In FaithWorks we can hear the echo of Jesus’ call to Peter to tend to his sheep. In the Gospel of John, Jesus asks Peter three times: “Do you love me?” In response to Peter’s emphatic affirmation of his love for the Lord, Jesus commands Peter to “Feed my sheep.”

“FaithWorks enables us as Anglicans to live out our faith in a way that both reflects the love we have for Christ and our deep desire to share that love with others,” says Archbishop Colin Johnson. “For 20 years, we have been building intentional communities of hope and compassion throughout the diocese. Through FaithWorks, we become love in action.”

October is the perfect time of year to celebrate and give thanks for FaithWorks. Parishes are encouraged to host anniversary celebrations, big or small, and to incorporate the anniversary into their FaithWorks campaigns. Throughout the month we invite everyone to share on Facebook and Twitter (#FaithWorks20) their favourite FaithWorks stories and memories from the past 20 years. The month- long celebration will culminate in a gala event on Oct. 30, hosted by Archbishop Johnson, in Snell Hall at St. James Cathedral.

FaithWorks is working to improve the lives of people in need because of the faith-filled generosity of our donors, volunteers, parishes, clergy, corporate partners and foundations. This collective commitment ensures that FaithWorks’ 18 ministry partners are able to feed, house, nurse and support, each and every day, people who are hungry, homeless, isolated and ill.

As Shelagh McPherson, chair of the FaithWorks Allocation Committee, states, “Through our ministry partners, we reach out and show great love to women, youth and children who are at risk; to individuals and families who live in deep poverty; to newcomers who are seeking a new start in Canada; to Indigenous peoples seeking a better future; and to people who are impacted by HIV/AIDS.”

The 20th anniversary is a time to celebrate this ministry of encounter and compassion. It is a time to give thanks for everyone who opens their hearts to walk with marginalized and vulnerable people and who makes FaithWorks possible. It is also a time of renewal; a time to renew our commitment to our shared ministry of love.

May God continue to bless FaithWorks as it lives out its mission to be love in action.

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His letters were in circulation some 20 to 30 years before Mark, the first Christian Gospel, was written. Was this Gospel shaped by Paul?

We need to remember that Paul was a Pharisaic Jew, learning from the most important rabbi of his generation. But he was also caught up in the Greek philosophical thought of his day. To call Paul a Platonist is to misread him, but to say that Plato had no influence on his theological thought would be wrong as well.

Paul is that strange mixture of classical Jewish teaching, Roman citizenship and Greek philosophy. As such, his theology differs a great deal from the other Jewish Christians of the first century, namely Peter, James and John.

Peter, James and John had accepted Paul into the fellowship of Christians, and he was given the mission field of the Gentiles. Partly because of his great organizational ability, the Gentile church soon surpassed the Jewish Christians in influence. The church became very Gentile by the early second century. After the destruction of the Jewish temple and most of Jerusalem in 70 CE, the Jewish Christians lost their influence, and we see the authority of the church moving from Jerusalem to Ephesus and eventually to Rome.

Let us look at the doctrine of baptism. For Jesus, this was from the Jewish purification rite, which cleansed us so we could be ready to enter the kingdom when it arrived. This was the baptism offered by John the Baptist and probably Jesus as well – and thus the early church.

Paul takes this simple rite and gives it new meaning, almost making it equivalent to Jewish circumcision. It became the way we are made a Christian, joined to the body of Christ, giving us a new spiritual existence. It also became the infilling of the Holy Spirit; one was made holy to be part of this new kingdom of God. We are baptized in Christ. One only has to read the Epistle to the Romans to see how far Paul was from the simple rite of Jesus. Paul’s understanding of baptism seems to have survived through the Gospel writers as well.

The early church went to great pains to show that the resurrected body of Jesus was a dead body restored back to life. The empty tomb, the grave clothes, eating with his followers, inviting Thomas to put his hands in the wounds – all of these suggest that Jesus was restored in a flesh-and-blood body.

Paul has a somewhat different view of the resurrection. For Paul, the most basic belief that a Christian must have is the belief in the resurrection of Jesus. This is the place where we must begin our search for truth. But even here, Paul would suggest this is not the restoration of a dead corpse. Jesus’ resurrection was more like a metamorphosis, from flesh and blood into a life-giving spirit (see 1 Corinthians 15:45 or 2 Corinthians 5:1-5). Jesus becomes the first of the spiritual children of God.

