One only has to drive 42 kilometers west of Hamilton to find the longest-running residential school in Canada. Closed only in 1970, the Mohawk Institute Residential School is now on the premises of the Woodland Cultural Centre, a facility that “opens the doors to Southern Ontario’s First Nations past, present and future.” This was the first stop on my second day of Stronger Together 2017.

Running Aug. 15-17, Stronger Together was a collaboration between Six Nations Polytechnic and the Haldimand Tract Ecumenical Partnership. More than just a conference, it was an invitation to come and listen, not only to the injustices of the past and how they are still reverberating through the Six Nations community, but also to hear about resilience, accomplishment and hope.

Over the course of the two days I was able to attend, we heard from survivors of the Mohawk Institute Residential School and also from staff and students at Six Nations Polytechnic, the organist at the Royal Mohawk Chapel and elders of the Six Nations community. We were led through a thanksgiving address and walked through the Six Nations’ traditional consensus-based decision-making process, acting out, in ways both big and small, personal reconciliation.

On Aug. 6, 1993, then-Primate Michael Peers delivered an official apology for residential schools from the Anglican Church of Canada to the National Native Convocation in Minaki, Ont. Deeply moving and heartfelt, it’s all too easy for the rest of us (settlers) to feel like this is not just the start of reconciliation as a church, but also the end.

As not only a Christian but also a Canadian, a settler and an Anglican, reconciliation takes me to the place where I know and appreciate the differences and similarities between my community and each Indigenous community across Canada. Reconciliation needs to be as active for me as colonialism has been for them. Most importantly, reconciliation must involve listening to and believing Indigenous people about their own lived experiences and genuinely respecting them and their culture as equal to whatever I can bring to the table.

For all the books I’ve read and discussions I’ve participated in, Stronger Together was not an event I could ever deserve to have. It was a gift. I would like to take this space to thank Six Nations Polytechnic, Haldimand Tract Ecumenical Partnership, Woodland Cultural Centre, Rick Hill, Taylor Gibson, Tanis Hill and Scott Knarr, among so many others who came together and made this happen.

If you’re interested in learning more about the specifics of this community, I would highly recommend you check out some of the following resources:

• Six Nations Polytech (www.snpolytechnic.com) serves both the Indigenous and non-Indigenous community with two campuses, which are connected to many local universities.
• Woodland Cultural Centre (www.woodlandculturalcentre.ca) is open daily to the public.
• Her Majesty’s Royal Chapel of The Mohawks (www.mohawkchapel.ca) is the oldest church in Ontario and one of only two royal chapels in North America.
• Two Row Wampum (www.onondaganation.org/culture/wampum/two-row-wampum-belt-guswenta/) is a symbol of the first treaty between the Mohawk and Dutch settlers.
• The Haudenosaunee Confederacy (www.haudenosauneeconfederacy.com).
• The Six Nations Reserve (http://www.sixnations.ca/).

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Scholarships have been given to 31 students from the Ajax and Pickering area, and 10 international students, from Tanzania, Guyana, Uganda, Guatemala, Kenya, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Egypt and Cambodia, have received bursaries.

Recipients of the 2017 Youth Achievement Scholarship are Tajae Gustavus, Nathanael Masson and Sarah Power. The 2017 Arcelia Hunte Memorial International Bursary was awarded to three women from the Mother’s Union Sewing Centre of the Diocese of Tarime, Tanzania – Happiness Daniel, Ester Paulo and Suzana Samwel.

High school students who are residents of Ajax or Pickering and plan to attend university or college in September 2018, are eligible for the scholarship. The next set of scholarship applications are due by May 18, 2018 and forms will be available on-line at www.stpaulsonthehill.com, at the church or at school guidance offices in Ajax or Pickering beginning in January.

St. Paul’s is proud to continually encourage and support the young people of its community and adults studying to make a difference in their families and communities in the world at large.

For more information or to make a donation to the program, visit the church’s website or call the church office at 905-839-7909.

