Bishop Andrew Asbil joined us on Friday night and was there to greet everyone as the bus rolled in from Toronto and for our first session. He shared about his own good times as a youth at the Niagara Youth Conference and then led us in night prayers before returning to Toronto. Bishop Riscylla Shaw was also in attendance and stayed with us the whole weekend. She made time to chat with youth and youth leaders on Saturday afternoon during free time and celebrated the Eucharist with us on Sunday.

Our theme for the retreat was Redemption: The Story of Us All. Cormac Culkeen, youth coordinator for Trent-Durham and co-coordinator for the Youth Ministry Apprenticeship Program (YMAP), was our speaker for the weekend, and the Rev. Yohan Dumpala, assistant curate at St. John the Baptist, Norway, led us in worship. Cormac shared in the first session about how the story of our redemption looks like a heartbeat on an ECG machine: it has ups and downs in the same way a heartbeat does when it’s represented on paper. At creation, everything God created was good, but it didn’t take too long before that changed.

In the second session, we spent time talking about lament and how it’s a good and right way to express to God our anger, hurt, frustration and angst with the world around us. Participants spent time in breakout groups either writing their own lament, taking part in a Lectio Divina exercise with Psalm 10, writing and rehearsing a drama to illustrate lament, or in a more active group where they built things and then tore them down.

At our third session, we read from Romans 5, where St. Paul writes, “But God demonstrates his love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” We talked about how God, through Jesus Christ, has redeemed us all. Cormac reminded everyone that God is always with them and refuses to ever leave them, whether times are good or bad. In breakout groups, participants chose to either spend time outside and give thanks to God for the beauty of creation, talk with others about redemption, dramatize redemption, or in the active group where participants again built things and this time beautified their creations.

In our last session, we had Communion together. We looked at the feeding of the 5,000+ and paid special attention to St. John’s account where he writes about the boy who brings his lunch and offers it to Jesus. Jesus blesses the boy’s meager lunch and feeds everyone to their contentment. Participants were encouraged to offer themselves and what they have to God and to watch how God brings about God’s kingdom on this earth as it is in heaven through them.

We also had a lot of time to play and explore many of the activities Muskoka Woods offers. We played Capture the Flag on Saturday morning and a very exciting game of Flame Battlers on Saturday night. In the afternoon, participants enjoyed their choice of volleyball, basketball, tennis, pickleball, high ropes course, indoor rock climbing, long boarding and scooters, as well as arts and crafts. Those doing arts and crafts designed and made a beautiful stole for Bishop Shaw to wear on Sunday at the Eucharist.

The BYMC would like to thank the diocese and the College of Bishops for their continued support of youth ministry. We look forward to seeing everyone again next year!

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Over the summer, the Rev. Canon Kevin George of St. Aidan’s put out a call to Londoners to see if anyone would be willing to donate a bicycle. The Rev. John Maroney of Christ Church suggested the idea of assisting migrant workers back in June when he began to see their need for transportation.

“The fellows that would come to our service afterwards would say, you know, we really could use bicycles because we are isolated out where we are,” he says. “I thought, these fellows are away from their families for months at a time, they’re isolated. Why shouldn’t they have the freedom to jump on a bike? We are giving them that freedom of dignity and knowing that Canadians care.”

As of late August, 80 bikes had been donated. Canon George planned to deliver dozens of them to a farm in Chatham, which he says employs 100 migrant workers.

CTV News

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“This came about as a result of the Ukrainian newcomers,” says the Rev. Terence Chandra, organizer. “We wanted to give the kids some exposure to English before school started.”

Mr. Chandra and his wife, Jasmine, are priests-in-charge of St. John’s, also called the Stone Church, and lead an uptown ministry called Pennies and Sparrows.

“We know their lives have been extremely difficult,” he says. “They’ve left family behind. We hoped to provide space for them to just be kids. We want them to speak English as much as possible, but even if they’re having fun, that’s a win for me.”

Mr. Chandra used his contacts from the adult English classes he teaches to organize the five-day camp and recruit the children, aged eight to 13. It turned out there was a high demand and he had to cap enrollment at 20.

