Beloved siblings in Christ,

“So they cast [the net], and now they were not able to haul it in because of the quantity of fish.” (John 21:6)

God’s goodness to the Diocese of Toronto amazes us every day. As your bishops, it is our joy and privilege to bear witness to the rich blessings, the varied gifts, the talents and skills, the sacrificial generosity, and the deep faithfulness of the Body of Christ in this diocese. Every parish and community, and the many devoted Anglicans who make them up, inspire us. It has been a natural response for us to “Lift Up Our Hearts” in a spirit of gratitude and encouragement in 2025.

The very first Call of our Cast the Net visioning process was a Season of Spiritual Renewal. We heard over and over again that our diocese is hungry to know and love God more deeply. During the season, over 40 workshops were offered, geared to priests, deacons, lay leaders and people desiring to deepen their spiritual lives, hone their leadership skills and discern God’s call. We held five “Lift Up Our Hearts” worship services: at St. James Cathedral; All Saints, Whitby; Trinity, Streetsville; St. James, Orillia; and St. Paul, Bloor Street. Large crowds gathered to worship, sing and pray for the renewal of the Church. Each one was a moment of grace and joy. The Season of Spiritual Renewal officially draws to a close with the end of the season of Epiphany 2026. Now a small group gathers to discern how we continue to grow disciples, enhance ministry and form servants of the Gospel, building on the foundation of what has been offered. Stay tuned!

The Netminders is a group of clergy, lay leaders and staff who continue to help parishes engage with the Cast the Net Calls, and to bring them to life in each community. Every parish was invited to choose three or four Calls from the 20 – those that reflect the ministry that they are a part of now or hope to be in the future – and to bring them to Synod for discussion and mutual encouragement. With each part of the Body engaging our common Calls in different ways, we move as one.

At the annual clergy conference last May at Trent University, our speaker, the Very Rev. David Monteith, Dean of Canterbury, offered reflections based on Jesus the Good Shepherd, an image that resonated with our clergy, particularly in this time of disruption and uncertainty. Our clergy work so hard at hauling in the nets, and we say to them now, to all our priests and deacons: we see you, and we are grateful to God for the ministry that you do. The annual clergy conference is always a wonderful opportunity to renew friendships and make new ones, and this year was no exception. It was also our joy to host smaller clergy retreat days in the spring and fall. These were opportunities for clergy to gather in deanery groups for Bible study, to hear from their bishop and archdeacons, to deepen fellowship with one another, and to share a meal. We want to respond to Call #12 to “continue and enhance support for all ordained people” as they engage in vital ministry.

Regarding shared ministry, our partnership with the Diocese of Brasilia, now entering our third year of seven, continues to flourish. Our motto, “Partners in Christ, united in mission” (Parceiros em Cristo, unidos na missão), is grounded in Calls #4 and #13 regarding our participation in God’s healing work and ministries of service in the world. Dr. Paulo Ueti from Brasilia and the Rev. Canon Dr. Christopher Brittain from Toronto offered an online bilingual study day on liberation theology for clergy and lay leaders of both dioceses last March. The Rev. Dr. Rodrigo Espiuca from Brasilia invited us to seek signs of resurrection in his keynote address at the Outreach Conference in October. Bishop Mauricio Andrade participated in our bishops’ Advent series in December. Looking ahead, we will welcome Dr. Paulo Ueti as our guest speaker at this year’s clergy conference, and we can’t wait to receive a delegation of Brazilian youth for the ReCharge Youth Retreat. We also hope a small group of Toronto Anglicans can visit Brasilia this year.

We are pleased to be moving ahead with our work on equity, decolonization, diversity and inclusion with the hiring of our new EDDI Advisor, Dilesha Stelmach. Dilesha brings a strong experiential and educational background in this ministry, centered around Ephesians 4: 4-6: “there is one body, one Spirit, one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father, Creator of all, who is above all and through all and in all.” With support from our HR department and the Bishop’s Committee on Intercultural Ministries, Dilesha is mindfully engaging, both practically and theologically, with our people – volunteers, staff, clergy – and with our infrastructure – policies, practices and the constitution and canons of the diocese. She will be helping us to see the familiar in unfamiliar ways as we build up the ministry of every single beloved child of God in our diocese.

To all our faithful people in so many vital ministries in our Church: thank you. To our hard-working churchwardens and treasurers, children and youth ministry workers, parish musicians, office administrators and envelope secretaries, altar guilds and custodians, ACW and outreach volunteers, and countless committee members: thank you. To our diocesan volunteers, members of Synod Council and participants on bishop’s committees: thank you. To the staff team at the Synod Office: thank you. Together we all make up the strong net of the Diocese of Toronto, and together, by following the ways of Jesus, we receive “more than we can ask or imagine” – so many blessings collected in our net that we are barely able to haul it in.

When the nightly news seems especially dire, when anxiety is pervasive and the future seems uncertain, God’s reign can feel far away. Yet our commitment to our baptismal covenant, our tenacious acts of faith, our persistent resistance to the powers of evil, our small but powerful acts of kindness towards our neighbours, and a deep, unshakable, unwavering belief that “the earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it” (Psalm 24) will carry us through troubled times.

Please pray for us, as we pray daily for you.

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My plane arrived at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv in the wee hours of Nov. 26. Our flight was delayed by an hour. By the time I cleared customs and gathered my luggage, it was about four in the morning. A driver had been sent to fetch me. I was grateful to see him holding a piece of paper with my name scrawled on it. He had been waiting for some time. I felt badly for him and for me, too. Sleep had eluded me on the airplane.

We departed the airport and headed toward Jerusalem, where we pilgrims would be staying at St. George’s Pilgrim Guest House, located within the walls of the Cathedral Church of St. George the Martyr and the college bearing the same name. My driver and I talked nonstop along the way. I was interested in learning his story and to stay awake long enough to find comfort in a soft pillow and comfortable bed after a long journey. He lived with his family in the Christian quarter of the old city of Jerusalem. They had resided there for many generations. He talked about the hardships suffered by so many because of the Covid pandemic and then the war. Things were desperate for so many.

Only a few other cars shared the road on that early morning drive. I peered out the window as we talked to try to catch a glimpse of the passing landscape but could see very little. It was still too dark. And then up ahead cars slowed down as we approached a checkpoint. All the other cars were waved on. Six or so army personnel stood in a circle at one of the kiosks. One soldier bearing a kerchief to conceal the lower half of his face motioned for us to stop. The driver lowered our windows. He leaned in to talk with the driver and then his attention focused on me.

Where are you from? he asked.

Canada, I replied.

Passport please, he said.

I gave him my passport. He eyed the document and then looked at me carefully.

I have one question for you, he said. And there is only one answer, yes or no. He paused. Do you understand? I nodded.

Do you have a Palestinian identification card?

No, I replied.

He handed the passport back and motioned us onward.

I was now fully awake.

That moment would be a foretaste of what we would see, hear, feel and experience on this pilgrimage with the Friends of Sabeel Liberation Theology Center in East Jerusalem. The Friends of Sabeel is an international and ecumenical response to the call of Palestinian Christians for solidarity. Through education and engagement, the organization supports the struggle for equality in justice, freedom and human rights of Palestinians and works non-violently for a just and durable peace for Palestinians and Israelis.

Over 10 days, our delegation would spend time in East Jerusalem and in the West Bank, most notably in Bethlehem, Ramallah, Taybeh, Hebron and the hills south of Hebron. We would listen to the stories of academics, artists, church leaders, advocates, farmers, shepherds and ordinary people living in challenging and inhumane conditions. For 10 days we would be invited to hold in one hand the beauty and holiness of pilgrimage sites like the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the Church of the Nativity, the Western Wall and a fertile land, and in the other to dwell in a place where people are partitioned, segregated and diminished by a system of repression.

Each member of our delegation will write a reflection on what we experienced – the challenging, the hard, the bewildering and the hopeful. We are calling this series “Happening Now in Palestine.”

The season of Advent points towards Christmas, to the love of God made known in the birth of Jesus to Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem, at a time when the land was occupied. Now as then, we pray for peace, shalom, salaam in the Land of the Holy One.

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O God, take our lips and speak through them. Take our minds and think through them. Take our hearts and fill them with love for you. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.

Mary and I, in May, joined a little group of pilgrims from Church of the Redeemer, Bloor St. to walk the St. Cuthbert Way. It’s a pilgrimage that begins in Melrose, just in front of the abbey where Cuthbert began his ministry in the year 650, and the trail takes you through the borderlands of Scotland and England through Northumbria to the east coast to Lindisfarne. It’s about 100 kilometres. Every day we began as a little group in devotion. We offered reflections. We picked little names of one of the pilgrims out of a hat. We prayed for that person for the day. And we walked for the first hour in silence – hard for extroverts.

You hope, in fact, on the first day you might ease your way into that kind of pilgrimage, but not so. Straight up over the Eldon Hills. Straight up. It was once a lookout during the Roman occupation. It was a burial ground and a gathering place for ancient peoples. Unlike the Camino, it’s sparsely travelled. On that first day, Richard and Audrey, Mary and myself met up with two pilgrims in our first break. They were officers in the Salvation Army. They’d just finished a pastorate and were about to begin another. They were aptly named Paul and Paula. Later that day, as we were having lunch, the four of us, who would emerge on the trail but Paul and Paula, and we had another conversation. Then they went down the trail only to return a few minutes later, as though they had forgotten something. And Paul said to me, “Bishop, it’s Sunday morning. Would you pray for us?” As though we had done it thousands of times before, the six of us just formed a circle on the path, held hands, and I offered a prayer. And with the amen, we were off again. At the end of the trail, Mary and Paula were having a conversation, and Paula went back to that moment, and she said, “That moment of prayer was when the pilgrimage began for me.”

On a pilgrimage

We have been on a pilgrimage as a diocese. Chapter 21 of the Gospel of John has formed for us a spiritual context to describe where we have been and where we are going. The bewilderment and the fatigue of the disciples fishing all night long and catching nothing mirrors our own bewilderment and fatigue of going through COVID. We lost so many people. We grieved so deeply. We lived too long in isolation. But there were also moments of grace, and our little nets began to fill again when we turned online for worship. And we adapted, and we pivoted, and we wore PPE. And eventually we got onto shore, and we counted our blessings like counting fish in a net. And instead of running back as fast as we could to our old life, we took the time as the diocese to contemplate where God was, to crane our necks, to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit pushing us, encouraging us to move.

That Cast the Net process allowed us the opportunity to see nets in a different way, to see that we were actually being reformed and reshaped and rewoven as a community of parishes and missions – not standalones, but in this work together. And the 20 Calls to action have been infused in everything that we are striving to do. They are like a compass in the hand, giving us a bearing in the way that the Holy Spirit is guiding us. Those 20 Calls infuse the work of the Synod Council. They infuse the work of those who minister from 135 Adelaide, and they call us together in the Synod. And later today, we will be invited into conversation on each one of those calls. Every parish in the diocese is encouraged to adopt one, two, three or four different calls that resonate with the ministry that belongs to you. No one parish can do 20. None of us are that good. But together we can. And that is the nature of Synod. It’s the nature of the word. Sun, together. Hodos, to travel. To travel together. To pilgrim together. And those 20 Calls infuse my charge today. I’d love to spend time speaking about every one, but I can’t.