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The family of seven had fled Syria and lived for five years in a refugee camp in Turkey. After their arrival in Canada, they lived in temporary housing for two months while the committee found a suitable rental home. The parishes had collected enough items to completely furnish their new home.

The children started school in September, and the adults are taking English classes at the Ajax Welcome Centre. Volunteers from the parishes helped with English over the summer, taking the family to medical and dental appointments and shopping. They are becoming used to the transit system and are gradually needing less help from ROAD.

“This whole adventure has been inspiring for our parishes,” says Bruce Beveridge, a member of St. Thomas, Brooklin. “Reaching out and helping the less fortunate has drawn us closer to our faith.”

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Canada’s sesquicentennial celebrations this year provided a great opportunity to mark the occasion by building a floral clock. It has a diameter of 3.6 metres with foundations constructed from large pieces of Canadian Shield granite. The stones was brought from a blasting site near Bracebridge, Ont. by members of the congregation who were told they were going on a day’s mystery outing; their only requirements were steel-capped boots and a strong back.

The waterproof vault that holds the mechanical drive for the clock’s hands was set in concrete in the centre and a cable was laid from the vault to an electronic control inside the church. The vault is covered by a large circular panel with a red maple leaf motif.

The dates of confederation and the establishment of St. John’s were inscribed on pieces of flat stone in the outside ring of the clock face. Rich soil was obtained from a nearby farm with the understanding that it was well aged so that it would not signal its presence to the immediate neighbourhood with its natural fragrance. Begonias, marigolds and creeping phlox were planted by members of the congregation and the Sunday School.

Since its dedication, the clock has survived changeable weather, a hail storm, a resident frog, and a hearty rendering of “Oh Canada” during the ribbon-cutting ceremony, which was beautifully catered by the Anglican Church Women. It will hopefully remain as a unique and lovely reminder of Canada’s sesquicentennial celebrations.

Submitted by Rosemary Walton, the parish administrator of the Parish of Craighurst and Midhurst.

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These seasonal agricultural employees arrive in May and June from Latin America, the Caribbean and Asia and remain separated from their families until they depart in November. Living in barracks on farms, they were once isolated and unsupported with little access to transportation, counselling and other services. But now, innovative Anglican outreach ministries in the diocese are helping to change that.

At the forefront of collaboration with the Durham Region Migrant Workers Network (DRMWN), the Rev. Augusto Nunez, the Rev. Canon Ted McCollum and the Rev. Kit Greaves are among those leading a comprehensive outreach to visiting field workers.

The Peruvian-born Mr. Nunez is the new priest-in-charge at St. Saviour, Orono, about 90 km east of Toronto. Thanks to a Ministry Allocation Fund grant from the diocese, he’ll be able to split his time between serving at St. Saviour’s and conducting an itinerant ministry across the communities of Northumberland County in aid of seasonal workers. “I came to Canada at age 12, and I can relate to living in a strange land and culture and leaving everything you know. You need support,” he says.

Mr. Nunez’s group kicked off the 2017 season with a health fair on July 16 at St. John, Bowmanville, where Mr. Greaves is the incumbent, and celebrated St. Saviour’s first Spanish service on July 23. Last year, Mr. Nunez served in the seasonal workers’ program based at St. John’s, and before that he spent three summers doing the same in the Beaverton area. In collaboration with a growing number of other groups in the DRMWN, his ministry tends to a broad swathe of spiritual and practical needs – from worship services for workers in Spanish and English to psychological counselling, medical and dental care, safety and transportation. Distributing reconditioned bicycles to workers is a key element of this program.

The health fairs include not only consultations with doctors but also nutritional advice stressing the importance of a good diet. “Some workers tend to drink a lot of sugary pop,” Mr. Nunez says. Depression can be a problem, too, and the program has brought on board a psychologist to help with that. Local doctors have begun to offer their services as well.

