. Our Christmas poinsettias are taken to the Good Samaritan Southgate Care Centre. We also work locally with the End Poverty Edmonton Initiative and YESS.
We are part of a denomination, the Presbyterian Church in Canada, which cares about what is happening in the rest of the world. Here are the opening words of a 2019 PCC statement about the crisis being experienced by Anglophones in Cameroon. “In the west African country of Cameroon, a crisis has escalated into violence, causing Anglophone Cameroonians to flee into Nigeria. Several Presbyterian congregations in Canada, in Toronto and Montreal in particular, include Cameroonian members who fervently wish to bring this situation to the attention of our church. They have received first-hand accounts of human rights abuses …” The full statement can be found here. In the past, several Cameroonian families have made Dayspring their church home. We have sponsored refugee families in the past and are currently awaiting the arrival of three more families.
A Human Resources Team works with the Minister to set up hiring processes, to resource staff, and to conduct performance reviews.
The various teams and activities of the congregation are supported by a
Communications Team – which facilitates internal and external communication.
Almost all of the money required to run the building, pay the salaries of the minister and church staff, and support many congregational and denominational mission and service initiatives derives from the givings of the congregation. For information about how Dayspringers support the ministry and mission of the congregation, click here. To make a contribution, click here. The elected volunteer Treasurer and the elected volunteer Offering Envelope Secretary manage the finances of the congregation under the direction of the Board of Managers.
The Board of Managers, assisted by a team of volunteers and contracted services (lawn cutting, snow removal, and building cleaning) also looks after care of the church building. The building is used by several community organizations for meetings and activities and houses R&S Out-of-School Care and two small Christian groups that are not affiliated with Dayspring. See the sliders on the front page of this website for pictures of other ways in which our facilities serve the community – also here.Click on the image below for an expanded view of what Dayspring Presbyterian Church’s mission structure looks like.
