“Thousands and thousands of trees have been killed,” says the Rev. Stephen Kirkegaard, incumbent of Holy Trinity. “We have lost 130 trees on our property alone. It looks like a clear cut.”

The trouble for Holy Trinity began in 2012, when a few trees were removed. Since then, a few more have been cut down every year, culminating in a staggering 96 trees cut down in the first four months of this year. All that is left on the property is four trees.

The cost to the parish has been enormous, too. The bill for tree removal is approaching $50,000, and that is on top of $60,000 for a new church roof.

Fortunately, Bishop Patrick Yu, the area bishop of York-Scarborough, became the parish’s champion, and the area council gave Holy Trinity a grant of $15,000 to help pay for tree cutting. Parishioners also responded to a special appeal to cover the tree costs, and two fundraising concerts raised $29,000.

The loss for the church has also become a loss for the village. Holy Trinity is situated on a large, unfenced lot right at the village crossroads, and over the years it has sought different ways to engage with the community, outside the church walls.

As a result, the church property has become the village green, hosting concerts, theatre, a farmers market, an annual garage sale, barbecues, the Seniors Health Fair and Back to Church Sundays.

The Guildwood community has rallied to the church’s support, its ratepayers association donating a couple of thousand dollars for the tree cutting. Now, as it plans the replanting of the property, the parish is in talks with the community.

“We’ve started a Trees Down/Trees Up campaign,” says Mr. Kirkegaard. “As we replant, we’re speaking to the community about how we can best use the property to serve the community. We want to try and capture a missional vision for it.”

He also anticipates financial help from all three levels of government. “I think all levels of government are saying there’d be some willingness to assist in the replanting,” he says. “Replanting is much easier to get support for than cutting down.”

Although it has been a devastating loss, parishioners’ morale is high. In the Our Faith-Our Hope campaign, Holy Trinity raised $236,000, exceeding its target by $91,000, says Mr. Kirkegaard. People felt very encouraged when, after Holy Trinity supported the diocese, the diocese in turn supported it in its time of need.

“For the parish, it was nice to see that immediate loop of support and fellowship from the diocese,” he says, adding, “Although we are dismayed by the loss of our beautiful tree canopy, we are excited about the missional possibilities of our Trees Down, Trees Up campaign.”

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Dubbing themselves “Team Body and Soul,” the pair will join 90 other cyclists on an eight-day, 600-kilometre ride to the major battlefields of the First and Second World Wars.

Each participant is expected to raise $4,000, the funds going to Wounded Warriors Canada programs that assist ill and injured members of the Armed Forces.

The ride is a continuation of the 2014 Wounded Warriors Canada Battlefield Bike Ride from Normandy to Vimy Ridge, in which Canon Warren and Dr. Burridge also participated.

This year, it starts at Vimy and ends at Groesbeek Cemetery in Nijmegen for the 70^th anniversary of VE Day and the liberation of the Netherlands.

Canon Warren, who was chaplain to the reserve forces until his retirement in 2013, says last year’s ride was the first long distance cycling he had done. He has been training for this ride ever since, in the gym for the winter months and on the road in better weather.

“Currently we’re supposed to be road-riding three days a week and one of those rides should be approximately three hours long,” he explains. Days on the tour begin at 8 a.m. and, with scheduled breaks, end at 4 or 5 p.m.

The biking should be easier this year, he says, as it starts in the hills of France and ends on the flat land of Holland. “Last year it was a lot uphill,” he adds. ”We found the one day of 120 km was just a little too much for everybody.”

Canon Warren praises the continuing support for Wounded Warriors that comes from Anglican chaplains in the reserves and regular military. He notes that the organization not only provides programs for the ill and injured, it also provides ongoing support for their families.

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The opportunity will arise at the Vital Church Planting Conference, to be held at St. Paul, Bloor Street from Jan. 29 to 31. The last day of the conference – a Saturday – is specially designated for teams of laity.