The one symbol that’s emerging for us is that little picture of a fish. Some of you have a pin. At the centre of the fish is the cruciform, the cross, and in the centre of the cross is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And each axis is a direction for us to follow. Renewing our spiritual life, inspiring faith in action, reimagining ministry, transforming our diocesan culture.

Renewing our spiritual life

Spirituality. Calls #1 and #3 summon us as a diocese to prayer, to discipleship, to evangelism. And to respond to those calls, the Season of Spiritual Renewal committee, chaired by Jennifer Schick and Philip Der, and a project so ably coordinated by Judy Paulsen and Jacqui Hance. And the committee itself gathered to create 40 different workshops for clergy and laity to respond to those calls. An Advent series led by the bishops was attended each night by 200-300 people. This year we will run it again, and we invite Bishop Mauricio Andrade to offer one of those evenings to deepen the partnership we have with Brasilia.

For me, the heart of this season has been the five worship services, Lift Up Our Hearts. When we started planning them and saying, “Let’s meet on a Saturday afternoon at 2 p.m.,” we thought at first that was a great idea. And then as we got closer to that first service, we wondered, was it really a good idea to gather at 2 p.m. on a Saturday? I have to tell you, for me, the moment of walking into an almost full cathedral with you singing with your hearts open is a moment that reduced me to tears and continues to. And the response in that moment was, for me, we are here, we are hungry for the Spirit of God to renew us.

Call to action #3 is to reinvigorate youth and children in family ministry. One of the first steps is that we have embedded in our budget the Youth Ministry Apprentice Program and the five positions of youth coordinators for the diocese.

Inspiring faith in action

For four years, an encampment of homeless and street-involved neighbours found refuge and sanctuary in front of St. Stephen in-the-Fields Church. Mother Maggie Helwig and the community served the needs of that community. More than that, they interfaced with city workers and officials, and they patiently worked with neighbours, those who were with and those who were against. Sadly, that encampment was cleared just a few weeks ago. And on the day of the clearing, I was present for a little while, and Mother Maggie was on one side of the fence and I was on the other. I said, “What can we do?” She simply said, “Bear witness. Be present. Speak truth. Look for Jesus in the moment.”

Right across this diocese, in small communities and large, we have watched an increased need for families using food banks and shelter. And there are in every community, large and small, parishes that are tending to that vulnerable community. In Minden, in Peterborough, Barrie, in Orillia, Mississauga, in Don Mills, in Scarborough, in downtown, and all points in between. Since 2019, Synod has been calling us to move and to help solve part of the housing issues. And I would invite you to read the property supplemental in your convening circular that gives us an update on what we’ve been able to do so far.

Call to action #4 is to participate in the unfolding healing of God in the world. St. George, Grafton wanted to help in their community. At the same time, Habitat for Humanity was starting a new project of building seven homes. The members of the community knew that they were a little bit older for climbing up on a ladder, but they were really well known for hospitality and food. They provided meals and snacks for 14 build days, and they invited St. John, Port Hope and St. Peter, Coburg to participate, adding six more days.

Call #6: strengthen Indigenous ministries. Ten years ago, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report was published. Murray Sinclair once said, “We have described for you the mountain, and we have shown you the pathway to the top. We call upon you to do the climbing.” We as Anglicans are called to climb. Two calls that are close to my heart – the first is call 46, described in the land acknowledgement. Read it, mark it, inwardly digest it. I invite you to join with me in creating and renewing relationships with First Nations Indigenous communities within the Diocese of Toronto. Later today, we will have a conversation about call 61. Samantha Caravan and Leigh Kern will describe the work we’ve been able to do so far in being able to encourage and be a part of reconciliation work through the Land Tithe Committee.

Call #7: take, act, communicate on all actions toward diversity, equity and inclusion. We are pleased to announce that Dilesha Stelmach has been appointed as our new DEI advisor here in the Diocese of Toronto, who will work very closely with Bishop Shaw and with the Intercultural Committee to help us in this work of deepening our call to diversity, equity and inclusion.

Reimagining ministry

When we went on our pilgrimage, we were well equipped, and we took the advice of many who had gone on long journeys. We took our time finding the right pair of boots. We learned the merits of foot glide, wearing wool socks and wearing layers to meet the spring of Scotland. We had on our backs backpacks full of snacks and water and first aid equipment. And then there were the sticks. I have to admit, I kind of pooh-poohed the idea of the sticks. I said to myself, Really? Do I need sticks? I mean, aren’t they really for more mature people? I gotta tell you, thank God for the sticks. They were the only thing actually standing between getting to the top and to the bottom. When your legs are burning, you are dragging yourself up the hill, and when you’re trying to get down the other side and your quads are burning, giving that support is all that you need. Those sticks have taught me a valuable lesson. There is no room for pride on a spiritual journey. None. You need help, you ask for it.

We also learned it’s just as hard going up as it is going down. For the last 30 years, the average Sunday attendance in the Diocese of Toronto has been going down. It’s a phenomenon that’s experienced right across the Canadian church and in most denominations. We have listened so long to prognosticators who would say, draw the line and in 2040 it comes to an end. Except for the last two years, our average Sunday attendance has gone up by almost 20 per cent, the first time in years, in large measure because of online worship and engagement – the hard lessons we learned in the wilderness that we continue to apply. We are learning that a virtual community is the same as an in-person community. Forty-one churches in our diocese are growing in number. We need to learn from each one of them. Universal growth is not happening right across the board, but parishes are continuing to learn how to engage so that we can.

At the same time, there are communities along the pilgrim trail that make that very painful decision that it’s time to stop. Thomas and Emma Cooper arrived in Canada in 1864. They eventually made their way north and settled near the Black River. In the early 1870s, they built a general store when the lumber mill opened. In 1884, St. George’s Church was opened. It was led by a Wycliffe student, and for more than 100 years, ministered to the local community until members dwindled. And in 2009, they closed the door. The altar from St. George’s is on this dais. We gather around this table a reminder to us that every parish and community is a vessel of hope and love in faith in Jesus Christ, a community of word and sacrament. And even though the doors shut, their voices echo from the past like a great cloud of witnesses.

Four parishes have closed since we last met as Synod: St. Chad, Toronto; St. John, West Toronto; Christ Church, Waubaushene; St. George, Newcastle. And we remember them. I’d also bring to memory, St. Anne, Gladstone that suffered a terrible fire on June 9, 2024. But out of the ashes comes a new hope from that little community, not working on their own entirely, but now walking with Epiphany & St. Mark to imagine a new vision for ministry in their community.

Since our last gathering as Synod, a new congregation has been planted and opened by St. Paul’s Bloor Street: St. George by the Grange. One of their parishioners said to me recently, “Do you know, Bishop, that on the first Sunday of September, we had 118 people in church? Hallelujah.” St. Paul’s Bloor Street has a dream of building, gathering five congregations, new ones, over the next 10 years. They can’t do that on their own. It takes all of us. We are one as a diocese. By surprise, more and more laity and clergy from parishes are coming to us and saying, “Perhaps we can help a parish next to us grow again.” Let’s crane our necks to listen for the leading of the Spirit in this work.

Regionalization is a word that we will become well acquainted with. We will hear from Janet Marshall speak about how communities are coming together, three and four and five, not with one clergy, not with two clergy, but with three or four, to be able to sustain a presence in a local place and to work together as a team. Doing ministry in difficult contexts, coming out of the pandemic, after a fire, in changing and uncertain political and economic times is exactly where the Church has always been called to plant. Just listen to the journey that Timothy and Paul have taken today. They went through the territory of the dry wood, through the territory of the pale-faced people. The Holy Spirit prevented them from going to the land of the rising sun for now. They tried to go into the storming river, but the Holy Spirit wouldn’t allow them. It was only when they arrived in Troas that Paul had a vision of a man from the land of the tall people, that the man said, “Come and help us.” We need to be strategic as communities in responding to the calls around us as we learn to reimagine ministry today.

Transforming diocesan culture

We are living into a new form of episcopal leadership, moving away from areas and moving away from five bishops to three bishops, five archdeaconries, raising up the profile of regional deans, appointing archdeacons and a canon administrator, and working together in a new way. We have had enough time under our belt to review how that’s going, and you have been honest and helpful in your response. We are learning how to fine-tune that new way, but overwhelmingly, there’s a sense that we want to keep going.

Investing in our future, call #20. Earlier in the year, we asked M&M International to help us with a feasibility study for a major financial campaign. What we heard from you was many parishes are just still trying to pull it together after COVID. Some parishes say, “We’re so small, we can’t find volunteers to run it.” Others said most of the money needs to stay in the parish because we have capital and ministry needs. And 70 per cent said we’re almost there to get started. It’s the right thing to do. The timing is almost right. I agree with all that. Most of the money needs to stay in the parish. This program needs to be tailor-made, not an off-the-rack, but a tailor-made engagement with every parish and mission in the diocese. We’ve already had one parish finish theirs. Others are ready to go. This is an opportunity for us to be able to raise 60 per cent, 70 percent that stays – even more, maybe, depending on how well you negotiate. It stays in the parish. And whatever else is raised always goes back into the parishes too.

A final word

On the beach, Jesus asks Peter, Do you love me, without condition? Peter responds, I love you like a friend. Jesus asks again, Do you love me, without condition? I love you like a brother, Peter says. Jesus says, Do you love me like a brother? Peter says, I love you like a brother. We know the story, that in the end, Peter loved without any conditions. I’m beginning my eighth year as your bishop. And while there are burdens to carry, the overwhelming sense I have day after day is a growing depth of love for you.

I’d like the clergy, deacons and priests, to please stand. I know the burdens that you carry. I know the sacrifices that you make. I know the joy and the gifts that God has given to each of you to proclaim the gospel and to live those calls. And day by day, I am in awe in all that you give to the Church and to this ministry. And my love for you grows day by day. Thank you.

I’d like all those who minister out of 135 Adelaide to please stand. It is a joy for me to work with you, either virtually or in person, day after day after day, and I know the hard work and the dedication that you have for the enterprise of the Church, the long hours, the nightly meetings and the pain that you carry, too, and the joy that you bring to this enterprise. We could not do this in the diocese without you. And my love for you grows every day.

I’d like our chancellors to please stand. Chancellors are on speed dial. and the hours and hours and the weight and the burden that you carry, in helping us to move properly as a diocese and to sustain the legacy of this place. You carry so much, and my love for you grows day by day. Thank you.

