Our most recent project was the production of 415 knitted “comfort dolls” for outreach. The son of one of the group’s members went on his fifth trip to Cuba in early April. The people whom he visits are extremely poor and are very grateful for his friendship and the items that have been donated for them. This year, at one of the events he attended, 300 children were present.

Around Christmastime, when he asked his mom if she could make some knitted dolls to be given to the children, she said she could perhaps manage to make 70 at most. When another member of the Craft Club heard about his request for dolls, she told the group, which agreed to join in the project.

Since early January, our Tuesday mornings have been a lovely time of fellowship, with flying fingers and the click of busy knitting needles to the accompaniment of warm, friendly chatting. While some of us knit dolls, others stitched facial features on ones that had already been finished. Most of the knitters were St. Timothy’s parishioners, but there were also several friends and neighbours of members as well. We were very grateful for everyone’s contributions to this project.

Since we surpassed the original target of 300 dolls to be given at the children’s event, the extras were also donated to give to other children whom he might encounter while in Cuba.

On March 18, all the dolls were taken to the 10 a.m. service, where they were the subject of the Children’s Talk and were blessed by the Rev. Andrea Christensen, St. Timothy’s incumbent, before beginning their journey to new homes and families in Cuba.

Submitted by Anne Baillargeon, a member of St. Timothy’s Craft Club

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The crowd that filled St. Andrew, Scarborough’s parish hall was a clear sign that Anglicans are not only passionate about their churches but also willing to share ideas with Anglicans from other parishes to build up the body of Christ.

“It’s one thing to get excited about what’s happening in your own backyard, but to get excited about what’s possible with other Anglicans in other parts of York-Scarborough – that’s really great,” says Bishop Kevin Robertson, the area bishop.

The gathering was part of a year-long effort by Bishop Robertson to get to know the clergy and laity of his area – “their needs and concerns, their joys and struggles,” he says.

Bishop Robertson, who was consecrated in January 2016, has been meeting with clergy in deanery clusters and with laity on parish visits, but this was the first time everyone had a chance to come together to talk about mission and ministry.

“I felt it was important to take those conversations I’ve been having to the whole group in all 59 parishes, or at least those who wanted to come out, and ask them what they saw as the needs of the Church in their own local setting and in York-Scarborough,” he says.

The morning was divided into three sections: two table-group discussions followed by an open forum. Participants sat with others from different parishes, then were asked the first question: As you look around your neighbourhood and community, where do you see God at work, and where are the needs?

After a discussion and a short break, they were asked: Based on the needs that were identified, how would you prioritize what your church should be doing to respond? What is your church doing well and not well? What does your church need to start doing, continue doing and stop doing?

The questions produced lots of conversation and ideas – enough to fill about 60 flip-chart pages. The group identified three main priorities: finding new and better ways to engage with neighbours, especially those who don’t know about the Church or the Christian faith; youth ministry and children’s ministry; and meeting the needs of a multicultural, multilingual society. The open forum also produced several good ideas, including developing a local catechesis program.

Bishop Robertson says the event surpassed his expectations. “One of the clergy told me afterwards that he came to the town hall because he thought he had to, but walked away feeling that we had a great conversation and was encouraged about ministry in the area.”

Bishop Robertson plans to bring the information to York-Scarborough’s clergy conference in Niagara Falls on May 9-10, then to develop a mission plan for the area. “I’d like the area to set out some concrete steps to address the three priority areas, in really specific ways,” he says. “I’m hoping we can do that over the summer and into the fall. Then we can call the whole town hall group back together and make sure we’ve set out some benchmarks for what success will look like.” He hopes parishes will create mission plans as well.

As the only episcopal area in the diocese that is located entirely within a city, York-Scarborough has a unique opportunity to create a plan for urban mission and ministry, he says. “I’m really intent on moving along this understanding of what it means to be an urban church. I don’t know where that’s going to lead, but I think some really good stuff is possible.”

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This year, St. Barnabas was pleased to have the Rev. Dr. Anita Gaide of the East Toronto Latvian Lutheran Church and members of her congregation as part of the St. Barnabas presentation. The Latvian Church congregation has worshipped at St. Barnabas for 50 years.

