The Session

The session is the governing body of a congregation in the Presbyterian Church in Canada.

Historically, responsibility was split into Spiritual and Temporal. The Spiritual was the purview of the Session and the temporal that of the Board of Managers. The temporal included financial, budgetary and building and property maintenance. The third part of the governance structure was the Trustees who acted as the legal entity for property held in-trust for the congregation. The spiritual included oversight of worship, spiritual training and teaching such as Sunday school for youth, bible classes for members and adherents as well as the maintenance of the community within the congregation by various activities commensurate with biblical teaching.

The Board of managers were elected for a set duration by the congregation as were the board of trustees.

The Session members were nominated for service by their spiritual gifts and habits and were ordained for life.

In the 70's, the Church corporate, initiated a study called the Lamb Report, to see if a different or better governance structure could be found to better coordinate the duty of session and board and improve communication, as it was found in some congregations that they work in opposition rather than in conjunction with each other.

This resulted in the formation of a session with board function being absorbed into session and functions as committees of session, hence centralizing control ensuring singleness of purpose. This structure was approved corporately in the 70's and, with application to the relevant presbytery, the applying congregation (congregational approval being a necessity) could proceed to implement. This occurred at St Andrew’s in 1989 and has since served as our governing structure.