With the help of three volunteers, he organized games, crafts and activities that encouraged communication. Their proficiency in English varied dramatically, with some who were surprisingly adept.

Corey Fairbrother was one of the volunteers. “These kids never knew each other (in Ukraine),” he says. “They were from all different towns, and now they’re forging their own community here.”

Anne Dykeman and Clare Andrews rounded out the volunteer list, and both had a fun week with the kids. But it wasn’t just the kids who were benefitting. “The parents come early to socialize with each other,” says Ms. Dykeman.

While Mr. Chandra admitted to being exhausted when the camp ended each day, he plans on doing it again next year. “It’s probably the most rewarding thing I’ve done this summer,” he says. “Jesus said ‘welcome the stranger.’ That’s what we’re doing with this camp.”

New Brunswick Anglican

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Frank Jastrzembski, who is also a historian, stumbled across the Rev. William Ancient’s story at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in 2017 and jotted down the memorable name of the priest involved in rescuing people from the sinking SS Atlantic in 1873.

The steamship left England for New York that March, but ran low on coal. The captain changed course to Halifax. It ran ashore near Lower Prospect, N.S., at Marrs Island. The ship sank on the morning of April 1 and 565 passengers and crew drowned.

But locals saved more than 200 others. Mr. Ancient played a role in that rescue, memorably telling one of the final people saved to “never mind your shins man, it is your life we’re after,” before getting him to safety. He also took on the difficult task of seeing that the hundreds of dead were properly buried.

Mr. Ancient’s heroic deeds are now recorded on his new gravestone in Halifax’s St. John’s Cemetery. The black granite tombstone features the engraved face of the young bearded cleric and details of his actions on that fateful day.

Mr. Jastrzembski learned that Mr. Ancient rested in an unmarked grave at Halifax’s St. John’s Cemetery. Mr. Jastrzembski founded and operates Shrouded Veterans, which typically provides grave markers for American soldiers.

He made an exception for Mr. Ancient.

He raised about $3,000, and the headstone wound up costing a bit more than that. But Heritage Memorials covered the difference. He said the money came from a few big donors, and a lot of small contributions.

Mr. Jastrzembski said he was delighted to see photos of the finished project. “It’s always a great feeling when you see a newly installed headstone on a previously unmarked grave,” he said.

“It’s a wonderful feeling,” he added. “There isn’t anything more satisfying than honouring a hero like Ancient. He’s someone all Canadians should be proud of. Canada, especially Nova Scotia, will always have a special place in my heart. I’m glad I was able do a good deed for my Canadian neighbours.”

CBC News

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The diocese’s 161st Regular Session of Synod will convene online Nov. 17-19. For more information, visit www.toronto.anglican.ca/upcomingsynod. Coverage of Synod will be available on the diocese’s website, www.toronto.anglican.ca, afterwards and in the January issue of The Anglican.

Correction

Marion Thompson is a member of St. Peter, Oshawa, where she is a lay member of Synod and serves as deputy rector’s warden. Incorrect information was published in the September issue. The Anglican regrets the error.

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“There is a whole breadth of old sermons available. But in the English-speaking West, it’s really focused on white men,” says Mr. Kennedy. “You can get your Wesley and your Spurgeon and your Luther – people have recorded those – but there’s nothing that represents the multicultural aspects of the Church in the West. That’s something lacking in the Church. It’s a message that needs to be spoken into the Church, especially in today’s multicultural world. So I wanted to try and source some of those voices that are hard to find and bring life back into them.”

This idea laid the foundation for the Sermon Project, an ambitious plan to find and record 100 sermons over three years that will highlight ethnically and culturally diverse preachers of the past. Initially, the project will focus on Canadian preachers.

Using his connections in the Church and academia, Mr. Kennedy has already been able to find a rich variety of sermons. With the help of a generous early donor and a Reach Grant of $5,000 from the diocese, he planned to begin recording in October.

Mr. Kennedy will be hiring voice actors and possibly also preachers to record the sermons in a professional studio, to produce the highest quality recordings possible. He emphasizes that he will be seeking voice actors who reflect the gender and ethnicity of the preachers. The sermons will also be recorded in the original language, with a translation in English available as well.