St. Barnabas served hot cross buns and beverages to all who took part in the walk, which has been held for nearly 20 years. Each year, the number of participants increase. “To be part of the walk and worship with other churches and to  see each church filled to capacity was an amazing experience for all who took part,” says Helen Taylor, the assistant churchwarden at St. Barnabas. The church will be celebrating its 160th anniversary in June.

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Sisters Kay and Edna Lee, who died in 2010 and 2012 respectively, left a bequest to All Saints that became The Doris Fund, named in honour of their older sister. The bequest specified that the funds should be used to help people who live in close proximity to the church.

The fund made a donation to the New Canadians Centre to support newcomers who are facing emergencies. “I had some dental work done in Lebanon but it was not good,” says Hayja Abosaba, a refugee. “My tooth got infected and it was causing me so much pain. When I came to Canada, I went to a dentist right away and they repaired my tooth and treated the infection.”

During 2017, the Doris Fund provided assistance for the breakfast programs at two primary schools. It also supported Collective Kitchen cookery classes for area residents and provided emergency financing through the Peterborough Housing Resource Centre to help those in crisis stay in their homes and avoid eviction.

As members of All Saints, Edna and Kay Lee lived their faith daily. When a member of the parish needed help with her two-year-old quadruplet sons, Edna was one of a team of volunteers who drove two of the boys to nursery school four days a week. Both sisters visited nursing homes to read to residents. They taught in the church’s Sunday School for years and drove people to church who would not otherwise have been able to attend.

Submitted by All Saints, Peterborough.

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On a recent mission trip to Dangriga, located south of Belize City, the Rev. Peter Mills and four others from the parish were able to use the money to buy paint for the local Anglican church and 3,326 pounds of food for four schools and two families. They also bought 260 fruit trees for local farmers and provided bursaries for students to attend high school or college.

The group helped the congregation and local volunteers paint the exterior of Christ the King Anglican Church in Dangriga. Mr. Mills preached on the second Sunday he was there and helped to build a handicap ramp at the church.

The mission trip was part of an ongoing effort by Andy Harjula, a member of St. John, Ida, who has been travelling to Belize to provide assistance for the past seven years.

“We saw Andy’s commitment to the people there, and it was very moving,” says Mr. Mills. “I saw the value of cultivating relationships of trust.”

Mr. Harjula and his wife, Maureen, accompanied Mr. Mills and his wife, Trish, on the trip. Also taking part was a resident of Ida.

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To be awarded for the first time this fall, the annual $5,000 bursary is a tribute to Mr. Cowling’s bold experimentation and commitment to breathing new life into worship in the diocese. Known as an intergenerational connector of people, Mr. Cowling died in January 2017.

“He was someone who had an absolute passion for liturgical reform that would involve the entire congregation in song and music,” says the Rev. Canon David Harrison, incumbent of St. Mary Magdelene, Toronto, where Mr. Cowling was a parishioner.

While he championed unorthodox reform and renewed congregational engagement, Mr. Cowling was at the same time an erudite and precise scholar of music and musical history.

A founding member of Toronto’s Renaissance-focused Tallis Choir, he served as a music director and organist at several parishes in the diocese. He was also a scholar of medieval English. “Douglas was very interested in the York Mystery Plays and he was working on his PhD in that area,” says his widow, Elizabeth. He was once a member of Poculi Ludique Societas, the University of Toronto’s medieval drama troupe.

Starting this fall, the annual Douglas C. Cowling Bursary in Liturgical Music will go to a musician working part-time in a parish in the diocese. Its aim is two-fold: to encourage creative musical and liturgical expression that fosters full participation by the people of God of all ages, and to further the recipient’s own training to enrich the musician’s ecclesiastical setting.

The Cowling family has committed to giving at least $5,000 a year for five years to a fund managed by the Anglican Diocese of Toronto Foundation. The bursary fund currently stands at $20,000, and donations are being accepted by the Foundation at https://goo.gl/xcu7Ss.

Applicants for the bursary should send full proposals by May 30 to: cowlingbursary@gmail.com. The date for announcing the 2018 award has not yet been decided.

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I write about the life-changing work that PWRDF supports in Canada and around the world. This includes development and relief programs as well as the inspiring and tireless efforts of our many volunteers in parishes across Canada. Then, once I write the stories, I publish them on our website, social media, in newsletters and more. I also worked on the World of Gifts guide this past year.