I’d like the lay folk to please stand. Sunday by Sunday, we see you. And day by day, you offer your gifts, your time, your talent, and all that you have to the enterprise of the Church. You follow your baptismal covenant, and I am always in awe of how much you give to your local community to bring it to life, and I am so grateful for your ministry. You are the heart of the diocese, and my love for you grows day by day. I am so grateful for you. Thank you.

I’d like Riscylla and Kevin to please stand. It is such a gift to have you as colleague and partners in this wonderful enterprise of ministry. I cannot imagine doing this work on my own. The gifts that you bring, the patience, the humor, it helps us meet every day, sometimes challenging, sometimes beautiful. And my love for you grows day by day. Thank you.

And I’ll say to Mary and Jenn: day by day, week by week, you organize, keep everything moving in a pace. The love and the care that you bring to your daily work is breathtaking. Such patience and such joy, never down, always up. I am so deeply grateful for your ministry and my love for you grows day by day. Thank you.

Is Mary in the house? Stand, please. I would not be able to do this without you. And of course, my love for you grows every day. And I love you so much for giving me this cold.

May God keep us. May God hold us. May God give us the courage to meet the future with hope, with dignity, with love. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

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Beloved siblings in Christ,

In this Season of Spiritual Renewal, the Diocese of Toronto is exhibiting a burgeoning health and vitality that inspires us daily. To God be the glory! As your bishops, as we travel around to visit our parishes, we have witnessed the Holy Spirit engaging in marvelous ways with people, groups and ministries right across this diocese – from Mississauga to Minden, from Cobourg to Collingwood. The Season of Spiritual Renewal, this invitation to spiritual growth, has been enthusiastically received in so many ways, including the sharing of prayer resources, participation in online workshops and our bishops’ Advent study online. We are also looking forward to #LiveLent: God’s Story, Our Story, a daily Lenten resource with a helpful guide for small group use.

We are excited that the next phase in this Season of Spiritual Renewal is called “Lift Up Our Hearts.” Over the coming year, large worship services will take place across the diocese on five Saturday afternoons at 2 p.m. Each celebration of the Eucharist will feature excellent music, moving testimony and preachers from within our own diocese, each with their own unique approach to spiritual renewal. We hope you will plan to join us for one or more of these marvelous gatherings. Come on your own, bring a friend or hire a bus! We will see you there:

• March 22 – St. James Cathedral (preacher: the Rev. Molly Finlay)
• March 29 – Trinity Church, Streetsville (preacher: the Rev. Canon Stephanie Douglas)
• May 31 – All Saints, Whitby (preacher: the Rev. Gerlyn Henry)
• September 27 – St. James, Orillia (preacher: the Rev. Dr. Rob Hurkmans)
• October 25 – St. Paul’s, Bloor Street (preacher: the Rev. Dr. Alvardo Adderley)

The call to spiritual renewal, however, was just the first of 20 Calls articulated in the Cast the Net strategic vision adopted by Synod and the diocese in 2023. Over the coming year, you will hear us repeatedly emphasising the need for each congregation to review and consider all of the 20 Calls and then choose which two or three your parish will focus on. As you gather today for Vestry, this could be the perfect opportunity to start considering the question. A small group – the Netminders – has prepared resources to help you, which you can find on the Cast the Net web page on the diocese’s website, www.toronto.anglican.ca. While it’s important to remember that no congregation could possibly answer all 20 Calls, we strongly believe that each congregation can consider two or three. Leading up to our diocesan Synod in November, we hope that every parish will be able to identify which of the Calls they are living into.

We are pleased to welcome our new Executive Director, Varun Balendra, ODT. A familiar face around the diocese, Varun has served in many volunteer capacities over the years, and we look forward to working together in this new capacity. By the time of our diocesan Synod on Friday, Nov. 7 and Saturday, Nov. 8, we expect that we will be introducing a new Secretary of Synod and a new full-time Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Advisor, whose primary focus areas will be supporting the work of the Anti-Bias, Anti-Racism (ABAR) and other DEI training, and supporting individuals and parishes to grow, build community, educate and engage.

Some other new faces at Synod may include guests from the Diocese of Brasilia. This past June, at the Cathedral Church of the Resurrection in the city of Brasilia, the two diocesan bishops of Brasilia and Toronto signed the covenant that brings our two dioceses into a companion relationship. Since the signing of our agreement, a small representative group from each diocese has been meeting monthly – in both Portuguese and English – to pray together and to plan events. For example, clergy from both dioceses will gather online for a joint study day on liberation theology on March 25. In the fall, a youth delegation from Brasilia will join our own youth at the Re-Charge youth retreat at Muskoka Woods camp. And we anticipate sending a delegation from Toronto to Brasilia in 2026. We have even developed a shared logo for our relationship that combines elements of each of our own logos: our Diocese of Toronto dove springing from their Ipe Tree. You can expect to hear more about this companion partnership as we enter into the second year of it.

Closer to home, the partnerships within our own diocese continue to flourish. When we speak of casting the net, we are referring to the supportive, creative and collaborative ministry that occurs in each deanery and regionalization, between parishes and congregations, amongst church neighbours and colleagues. We are grateful to our hardworking and devout clergy and our dedicated lay leaders, especially churchwardens, treasurers, administrators, musicians and the countless church staff and parish volunteers who are Christ’s hands and feet of ministry in our communities. We are so grateful for all of your faithful work in our parishes and beyond.

We have embarked on a feasibility study to discern if this is the right time for the diocese to conduct a major financial campaign. Over the next six months, M&M International, a Toronto-based fundraising firm, will listen to parishes large and small, soliciting feedback on a case for support. It is proposed that if a campaign does go forward, the majority of funds raised will remain in the parishes, with a smaller portion supporting the 20 Calls at the diocesan level. Your feedback and commitment will make the difference as we look into this additional way of working together.

Lastly, we want to encourage each Vestry meeting to consider this year’s social justice motion: “Protecting and Expanding Harm Reduction in Ontario.” The Church has a role to play in calling on government for responsible actions in caring for our most vulnerable neighbours, to ensure life-saving protections for those experiencing addictions and other challenges. Please consider how your parish can speak up, and out, for those who require advocacy. As we anticipate going to the polls in the coming year – federally and provincially – let us remember our baptismal promises as we cast our ballots, choosing candidates who align with our values. And let us pray for them.

For it is in praying that we are drawn ever deeper into relationship with the Triune God and become more attentive to the will of our Heavenly Creator. In this Season of Spiritual Renewal, we ask every reader of this letter to commit more deeply to a life of prayer, that it may infuse your every day with Grace as you witness to the Love of Christ in your life and to the world.

In your prayers, please pray for all three of us, your College of Bishops, both in your personal daily devotions as well as your parish’s weekly intercessions. Know that we are praying for you too, giving thanks for our common life together across our wonderful diocesan family.

Yours faithfully in Christ Jesus,

Bishop Andrew Asbil
Bishop Riscylla Shaw
Bishop Kevin Robertson

The post Be renewed in the Spirit appeared first on The Toronto Anglican.

Dear friends,

Followers of Jesus, inspired by the Holy Spirit, serve the world God loves.

Simple and elegant. These few words capture the essence of a vision that we have been pursuing and discerning throughout the Cast the Net process, a visioning exercise that began while we were still in pandemic mode. Over the course of several consultations, we listened to one another, and for the leading of the Holy Spirit. With time, sifting and testing, 20 Calls were revealed at Synod, which were supported with enthusiasm. A final version of the Calls will be received by Synod Council in February. We continue to be grateful to the steering committee and consultants, who have led our work together over the past 18 months. And now the work begins to incorporate these Calls into the life and ministry of the whole diocese. This is the time for parishes large and small, missions, ministries, committees and Synod Council to animate the Calls in our own contexts. It is almost impossible for one community to embrace all 20, but by serving together from Mississauga to Brighton, Midland to Minden, and all points in between, we can!

We begin this journey with a Season of Spiritual Renewal. We embrace the Call to deepen our walk together as communities by immersing ourselves in prayer, reading and reflection on scripture, worship and sharing our stories of faith with one another. As we promised in our baptism: we will “continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers.” The season will be supported by the Rev. Canon Dr. Judy Paulsen, members of a steering committee and the College of Bishops. We hope that you will be able to join us for diocesan worship events, learning opportunities, programs and fellowship that entice us all to walk more closely in the footsteps of Jesus.

We are delighted to reach across our borders to deepen our friendship with the Diocese of Brasilia. Brasilia is a relatively new diocese, birthed in 1985, with a small number of parishes, missions and ministries. We were delighted to welcome their Bishop Mauricio Andrade and his wife Sandra to our diocesan Synod in November. We will learn from, grow with and support one another as we strive to serve Christ in our unique circumstances. And we look forward to opportunities for delegations of our clergy and laity to visit back and forth, both in-person and online, as we deepen our affection for one another.

We are proud of and amazed at the ministry taking place across our diocese, especially in the areas of youth, ecumenism, creation care, diversity and faith formation. We encourage you to consider this year’s diocesan social justice motion on housing, and to prayerfully support our Church’s advocacy for every person’s right to adequate shelter. We are convinced that the Holy Spirit is leading and guiding us and challenging us to bravely find new ways to work and worship together, to increase in courage, to share our passion for the Good News of Jesus, and to seek and find new meaning as followers of Christ in the 21st century, where we are confronted with emerging economic and social challenges. We want to express our heartfelt thanks to all who make up our dynamic community of faith – lay people, deacons, priests – all helping to give a glimpse of the Reign of God as it unfolds in our midst.

As your bishops, we know the joy and privilege of serving the Church in this diocese. We thank all those who have joined us in giving leadership over the past year. We have recently celebrated one year of our new diocesan leadership model, and we are immensely grateful to our new territorial archdeacons and canon administrator for stepping into their roles so effectively and with such faithfulness. The five of them have helped to ease the bishops’ administrative load, allowing us to focus on some of the other work to which we have been called and ordained.

Whether your work is changing this year, whether you are stepping out of your role at this vestry meeting, or stepping into a new ministry, or continuing on in your good work, please know that we are here to support you in every way we can. We want to encourage you in gospel ministry, in the initiatives and relationships that you are building as you cast your nets ever wider in a world that is hungry for Christ – for meaning, connection and belonging.

Our mission statement is simple and elegant. And it invites us, like the dismissal at the close of the Eucharist, to action. We invite you to incorporate these words in your liturgies on Sunday morning: Followers of Jesus, inspired by the Holy Spirit, serve the world God loves. Thanks be to God!

Yours faithfully in Christ Jesus,

Bishop Andrew Asbil
Bishop Riscylla Shaw
Bishop Kevin Robertson

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Stands on the Rock (Peter) and the other followers of Creator Sets Free (Jesus) were all gathered there. (First Nations Version: An Indigenous Translation of the New Testament) And so we are gathered here. It is so, so, so good to finally be gathered together in one place. It is so good to be in a familiar space that we have not occupied since 2019. It is so good to hear the buzz and chatter of Anglicans gathering in the crush court and gathering around tables and meeting new friends and seeing old friends. It is wonderful to hear Anglicans singing again in harmony and in unison, and not in muffled, semi-muted tones online.