One challenge facing the project is the question of how faithful the recordings should be to the original sermons. “This is one of the things we’ve talked a bit about. If you do a sermon from Elizabethan times, are you going to perform it like a Shakespearean play or are you going to do a bit of modernization of the language? There’s pros and cons to both,” he says.

Supported by a steering committee, Mr. Kennedy will also consider the contents of each sermon closely. “If something in a sermon was just terrible, I wouldn’t record that sermon. But theology shifts throughout generations, and I’m okay with allowing that to sit because it’s part of the history of the Church, warts and all. It’s part of admitting that we are broken and fallen people who are struggling to walk in relationship with God,” he says.

Each sermon will have its own introduction, providing context on the language and content. The sermons will be housed on the project’s website (www.sermonproject.com), which will allow users free access to a searchable database of historic sermons. Mr. Kennedy says he hopes that the project will create a space for people to contemplate the history of the Church. “It’s designed to address social and racial issues in a space that is invitational, rather than confrontational. It’s a safe space, and I’m hoping that this project invites people into that space,” he says.

One genre of sermons that he has found during his research and that he is especially excited to share is sermons by women from a period when it was illegal for women to preach. “There’s this whole genre of literature in the 18th and 19th centuries where women authors, who were forbidden to preach, would write sermons in their writings. So whether you think women shouldn’t preach or you think, of course, women should preach, it doesn’t matter because you’ve got these historical examples,” he says. “It gives people that space to go, ‘well this happened, so let’s talk about it.’”

Mr. Kennedy says he hopes the project will bring many more stories like this one to a wider audience and encourage discussions. Anyone who’d like to support the project financially can donate on the website at www.sermonproject.com/donate.

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“Do not be afraid, little flock.”

“Do not be afraid, Abram. The word of the Lord endureth forever.”

When we fear, we cling to what we know. We clutch at what makes us feel in control, be that the things we own, the possessions we have stored up for ourselves, the story we tell ourselves about who we are, what our power is, what our importance is and what is possible. We want, when we are afraid, to be comfortable with the familiar and familiar with the comfortable.

And these things – our assumptions, our possessions – become a comfort blanket which ultimately smothers us, for they forbid us to engage with each other and with Christ. We make our worlds and our ambitions smaller because it feels safer, and they come to define and to constrain us. So the institutions, the power, the status, positions that we hold onto out of fear – personal fear for ourselves, fear for the future of the church – end up fulfilling our fears.

Let’s be clear though about the fact that in this broken world, there are very real reasons to fear. The roar of the lions is real. And the reality is there is so much suffering. We moaned collectively when we heard of the earthquake this morning. There is so much uncertainty. There are people here who will know the uncertainty of food supplies, the precarious nature of poverty, the insecurity of life in places of conflict and flux and natural disaster. People around the world live with the reality of these fears every day. For so many, it is very real indeed.

How can God tell us, “Do not fear”?

We don’t like being told what to do. We think commands limit us.

Not God’s commands, though. God’s commands set us free. They liberate us to step into a new world that he makes visible and known to us.

And so we are continually being invited to begin a journey from fear to faith. And when we slip from faith to fear, then Christ comes to us as he did to the fearful disciples in the upper room. He appears to us and says, “Do not fear.” He comes to us; he does not call us to find him. We are liberated to look outwards, to imagine a new way of relating to the world around us, as well as among us, to imagine what it means to be given the kingdom in his world.

As Jesus said, the Kingdom of God is near us, the Kingdom of God is within us. It is found, as we heard so movingly yesterday, in a boy hugging a t-shirt under his pillow, signed by a bishop who made him remember that he had a father in God and an eternal father.

Some years ago, in 2016, it was found, to my surprise, by me, when a major daily newspaper in this country discovered and published the fact that the man I thought was my father was not my father. Someone else was… But I found within me, to my surprise, an unbreakable certainty that the God who knew me knows my true identity at the deepest level, at a far deeper level than just a DNA test. It was found in a story I will tell you about Cardinal van Thuan, the former Archbishop of Saigon, held for nine years in solitary and a further four years in prison. He was eventually let out but kept in an area far from his home. He was out one day and near the forest. Three people came out of the forest and, meeting him, asked if he was a pastor. He said yes, and they requested he come three days’ journey to baptize their village. They were a mountainous people. He went and found a village that had converted to Christ by listening to a Pentecostal radio station. So he baptised them, some thousands, as Christians, certainly, Catholic Christians he said with a smile. But the Kingdom breaks down our denominational barriers and overrules our frontiers and our theological border guards.