I’m currently working on the June issue of Under the Sun, PWRDF’s newsletter that is distributed with the Anglican Journal three times a year. This October marks the 60^th anniversary of the Springhill, N.S. mining disaster that led to the formation one year later of what would eventually become PWRDF. So we will be rolling out some special projects over those 12 months, including an e-book and a travelling exhibit.

The best part of my job is telling people’s stories of strength and resilience in the face of real adversity, and then seeing how those stories engage people to volunteer or donate. I find it exciting to motivate Anglicans to put their faith into action. It’s also very humbling to work in the international development and humanitarian sector. I’m working with people who are devoted to making the world a better place, one community at a time. I read the paper and keep up on world events, but working “on the inside” has opened my eyes. And that brings me to the worst part of my job – feeling like I can’t possibly do people’s stories justice in a few hundred words. There are days when I feel no story I write is going to move the needle a smidge. Part of my job is to follow other humanitarian and development organizations on Twitter and some days the news can be pretty overwhelming.

I was born in Sarnia and raised in London, Ont. I went to Huron College at Western University in London and studied English and French, then on to Ryerson in Toronto to do a graduate degree in journalism. That’s where I met my husband, Craig Douglas, and we never left Toronto. I worked at various magazines and newspapers in Toronto, and for the last seven years I was editor of ParentsCanada magazine. I loved that job, but it was time for a change. Then I found this job at PWRDF and feel so blessed to have been hired.

I’m a cradle Anglican so my faith journey is rooted in the pews. I grew up going to St. John the Evangelist in London, where the late Terry Finlay was the rector and a family friend. My parents are still active members there. As a child I enjoyed the rituals of the service and the music especially. I remember spending a few minutes before each service reading through the bulletin and marking the readings with the silky ribbons in the BAS or dog-earing the well-worn pages of the BCP. As a teenager, I often worked Sunday mornings, so my church attendance waned. At 20, I decided to get confirmed. The classes clicked with a lot of the literature courses I was taking. (To paraphrase the great Northrop Frye, all literature has its roots in the Bible).

After we got married and settled in Toronto, my husband and I started attending St. Olave’s in Bloor West Village. Like most, the church was more than 100 years old with well-established traditions and rhythms that were familiar to me. In high school I had participated in a rich choral music program and I was eager to rekindle that skill, so I joined the church’s choir. Singing in the choir has become a big part of my spiritual discipline. My fellow choristers range in age from 14 to 87. We’re quite a crew!

Over these past 22 years at St. O’s, my faith journey has intersected with being a parent (teaching Sunday School), my career (developing parish communications) and a passion for leading (being a churchwarden). I feel very fortunate to be able to do this work. Bringing together a disparate group of people that has little in common other than their love of the gospel, this church (and singing) – that’s what I’m passionate about.

I admittedly am a bit of a church geek. I’m always reading about ideas for growth, looking for exciting events to stage and innovative forms of communication to try. In truth, it’s my love for community and communicating that moves me. Before I became involved in parish leadership, I applied the same focus to my kids’ school and in our neighbourhood. My husband and I also love movies and every summer “curate” our own outdoor film festival in our back yard for neighbours and other friends. We love to travel and have been blessed to do a lot of it, with and without our two daughters (who both attend Dalhousie University in Halifax). We love entertaining and being entertained by friends and family. We love exploring Toronto, skiing, walking our dog and discussing at great lengths why some TV commercials work and others miss the mark. We also rarely miss an episode of Jeopardy! and both feel if team Jeopardy! were a thing, we’d crush it.

Five years from now, I pray I’m still at PWRDF, with a few visits to our overseas projects under my belt and by then an expert in the latest forms of communication, some of which probably have yet to be invented.

My favourite passage from scripture is Matthew 6:34. “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” My mom always told me that things will work out the way they should, and this passage aligns with her sage advice. Now that I am a parent, I see the wisdom in those words and I think of them often.

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How comfortable is your parish with community outreach? Are you able to easily identify ways that your parish is helping people in the community? Has your parish thought about starting an outreach ministry but doesn’t know how to get started? Or is your parish so focused on survival and keeping the lights on that the thought of outreach seems like an absurd idea?

Regardless of where you may find your parish on this spectrum, community outreach can be an integral and spirit-filled part of faith communities. Henri Nouwen wrote, “Community is, first of all, a quality of the heart. It grows from the spiritual knowledge that we are alive, not for ourselves but for each other.” Effective community outreach is one the signs of the vibrancy and spiritual depth of a parish. It can animate a parish in such a way that the abiding presence of Christ is deeply felt and parishioners’ feeling of belonging deepen and grow.