One of the most significant doctrines that seems to have come from Paul is the doctrine of the Eucharist. There is no Jewish source that suggests that the followers of the messiah are sharing in the body and blood of their messiah. Yet all four Gospel writers include this thought at the last supper, when Jesus said, “Take and eat, this is my body…”

For Paul, eating bread and drinking wine was no simple memorial meal; it was quite literally a participation in the spiritual body of the glorified heavenly Christ. Those who ate and drank at this meal were connected by the spirit to the nurturing life we need as children of God

For this column, I have been reading a rather fascinating, sometimes frustrating book by James D. Tabor, Paul and Jesus. It has given me a rather different perspective on Paul and his influence on the writers of scripture. I hope you enjoy the dialogue.

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This is a practical book of theological reflection. Author Mary Stewart, a life-promised oblate of the Sisterhood of St. John the Divine, pioneered volunteer management in the health industry and has written and consulted on church volunteerism since the early 1980s. This new book distills her accumulated wisdom.

Ms. Stewart targets new clergy and veteran priests who are taking up new assignments, and especially lay leaders and churchwardens “seeking to reflect on the current operational status” of their churches. This book is more than a programmatic fix; rather, it offers a structure upon which your parish leadership might assess its ministry and dream about a different future.

This book offers more than dreams. The first chapter challenges you to imagine, and then draw up, an image of your parish as a jigsaw puzzle. Then Ms. Stewart leads you on a step-by-step process to improve current volunteer structures or design new ones by: identifying the pieces already in place; imagining what the complete picture looks like; determining the missing pieces; and completing the picture by implementing that vision.

This is only one of a dozen metaphors the book offers. You cannot miss the author’s sense of humour when she aptly compares managing change in the church to draining a swamp, stitching a patchwork quilt or baking a cherry-topped cupcake.

I recommend this book because Ms. Stewart does not by-pass the most important planning step in volunteer management and organization: refection. I would love to fix every problem I encounter; wouldn’t you? I diagnose problems quickly and tend to jump to quick solutions. The Church as a Volunteer Organization reminds us to slow down, collect all the data, and take time to pray and think things through before we act. We need to let God’s life-giving, comforting spirit breathe through these exciting times of change and challenge.

Ms. Stewart rightly invites us to “reflect on the church as a volunteer organization with staff support.” Our churches are full of talented lay people and gifted ordained, theologically trained clergy. If you are looking to forge a better partnership of the two in your parish, this book is for you.

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It is unusual for an 11-year-old to be accepted onto a YFC team; however, Daryl Stogryn, YFC Canada’s director of global engagement and a member of St. Paul’s, said that Elizabeth showed exceptional commitment. “Having watched Elizabeth grow up, we are totally thrilled to have such an enthusiastic team member who has an obvious heart for mission. She is a young person who has the kind of heart that when she hears of a humanitarian problem, she immediately starts deciding what she can do to solve it.”

The mission trip was part of a 10-year commitment by YFC Canada to the people of The Gambia, said Mr. Stogryn. “Everything we do is done in partnership with YFC The Gambia and at their request. That way, it ensures a much longer and lasting impact.”

The team that travelled to The Gambia was supposed to have 13 people on it; however, over time the team had dwindled to six people. While this was disheartening for the team members, they were constantly reminded of Gideon’s army, and it turned out that God had a plan for them.

The team planned to build two classrooms at a training centre that would teach marketable skills to young adults in the town of Brufut. The dream is for the training centre to be a university someday. Since the strength of the team had dropped from 13 pairs of hands to six, there was a need to hire more local workers to complete the project within the four-week timeline.

Heavy rain at the start of the project temporarily prevented the team from pouring the concrete floors. Some roads were washed out and some supplies couldn’t be delivered to the site. Despite the rain, the well went dry and the team had to borrow water for the remainder of the project from a neighbour. There were multiple vehicle breakdowns and other hardships, but the team pushed through and the project was completed ahead of schedule.

The team incorporated daily devotionals at the worksite, bringing the word of God to even

the Muslim workers who chose to listen and learn. The team enjoyed daily visits from local children attending summer school, as well as members of the community who simply showed up to help, no questions asked. The neighbour who donated his water was a Muslim, and on the last day at the worksite, when the team thanked him for his generosity, he insisted on thanking them instead. He said, “We all serve the same higher power” and explained that his community would get more use from the school than we did from the water provided to build it.