“We even have a friend who comes over to give free haircuts,” says Mr. Nunez. “And we’re also networking to bring in English as a Second Language. Knowing English can help workers get ahead in their positions and maybe become supervisors.”

Mr. Nunez loves soccer, and as a registered soccer coach, he enjoys organizing pickup games with the workers. He’s also well acquainted with the music, special holidays and food of Latin America and the Caribbean, and he knows how to throw a party. All that serves to cement relationships. “Over the summer, friendships are formed. In November, we say goodbye to friends; then in May, they’re back again and we’re here to support them,” he says.

For Fernando, a 35-year-old worker from the central Mexican city of Guanajuato, it’s his second summer in Canada and his first in Northumberland County. “I’m very grateful for this ministry and what it’s doing personally for me. I really appreciate the support,” he says, echoing the feelings of many other workers.

Adds Delroy Smith, who hails from historic Spanish Town in Jamaica, and is in his second year of working on an apple farm near Bowmanville, “It’s a really good ministry where we can come together as one and unite and feel loved as family.”

One thing that’s made the six months of separation a little easier for workers like Fernando and Delroy, says Mr. Nunez, is the advent of cheap cell phone plans that allow them to connect frequently with their families back home.

As for Canon McCollum, who started a small program at St. Paul, Beaverton in 2009 after noticing large numbers of Mexican workers on the town’s streets, he’s gratified to see this caring work steadily expand along the Highway 401 corridor. “I’m over the moon that other parishes have taken up this kind of ministry and that the diocese supports us in a ministry that reaches over a thousand workers,” he says. “These are workers who previously had no connection to any church or health services, and I’m really excited to see what started as a small group grow to where we’re serving so many people.” St. Paul’s held a health fair and welcome dinner for Beaverton-area seasonal workers in June.

Looking ahead, Canon McCollum would like to see Mr. Nunez’s ministry become a full-time one, with perhaps another person brought in to help with the demands of dealing with both the men and the farm owners. And he hopes more parishes will jump on board. “Open your front doors and see the people who need help and get on the bandwagon,” he says.

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My position is that of Canadian director, president of our Canadian board of directors and a member of the U.S. board of directors. I am on the chapter, which is a group of 18 members who meet annually in the fall to pray and plan our coming year’s educational topics and the ongoing direction of our community.

We are a lay community whose Rule of Life is based on Benedictine spirituality. Our focus is on becoming the people that God wants us to be. We are accountable to one another for our spiritual growth. We rely on the guidance of the Holy Spirit in our daily lives. We are recognized by the Anglican Church in Canada and the Episcopal Church in the United States.

As the Canadian director, my key role is to read the monthly letters of our community members, to keep a pulse on the heart of the community. We have 134 life-professed members. I have four people writing their monthly letter to me, to whom I respond. I am involved in the production of our monthly bulletin, which features an educational article, questions for reflection, community news and members’ stories of mission and ministry to others.

Our community members live and work in the world, in all sorts of occupations. I have three children and four grandchildren and have worked in the insurance industry for 45 years. Our covenant commitment to The Worker Sisters and Brothers of the Holy Spirit is our desire to grow closer to God, serving Jesus Christ right where we are in the world. Our Rule of Life is our toolbox to assist us in becoming more obedient to the nudges of the Holy Spirit, growing closer to Christ. In the messy circumstances of our everyday world, it is an anchor to help us live in a purposeful and joyful way.

Most of us are lay people – married, single, divorced, widowed or partnered. There is also a place for clergy in our midst, as we grow and learn together. We are sort of a virtual community in that we do not live together, but maintain our solid connections through prayer, Skype, email, monthly corporate communion where physically possible, and an annual retreat. Our bonds are strong and we support one another through all trials and joys of life. We have members in Canada, the United States, Haiti and Australia.