Co-sponsored by the Diocese of Toronto and the Wycliffe College Institute of Evangelism, the conference offers an exploration of fresh expressions of church and church planting.

If anyone looks at the changing culture and feels helpless or confused and wonders about the future of the church, they will find this conference encouraging and educational, says the Rev. Ryan Sim, one of the organizers.

“They will learn about exciting things that are happening in Canada to reach new people, and they will learn some of the steps that have brought about those new forms of church,” he says.

In previous years, the conference looked to the United Kingdom for inspiration, since the Fresh Expression movement began there. However, this year there is a change.

“Enough is happening in Canada in terms of fresh expressions of church and people pioneering new forms of ministry to reach new people that we can have an entirely Canadian focus,” says Mr. Sim, who is the priest-in-charge of Redeemer, Ajax, and a church planter himself.

The conference will showcase a variety of fresh expressions of church, new church plants and other pioneering forms of ministry that are happening across Canada. It will include plenary sessions and workshops.

Providing education and support to lay people is important because many fresh expressions of church bubble up from the grassroots and are led and sustained by lay people.

Although the Saturday will be devoted to lay people who come in parish teams or individually, clergy are also encouraged to take part. Jared Seibert will be the speaker for the day. The parish teams will get together for hands-on practice of some of the skills they will need to start something new back home.

One focus will be on missional listening. Teams will be sent out to walk the neighbourhood around St. Paul’s, to understand its context and what God is doing there. Then they will return to the church and discuss the trends and needs they see in the community, and consider how to serve those needs in a way that builds community and makes disciples.

“I hope people will walk away from this conference saying, ‘I know how to do that now,’” says Mr. Sim. “I hope it’s not just passive learning, in terms of listening to a speaker and then going to a workshop where they listen to another speaker. They’re going to listen to a speaker and then try out what they’ve learned.”

“This conference will help them dream about some creative ways to spread that good news,” he says.

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The covenant was inspired by a similar arrangement between two congregations in Rochester, N.Y. The Peterborough churches also drew inspiration from team ministry work in the Church of England and from the fresh expressions movement. The covenant was developed in consultation with Bishop Linda Nicholls, the area bishop of Trent-Durham.

The Rev. Geoff Howson, the priest-in-charge at All Saints, explains that all five churches are facing challenging times, with smaller congregations and tighter budgets. “Doing this forces us to ask how we can be creative and find a new way of being the church, so we can use our resources and not get hung up on being maintenance-oriented,” he says.

A major benefit has been that the five clergy are able to work as a team, rather than as “Lone Rangers,” he says. They meet weekly and offer support to each other. As trust builds, they discuss difficult situations and seek insight and advice from each other.

The five churches will remain distinct, governed by their own corporations and annual vestries, and will worship in their own locations. However, they hope the covenant will open the door to opportunities to better serve the needs of Peterborough.

As an example, says Mr. Howson, on issues of social justice such as poverty and homelessness, the five voices representing a large part of Peterborough can be powerful. “By joining together, we’re able to have a more profound voice in a city that does have a fair number of social issues it needs to confront,” he says.

The churches will share programs and worship as well. A Covenant Choir has been formed from 28 singers drawn from the five churches, and they are singing at special events. As well, there was a joint outdoor worship service in September and a joint Blessing of the Animals service in October.

The churches may also band together to sponsor a refugee family. “All five churches are trying to be missional, becoming more aware of our neighbourhoods,” says Mr. Howson. “How can we reach out and be a presence there?”

A covenant council has been established, with equal representation from each church, comprising the incumbent, churchwarden and two members of each congregation. The council will advise incumbents on worship, pastoral care and Christian education, and make recommendations to the churchwardens on shared opportunities in administration and property management. The council has also established several working groups that will focus on family ministry, education and training, worship, health, communications and shared events.