The success of the mission trip was a true example of the miracle of God working through His

people, and Elizabeth was blessed to be a part of it. There are plans to send another team in 2018, and Elizabeth insists she will be on it. The friends she made in The Gambia will be friends for life, she says, and she intends to go back to be with them again.

The team would like to thank the members of St. Paul, Brighton, and many others, for their daily, prayerful support.

Submitted by a correspondent.

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In July, members of St. Thomas a Becket, Mississauga announced plans to have a friendly cricket match against members of St. Peter, Erindale on Sept. 10. To prepare for the match, St. Thomas a Becket asked interested parishioners to come out for a practice.

“To everyone’s surprise, about 20 people showed up for the practice session,” says Ranil Mendis, one of the organizers. Everyone wanted to keep playing, so they practiced every Wednesday in August.

There were thunderstorm warnings on the day of the match and emails were sent out telling people that it would be postponed. However, about 30 people turned up anyway at Erindale Park in Mississauga and set up wickets. The weather magically cleared and the cricketers decided to play after all.

“We didn’t quite have a full team from St. Peter’s, so we simply divided into two teams,” explains Mr. Mendis. “It was a lot of fun.”

The players dubbed the event “Mississauga Church Cricket Day” and hope to repeat it next summer. “We think that cricket will prove to be a great vehicle for fellowship among the GTA churches – a common thread that can bind our diverse church communities together,” says Mr. Mendis.

For more information and to join the 2017 event, contact Mr. Mendis at rmendis1@gmail.com.

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Planned by All Saints, Markham and held at Georgian College in Barrie, the conference explored the theme “Shine for Jesus” with a keynote address from Bishop Patrick Yu, area bishop of York-Scarborough. “He used an illustration of chemistry – how different chemicals leave different colours of light,” says the Rev. Philip Der, incumbent of St. Christopher. “Likewise, we have different gifts, and we all radiate different colours of light.”

The idea for the conference arose in 2006 when members of St. Elizabeth wanted to hold an event but lacked the resources to accommodate all of its members. “We have Chinese-speaking adults, we have English-speaking youth and English-speaking children,” says Mr. Der, then-incumbent of St. Elizabeth. “It is difficult to afford to have three speakers in one conference.”

He also saw it as an opportunity to help members of the four churches get to know each other. “When people move to other places, they know the people and they can join the worship in their neighbourhood,” he says.

After meeting to discuss the idea, the churches agreed to share their resources, and the first joint conference was held in July 2007. Since then, it has been held every three years, with the churches taking turns hosting it.

Mr. Der says the conference is especially important in helping the churches explore issues they all face, such as how to pass on the Christian faith to the next generation. “Most parents are very devout Christians and encourage their faith and talk about faith at home too, but somehow young people reach university age and they drift away,” he says. “I think that’s a probably a thing for many Anglicans.”

The churches are also discussing how to balance the traditions of their original members with the needs of new Christians. “We’re probably still using the same ways to reach out to our community from the past 20 to 30 years. So what are our next steps if we want to reach out to our community?” says Mr. Der. “We are learning to help new Christians, to nurture new Christians to become followers of Christ.”

With the fourth conference now complete and each church having taken its turn to host, Mr. Der says the organizing committee is considering how to shape future conferences. Like the rest of the diocese, he says they will probably explore ways in which Chinese churches can be more missional.

“We no longer simply look at what we do, but we should begin to look out to the community, what we can do for the community,” he says. “I hope that it will give us light, how to shine in this community.”

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My work is dynamic and fluid. One moment I might be listening to and supporting someone who is seeking sanctuary in the cathedral, and the next I am contacting a prominent thinker to invite them to speak in one of our lecture series. I spend a lot of time answering emails, coordinating events, providing pastoral care, drinking coffee, planning liturgies and writing sermons. My primary ministry focuses are education and outreach, and supporting the spiritual lives of young adults. We have a fantastic team here at St. James, and I love learning from my colleagues. Evensong, every Sunday at 4:30 p.m., continues to be one of the greatest moments of my week. In that service the prayers we recite daily are expressed through our choir. Their harmonies and cadences open sacred texts for me in new and awe-inspiring ways.