In 1984, I had a sort of conversion experience and started reading my Bible and attending church again, after leaving it in my teenage years. I really wanted support in this wonderful life I had found. I was introduced to The Worker Sisters and Brothers of the Holy Spirit while attending Emmanuel Anglican Church in Richmond Hill. I felt like I had found my home. I joined in 1985 and became a Sister in 1992. We have a wonderful educational process: a year of applicancy with study each month, another year of study as a worker, a year or more of just “being” in the community, a second year of study, and then a year as a novice, with a monthly study before becoming a Sister or Brother if that is the desire. I am currently an active member of St. Mark’s Anglican Lutheran Church in Midland. I work for an insurance broker in town, curl, golf and have a fascinating hobby doing stained glass art.

I made a life commitment to our community in 1985 and can say that the spiritual growth and development that I have received has been invaluable in my life. I have had support on my journey in the raising of my children, my 30 years of marriage, my divorce, dealing with grief in the death of my spouse and my mother, and now with the work of loving and caring for my grieving father. With the many changes in locations and churches due to life circumstances, my community has been my constant support. It has given me the ongoing educational and emotional support that I needed, but the most important part of our Rule of Life is the accountability to one another. With accountability, one does not just slip away. We are constantly drawn back to Jesus Christ and to continuing this journey of faith, and being a witness of Jesus to others we encounter along the way.

Five years from now I hope to be walking closer to Jesus, have this obedience thing figured out and be more involved with ministry in my local church as I retire from my insurance career. I will be doing something that is needed in our Worker Sisters and Brothers of The Holy Spirit community as I am led.

My favourite scripture is Psalm 40. It speaks to me of God lifting me out of a state of turmoil and confusion to a state of peace. It gives me hope in a complicated and sometimes confusing world. It encourages me and gives me strength in the toughest of times.

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Indeed, as she retired as chaplain at Havergal College, an independent girls’ school in Toronto, to take up the diocese’s canon missioner position on a full-time basis on Sept. 1, she relished the opportunity to not only share the Gospel with people, but to empower other Anglicans in the diocese to do so as well.

“We are followers of the Way,” she says. “Sharing the Gospel and sharing our faith with people who don’t yet know the name of Jesus is what we’re about.”

Being the diocese’s canon missioner is to have “a heart and orientation” towards people who do not know Christianity or have left the church, she says. “My work is to help us focus on our mission again, and I’ll do that any way that makes sense. I’m pleased and honored to place any skills that I have at the service of mission in our diocese.”

She plans to continue with the work she has been doing for the past five years as the diocese’s half-time canon missioner, only now she will have more time for it. One of her top priorities is to support the diocese’s Reach Grants initiative – small grants that are given to individuals or churches to try new ways of sharing the faith with the unchurched and dechurched.

Since 2011, the grants have funded 70 short-term missions, at least three of which have been turned into new congregations. “We’ve seen incredible creativity with these,” she says. “It is so heartening. They are mostly lay led, and the ideas are put together enthusiastically by people who really, truly understand their context and the people around them. It’s a lot of thinking and industry and having such a care for those who don’t know Jesus’s name yet.”

Another area she is keen to support is planting new churches. “We’re really at the beginning of this process and we’re learning how to do it and how not to do it. I’m interested in exploring a relational approach to church planting – mother churches planting new parishes and maintaining that relationship, in terms of guidance, prayer and material support. I hope and pray this becomes the model and ambition of every parish possible in the diocese.

“I’m also deeply interested in learning from the work of our talented rebooters – those leadership teams that have nurtured new life in parishes that appeared to have run their course. This is a particular skill, and one that I hope we can harvest and share widely with one another.”

She is also passionate about new forms of theological education. “If we’re training a new generation of leaders, both lay and ordained, there needs to be a pathway of education that takes into account this missional age we live in. We don’t want to lose our heritage of theological education, but we are in a new age and the fact is that we need some new skills – or more accurately, to resurrect some old skills: Christian apologetics that seek to speak Christ into the culture.”