Peterborough is in the midst of significant change, and Mr. Howson believes the covenant offers an opportunity to be a new kind of church in the city. What that church will look like, no one knows, he says. “Maybe this will become the Anglican-Lutheran parish of Peterborough, where you have a team ministry,” he says. “I think that’s a possibility.”

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Called Spirit of Invitation, the resource draws on stories from people’s lives today and from stories of invitation in the Bible. It includes original videos, shot on location in the diocese.

“We hope people will be excited by the course and grow in comfort with sharing the good news of the Gospel,” says the Rev. Canon Mark Kinghan, the incumbent of St. George on Yonge, Toronto, and co-chair of the group.

Spirit of Invitation consists of six sessions, each about two hours long, ideally for groups of six to eight people. Each session includes discussion, prayer, a video and a study of scripture. People will be encouraged to reflect on their own experiences and why they want to share their faith, and how sharing is a form of invitation.

The course material was written by the Rev. Judy Paulsen, professor of evangelism at Wycliffe College, and the Rev. Canon Susan Bell, the diocese’s canon missioner.

The group wants to make Spirit of Invitation as accessible as possible. Early next year, 10 parishes will be asked to run the course as a six-week pilot project. However, the videos will be available on the Internet before the end of December, with the course materials following in January. At that point, parishes and individuals can start using them right away.

“It doesn’t matter to us how a person receives the material or even how they use it,” says Canon Kinghan. “The important thing is getting it out there with a message that says invitation is really good and it’s not all that hard.”

He adds that by being available online, the course could spread from Toronto to other dioceses in Canada and even overseas. The Diocese of Huron has already asked if it could run the pilot project at the same time as Toronto.

“In some respects, Spirit of Invitation can become a gift from the Diocese of Toronto to the wider church,” says Canon Kinghan.

The introduction to the course materials asks participants to see the six sessions “as a way to begin a different conversation, one that will put us in a creative space – one that will get us moving out into our neighbourhoods and cities to find out what God is doing in the lives of all his children.”

The course is based on the following assumptions: “We offer the love of God out of the abundance of what we ourselves have been given; we offer this invitation from a community into a community – this is not an individualistic evangelism course; the process of invitation is grounded in relationships; invitation is a process that often happens over time; invitation is not a program, it is an attitude of heart and mind; offering an invitation is grounded in the Christian family story.”

One of the most engaging parts of the course are the videos. “They’re going to surprise people,” says Jeff Potter, pastor of outreach and evangelism at the Church of the Transfiguration, Toronto, and co-chair of the group. “They explore a range of topics, things that Anglicans and Christians in general, experience, and they relate these things back to what it means to engage in the kind of invitation that’s open and unforced and doesn’t at all smack of solicitation.”

The first video in the course tells a personal story of invitation, and the joy of how invitation is experienced in a shared meal and the Eucharist. Other videos look at joy in greater depth and reflect the theological thrust of invitation.

“The videos and the course material are inviting the participants into a moment, and that in itself teaches people what invitation’s about,” says Canon Kinghan. He predicts that once people view a video, they will want to share it with others, and use it as a resource to engage in conversation.

Spirit of Invitation grew out of Back to Church Sunday, which has been run in many parishes in the diocese for the past five years. Canon Kinghan said Spirit of Invitation is not a substitute for Back to Church Sunday; rather, it is a different way to look at invitation, for those who want to.

“Back to Church Sunday focuses on specific Sundays when we invite people to church with the hope that they will stay,” he says. “Spirit of Invitation has taken a broader look, saying we’re always about invitation and it’s not limited to this Sunday or that Sunday. It’s how we make it part of our life, and our relationships, all the time.”

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The shipping industry has changed dramatically since 2008, and the Anglican mission to those who work on the ocean “salties” and Great Lakes “lakers” has to change with the times. As a result, it is revitalizing its port ministries and adopting a more missional approach.