The Kingdom is seen in how we set out as the revolutionary movement that is God’s church in Christ, for it leads us from tightly clutching, to freely receiving the grace of God, from zero-sum scarcity to abundance, hospitality and generosity – because God dares us to join a whole new way of being, and the Holy Spirit gives us the power to take up the dare.

What we gain is not what the world tells us we should want. What the world values is not what God values. So following God may not get us wealth or power. But it does guide us to riches beyond treasure – treasure in heaven, and a world that looks just a bit more like the Kingdom. A world where people do not suffer because of where they where they were born, where the scandal of poverty and huge inequality does not exist, where people are not persecuted for their faith, gender, sexuality. Where we do not allow our brothers and sisters to be told that they matter by the wealthy and then to be ignored materially.

Because in this command, “Do not fear,” our eyes are opened to God’s promise. We are called again to conversion to life, a conversion that daily says to us that we should pray to God: “I trust you. To hear my prayers, my protests, my praises, my laments, to hear my heart crying out to you in anger” that says, whatever happens I trust that in some wonderful and mysterious way you feed me for eternity, with a wafer and wine over which a prayer has been said. That in the host I see a crucified God.

This conversion expands our world.

We have met, over the past weeks and days, with people from all the corners of the globe, from contexts and experiences that are totally alien to us. And in these meetings, we have found the antidote to fear. We find in John: perfect love casts out fear.

God’s promises will be fulfilled. He will draw abundance out of barrenness and riches out of our poverty. That is his promise to us. And that releases us to be radical, bold, courageous, revolutionary today. To have the courage to have faith in God. To be brave enough to defy the world, even to defy other Christians, by loving one another without ceasing. To have the courage shown by bishops and spouses here, clergy and laity around the Anglican Communion, who make the Good News known to those who live in fear. Who go to church in greater numbers the week after a suicide bomb attack has killed 160 of them. Who fly with the Missionary Aviation Fellowship to a remote part of Papua New Guinea, and then work for a week across mountains to do confirmations. Who protest against civil rights abuses, against gerrymandering of votes, against shooting unarmed people of colour in a routine traffic stop.

As we grow in love, our fear shrinks and the Kingdom of God finds space, finds its rule in our hearts and in our lives as God’s people.

Dear sisters and brothers in Christ – no mere greeting, that – dear sisters and brothers in Christ, who to each other and to me have become dearer and dearer over the last 10 days, as you, as I, go home, do not fear: take heart, take courage, because it is the Father’s good pleasure to give you His kingdom!

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Suzanne Lawson: What is Lambeth’s purpose as you experienced it?

Bishop Robertson: We had a very full agenda with the Lambeth Calls and bible studies and worship, but if we pushed all that aside and all we did was spend 12 days getting to know each other, building relationships and praying together, that alone would be a good use of our time. I walked away from the conference thinking that the relationships that were built or deepened were worth their weight in gold. That was the essence of the conference for me – being in relationship.

Bishop Shaw: It was about the Communion coming together in unity. We were missing Rwanda, Nigeria and Uganda, but they were spoken of fondly and prayed for. Being at Lambeth was about unity for me, about being able to see across the globe the notion that we share in solidarity our sense of call and responding to the call and our faithfulness to the call. It was also quite a lot about worship, of being able to experience Christ through music from different parts of the world and worshipping side by side with people who speak different languages. It was a very powerful experience. Being able to sit with people from across the globe or who are near and dear to us was a really good experience.

Bishop Asbil: It’s a little like going to frosh week at university and living the university life. You’re living in very intense community and you’re meeting people constantly. There is such a rich diversity of culture and language and people, all dressed beautifully, differently, casually and formally. And a real sense of graciousness as you meet one another.