The starting point for an effective community outreach ministry is rootedness in the community rather than in the parish. Let me give you an example of what I mean. Imagine parishioners decide to run an after-school program to address bullying at a local school. But they quickly get frustrated because only one or two children participate. If the parish had been connected to the community differently, they may have learned that the critical issue facing the community was food security. We serve our community best when we understand our community by being embedded in it.

The Harwood Institute has developed a five-step process for helping organizations turn outward to the community. I have outlined below how this process applies to parishes as they seek to live out their faith beyond the walls of the church.

First, parishes begin by understanding the community in which they are situated. This requires that parishes seek to understand the community on its own terms. Through community conversations with individuals, groups and organizations, parishes will be able to identify the challenges facing the community and understand people’s aspirations and dreams. These conversations require parishes to keep an open mind, be non-judgemental, and listen deeply. This is not a problem-solving stage.

Second, parishes need to be intentional in turning outward to the community. Old habits are hard to break, so parishes need to continually reflect on how well they are listening and responding from an outward orientation rather than from what makes them comfortable. Parishes need to be willing to work with people and organizations with whom they may have never considered working with previously.

Third, parishes and their community partners together need to develop the conditions that are necessary to foster change, rather than waiting for them to develop. This means starting from the community’s current stage of development rather than from where we wish it was. This is the reality-check stage. Ministry outreach will be most successful if strategies are developed based on the resources that are currently available.

Fourth, we can’t do everything. Parishes need to decide where they can make a difference alongside their community partners and develop strategies that align with that sphere of influence.

And finally, parishes and parishioners need to commit. A parish outreach ministry will only be effective if there is a commitment to engage in the ministry together.

Outreach ministry is transformational for both the community and the parish. The community will feel Christ’s love as a healing presence as its needs are addressed and its aspirations are honoured. And parishioners will deepen their relationship with Christ and affirm their vocational calling to act with charity and justice in the world.

Are you ready to turn outward?

Paige Souter is the diocese’s Manager of Annual Giving.

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“I would be happy to help, but from what I have heard you say about becoming a neighbourhood church, it might be better for St. Anne’s if you get to know a downtown synagogue,” he said.

He recommended Elyse Goldstein, a Reform rabbi at a newly planted congregation on the campus of the University of Toronto. “We are not interested in spiritual tourism,” she told me. “It’s either friendship or we don’t have time for it.”

Friendship is what we have done. We met for coffee, then visited each other’s services. For our first shared learning event, we brought together roughly equal numbers of Jews and Christians on a weeknight to present, explore and compare our traditions of Chanukah and Christmas.

Our people sat in mixed table groups for the initial “getting to know each other” conversation, followed by our presentations on the traditions and significance of our upcoming celebrations. The conversations grew in volume; we enjoyed hearing each other’s experiences and learning together.

Over four years, we have come a long way together and have had a variety of learning evenings and annual sermon exchanges. City Shul comes to St. Anne’s and Elyse preaches on the Christian lectionary texts. St. Anne’s goes to City Shul and I preach on the synagogue’s lectionary texts. I attend Yom Kippur and Elyse comes to Christmas Eve.

We also have a friendship with our local mosque. I met Ilyas Ally, the assisting imam of the Islamic Information & Dawah Centre, at a social justice event. When we realized we were neighbours, we decided to meet for lunch. When St. Anne’s started its annual Christmas concert, I invited Ilyas to give the closing prayer.

The Christmas concert brings together local people, including many who do not participate in any religious services, and we wanted them to know about the friendship that exists between St. Anne’s and the mosque. News and world events often give the negative impression that religion fosters violence and intolerance. Our friendship is always well-received. When we announced our shared refugee sponsorship plans, the audience was excited with us; when we introduced our refugee families the next year, it was to a standing ovation. We have had shared learning events and a shared sermon, but our relationship with the mosque became most real in the meetings of our shared refugee committee.

As the diocese’s new Interfaith Officer, I appreciate questions about starting an interfaith friendship between your congregation and communities near you. What has surprised me more has been how many such friendships and partnerships already exist.

We might be tempted to think we just happened on a great idea. What better place to learn about world religions than at our doorstep in multicultural Toronto? What better time to appreciate what other religions can teach us than when “religious nones” are the fastest growing segment in the census?