It is wonderful to be able to gather. Chaplains from independent schools, from hospitals, lay readers, lay leaders, deacons, priests, leaders in parishes large and small, from the four corners of this diocese, from the Kawarthas to Mississauga, from Penetanguishene to Brighton. To be able to be in this space. We have longed to be in each other’s presence. And in the name of Jesus Christ, welcome.

Bienvenue, bienvenida, bienvenido, ben vindos, Tawow, huānyíng. All of the languages of the planet of the Earth are also gathered in this place. We may be confined by the borders of a diocese, but we actually come from all over the planet. And we bring our unique gifts, our unique customs, our unique languages and perspectives, and we gather on this traditional land with deep humility, always conscious, as we heard in the land acknowledgement just a few minutes ago, of how our colonial ways of the past – and our colonial ways that persist in the present – continue to bring harm and alienation and hurt to so many. And that we are summoned as collections of communities, together in this diocese, to sow harmony and reconciliation in the name of Jesus Christ.

We come as parishes, some with very long memories – 1797, St. James Cathedral – and some that are just getting started – Church of the Holy Wisdom, 2021. And all the dates in between. One of the great joys of being a bishop is visiting different communities every Sunday and to mark important anniversaries in the life of the community. It’s wonderful to go into a community celebrating an anniversary and to hear the stories of the past and the present. To hear from members of the community who will tell you that they were there for the first service in a portable or in somebody’s home. Or that they are linked to a family that traces its roots all the way back to the beginning of a parish that streams into the past many, many generations. Or those who are just starting to belong to a community, who speak glowingly about how their lives are being transformed, and how their lives are being literally saved by their faith.

When I go to celebrate anniversaries, an image that I like to place in the midst of a community is to have them imagine if the walls of your church could speak. The stories that they might tell. Imagine if the pews and the kneelers could speak of the prayers that had been uttered heavenward. Or collecting all of the clergy who in time, in their own way, have broken open the Word, have joined hands in matrimony, buried the dead, poured water on baptism and broken bread and poured out wine and invited a community to step into a sacramental way of living. Imagine the deacons, who have, in their own ways, pointed and proclaimed the gospel and uttered in God’s name the invitation to serve the most vulnerable among us. And lay leaders and lay members who in their everyday life say yes to the Kingdom and the realm of God by living out their baptismal covenant. We bring them with us in this space. The communities of which you are a part are here at this Synod with you and with us.

Standing on the beach

In his book Imagining the Kingdom: How Worship Works, James Smith says, “We live into the stories that absorb us. We become the characters that captivate us. Then our actions become kind of a script. Unconsciously we are drawn in through our imagination.” One of the scripts that has captured our imagination over the last 15 months or so is chapter 21 of the Gospel of John. A perfect reading that invites us through a time of COVID to stand on a new threshold on the beach, looking to the future. Of a community that is drawn by God in Jesus, resurrected to new life, that summons us into a future. And so I base this charge back in this same text and using the First Nations version.

In its telling, it brings the story to life with new imagery. Creator Sets Free revealed himself by the Lake of the Circle of Nations, and by the lake also known as the Rolling Waters, this way. In the text, we are told that not all of the disciples were present; only seven, in fact, are named. Some are missing. In the same way, when we gather, we are conscious that there are some members of this Synod who have been longtime members of Synod who are missing, who are not with us. Some who have died, some who have moved on, some who have let go. And we are conscious of the contribution that they have brought to the wider community of Anglicans in this diocese.

In the same way, congregations that have made choices since our last gathering in person, some to close and some to amalgamate to create something new. And we remember that their presence is missed in this room. St. James, Lisle. St. John, Harwood. St. Mark, Warsaw. St. Luke, Dixie South. St. Ninian, St. John the Divine, St. Peter, Scarborough to become Church of the Holy Wisdom. Christ Church, Norwood. Christ Church, Omemee. St. Stephen, Maple. St. Leonard. We remember the faithful witness of gathered communities over a stretch of time that have contributed to the life in their context and to our wider lives, too.

Stands on the Rock (Peter) says, “I’m going fishing.” And the others said, “We’ll go with you.” And they pushed their canoe onto the lake. And they worked all night long under the light of the moon and the stars. And they threw their nets, and they gathered them in. Empty.

We know something of the experience of feeling empty over the last three years of COVID, of emptying out our buildings, of emptying out the streets in our communities, of emptying out our places of employment, of emptying out our schools, of emptying out our stores. We have lived the length of time on empty.

A couple of weeks ago, I had the joy of celebrating a new ministry, the beginning of a new ministry at St. Matthew, Oriole. It was a wonderful event for the whole community and for Sherri Goliski. At the end of the service, a few of us were standing in the worship space, and I looked down on the ground and there on the carpet was an arrow. And there was another one over here and another one over there, a reminder of what it took to take direction to get to the table in the three-year period. Sherri said, “You know, we lifted the tape from that arrow. But the sun faded the rest of the carpet.” And it has left an indelible stamp in the carpet itself, in the same way that the experience has left an indelible mark on us, the likes of which we haven’t yet fully comprehended.

Casting our net

Cast your net on the other side, the right side. We cast our net in COVID in new and creative ways. When the churches emptied out, we went online and we tried new skills, as awkward as we could, used our best audio-visual skills, tried to sound like CBC – that didn’t work. Tried other narrators – that didn’t work, either. We learned to visit in a parking lot or in a park or in somebody’s front yard. We learned to deal with the horrors and the hurt of losing so many people, especially in long-term care homes. And we deal with the long-term legacy that has affected our mental health, especially amongst our young and our elderly, and the effects of long-term COVID. We still have not wrestled with all that has happened to us, and yet we also cast the net, I would say, by being more honest with each other. More vulnerable with each other. Of having different kinds of conversations at clericus. Different kinds of conversations at parish council. Different kinds of conversations amongst friends and family and around the table of the College of Bishops.

Suddenly you can imagine that net being filled with 153 fish. And it is John who says, “It is the Lord.”

There have been moments in the last three years when we, as communities large and small, wondered if COVID would ever end. And there have been moments when, if you’re anything like me, running on empty, still having the sense that somehow it is God’s voice that whispers to us again and again: “Peace. Be still and know. It is the Lord.”

It is the Lord who has brought us to this moment in time. We have not done this all on our own. It is Jesus who has summoned us and the Holy Spirit who has bound us together. As the disciples were hauling in 153 fish, the Diocese of Toronto has been hauling in 202 congregations up back onto the beach to dry out. Like Peter, many of us have felt sodden. Burned out, tired, crackly. We have felt so tired as members of the laity, as wardens, as treasurers, as clergy, who have held the thing together seemingly forever. And now as we come back onto the beach, we sort through our congregations, and some of them are smaller and some of them are the same size and some of at them are bigger, praise God. And some people are missing, but new people are coming. And it is specifically in this moment that we have asked ourselves to enter into a visioning process.

Casting visions

The other bishops will tell you, as I tell you, that over the last number of months as we go through and we visit parishes, there is a lightness and a gladness that is slowly but surely beginning to return. I don’t think we’ve quite figured out the Peace yet. Never really sure what we do now with the Peace. Do we shake hands? Do we keep bowing? Do we hug? It’s a little like adolescents at the school dance. Haven’t quite figured it out. It takes a while to get your land legs back.

But it’s the perfect time, as a whole community, to cast visions and seek how God is calling us. And we are so grateful to all of our consultants. To Canon Ian Alexander, to Dean Peter Elliott, to Dr. Anita Gittens, ODT. To Dr. Kathleen Johnson and to our steering committee, so wonderfully led by the Rev. Dr. Alison Falby and Dave Toycen, ODT.

Listening takes discipline. It’s not easy to listen. In August of 1993, our then-primate, Archbishop Michael Peers, was invited to the National Native Convocation in Minaki. And he was given really strict instructions to listen to the stories and the legacy of hurt and abuse at Residential Schools. He would be given an opportunity to speak at the end. And Archbishop Michael once said that was one of the most helpful instructions to be given. Because when we think we’re listening, we’re actually formulating our response. But when we allow ourselves to listen, we are absorbed into the telling. And the absorption in the telling would lead to an apology that would set a course for all of us as we move into the future, knowing that we are agents of change and reconciliation.

In the same way as you have participated in this listening process with us, on this journey of casting the net, we bring now images and a report of what it is that has been heard, in the same way that Peter in our reading was invited into a listening process with Jesus after breakfast. I find it wonderful, the way they tell the story. The Creator Sets Free used the family name that was given to him, One Who Hears (Simon). One Who Hears. Those who have ears, hear. Seven times it appears in the gospels, eight times in the Book of Revelation. When we have ears, hear. Sometimes you have to be asked not once, not twice, but three times. Tend. Feed. Feed.

Some of us in this room are parts of communities who have heard the hunger pangs in our communities. Like St. Paul on-the-Hill in Pickering that started a food bank in 1990 and watch the use of that food bank go up exponentially – 7,800 members in 2012, 14,000 in 2021, over 20,000 in 2022. One hundred families, 150 seniors in Flemington Park enjoy free fresh produce that is grown at the Common Table Farm at Our Saviour in Don Mills. Just two examples of communities in the diocese who hear the hunger pangs in their communities and respond with love. Love equals food, food equals love. Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me?

It takes a while for One Who Hears, Peter, Stands on the Rock, to read and to listen between the lines. Some would say, as theologians, that we go back to that moment before the crucifixion, when Peter would deny Jesus three times. It is a sewing and amending of an old relationship and a moment of forgiveness. Yup. But I like the interpretation of Dr. Caroline Lewis, who says it’s a waking-up moment for Peter to understand who he really is, what his identity is in the resurrected Lord, as a follower and as a disciple. It’s Jesus saying, “Peter, it’s your turn to stand on the rock.”

Spiritual renewal

The same is asked of us. It’s one thing for us to say to our circle of family and friends, “I go to church.” It’s another to say to a circle of family and friends, “I’m really involved at a church. I go to this thing called Synod. How do you spell that?” It’s quite another thing to say, “I am a follower of Jesus. I am a disciple of Jesus Christ.”

We heard that again and again and again in this listening process: a deep desire that we deepen our spiritual renewal and our call to discipleship. And so as we stand on the beach in the Diocese of Toronto, an invitation to step into a season of renewal. A season when we come together in parishes and regional groups, in small groups and large groups, to pray, to be reconciled, to learn, to teach, to worship, to sing, in small groups and large groups. To be taught, to hear teachers from outside the diocese, within the diocese. To be tended and fed in our souls. And we have asked the Rev. Canon Dr. Judy Paulsen to be the coordinator of this Season of Renewal, and we will be forming a steering committee to get us started so that we begin after this Synod that takes us through to 2025.