One of the most exciting projects I am involved with at the cathedral is our Truth and Reconciliation lecture series. In the wake of the residential schools, the church has been called out. The Truth and Reconciliation report and process has shone light on the church’s role in systematically dismantling and disempowering Indigenous communities, family and governance structures, languages, spiritualties and more. How is the church to respond to the sword of truth? The least Anglicans can do is read the TRC report and respond to the “Calls to Action,” several of which are directed specifically toward churches. Article 59 calls us to offer education on the church’s role in colonization and its effect on Indigenous communities. I believe we should all be doing this, and listening to Indigenous leaders and discerning how we can be supportive of their work. The cathedral’s education committee, Dialogues for Living, has responded by hosting a two-year series with a monthly lecture that seeks to highlight Indigenous voices and provide learning opportunities for our broader community. I also look forward to working further with the Primate’s Council of Elders and Youth on the declaration of the rights of Indigenous peoples. There are people on that council who I really look up to; I feel deeply humbled to get to sit at their feet and dream together on how the church can be an embodied ally in the struggle for Indigenous rights.

One of the most delightful elements of my job is participating in the culture of prayer at the cathedral, from the daily offices to Mass. Leading people in prayer, raising the concerns of the community, lifting the names of the sick and the dead, and hearing scripture proclaimed, is a tremendous gift and joy.

The hardest part of my ministry is witnessing the destitution and violence that many women struggling with poverty in Toronto face. There is not enough affordable housing, shelter beds, mental health resources, or places of refuge for women, children, and LGBTQ+ people fleeing abuse. Every once in a while I meet someone on the steps of the cathedral who is on the run and doesn’t know where they can go for safety. The hardest part of my job is the anxiety of wondering if some people ever got away, or if I will ever see them again. We need more places of refuge and healing, not just mental health crisis management. We need to respond with love and commitment to sharing our resources so that all might have life abundant. I pray for increased imagination, solidarity, commitment to one another, and love.

I was born in Pembroke, Ontario to Anne and Stephen Kern. I am the third of four children. My parents, siblings, and extended family continue to be my backbone and inspiration. I was raised mostly around the GTA. My favourite thing to do is sing songs around a bonfire with friends and family in the fields of my parent’s farm in Uxbridge, Ontario. My brother, Carl, and I both write and play folk music. I also love to paint. Before going into ministry, I worked in museums; curating stories and people’s experiences was a tremendous privilege. I studied at the University of Toronto and Yale Divinity School. I am passionate about theology and love to learn!

I was raised by two people who really lived their faith. In the Ottawa valley, my parents would host various people in need of somewhere to stay. One man once ran off with all the meat in our refrigerator, and my mom said, “He must have needed it more than we did!” Despite growing up in a formative Christian home, I left the church and stopped taking the Eucharist in my early teen years, unable to believe that Jesus was God. In my early twenties, I had two totally unexpected mystical experiences, one with Mary, the Mother of God, and the second with Jesus Christ strung up on a Cross. As I wrestled with these experiences, I sought out spiritual direction, leaned on the counsel of Elders, was steeped in the liturgy, and began to surrender my life to the truth I had witnessed.

I think one of the troubles of our time is that our dominant culture is starved of reverence and respect. I believe at this time we are called as church to testify to the holy and the sacred. In a consumer society, we internalize an identity that is based primarily on viewing ourselves and one another as products and objects, not as holy mysteries that are pressed with the image of God. We see the impact of objectification and dehumanization everywhere: at least one out of every four women in our society has been raped and half of Canadian women have been assaulted; property is protected with greater might than people’s lives; and our economy is based on resource extraction that decimates the lifeblood of creation. The church may be a place where people are invited to pray and encounter the mystery and non-commodifiable glory of our Creator. In the sacraments, we participate in the divine economy of grace; there is water for all, the body of God is given to the mouths of young and old, and us fumbling fools meet the embrace of the One who calls us beloved. I feel that the church can call people into this reality through providing space for contemplative prayer and engaging the embodied senses in worship. Catechism and formation classes can be opportunities for people to learn about the symbols, mysteries, sacraments, mysticism, wisdom, and artistic traditions of the church. Likewise, we should be thinking creatively about how we can respond to the crisis of violence, especially sexual assault. How are we talking about consent, reverence, and respect in our communities? In Toronto, there is a massive gap in resources, from mental health care to legal aid, for survivors of sexual violence and abuse. I believe the church should learn more about how to become a sanctuary, ally, and advocate against violence that attacks the sacred.