The time and place are right, but this isn’t a new idea. The Parliament of the World’s Religions is coming to Toronto in November. The gathering was first held in Chicago in 1893. It resumed in Chicago in 1993 and has since travelled to Cape Town (1999), Barcelona (2004), Melbourne (2009) and Salt Lake City (2015). The Parliament will bring together participants from more than 200 religious, Indigenous and secular beliefs from more than 80 nations. There will be workshops and presentations on a number of subjects, including climate change, women’s experiences, Indigenous experiences, youth, and comparing experiences of engaging the next generations across religious traditions.

The coming months will offer many opportunities to organize delegations, plan presentations, volunteer and learn as we host 10,000 visitors to Toronto. The parliament’s mandate is “to cultivate harmony among the world’s religious and spiritual communities and foster their engagement with the world and its guiding institutions to achieve a just, peaceful and sustainable world.”

In the words of the Rev. John Joseph Mastandrea, parliament ambassador and a minister of Metropolitan United Church in Toronto, the gathering “is more than a symbol – the parliament is an instrument of peace.”

To learn more about getting involved in the seventh Parliament of the World’s Religions, visit www.parliamentofreligions.org.

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When I was about 15 years old, there was “the incident of the running cows” that is forever seared on my mind, and on my left palm. Growing up on a farm was a daily adventure, and this particular muddy, rainy spring day brought me new perspective on the preciousness of life. Down at the soggy bottom of the barnyard, the fence needed fixing, as all the cows were on the other side of it. Going to investigate required me to mingle in among the herd to get right up close to the fence for a good look at the gap. My father had run barbed wire across the top of the page-wire, but these clever cows had found their way through underneath – the grass was definitely greener on the other side.

As I was examining the fence, my brother started driving the tractor over to help repair it and to work on rounding up the loose beasts. The cows were startled and began to run; one of them barged between me and the fence. I was terrified. In sticky mud almost up to my knees, I was not going anywhere fast, except over backwards into the path of the other frightened cows, so I grabbed the nearest (mostly) solid object and hung on for dear life. It was the top wire of the fence – the barbed wire. My hands were a bit torn up, but I lived. Coming out of that experience, the bigger picture was the sheer will to survive that took over without a moment’s thought. “Hang on. Do not let fear take over. Stay alive at all costs.” I came out of that experience a different person, in more ways than one.

We in the established Church are in a time of great transformation, which can feel chaotic, disruptive and deeply unsettling to our accustomed ways of walking together. We are sometimes afraid, and in our tender humanity we feel hurt and betrayed by the changes that leave our comfortable pews behind. I encourage you to hang on, for dear life, and be not afraid. What we are doing together in community is life-bringing, and for many, life-saving. At this time in our calendar year, we come face-to-face with the resurrected Christ. The humanity of Jesus was transformed by his experience of death and resurrection; and his wisdom, his life-bringing teaching, his divine word to us, is this: “My peace I give to you, do not be afraid.”

In the changes that we have to make to accommodate the new times, let us love one another, discerning fresh ways of being disciples together in our beloved and flawed, human-made Church. As we share the good news of Jesus, continue to find ways to work for truth, justice and reconciliation. We are boldly called and radically loved into being by Jesus, by the Holy Spirit, who empowers us to feel and be the intense and radical love of God for all humanity, for all of creation. We are in the doorway, between what was, and what is to come. In our Church, it is a time of transition, change, transformation; a time of re-formation and redefining how we worship together, how we allocate resources, how we prioritize our ministries. Learning together how to ask the right questions and by ever asking more questions in faith, we can expand our awareness of this threshold moment we are occupying right now.

From 2 Corinthians 10:15: “Our hope is that as your faith increases, our sphere of action may be greatly enlarged, so that we may proclaim the good news.” Contemplative inquiry will move us forward – as communities, as families, as children of God together – into the future in faith in Jesus, who is the living way. The whole of creation is involved in what God is doing in Christ. Our work is resurrection work, as the gospel touches all aspects of our life together and we develop connections of grace. Jesus is inviting us into new life in him, in vital connection with the Spirit of Life. Even when you have every justification to be afraid, remember these powerful teachings that Jesus shared: My peace I leave with you. Do not be afraid. I am with you always. Thanks be to God.

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