Suzanne Lawson: What was the most challenging thing you learned anew?

Bishop Asbil: I think one of the most challenging things that we experienced from time to time, especially when we gathered for the Eucharist, was that there were some among us who would not receive. That was particularly painful – to know that there were some among us who felt they could not receive the communion. And it’s a reminder to Anglicans of the whole body that we have healing and work to do in forming communion in a deeper way, and that we are broken and need God’s love and salvation. We can’t do this work on our own, it’s not something we can manufacture on our own, but we need God’s grace to help us sew accord rather than discord.

Bishop Robertson: I remember the first day of the conference, the global south group of bishops had a press conference with a document, and it clearly said that they were not going to receive communion with bishops who were there in same-sex marriages. For the first time, among 650 people, the seven of us who were there in same-sex marriages felt really conspicuous. We had lots of support, not only from within the Canadian and American houses but also from bishops from around the world. But it was a painful reminder. There was a veneer of civility and we’re all going to get together for 12 days, but at other moments it was clear there were people who were not interested in gathering around the table together. But I want to add that there were encouragements as well. A few years ago, in 2019, I went to the course for new bishops in Canterbury. It is for bishops from around the world, and I made some friendships with bishops from Africa and Asia. Those were some of the people who came up to me at the Lambeth Conference three years later and put their arm around me and said, “We stand with you.” That speaks to the enduring nature of these relationships.

Bishop Shaw: One of the challenges was that our Archbishop, Linda Nicholls, was the only woman Primate. That’s a deep challenge to the rest of the globe. When I was there, I wore my collar every day, because when I was walking with Jana (her spouse), he got mistaken for the bishop in the family. It’s still an automatic to assume the man is the bishop. That’s a challenge. Another piece was that Archbishop Justin Welby said that shepherds must practice humility because we are also sheep. I was reminded of that, both in my own behaviour and in a sense of who do we want to portray ourselves as? What is our identity as leaders in the diocese and the Communion? Who are we? We are sheep, so let’s remember that.

Suzanne Lawson: What was one of the big worship services that impressed you?

Bishop Shaw: Bishop Vicentia preaching at the opening service and having Archbishop Linda (Nicholls) help to celebrate at the closing service. That was a memorable time for me. (Bishop Vicentia Refiloe Kgabe, Bishop of Lesotho, was the first woman in history to preach at a Lambeth Conference.)

Bishop Asbil: Experiencing Linda (Nicholls) celebrating at the closing worship was really rich. That was profoundly moving for me. Also, the very first hymn we sang together, “The Church’s One Foundation.” To hear the thunderous voices of 650 bishops from around the world in different languages, with spouses, clergy and laity, was really profound.

Bishop Robertson: For me, it was the music – it was so amazing. The planners of the liturgies, especially the opening and closing services, really did a great job of incorporating as many different voices, sounds and tempos. The diversity and all of us together in one place – it was magical.

Suzanne Lawson: What is the expense of Lambeth and is it worth it at a time when there could be other calls on our financial resources?

Bishop Asbil: It is a privilege and an honour for us to attend, and all three of us express our deep gratitude to the diocese for sending us. The cost is about $10,000 per person. What’s important to remember is that the Canadian church also donates to the worldwide Anglican Communion to send bishops from around the world who are not able to afford it, including a number of Canadian bishops. The Compass Rose society, of which we have a Canadian chapter, gives about $500,000 to send bishops.

Is it worth it? I think it is. The ability to gather with many bishops from around the world, face to face, to be able to be in conversation, in prayer, in worship, to be the Body of Christ, to come apart from our own contexts, to be in a strange place all of us together, and to be linked as a body, is priceless. It’s 12 days that will continue to feed my ministry and our collective ministries in our diocese and beyond. The friendships that get built and woven together over time help us understand our contexts. We are not an island in North America. We are not separated from each other because we happen to be in Canada. We are deeply woven together as a people of the earth, and if there was ever a time when we needed to know that even more keenly, it is right now.

Suzanne Lawson: Give us a nugget of wisdom that you brought home and will act on.

Bishop Asbil: Very simply, we are better together.