We walked the road with Jesus. What you will hear in the presentation, I hope, from those who have been doing the listening process, a simplified little format that you can put in your hand, a handheld device almost like a compass, that reminds us of how we find our way home. In simple terms that remind us we are disciples of Jesus Christ, whose good news is the joy and the challenge at the heart of our common life. And we want to be able to hear from you your feedback and also to embrace this as we go.

Children & youth

We heard through our listening, or at least I did, a need and a deep desire to bolster our ministry amongst children and youth. As we change and orient ourselves again with areas and territories to make sure that the budget that we have for youth ministry in each of the areas is embedded in our budget for the diocese. To be able to encourage the creative use of resources like the Ignite program in Scarborough Deanery, where 13 parishes come to work together to pray and to bolster and to support our youth ministry. There are youth members in the room with us. Can I hear an Amen?

Creation care

What a wonderful telling in this gospel version. Piercing through the reading, you can hear creation, under the light of the moon and the stars. The sounds of the water lapping in the background, the sounds of water birds heard in the distance, the feeling of the warmth of the sun as it rises. A reminder to us that all that we do needs to bring creation not in the background, but into the foreground of everything that we do as servants of Christ. To take a page from the Gospel of Mark that says, “Proclaim good news to the whole of creation.” Not just to two-legged mammals, but the whole of creation, every creature, land, sea, water. To proclaim good news to watershed, to creeks, to lakes, to rivers, to valleys, to forests. For the sake of life, and for the seventh generation to come.

Anti-racism and addressing bias

I am grateful to Bishop Kevin, who has served as our Diversity Officer these last two years, and for the Bishop’s Committee on Intercultural Communities. And for those who have worked with Co: Culture Collective in designing a way and strategy forward in how we address issues of racism and bias in our community. And we will be working alongside Bishop Riscylla, who takes over as Diversity Officer, and also to hire a part-time staff person with the skills to help us enflesh this new strategy. It’s a small step, but it will grow as we strengthen together.

Planting new seeds and dreams

For 10 years, Dave Krause served as a consultant in Congregational Development, and now he becomes our Diocesan Missioner, working alongside the College of Bishops as well as Congregational Development in helping us to imagine new communities, new ways of gathering in worship, new ways of working in regions, new ways that God is calling us to plant seedlings of new communities that brings laughter, joy and possibility. Just ask Sarah.

Property and ministry

We’re delighted that Mac Moreau has come on as our director of Property Resources, and working with our executive director, Canon Rob Saffrey and the members of the Property Committee, putting into flesh the desires of Synod in being able to develop and redevelop our church properties for ministry on the frontline, whether that is housing or other developments that we need to address the issues that face us and challenge us as communities.

Brasilia

Later today you will be introduced to the bishop of the Diocese of Brasilia, Bishop Mauricio. He and I have been having conversations online about deepening our relationship and forming a companionship between our two dioceses. His flight was delayed because of the storm in Sao Paulo. He arrived at 5:35 this morning, didn’t sleep a wink on the plane. But he will be offering a workshop later today, and our guest speaker tonight. I’m looking very much forward to a deepening relationship together. We have one of the largest Lusophone communities in the world. And an opportunity for us to plant new community here in the Diocese of Toronto.

Letting go

“When you get older, someone else is going to dress you and take you where you don’t want to go.” Now I don’t know about you, but I understand that Jesus was telling Peter the death by which he would die. But I hear it a different way. It’s very difficult to give away and to let go. But to be a Good Shepherd and a good leader, you need to learn the art of giving it away in order to include and invite different perspectives, different points of view. To expand our episcopal leadership by having fewer bishops and engaging archdeacons and a canon administrator and to invite our regional deans to participate at a deeper level and to invite the whole community of every Anglican church in this diocese to learn the art of what it means to let go, to give permission and to invite others to take on. That’s not just for bishops to do, or archdeacons or regional deans. That’s for clergy, and it’s for matriarchs and for patriarchs, too. To make room. And there are going to be things that will happen in your parish that you probably won’t like very much. And it might make you feel a little uncomfortable, and you may learn a thing or two. And that’s OK.

As I’ve said many times before, Meister Eckhart, the long-ago mystic, said the soul grows by subtraction, not by addition. It is in letting go and encouraging others to become part of that the realm of God is made known in our midst.

Capital campaign

And one more thing that almost sends chills, or helps us break into hives as Anglicans, is this notion. When I imagine standing on this beach looking into the future, in helping to sustain ministry and to make the kinds of turns and changes that we need to, to help the most vulnerable communities among us and to strengthen the strongest, we need to engage in a capital campaign. That landed well. I know that’s hard, and I know asking for money is not an easy thing for Anglicans. But I also know that we continue to benefit from Our Faith-Our Hope. We are still able to seed vital ministry because of the last campaign. And this one is to be designed so that most of the funding remains in parishes to help at the frontline. I would invite you to engage in a feasibility study near the end of 2024 to imagine how God is calling us to build resources for ministry into the future.

Deep gratitude

But I must say, more than anything, I feel deep, deep, deep gratitude for being here in this space with you. And I am grateful for all those who have worked with me over these last number of years, especially the College of Bishops. To my colleagues Riscylla and Kevin, for your deep gifts and hard work at a time of transition, taking on way more than you could ever ask or imagine. To our archdeacons and our canon administrator taking on a whole new role. To our executive director, Rob Saffrey. To all of the staff at 135 Adelaide. To Mary Conliffe and Jenn Bolender King, who organize and keep me organized and remind me of my purpose. It’s good to be reminded. For every cleric in this room, for every lay leader in our parishes, deep and profound gratitude for the sacrifices you have made to help us get to this point in time. And finally, just a word of deep gratitude to my wife, Mary. For standing with me through the good and the hard, and always bringing such deep joy and reminding me of the call that we are all summoned to.

So, as they would say in the First Nations Version, let’s hit the road with Jesus. Amen.

The post It is the Lord who has brought us to this moment in time appeared first on The Toronto Anglican.

Dear friends,

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 1:2). As we come to our annual vestry meetings, it is a good time for us to reflect with thanksgiving on the past and look with a sense of hopefulness to the year ahead.

The past year was significant in many ways in the life of our diocese. First, we have been returning to some sense of normalcy after two years of Covid lockdowns and restrictions. While we continue to urge parishes to exercise caution, many of our communities have returned to something that resembles our pre-pandemic life together. We thank God that the worst of the pandemic now seems behind us.

Of course, parishes are continuing to grapple with the effects of Covid. Many of our churches continue to experience a decrease in Sunday attendance, fewer volunteers to fill key parish roles, and a diminished number of regular financial givers. Clergy and lay leaders also continue to experience a deep sense of fatigue and anxiety about the future. In that light, we continue to encourage a gentleness with one another and a renewed commitment to self-care as we navigate post-pandemic realities. Over the past year, we have been pleased to offer a mini-sabbatical opportunity for clergy. These 10 days – taken together or broken up – are intended for rest and renewal. We have been delighted to hear that many clergy have already taken a mini-sabbatical or have made plans to do so in 2023.

The past year also saw the launch of Cast the Net, a strategic visioning process for our diocese. Ably led by the Very Rev. Peter Elliott, Canon Ian Alexander and Dr. Anita Gittens, ODT, the Cast the Net team has surveyed the clergy in the diocese in various consultations, and is now engaging lay people from every parish across the diocese. Based on John 21, this biblically grounded initiative is seeking to help us chart of path forward as a diocese. We eagerly anticipate a full report from the Cast the Net team at our Synod next November.

Our restructuring of episcopal leadership also continued through 2022. The Episcopal Leadership Implementation Team followed up the good work of the Episcopal Leadership Working Group and brought forward a model for raising up and deploying territorial archdeacons and canon administrators to assist the bishops in their work. Interviews took place in November, leading to the appointment of four new archdeacons and one new canon administrator. Many of you were present at the cathedral on Jan. 15 as Archdeacon John Anderson, Archdeacon Theadore Hunt, Archdeacon Steven Mackison, Archdeacon Cheryl Palmer and Canon Laura Walton were collated. They have now begun their work and are already helping to share ministry with the College of Bishops.

After 20 years of service, Canon Clare Burns also retired as our chancellor and is now chancellor emeritus. We are grateful for Clare’s ministry and are also delighted to welcome Marg Creal as our new chancellor. Those of you who were present at the New Year’s Levee on Jan. 1 will remember the joy of Chancellor Creal’s installation.

Our work in the area of anti-bias and anti-racism (ABAR) also continued in 2022. The workshops for clergy concluded last year and we began to roll out the parish-based program. Clergy and lay facilitators are now trained to visit parishes and lead this important work. The ABAR Pod has also been formed to lead the ongoing work of dismantling bias and racism in our structures. May God continue to bless our efforts and encourage us in this vital work.

As we look ahead to a new year, we do so with a sense of great hope. Our beloved Church has changed dramatically over the past few years and will continue to change. But God is present and faithful, and our proclamation and sharing in the redemptive love of God in Christ continues to be the mission to which we are called.

Be assured of our prayers for each of you as you meet for your annual vestry meeting. We want to express our profound thanks to all who exercise leadership in the Diocese of Toronto. Whether you are stepping down from a particular ministry, or continuing on, or taking up a new role this year, thank you for your commitment and faithfulness. You are a blessing to the Church in our diocese.

We write this letter on the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul. As the Church celebrates the beginning of Paul’s evangelistic ministry to the Gentiles, please join us in praying and working for the extension of the gospel in every place, and for the renewal of the Church in our midst.

Yours faithfully in Christ Jesus,

The Rt. Rev. Andrew Asbil
Bishop of Toronto

The Rt. Rev. Riscylla Shaw
Suffragan Bishop of Toronto

The Rt. Rev. Kevin Robertson
Suffragan Bishop of Toronto

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At the bottom of Perot Street in Ste Anne-de-Bellevue on the west island of Montreal, there is a boat launch and a little park overlooking Lake Saint-Louis. And early in the morning on Saturdays, my older brother and I would often go down with a tin can full of worms and a fishing rod in the other hand. Mine was a hand-me-down. It was yellow with a very primitive reel, and it had thick black line on it. My brother’s was new, with a new Fandango spin cast reel. It was really fancy.

We would take up our place in the little park next to the boat launch alongside other fishers. Most of those fishers were regulars, and they each had a place, and if you arrived you knew not to stand in somebody else’s place. And we had our own place, too. English was spoken alongside French. Some fishers like to be silent, some like to chat about the news of the day, some like to tell the stories about the fish that got away and the one that they caught. And with every telling the fish just kept getting bigger and bigger.

When I was seven or eight, I could not master the art of casting the line. I would practice with hook, line and sinker in the backyard, but I could never quite master when to push the button to release. What made it worse on a Saturday morning is that you were literally wedged in between fishers on your left and on your right. And I was always afraid that I was going to snag somebody or hook somebody or injure somebody. My older brother was really good at it, so he would cast my line for me. But after about the umpteenth time of casting, he would become impatient, and so I found myself having to do that kind of feeble underhanded way. The hook, line and sinker would go out only a few feet, and it didn’t take long for it to come right back next to the wall. It’s really hard to catch fish right next to the wall.

