Early in the Season of Spiritual Renewal, the Rev. Canon Dr. Judy Paulsen compiled a collection of prayers called Prayers Through the Ages. The resource was created to help Anglicans in the diocese pray for spiritual renewal.
“We thought we would put it online and we might get 100, maybe 200 people downloading it,” she said.
A few churches couldn’t print the resource and asked Canon Paulsen if she could send some printed copies. “So we printed some, and they all went,” she recalls. “And then people were calling us saying they wanted something in a smaller format that they could put in their bible, so we printed 2,000 copies and they all went, too.”
The resource, which featured short, simple prayers written by Christians of different denominations over the centuries, became a sought-after item not only in churches but wherever Anglicans gathered, including the annual clergy conference, Synod and the season’s five big Lift Up Our Hearts services.
“People were not only taking one for themselves but two or three for family, friends and relatives,” says Canon Paulsen, who recently retired as the season’s coordinator. “That’s a really weird thing for Anglicans to do!”
The Season of Spiritual Renewal was held in the diocese from 2023 to Epiphany of this year. It was the first of 20 “calls” that emerged from the diocese’s visioning process, Cast the Net. Its purpose was to help Anglicans rekindle their faith after the Covid pandemic.
Looking back over the last two years, Canon Paulsen says the season provided plenty of surprises and insights. One was that Anglicans in the diocese are hungry for resources and teaching on prayer. Of the 40 workshops offered during the season, the top two best-attended, single-session workshops were about prayer and Christian meditation. A total of 314 people registered for workshops on prayer, averaging nearly 40 people per session.
Another learning was that Anglicans love to gather to worship God, even on a Saturday afternoon. Just over 1,600 people attended the five Lift Up Our Hearts services, which were held in different parts of the diocese. The services included preaching, music, lay anointing and lay witness talks. The offerings amounted to $7,045, which was given to support the ministry of the Council of the North.
Anglicans are also hungry to learn more about scripture, the creeds, church history and Christian disciplines. How to use resources for discipleship and how to develop small group and bible study ministries were among the most popular topics of discussion. The nine-session Christian Foundations course had the fourth-highest registration of all the workshops, and a course studying the Rule of St. Benedict had the sixth-highest registration.
The season found that while Anglicans tend to be shy about sharing their faith, they understand the importance of it and are eager to learn how to do it in winsome and respectful ways. Clergy are also keen to learn how to preach in a way that helps people take steps to become followers of Jesus Christ. The two-part workshop on Preaching Evangelistically was well attended, as was the Everyday Witness course and the workshop on A New and Ancient Evangelism.
One of the key learnings from the season is that spiritual renewal can happen using what is at hand, says Canon Paulsen. “We’ve seen that when we bring to God the best of what we have, to whatever capacity we can, God blesses it. We never expected that many people to show up for worship on a Saturday afternoon, and we didn’t know that we were going to run 40 workshops. Those ideas just kept showing up for us, based on people’s suggestions. We simply created space for lots of the gifts of the diocese to be highlighted. We didn’t look outside the diocese for experts to come in; we saw that we had a lot of great skills and experience right here.”
Another important learning was that worship can drive spiritual renewal. “Having the right resources is very helpful, but worship is the thing that feeds the soul,” she says. “Things happen in worship that we can’t explain. We never imagined people lining up for the ministry of prayer and anointing with oil at all five services, two of which were held in churches that had never offered them before. As people became more aware that God hadn’t left the building, they could pray for others in their lives who had spiritual longings, and could trust that God was already there, sewing the seeds and cultivating the ground.”
Some of those seeds are already starting to grow, she says. More churches are incorporating lay witness talks into their worship services. The talks, which featured lay people giving testimony about their spiritual lives, were one of the most inspiring parts of the five Lift Up Our Hearts services. More churches are also exploring the ministry of prayer and anointing with oil.
On an everyday level, Anglicans in the diocese seem to have drawn a little bit closer to God, she says. “We’re talking about God a little more freely, with the expectation that God is at work, in churches large and small.”
To keep the momentum going, Canon Paulsen and the season’s steering committee suggest some initiatives for the years ahead, including:
- every parish should be encouraged to continue to pray for renewal, and to include such prayers in all their parish meetings and worship services;
- at least one diocesan worship service be offered annually, with possible on-site workshops offered after the service;
- a discipleship conference to encourage discipleship in all churches across the diocese, and for the diocese to develop discipleship resources specific to the diocese’s context;
- book studies on how to share the faith;
- a Season of Spiritual Enrichment that focuses on leadership development.
Canon Paulsen’s biggest hope is that Anglicans in the diocese continue to talk about God more. “For me, that’s the thing I most hope for going forward – that we won’t lose our freedom to talk about the way God is at work in our lives. Because I think that’s going to be the most attractive thing with people who have spiritual longings. If it’s just about signing up for committee work, that’s not going to do it, because they can do that through the Rotary Club. It’s got to be a focus on God first, and our love and worship of God, and out of that will flow all these other good things – love of neighbour through word and deed.”
Effective parishes turn outward