May God give us the courage to meet the future with hope, dignity and love

Bishop Asbil delivered his Charge to Synod during the opening worship service. 

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.