But we were part of that Saturday morning casting and reeling ballet by the side of the lake. And every once in a while someone would say, “I’ve got something” and every head would turn. All the small fish, sunfish, smallmouth bass and small perch would be tossed back in, but I do remember the tremble of the line. Pulling too fast and seeing an empty hook and no bait. And I do remember the day that I caught a perch, and it was that big. You have to remember I was seven, so it was that big, but it was big enough to bring home for my mother to cook for dinner that night.

The thing about that fishing experience is that I really felt like I was part of something, that I really belonged in that place, that I was part of a ballet. The fishing in the summer of 1970 was glorious.

And then in November of 1970, in the aftermath of the FLQ Crisis, my parents announced to us that my father was taking a new charge in St. Catharines, Ont. This would be my fourth home and my third move in my young life, and I can remember feeling the burden of grief. Oddly, when I think of it now, my focus on the grief was actually on the fishing, because I never imagined that I would find another place where I would fit in quite like that.

Now my father, for his part, cast a different vision. He said, “As it happens, there is a river in the backyard of the rectory in St. Catharines. You could go fishing there.” And the misery in the middle of the night would turn some with the promise and the hope of a river running through it in the backyard.

If you can imagine, when we arrived at that rectory, the first place that I ran to was down the hill to the river, and there it was. And it was fast flowing, and it was wide, and it was green. It’s the Twelve Mile Creek. It’s part of the old Welland Canal. What we didn’t know then is that some days the water’s green, and then it would turn brown, and then it would go red, and sometimes it would have foam on the top depending on the effluent that was coming from the pulp and paper mills upriver.

We never fished in that river. The rod was put to the side wall of the garage, and there it sat as we found new ways of being able to navigate a new school, new friends, new neighbourhood.

Cast the Net

“I’m going fishing,” Peter says to the other disciples. It’s the first words in a script that we hear in John chapter 21. Chapter 21 is the culminating chapter of the gospel and invites us to step into a third resurrection moment with Jesus. And it is the hook upon which we drape our visioning process for the Diocese of Toronto, called Cast the Net.

The Cast the Net visioning is ably led by our steering committee, co-chaired by Dave Toycen with Alison Falby, and ably led by our consultants Dr. Anita Gittens, ODT, Canon Ian Alexander and Dean Peter Elliott. It is an opportunity for us to wrap ourselves in the story of chapter 21, to give us an insight of what it is that we experience at this moment as we emerge from Covid as a Church. Up to 90 per cent of our active clergy so far have already begun to be engaged in this process, and we’ll hear more about it tomorrow at Synod in the afternoon, and an opportunity over the next 12 months to engage lay people in this discernment pattern.

We are not where we used to be, and it is important for us in this moment to immerse ourselves in this new place. And so for the rest of this Charge, just simply to use chapter 21 to engage in this moment where we are.

“I’m going fishing,” Peter says. “We’re going with you,” they say. We are never told why they went fishing. Maybe they were bored, maybe they were hungry, maybe they needed to make some money. But maybe fishing became the focal point for Peter’s grief, longing to go back to a time when everything made sense and everything was clear, back to a time when at least four of them experienced that moment with Jesus on the beach, when they let go of their nets and they plumbed the depths of their experience with God and what it would mean to forgive and be forgiven. What it would mean to grow in faith, in grace, in love. What it would mean to run away on Friday, to be still on Saturday and to be raised again on Sunday.

Sometimes we long to go back, too. Back to a time in the Church when everything seemed so clear. Back to the Church of 1970, when churches were full, when choirs were overflowing, when there were children everywhere. But we know instinctively, just like the disciples discovered tonight, there is no going back. There’s only going forward.

We are told in the text that there are only seven disciples there that night, and I keep wondering to myself, “But where is everyone else?” And it’s a question we ask ourselves, too, in this moment as we emerge from pandemic, when we straddle in-person and online. And we put in the numbers for those who attended, and then we look back into 2019 and we see the gap between those who are present now. We know many have perished, we know that many have moved away, we know that many are wanting to stay home. We hear from some congregations that it is the young families and children who come to church and the seniors stay home, and in other parishes it’s the absolute opposite.

It is always a command to us as Church to seek out the lost, to keep in mind those we do not see, to find ways of grasping and holding and keeping and encouraging and keeping in touch with those that have been left behind. It is always in keeping.

They caught no fish that night. I imagine them going back and forth on the water, casting and pulling in, casting and pulling in. Their hands are getting blistered, their backs are getting sore, they’re out of practice. Not one tremble of the line. And imagine how they were feeling in that moment, as grumpy as they would be. “How on Earth have we arrived in this place? We don’t even know how to fish anymore!”

Imagine how tired they were. And we can, because we’re tired too. Our lay leaders are tired. Our staff is tired. Our deacons are tired. Our priests are tired. Our bishops are tired. Our health care workers are tired, our doctors are tired, our teachers are tired, the community is tired. We have been engaged in the three-year-long Covid ballet of understanding what it means to mask and unmask. To live at a distance, to live close. To live in isolation and online. And there is an exhaustion in it. And we long for the day when we can just put it all to the side.

Just after daybreak Jesus appears on the beach, but they did not know it was Jesus. In our biblical narrative there’s always something happening just around daybreak. All night long, Jacob wrestled with God and would not let God go until he had received a blessing. Just before daybreak, Mary would go to the tomb and see that the stone had been rolled away.

And Jesus calls out to them, “You have no fish, have you?” It’s one of the most honest moments in the text. They didn’t talk about the ones that got away, or the nibbles, or the little ones they tossed back. They simply said, “No.”

Sometimes it’s important for us just to be honest about where we are as church communities, to know that what we have left and what we have lost and what we pine for. And there are times when we too come up empty-handed.

Sometimes it’s important in our journey of faith to go empty-handed. Jesus reminded his disciples of that: “Go two by two and take nothing with you.” You see, when you go empty-handed, you receive what’s given to you. When you go empty-handed, you stay vulnerable and close to the ground. You see others around you who are just as vulnerable.

For the last almost three years, we have learned what it means to be vulnerable in the face of a tiny microbe. We have lived side by side with the most vulnerable: our seniors and elders, our homeless and those who live with food insecurity. Over the last two and a half years, we have faced the sin of racism and bias. And we have been reminded again, as we did at the beginning of this liturgy, of the legacy of the Church that has brought harm to Indigenous people. It is important when we look back to remember the times when we have snagged and hooked and injured others in our attempt to serve the mission of God. In this time, we strive desperately to make things right.

Cast your net on the right side. Make things right. It’s not an invitation; it’s a command. As Nike would say, “just do it.” When we are our most vulnerable, and when we are at our most wits’ end, and when we are most tired, Jesus says, “Do it again.” And in our doing it again, we hope not to catch or to snag, but to pull in, to rescue, to catch, to keep, to hold.

Belonging

For the last number of months, an encampment has grown outside the west doors of St. Stephen in-the-Fields. A small community of homeless people have built makeshift homes. Mother Maggie and her staff and people have done their very best to create sanctuary, and to assuage the hurt and the anger of local neighbours, and to work with city officials to find housing and dignity. There are Anglican communities right across this diocese, in small towns, in the suburbs, in the rural parts, in downtown, that are serving the needs of the poor in bringing dignity and hope. We face as a community the need to be able to create even more dignity, and a place for home and belonging.

Jamie Richards runs a market garden in Orangeville, and he is a member of St. John’s. When the pandemic began, he wondered if he should just close down his business. One day, he went into his greenhouse and he prayed to God, asking, “God, what should I do?” And the answer that came to him was, “Your ministry is to grow food.” So he kept it open, and he sold his food to restaurateurs and those who would drive by looking to purchase, and he would donate much of the food to the food bank.

The ministry of St. John’s was welcoming refugee families and immigrants, and he invited them to plant gardens in his property. While they were making food, they created community and a place to belong.

A place to belong.

“It is the Lord,” says the disciple that Jesus loved. It is the task of a church community always to make the connections where we see God at work. It is to us to bear witness to those moments when the rest of the world may not perceive it. To be able to point to those moments when the Holy Spirit, when Jesus, when God shows up.

And so moved by that experience, Peter puts on his clothes and jumps in the water. Still haven’t quite figured that one out. Maybe it’s just the desperation of finally being presentable and having a second chance. Some interpretations say he swam 100 yards. That’s maybe 100 meters. That’s two lengths of an Olympic-sized pool. That’s a long way.

Imagine Peter dragging himself on the beach, breathless, before Jesus. You can, actually. Nine hundred seventy-nine days of Covid pandemic, seven waves we have been through. You are not the same person you were when it began. Some of us have gained weight and our clothes don’t fit, and some of us have lost weight and our clothes don’t fit. Some of us have grey hairs and some of us have fewer hairs. And some of us have known the burden of isolation so long that it has affected our spirit. Some of us feel lost, and some of us are dealing with long Covid. But we are here.

We have arrived on the beach with Jesus after that length of time in Covid, and we are present. And the invitation that is given to us in this moment in time is, “Bring some fish with you and come down for breakfast.” Jesus sets the meal for us. Tonight, like every Sunday, bread and wine, body and blood. Sacrament. An invitation to live in sacramental living with Jesus.

And we bring with us our gifts. Every parish and congregation from around the diocese, large or small, brings all of the gifts that we have together as we meet for Synod. We bring our hospitality and our outreach, our prayers, our discipleship, our bible study. We bring all of that together. We bring our vulnerabilities and our strengths. We share what we have with each other. We learn to work together in a way that we have not worked before. And we live that promise that we are fed. When we say yes to our baptismal covenant, the Reign of God comes near. When we allow God to use those gifts that have been given to us, we are formed into the mystical Body of Christ and the Church is awakened. When we say “yes.”

Theologian Verna Dozier wrote a wonderful book called The Dream of God. In it she writes, sometimes Christians choose to make Jesus an idol, one to be worshipped rather than to be followed. Worship, unless in the use for discipleship, is blasphemy. Worship, unless used for discipleship, is blasphemy. We are encouraged to answer the call to discipleship, and that call to discipleship is an invitation to citizenship in the Reign of God, where we take on the love and the compassion of Jesus, where we are bound not by yesterday, nor afraid of tomorrow, nor do we draw a line between friend and foe or those who are in and those who are out. That is the call.

We are reminded in the last line of the gospel. After our bellies are full comes the moment when Jesus is inviting Peter to a deeper road of reconciliation and love. “Peter, son of Simon, do you love me more than these?”