I pray in five years I would be found engaged in a vibrant community that shows the wounded body of Christ enfleshed in our love, the works of mercy, life of prayer, and devotion to the Gospel.

“So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:17-18). There is so much that could be said about this passage. Instead of spilling ink over how beautiful and profound the reality it points to is, I encourage you to read, mark, and inwardly digest it for your inspiration and nourishment!

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In 10 years as a bishop, I have not addressed the practice of removing the Bible from the pulpit before the sermon. I believe the motivation for this practice is entirely practical – to make room on a crowded surface for sermon notes. Since I print my notes on one page, I have never felt the need for much room. On the contrary, the optics of moving the Bible out of the way so that one can preach is profoundly troubling.

It is often said that the Anglican Church has no formal doctrine aside from the Creed, and that our doctrine is embedded in our liturgy. This is not entirely true. Our earliest practices and formularies subscribe to the supremacy of scripture, albeit interpreted by tradition and reason. But liturgy is important. This is all the more reason to be careful about ceremony – the largely unwritten parts that encompass movement, order and subtle hints that work on the subconscious. What focus one puts on the Bible affects worship, and by extension the life of the church.

The current arrangement in our Sunday liturgy is to have the lessons of the day printed in leaflets. In more churches than not, lessons and Gospel proclamations for readers are put in binders. Again, these are eminently practical arrangements: the average reader is not expected to know where the lesson begins or ends. Mistakes have been made, and I have some real knee-slappers to share.

Liturgical practices both reflect and shape theological thinking, particularly in a church like ours that relies heavily on symbols. The combined symbolic impact of loose-leaf lessons and the absence of Bibles on lecterns, pulpits or in pews, I would argue, profoundly changes our experience of the scriptures as a unified source of revelation. We encounter it episodically, each passage separated from another and definitely taken out of the fabric of the whole salvation story. It contradicts our insistence elsewhere that a Bible passage must be interpreted in context. Is it a coincidence that we find in our people a disjointed understanding of scripture? Since clergy choose the lesson they preach from, and they usually choose the Gospel reading, the rest of scripture is de facto closed. Should a parishioner wish to check out a reference, or a stranger wander in, will there be a Bible in the pews to read? It is said that our liturgy is chock full of biblical allusions, but would people be able to make the connection – and does that matter?

Before you dismiss me as a “fundamentalist” and ‘biblicist,” I hasten to say that I value all the findings of modern biblical scholarship and acknowledge that scripture needs to be read in context. Many passages are obscure and seem out of place to our understanding of the world. But the weight of theological development is not to downplay or dismiss the scriptures in favour of some more progressive foundation but to engage it, struggle with it, learn from it. You cannot do that if you are not even familiar with the material, the stories and the teaching. Before you dismiss a teaching as irrelevant, at least know where to find it.

That Anglicans do not value the scriptures has been a standard barb thrown at our church. I do not accept that criticism, at least relative to the practice of our critics. In many so-called Bible-believing churches, people are just as selective in their biblical exposure and knowledge. From the English Reformation onward, our spirituality is grounded in systematic reading and preaching from the whole Bible. (Archbishop Cranmer’s original preface to the Prayer Book underlines that; see BCP p. 715.) The daily and weekly lectionary, if followed, will allow our people to hear the entire scripture read, and not just the preacher’s favourite passages. I want to commend deepening this treasure, this insistence on reading the whole scripture systematically, to honour the spirit of the Reformers to help our people become biblically literate. It was reported that when the great Bible was put at the back of the church for the first time, people crowded around it to read it and some tore pages from it. Let us prominently display the Bible again and not the page ripped from it!

It is simple to fix the liturgy. Clergy, put the Bible back in the pulpit and lectern, don’t remove pew Bibles, and if your predecessor did it, at least put one Bible in each pew.  Print the page numbers of lessons in your leaflets. We already have a practice of processing the Missal. This is a great visual symbol to honour the Bible. Make the rest of the liturgy consistent with this intent and do not contradict it.