Ms. Alltree was appointed interim director of the Mission to Seafarers in Toronto in April 2013, pending its amalgamation with the mission in Hamilton. A year later, she was appointed executive director of the newly amalgamated mission, which serves not only Hamilton and Toronto, but also Oshawa.

In the past, seafarers would come to the mission station once the ship had docked. Now they often do not have the chance to leave the ship, so the mission comes to them. “Sixty to seventy per cent of what we do is ‘going out,’” she says.

This new approach needs people, and Ms. Alltree is anxious to find volunteers who can be trained as ship visitors. Crews come to the Ontario ports from around the world, and it would be an advantage if the volunteers could speak a language in addition to English.

Above all, they need to be good listeners. Seafarers are away from home for months at a time and often, as was the case with a Ukrainian crew this summer, they leave behind a precarious situation at home.

“We are dealing with a multi-faith, multi-denominational, no-faith world,” says Ms. Alltree, adding that the universal need of seafarers is to have someone to listen to them.

Volunteers should also be ready to work irregular hours with as little as a day’s notice. Ships arrive late and leave early, and the mission wants ship visitors to be there as soon as they arrive.

Ms. Alltree also hopes to attract people with social media and graphic arts skills who will, among other things, produce an electronic newsletter. The most important challenge facing the mission is to develop more connections with local Anglican communities in Toronto and Oshawa, and also with ecumenical and interfaith ministries.

One of the high points this summer came when a German ship was abandoned in Oshawa, with the Romanian crew left aboard, unpaid. The mission found a Romanian Orthodox church in the port area and contacted the pastor and his wife, who rallied their church community to welcome the crew into their homes, take them to church and give them moral support.

“Now we have a connection in the port with another Christian denomination, and they want to become involved in the mission,” says Ms. Alltree.

She is also determined to connect seafarers to local communities, especially the thousands of people who are coming to live in the newly developed Distillery and Canary districts. She points out that 90 per cent of everything we use comes to us on a ship, but the people who bring these goods here have become invisible to us.

“Connecting the seafarers with the local communities where their products are first brought makes a difference in their lives,” she says. “They feel somebody cares about the work that they do, that they don’t disappear into the ether after the cargo gets discharged. That’s really important to us at the mission.”

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The cathedral wanted to mark the centennial of the start of the First World War, but in a way that differed from the many other commemorative events taking place in the city, says cathedral archivist Nancy Mallett.

She discovered that there had never been an exhibition in Canada honouring the military chaplaincy, and so it was decided that the cathedral exhibit would provide a historical overview of the roles of chaplains as they have accompanied troops during conflicts and natural disasters.

Called to Serve: An Exhibit Honouring Canada’s Military Chaplains of All Faiths is designed to go beyond the Anglican and even Christian point of view. As Ms. Mallett points out, the “call of empire” in the First World War affected people of many different faiths and cultures around the globe.

Chaplains are generally thought of as providing religious services to the military, but Ms. Mallett says their role goes far beyond that. “They’re in the trenches with the men, they’re on patrol,” she says. “They’re with them in the hospitals, they’re gathering the dead. They’re right there in front line, unarmed.”

The exhibit will include photographs, paintings, press clippings, posters, letters, poems, uniforms, insignia, liturgical apparel and many other artifacts. They come from museums, collectors, individuals and the cathedral’s archives.

The cathedral itself has many remembrances of conflict, including memorials to the Northwest Rebellion, the Boer War and First and Second World Wars, which will be highlighted as part of the exhibit.

There will be examples of stitchery and embroidery, such as a chasuble and hanging inspired by the poem In Flanders Fields, a quilt of poppies and a hooked rug of Vimy Ridge created from old uniforms.

The exhibit will include a communion set with an interesting story. A pair of brass candlesticks and a cross about nine inches high were used by a chaplain during the First World War. They were passed on to a Canadian chaplain going to Bosnia, but he wanted a chalice and paten to go with them. He found what he wanted in a Jewish antiques store — they were silver, with Jewish markings on the paten. This multi-faith set was used not only in Bosnia, but also in Afghanistan.