Three things

In our want to make things right and to move together as a Church in the Diocese of Toronto, there are at least three things that we know that we need to work on continually. The first is to renew our commitment to reconciliation with First Nations, Inuit and Métis people of this nation, of this Canada. That we recommit ourselves to call to action and to do all that we are able to do to be emblems of healing and reconciliation.

Antonio Guterres said this week at COP27 – this is number two – we are on the highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator, and if we don’t move and change now, we will tip over into climate chaos. We know that.

Not very long ago, I was asked to moderate a conversation with a panel, and the question was, “What would happen if the Diocese of Toronto took climate crisis seriously?” We came up with all sorts of solutions. But at one point the question was asked, “But what will it take for us to change?” And one of our panelists, Brian Walsh, said “Love.”

To love the stream. To love the creek bed. To love the pond and the forest and the tree and every living creature on this planet. To love. It is love that pronounces a new vision that we hear in our first reading from Ezekiel of waters emanating out of the temple, at first only ankle deep, then knee deep, then waist deep, that moves out throughout the Earth, that replenishes all living things. Not rivers that are brown or red, but green and full of life. That vision is the vision that we must live out of as a people of faith in a time of deep and profound need, for the sake of not only ourselves but the generations and generations and generations to come. Our time is now.

The third thing: to commit ourselves to anti-racism and anti-bias. To commit ourselves to training and learning and tearing down all walls that divide us. To commit ourselves each and every day as the people of God to walk in unison and to make no dividing line between those who are in and those who are out, foe or friend. We stand on the cusp of a new time together. We are not to be afraid of what is to come, but to embrace it and to name those places where Christ calls us to serve, even if we’re tired, because we will be replenished. God is coming and counting on us to be present in this moment.

Gratitude

Tonight, as we head into Synod, one feeling that I feel at the top of the list is gratitude. I am so grateful for every lay leader in the Diocese of Toronto that takes their baptismal covenant to heart and says “yes.” I am grateful for our vice chancellors and in particular our Chancellor Clare Burns, 20 years of ministry. For your wisdom, for your love of the Church and for your presence. For every deacon who reminds us of the needs of the world. For every priest who breaks bread and pours wine. For our bishops Riscylla and Kevin, who signed up for way more than you could ever ask or imagine, especially in this time of transition. The weight has been extreme, and you have borne it well, and I cannot imagine doing this work without the two of you.

To the staff of 135 Adelaide, for all of our directors, for our executive director Canon Robert Saffrey, who carries a particular weight with such grace and deep humour. To Mary Conliffe, who keeps everything in order. For Jenn, who keeps it in order again.

And for Mary my beloved, who reminds me every day that all shall be well.

Amen.

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In August of 2019, Mary and I had the opportunity of going to Israel on a pilgrimage with 14 other bishops and archbishops and their spouses from across the Communion. We were a diverse community from east and west, north and south. We travelled by foot and we travelled by bus to pilgrimage sites. Our conversations and our time together were steeped in bible study, in prayer and in community. 

One day we got on our bus very early in the morning and we headed down the highway towards Jericho. Partway down the road, the bus pulled off and we were invited to go by foot, to walk up the side of a hill. There at the top of the hill was a plateau, and on the plateau were tiered seats looking out over the valleys and hills. In the middle of that plateau was a table, around which pilgrims could gather to break bread and pour out the wine. From that vantage point, in every direction, you could see nothing but hill upon hill upon hill of barren, dry land. Not a sign of any green or foliage or life whatsoever. 

We were invited to then walk into the wilderness, to take a little walk out into the middle of the space, to find a lonely spot on our own just to sit and to meditate and to pray. So we walked out into the desert, and we found a spot to sit and to be quiet and to be still. I remember in that moment, though it was early in the morning, it was so hot, and I could only imagine how hot it would be by noon. Down below where we were sitting, in the valley, was a dry river bed. And on the shore of that wadi, like a finger tracing a line in the sand, was the old road from Jericho to Jerusalem. More of a footpath than a road, but in its time a major thoroughfare for travellers, for caravans carrying trade, for pilgrims going to the city, from one to the other, 18 miles’ distance between the two. From our vantage point it became pretty evident that those who would travel that old road were very much at peril with the elements of heat, but also isolated and subject to attack by bandits. 

It is particularly in this place that Jesus chooses to tell the story, to push the point with the lawyer. It’s the time and the place where Jesus pushes the point to describe the love that we’re called to have for our neighbours – in that lonely place, in the barrens, in the wilderness, betwixt and between Jerusalem and Jericho. And it’s not a bad place to set the context for this Charge to Synod, as we live out our ministry betwixt and between, in a time of pandemic. So join me in a time of reflection, a time of prayer and meditation in God’s presence.

Agape love

Our story begins with the question that is posed by the lawyer: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus responds with another question: “What is it that you read in scripture?” The lawyer aptly puts two verses to together to weave them into one: Deuteronomy 6 and Leviticus 19:8: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. And you shall love your neighbour as yourself.” 

The word in that text for “love” is “agape” in Greek. That word is a love that describes the need to give of self to the other; not the concern of self, but that can’t help but give love away. It’s not love that is expressed through familiarity or attraction or emotion, but is steeped in commitment, in justice and concern and sacrifice for the other. It is divine love. And we hear of this love spoken elsewhere in scripture. “Love is patient and kind, never boastful, arrogant or rude.” “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.” “No greater love have we than to lay down our life for a friend.”

The lawyer responds with another question: “Then, who is my neighbour? Who do I share this love with? Who do I bestow this love upon?” And Jesus tells a simple story: A man was going down to Jericho. He fell amongst thieves. He was robbed and beaten and stripped and left for dead. And they went away.

Liminal space

When you and I left Synod in 2019, we had in our back pocket a two-year balanced budget, we had two years left on our Growing in Christ strategic plan, and we could imagine that the future would be pretty predictable and change would come incrementally. Were we ever wrong. None of us could have ever imagined what would happen in March of 2020, that we would be pushed out of our buildings, out of our schools, out of our places of employment. That we would join long lines going to grocery stores, that movie houses and bars and restaurants would close. We imagined that we would be back in our buildings by maybe Easter or Pentecost. Maybe that was naivete, maybe that was wishful thinking, maybe that was arrogance. 

In quick order, we transformed our dining rooms and our kitchens and our flats and our apartments into office space. We shared wi-fi with children going to school and partners going to work. Our early offerings online were tentative, a little awkward, sometimes embarrassing. And yet we learned, like riding a bike, and we gained confidence. We learned new terms like “pivot” and “Zoom” and “breakout rooms.” We learned to say, “please unmute.” We learned to live apart from each other, to wear masks. We learned how to bump elbows in order to keep all of the community safe.

A man was going down to Jericho, and he fell amongst thieves, and he was robbed and he was stripped bare and left for dead, and they went away. The longer that we have been living in this space between and betwixt what we have known and where we are going, living in this time of pandemic has encouraged us to see that we are dwelling in a time of liminality. Our guest speaking for our clergy conference in 2021 was Susan Beaumont, and she reminded us that “liminal” comes from the Latin “limen,” which is literally the threshold stone at the base of a doorway that one has to traverse in order to move inside and outside. That limen or liminal space is that place between what we have known, what we have experienced, and where we are going. In a time such as this, where we are going is fuzzy, not clear, not planned out entirely. We have a sense in this liminal time that going back is not an option, and we know living in this liminal space means that it is not for the faint of heart. 

We are a people who love to plan out our journey, every aspect of it. When we plot out a course on a journey, we usually plug in the coordinates on a GPS or Waze to find the simplest way from one point to the next. But in this time of liminality, we are in fact given a compass that bears magnetic north and gives us bearings in the direction we go, not with precision but with the invitation to move in new directions. In this liminal space, God calls us to settle and to understand that going back to what we knew is not an option, but we live into the present in ways that we have never lived before, in hybrid. Somehow in time and beyond time. In person and online. Local and yet global.

Stepping into the wilderness

A man went down to Jericho, and he fell into the hands of thieves, and he was beaten and he was stripped, and they left him for dead. In the last 19 months, the Church of God, the Anglican Church in the Diocese of Toronto, has stepped into this wilderness with a sense of enthusiasm, on adrenaline and on instinct, to serve. We have at times planned and not planned, we have moved outside of our comfort zones, outside the box, to be present to a community around us.

The Church of the Nativity, Malvern spent a Sunday celebrating frontline workers in their own congregation who every day serve agape love to the wider community. A postal worker. Nurses. A police officer. Thirty members who were honoured on a Sunday morning, given a certificate by their local MP, a certificate by the parish and a keychain with the words of the Lord’s Prayer.

Grace Church, Markham, through their creative ways, developed a website where seniors could sign up for vaccination and a ride to the vaccination appointment and a ride home, helping hundreds of community members get the care that they need.

The Anglican Outreach Network, which was formed during pandemic, gathered all of the outreach ministries that serve the poor and the underprivileged together from east and west, north and south in the diocese to source PPE and source food, and to be able to create protocols to keep people safe while honouring and upholding those who are most vulnerable.

Our Refugee Network created an opportunity for parishes to be able to serve together and to plan how to reach out across the world to welcome newcomers to Canada.

The South Etobicoke Cluster was formed, with primary leadership from St. Margaret, New Toronto to gather 28 agencies to coordinate care and help to the community.

Words of gratitude

None of us could have imagined on March 20, and 19 months later, that we would be living through a time where we, like the man at the side of the road, have been robbed of so much. That we have experienced the pain and suffering of being stripped of our health and our security. That so many have been left by the side of the road. In the early part of the pandemic, it was our elderly in long-term care homes who were so vulnerable. Those who live in congregant settings, especially the homeless, who chose to live outside in tents, and those who live with precarious housing and food insecurity. And the Church has swept in to be able to honour and to help. But it has also come at a cost. Nineteen months later – one wave, two waves, three waves, four waves and perhaps counting – we know how tired the Church is in being able to step into that space. How brittle many of our leaders in our communities feel in this time of deep anxiety and change. 

I’d like to share a word to our clergy, to our priests and deacons in parishes and ministries in the Diocese of Toronto. I know how tired you are, and I know the weight of the office that you have been living over the last 19 months. Whether you are newly ordained or you have been practising this ministry for 40 years, nothing has prepared you for this time. And yet you have embodied this ministry in this time and space with such grace and with such patience and with such love. I am deeply grateful as your bishop for the sacrifice that you have made over these last 19 months. Together we take encouragement through the words of Paul: “And we boast in our suffering, because suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint. Because the love of God has been poured out into us through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

A word to our lay leaders: To our music directors, to office administrators, to outreach workers, to youth workers, to wardens and members of councils, and all of the volunteers that make up the life of your parish in this community. I am so deeply grateful for your witness to the gospel in this time of upset and change, for the tireless nature with which you lead and gather and hold the community together, mustering one step in front of the other. I am grateful for all of the hours it has taken you to open and close and open again and close again, to put into place protocols and vaccination policies. As those who have gone before you in your parish, you are encompassed by such a great cloud of witnesses, and a reminder in Hebrews that we put away every weight and every sin, and we run the race that is set before us, and we keep our eyes fixed on the finisher of our race, who is Jesus Christ.