But fixing the liturgy is the easy part. We need to make biblical literacy a foundation in our discipleship-making strategy. I know that 20 minutes on a Sunday morning is not enough, but it has to begin there. I strive to give some biblical context in preaching and to endeavor to connect lessons from week to week out of the same basket of Gospel, Epistles and Old Testament. I deviate from the lectionary in thematic preaching from time to time. You can do this on a book or a character. Even if you stick to the Gospel lesson, there is plenty of room to put the lesson of the day in context – say, of Jesus’ journey from Galilee to Jerusalem.

My observation of those who still have a Christian memory is that people are familiar with some biblical stories but they do not know how they relate to each other and how they fit in the great story of God’s work in the world. To have a context – a backbone, if you will – that people can hang those stories and teachings on to will greatly advance people’s appreciation and understanding of those stories. In every church I have served, I have offered a Bible survey course that helps people read through the whole Bible in a year (it usually takes two.) This method requires participants to read large portions of scripture alongside a Bible dictionary or a handbook, and to engage in a question for each session. Only a small number of people will complete the course, but even so those who participate are introduced to a different way to read scripture. Those who complete the course move forward in leaps and bounds and normally go on to take up responsibility. The Rev. Don Freeman, who developed the course in the 1970s, has now improved it and calls it “Hiking through the Bible.” He is still offering it at St. John, Peterborough.

I assume that every church has a Bible study. Reading scripture together is characteristic of an Anglican approach to scripture and is universally found in all parts of the Communion. Can we multiply this by training Bible study leaders so that the parish priest is not the only teacher but a resource person for other leaders? If you do this right, Bible studies are wonderful small groups of mutual care, and they can also be units of evangelism to different circles of friends.

This is my last opinion piece in The Anglican before retirement. Now you know where my passion lies. Despite the provocative title, the Bible has NOT disappeared from all our churches. I am encouraged by churches that prominently display daily Bible reading material from the Forward movement and others to be picked up. I know of parishes that jump-start biblical literacy; some that challenge parishioners to read 100 biblical passages in 100 days; other churches with lively, multiple Bible studies.  I have actually preached from pulpits with Bibles on them. Yes, it may cramp the preacher, but I think it should.

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The strategic plan addresses the opportunities and the issues facing our diocese, and takes into account our demographics both as they are and as they are projected. It recalls us to our faith in Jesus Christ and our commitment to Christ’s presence and mission in the midst of our communities. It builds on what we have been doing and invites us to imagine what else is possible as we respond in faith to the Spirit’s leadership. It is not the bishop’s vision nor the bishops’ vision – it is our common vision as a discernment of God’s call to us as Anglicans in this place at this time. You will note the name: Growing in Christ.

The specific ways the plan will move from aspiration to action are still being worked out (and will continue to be worked out over the next months and years.) There will be ample scope both for the new area bishops and the people in their episcopal areas to develop specific actions to implement the diocesan vision in the local context.

Like everyone else, our diocese is in a time of change and transition. We face a number of challenges both internal and external and we will respond to them by coming together as a community rooted in our faith in Jesus Christ, our shared values in the Gospel, and led by the Spirit, adapting to our context as the church has in every age.

Our diocese’s mission statement defines what is ours to do as a diocese within the Anglican Church of Canada: We build healthy, missional Anglican communities that engage faithfully with the world and share the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Our vision is to be an Anglican community committed to proclaiming and embodying Jesus Christ through compassionate service, intelligent faith and Godly worship. We are committed to working collaboratively as a team, bringing the complementary gifts that God has given us, and valuing different types of structures of ministry that allow us to nurture our relationship with God, increase our faithful discipleship and make a positive difference in the world.

There are five areas that we want to give specific attention:

• Leadership and Formation in Christian discipleship.
• Building a culture of trust and mutual responsibility.
• Encouraging bold innovation based on good evidence and experience.
• Streamlining our governance structure to serve our needs.
• Being wise and effective stewards of our resources.

You will hear more over the coming months as these are fleshed out. The new bishops will be integral in that process, as will you.

O God of unchangeable power and eternal light,
look favourably on your whole church,
that wonderful and sacred mystery.
By the effectual working of your providence,
carry out in tranquillity the plan of salvation.
Let the whole world see and know
that things which were cast down are being raised up,
and things which had grown old are being made new,
and that all things are being brought to their perfection
by him through whom all things were made,
your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

More information about the diocese’s strategic plan, Growing in Christ, will be published in The Anglican.

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