Some items tell of death — a prayer book carried in the chaplain’s breast pocket with a bullet hole through it — and some tell of avoiding death — a prayer book with a steel cover.

The Royal Regiment of Canada has lent a cross of stones. It was built by John Foote, the only Canadian chaplain to have been awarded the Victoria Cross in the Second World War. He was taken prisoner at Dieppe and after the war returned to the beach and gathered stones for a cross.

A more unusual item is a six-inch copper disc, known as a penny, given by King George V to the families of those killed in the First World War. A chaplain was administering a burial service when shrapnel burst out. After it was over, the chaplain was found mortally wounded. The penny, which was given to his family with a letter from the king, shows Britannia holding a laurel wreath over his inscribed name.

There are many other items that recall the bravery of the men and women who accompany the military to battle. “It will be a very moving exhibit,” says Ms. Mallett.

The exhibit is open Nov. 6-16, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. at St. James’ Cathedral at King and Church streets. Admission is free and there will be special activities for children.

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Two years ago, this would have been an unlikely scenario. The parish was indebted to the diocese and faced a bleak future of declining congregations and too small a base of weekly financial support.

The former incumbent, the Rev. Ronald Scott, and the churchwardens made the difficult decision to request that the parish be placed under diocesan administration. In retrospect, this request and the decisions that followed it were pivotal in launching the parish on a course of renewed optimism, spiritual growth and sacrificial re-awakening.

The appointed administrator and Bishop Patrick Yu, the area bishop, visited the parish on separate occasions. During these meetings, both of them encouraged parishioners to confront the harsh realities that lay before them.

Mr. Scott, the churchwardens and the administrator embarked on a period of teaching and re-education, culminating in significant increases in stewardship commitments from parishioners. The administrator reviewed all nonstewardship sources of parish income and found them to be below current market values. On his recommendation, these fees were increased. Within a year of these actions, the parish finances improved, but the debt to the diocese remained a major concern.

St. Margaret’s was scheduled to be in an earlier block of the Our Faith-Our Hope campaign, but on account of the financial state of the parish, the leadership team requested deferral to a later date. In February 2012, with the transitional year behind them, an improving financial condition, and the appointment of a new incumbent, the leadership team faced the challenge of the campaign. The spirit of renewal and optimism that began a year earlier seemed to increase with the appointment of the Rev. Karen Hatch. The leadership team decided to use this positive energy to launch the campaign. There was the normal human apprehension that accompanies charting a new course, but with Ms. Hatch as spiritual leader, and a team of very committed parishioners, those misgivings were replaced with excitement and enthusiasm.

Pledges from the first phase of the campaign came in at a steady pace. Before the campaign was introduced to the congregation, nearly 60 per cent of the goal was achieved. This early success motivated members of the congregation. There was an awakened sense of sacrificial giving and a greater awareness of the significant role of the diocese in many aspects of parish life. Encouraged by the generosity of the pledges, the leadership team set a new “challenge” target of $250,000, as the parish’s portion of this amount would provide the appropriate funds to pay off the debt to the diocese.

“The campaign was a journey of faith and hope,” said Ms. Hatch. “The financial commitments will ensure that the parish is able to address its immediate short-term concerns, but the most enduring benefits of the campaign were the moments of inspiration, spiritual renewal, and opportunities for community building.”

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Don Cranston, the parish’s campaign chair, says he was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was. “I wish life was that easy all the time,” he says.

He recalls asking one parishioner for a major gift, and, as he was going into his fundraising spiel, the parishioner cut him off. Telling Mr. Cranston that the church had been the bedrock of his life, he asked, “How much are you looking for?” and when he heard the figure, said, “Done.”

In fact, the only setback Mr. Cranston experienced was that there were not enough volunteers to do all the visiting and phoning. “But despite that headwind, things went very, very well,” he says, adding that on the last night of telephone solicitation, the volunteers raised an amazing $24,000.