A word to our staff at 135 Adelaide: I am in awe of how hard you have worked over the last 19 months, in interfacing with communities on the ground, with government officials, in creating protocols and policies, answering questions and containing anxiety for leaders in the diocese. You have done it with such grace and such love and purpose, and for the last 19 months you have led with such love and joy. I am so grateful for every one of you, and a deep pride that I serve alongside you every day.

A word to our bishops: When we left Synod in 2019 there were five of us and now, Bishop Riscylla and Bishop Kevin, there are just three. You have taken on more than you could ever ask or imagine, and you have done it with such love and patience, too. I admire the way you lead with presence and humility in being able to cajole and to lead and to follow and to encourage the Church of God in the Diocese of Toronto. It is a joy to work alongside you every single day.

To Mary and Jennifer Bolender King: I am deeply grateful for your leadership, Canon Mary Conliffe and Jennifer Bolender King, for the way you help and guide my everyday work as the diocesan bishop. I could not do that without your encouragement and your direction.

I am grateful to our vice chancellors, Brian Armstrong and Paul Baston, who have taken on a deeper load of encouragement and giving of advice as we have moved through this time. But deeper still, I am so grateful to our chancellor, Clare Burns. You need to know that I am on the phone with Clare at least once a week, sometimes two times a week or more. Clare, you have been a presence of stillness and calm and giving of wisdom in a time of change and upset. For all of the hours of carrying the anxiety of the Church, I am so grateful.

And finally to my wife, Mary. Thank you for the love and the encouragement that you give to me every day.

Draw near, see and have compassion

Let’s go back to the road. At that point in the story, there happened to be a priest walking down the road, and he saw the man and passed by. And then a Levite happened to walk down the road, and he passed by too. I find that the most challenging part of the story. I know that biblical scholars over time have given good reasons why they might have done that. Perhaps they thought the man was dead, and to touch a corpse would mean that they would not be able to serve in the temple. Maybe. Or perhaps they thought that the man wasn’t dead, it was a trap, that he would suffer a similar fate. Or maybe that he was half dead and stripped, and that the bandits were still in the proximity. It’s better to keep moving and phone 911 from a distance. 

But to be honest, I’ve never found those reasons persuasive, in the same way that the reasons that I’ve given on my own journey when I’ve missed an opportunity to stop and to serve have not been persuasive either. If we’re honest as a Church, there have been times when we have passed by and not taken the time to act and to serve, and missed an opportunity to be the eyes and the hands and the feet and the heart of God. While it’s tempting to race through this pandemic like the priest and the Levite to get to our destination, God is calling us to live in the midst of this time of liminality, to be God’s people and to share God’s love. And so there are three pieces that we need to learn, I think, from the example of the Samaritan that help guide us into 2022, 2023 and 2024 and beyond.

First is this: He came near to him, he saw him and he had compassion. Come near, see and have compassion. On May 25, 2020, we witnessed the brutal murder of George Floyd, the lifeless body of a man in the streets. The whole world watched that moment, and the whole world summoned change, to open our eyes to anti-black racism and bias. The Diocese of Toronto stepped into that moment and created a program of training, of anti-bias and anti-racism training for clergy and for lay leaders in the diocese, which is being lived out in the moment. We will in 2022 continue to systemically change racism in our Church, to dismantle and to put into place new ways of helping us move as a community, including conducting a racial diversity survey of our congregations.

In the summer of 2021, we witnessed the moment when the unmarked graves of so many children were revealed on the sites of former residential schools in this country, awakening and opening our eyes once again to the long road of reconciliation that we have been on as Anglicans since the apology of our Archbishop Michael Peers in 1993 – but a renewed call to be agents of reconciliation and change. At this Synod, we entertain and consider Motion 12, which invites us to give 10 per cent or the tithe of our Ministry Allocation Fund, which is sourced by selling properties in the Diocese of Toronto, and for the next year to commit that amount to reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. 

Draw near, and see, and have compassion for creation. As Anglicans in this diocese, as individuals, as families, as congregations, we must do our very best to lower our carbon footprint, to do the very best that we can to save the planet. It is our time to act and to be protective, to use our properties in such a way as to promote healing of the world, and to be agents of reconciliation with creation.

The mission of God is calling us outside of our church buildings. The hurt and the woundedness of the world is summoning us to do our part to engage in the mission of God. And this is a time when we look beyond ourselves to find how we can respond to the emerging need.

Healing and discernment

The second thing we learn from the Samaritan: He bandaged his wounds, he poured wine and water, he put him on his animal, brought him to the inn, and he took care of him. The wounded are not just outside the Church; the wounded are within the Church walls too. In this time of living in liminal space, many of us are tired and wounded. It is important for us in this time to reflect, to pray and to be reminded that our healer, who is Jesus the Lord, is in our midst, and that we as a community take every opportunity to share in sacrament, in bible study, in reflection and in prayer, to seek the wisdom of God’s presence in our midst. This is a time as communities when we know that recovery and pulling the people of God back to worship will take time. It’s important to be patient with each other, to be kind to each other, to seek after the lost, to leave the 99 and to go out into the wilderness to find the one to bring them in.

It’s a time when congregations need to take account of where we are and how God is calling us into the future. Some parishes will be ready to plant new ideas and new ministries, while others need to consolidate and to imagine a new future, whether that’s with a neighbouring parish or in a regionalized ministry, or to be able to re-imagine ministry in a new way in that same place. 

There is opportunity for us to do the same. As we have come to the end of our Growing in Christ strategic plan, it’s tempting for us to quickly come up with a new plan. But I believe that God is calling us into that same space of discernment, to be able to form listening circles throughout our diocese, in very much the same way the national church has done, and to listen for the calling of God, who is urging us to be the Church in the future as we build and understand our call tomorrow.

In the same way, at this Synod we will entertain a change in our governance pattern, an opportunity to be more nimble as we keep moving in these uncertain times. And also that episcopal leadership in this diocese will now move forward with three bishops and further support.

A call to generosity

The third thing that we learn from the Samaritan: He gave the innkeeper two denarii and said, “Take care of him. When I come back, I will settle whatever I owe you.” Two denarii is two days’ wages. That was a tremendous sum of money that speaks of the generosity and magnanimity of God’s love. We are called to that same generosity, especially in a time of pandemic and especially in a time of wilderness between here and there. It is tempting to hold, to keep, to believe that we live in scarcity, and yet by faith we know that God calls us to abundance.

In 2020, Diocesan Council passed a motion to sell two pieces of property to provide wages for three months for every cleric in the diocese and three months of relief from allotment. In 2022, we offer one month of relief from allotment, and also build into our budget an opportunity for parishes that are suffering financially to apply for more relief. We recognize that it is difficult to move through this time, and more support needs to be given. 

We also know that this is a call to the Church to speak about stewardship, to pray about stewardship, to offer opportunities for Anglicans to be generous. In 2020, I asked a member of this diocese to consider offering $100,000 as a matching grant for FaithWorks. She thought about it, and she said, “I would like to do that, but I’d like to match only new donations to the FaithWorks program.” We took that challenge, and in 2020 we raised the second largest amount towards our annual appeal in the history of FaithWorks. That same donor is offering the same challenge in 2021, our 25th year, and I hope and I pray God that we as Anglicans in this diocese may respond with the same generosity. Fourteenth-century mystic Meister Eckhart once said that the soul grows not by addition but by subtraction. It is when we let go and offer that our souls grow too.

Go and do likewise

Here we are in the midst of a pandemic as Synod 2021, as a Diocese of Toronto, and God calls us to bear witness in this time, because God is in this time with us. It is God that is calling us as a diocese to have the strength, the fortitude, the confidence and the will to persist and to keep going. And with God’s strong presence we serve. Theologian Karoline Lewis once said that the Samaritan draws near to the man trusting that the Kingdom of God draws near. And the Kingdom draws near to us when we respond in the same way. God is calling us to be present in this time of disruption and change, to be signs of love and compassion for our neighbours. And we heed the call that Jesus has given as a last word to the lawyer: go and do likewise. Amen.

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Following the example of Bishop Selwyn of New Zealand, who invited lay delegates to attend his clergy visitation in 1851, Bishop John Strachan asked the clergy of the Diocese of Toronto to do likewise for the visitation in October 1853. Once gathered, Bishop Strachan declared the assembly to be a Synod. The first of its kind in the Anglican Communion.

The next time you are in St. James Cathedral, I invite you to take a moment and stand at the foot of the chancel step and face the altar. Look to the left, at the first stained glass window in the nave. The bottom portion of the window commemorates this first “unconventional” Synod. Bishop Strachan presides as the delegates, both clergy and lay, gather round. The scene takes place at Holy Trinity, Trinity Square. It was a momentous occasion, when decision-making, planning and the work of the diocese became the shared endeavour of clergy and laity. Episcopally led and synodically governed would become a reality 168 years ago.

Still standing at the foot of the chancel step, now look to the right. The first window in the nave depicts the Day of Pentecost. In beautiful hues of yellow, gold, green and blue, the scene captures the moment when tongues as of fire came to rest on each of the disciples. Alight with the power of the Holy Spirit, the followers of Jesus would break out into the streets of Jerusalem to become instruments of grace and love. The Church would come to life in a new way.

This November, we will convene the 160th regular session of Synod for the Diocese of Toronto. This time, it will be in an unconventional way – online, a first for our diocese. Some of us love gathering for Synod and others not so much. I happen to enjoy Synod. I enjoy seeing my friends and colleagues. I enjoy sharing a table with a parish from a different part of the diocese. I relish the cluster of conversations that happen around display tables, by the coffee stand and around the bar. I enjoy the formal dinner, the debates on relevant issues and the thoughtful engagement of ideas. And yes, I agree, there are moments that are a bit, well, dry. Yet these moments matter somehow, too. I will miss gathering in person this year. And yet, I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to assemble virtually in these precarious times.

The stained-glass windows on the right and on the left in the nave of the cathedral remind me that we should never take Synod for granted. It is a critically important gathering of the Church. The juxtaposition of these two seminal scenes in our church history also remind me that our gathering is to be steeped in worship and praise. We gather in humility. We draw together to honour one another in a spirit of Christian love. We have opportunity to look back and give thanks to God for bringing us safely to this moment in time. We have the occasion to address issues that are pertinent to our times: climate change, poverty and lack of affordable housing, reconciliation with our Indigenous siblings, supporting congregations and leaders through this pandemic.

We have come this far along the way through trouble and lockdown by being vigilant and doing our part alongside other front-line workers. Deeper still, we arrive together knowing that we are never alone. God our creator, Jesus our Saviour and the Holy Spirit our inspirer call us to look to tomorrow with confidence and hope, just like our biblical ancestors did before us.

The LORD is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. (Psalm 9.9)

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