Bishop Shaw: Communication – reaching out to one another – is key.

Bishop Robertson: Ours is a gospel of reconciliation – the theme of reconciliation there and bringing that home to our own context, in all kinds of different ways; that’s a nugget I will bring into my own ministry.

Suzanne Lawson: Do you have a picture or an image that you can leave with us that helps us feel that we were almost there?

Bishop Shaw: For me, from Amos, chapter 8, a basket of summer fruit. It was hot, it was sweet, we were all different but we were all together.

Bishop Asbil: The picture of all the women bishops together was powerful, to see the shift from a small gathering in 2008 to almost 100 in 2022. I found that profound. I bought a picture for the Diocesan Centre and it will get framed and put in one of our meeting groups.

Bishop Robertson: Fourteen years ago, the only openly gay partnered bishop was not even invited to the conference. On the last day of this conference, eight of us who are out, partnered and part of the LGBTQ+ community were standing in a formal picture. That was wonderful and I pray that, like the number of women bishops, that will increase.

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Archbishop Ted Scott’s comment continues to percolate through my mind more than 35 years after he said it to me. I still remember the look of intense concern on his face. We were rushing down a hotel hallway towards a diocesan Synod where Archbishop Scott, then Primate of the national church, was slated to speak. We’d had only a short time to chat about the state of the Church and shared a mutual unease about its future in the face of declining numbers.  Unfortunately, there wasn’t time to further explore Archbishop Scott’s remarks.

Since our brief chat, church trends have underscored the challenges we face. Statistics Canada shows that only 68 per cent of Canadians 15 or older say they have a religious affiliation. While 10.4 per cent of all Canadians were Anglican in 1986, only 3.8 per cent were Anglicans in 2019. Other denominations are facing similar challenges around declining membership. The United Church of Canada, for example, is closing one church every week, on average.

I keep thinking about Archbishop Scott’s comment because it may offer some insights into how our Church could connect more effectively with people in our society who are seeking spiritual meaning but are not relating to our Anglican message, or for that matter, the message of other Christian denominations. Some of these folks have been dubbed the “SBNRs” — spiritual but not religious.

We need to think about why people who are searching for God might not seek out an Anglican faith community. Some of our Anglican terms present barriers to people unfamiliar with them. For example, when I hear the term “warden,” my mind immediately thinks about prison. And it took me years after becoming an Anglican to understand what “narthex” means, a word I’d never heard of before. Same with “rector.” Language also includes the language of song, and here too we face challenges. Most of the music played and sung in our parishes is not music that younger people would listen to on their own.

Much of our Anglican worship language and hymns is beautiful, and I wouldn’t want to lose this rich element of our Church. The challenge of speaking to different audiences is somewhat similar to the challenge of scripture itself. Eugene Peterson’s The Message, a contemporary language version of the New Testament, certainly makes the words of Jesus and his message accessible in a fresh way, and thus serves an important goal. However, in my view and in the view of many Christians, it lacks the majesty and richness found in traditional versions of the bible.

However, I believe that Archbishop Scott was delving into a deeper issue during our brief chat, one much broader than the use of particular terms. He was talking about a new narrative for the Church, one that requires new and different expressions of ministry. And perhaps taking some bold steps. These might involve new ways to reach out to people who might never venture inside a church. Or who used to attend a parish but stopped going. Perhaps reaching out to some of these former Anglicans might offer fresh insights about how to reconnect with them, and how to reimagine our Church for today’s society.

By no means do I want to downplay the efforts currently underway through our diocese’s Congregational Development department to revitalize parishes. Many of our parishes are reaching out into their communities through creative initiatives to engage with people in ways that go beyond church walls. To cite just one example, the parish of Epiphany and St. Mark in Toronto’s Parkdale neighbourhood provides worship and meal preparation space to The Dale Ministries, a church and community organization with a special focus on marginalized people that operates without a church building.

There are no easy answers to the challenges we face. Many factors have contributed to declining church involvement during recent decades, including shifts in our culture. Looking forward, perhaps by making a concerted effort to listen to as wide a cross-section of our communities as possible about their issues and beliefs with a focus on younger people, we will be able to put new wine into new wineskins.

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