Part of the reason for the success was the fact that the campaign was also tied in to Grace Church’s centennial. After 100 years, the parish wanted not only to look back at its history, but to plan for a future. With the parish’s share of the Our Faith-Our Hope money, Grace Church will improve the accessibility of the building, work on congregational development, and become a centre for the arts and music.

“It’s unleashed a lot of energy and ideas, and the laity are being empowered to effect some of these changes,” says the Rev. Canon Peter Walker, incumbent. “We’re reinventing ourselves for a second century.”

He says the campaign forced the congregation to focus on what it wants to do now and in the future. That, combined with a vote from vestry to balance the church’s operating budget for the first time in years, has given the congregation a new outlook.

“There can be a lot of doom and gloom, but I think in our centennial year, we’re in a good position,” says Canon Walker. “We voted for a balanced budget and exceeded our campaign goal, and that gives the parish some room to manoeuvre and be imaginative and creative in the next couple of years.”

In addition to praising Mr. Cranston and the lay volunteers who contributed to the campaign, Canon Walker paid tribute to the efforts of the Rev. Christopher Caton, the associate priest. “He did a lot of work, a lot of calling and visiting. I think it was very much a collaborative effort between the clergy and the laity.”

Mr. Crantston says the campaign has raised the question of stewardship in the parish. As volunteers talked to donors, some of the newcomers in the church began asking what they should be giving regularly. “It’s a sign that we perhaps have to do more work on the stewardship side,” he says.

Now that the money has been raised, the campaign is not over. “What we have to do at both the diocesan and parish level is to ensure the money is invested wisely and the mission of the church continues to expand,” he says. “This is just the beginning.”

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In November 2010, the Rev. Claire Wade arrived at St. Thomas’ as the new incumbent in the new space. In the early years of the decade, it had been decided that the church, built in 1869, could no longer meet the needs of the congregation. So the parish, assisted with a major grant from the diocese, embarked on a $650,000 capital campaign to construct a new building.

The new building opened in November 2009. Linked to the old church and the former rectory, it is a state-of-the-art structure with a flexible worship space, removable seats and green technology.

Shortly after Ms. Wade arrived at St. Thomas’, the parish was invited to participate in the diocese’s Our Faith-Our Hope fundraising campaign, with a target of $205,000.

“It sounded like a daunting task at first,” she says. “We were concerned that the parish was just coming off a five-year capital campaign for the building and that people would not embrace this new request for money.”

The solution, parish leaders decided, was to relate the campaign to what had been happening at St. Thomas, and pitch it as a continuation of the building campaign. Half of the parish proceeds from the Our Faith-Our Hope campaign would go toward paying down the mortgage on the new building, and half would pay for badly needed renovations to the old church, which is now used as a chapel.

Ms. Wade says the Our Faith-Our Hope campaign was helped by the fact that the two co-chairs of the capital campaign volunteered to lead it. She herself approached one parishioner and asked for—and received—a substantial gift. “This is a very generous parish,” she says.

However, the Our Faith-Our Hope campaign was still challenging. Some people said they could not manage another gift so soon after supporting the capital campaign, and others questioned why they should be fundraising for the diocese.

However, those who could not give because of economic hardship pledged their time and talents. And to those who questioned fundraising for the diocese, Ms. Wade pointed out the large grant that the diocese had given for the building campaign.

“I had to do some work in creating awareness of the major contribution the diocese made to the new building and of our need to reciprocate by being supportive of diocesan endeavours,” she says. “I also reminded parishioners that we do not operate independently. We’re part of a bigger whole and that ministry costs money.” She preached many sermons about the biblical imperative of giving, whereby giving is not only an obligation, but a privilege.

The campaign strategy was successful. Not only did St. Thomas meet its target of $205,000, it actually raised more than $270,000.

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