One of her new duties as canon missioner will be to support the work of school chaplains, mainly by meeting with them and raising their profile in the diocese. Seven independent schools in the diocese have Anglican chaplains, whose roles can include leading regular prayer services, teaching religious education classes and providing pastoral support to their school communities.

“The work they do is often hidden in comparison with other forms of ministry, but they live out their Christian lives in largely secular communities,” she says. “Through living witness, they influence many young hearts and minds every day. This is important missional ministry and I look forward to working with my colleagues.”

She praised the work of the Rev. Canon Douglas Graydon, who as the diocese’s Coordinator of Chaplaincy Services for the past 15 years supported the school chaplains. The chaplaincy services department is being restructured and Canon Graydon’s new job title is Coordinator of Health Care Chaplaincy. In that role, he will provide support to hospital chaplains and parish nurses.

“I’d like to thank Douglas for all his work over the years with the school chaplains,” says Canon Bell. “He has in large part been our support and has created community for us. I’ve really appreciated that.”

As she prepared to leave Havergal College, she looked back with fondness at the place that has been her second home for the past decade. “I will miss it so much,” she says. “I have grown so much in ministry there – and in fact the ministry itself has grown as well. It’s taught me a huge amount. I have deep relationships that I hope will continue, because I value them a lot. I have nothing but respect for the kind of work my colleagues there do day in and day out. I love the kids; that’s what I’ll miss the most – the energy of those young, intelligent, strong women who are going to be such a force in our world. Which is why the work of school chaplaincy is so important – to be there as a witness, to show the face of not only Christ but the church and being a force for good in our world. It really makes such a difference.”

The school plans to host a farewell celebration for Canon Bell before the end of the year. For more information, visit www.havergal.on.ca.

Archbishop Colin Johnson says he is excited that Canon Bell has taken on the canon missioner role full-time. “This will allow us to put an extra-special focus on the whole variety of missional opportunities that exist for us today,” he says. “She brings the experience of being a chaplain in a girls’ school related to the church, but which is really front-line missional work.”

While this is the first time the diocese has had a full-time missioner, Archbishop Johnson says this work recalls the diocese’s missional roots and the challenges faced by its first leaders. “In the early days of our diocese, it was a missionary diocese. As the community grew and changed, Bishop Strachan helped to reimagine how the church needed to function in a new context,” he says. “I think this is a critical juncture for us to reclaim our tradition of proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ.”

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It was my last evening in Santiago, Spain. I was seated at a long table with 20 or so other pilgrims and we were celebrating the completion of our pilgrimages on the Camino de Santiago by breaking bread together. I found myself across the table from a young Canadian woman, Sarah, from Kingston. As the conversation ebbed and flowed, someone made the connection that three of us grouped together were all psychotherapists – at which point another person, Otto, from Winnipeg, piped up and said, “Yeah, and Susan’s also an Anglican priest.”

Words fail to do justice to the look of rapture on Sarah’s face. Too stunned to speak for many seconds, she was aglow with transfiguring amazement and awe. Looking ready to laugh and cry at the same time, she stammered: “I can’t believe this! I walked the entire Camino trying to discern if I should leave my profession of psychotherapy to answer what I believe is God’s call to the Anglican priesthood. I’ve been struggling with wanting to do both, not able to choose between them, not knowing or ever conceiving that both could be possible. And here I am, on the last night, thinking I wasn’t going to get an answer – and here you are, giving me the answer to five weeks of prayer.”

Now, with tears welling up, she continued, “I just can’t believe it! My heart’s going to burst. Because the answer is: ‘Sarah, you can do both.’”

Yes, you can do both. What for Sarah was a startling and awesome epiphany is simply my normal. My ordinary, bi-vocational life combines ministering to others as a part-time mental health professional and as the part-time incumbent of a small parish. Despite being one of the few bi-vocational priests in the Diocese of Toronto, I hadn’t appreciated its singularity and enormous potential. But she sure did. That she could still be a psychotherapist and also say yes to God’s call to ordained ministry was a tremendous gift to her.

As it has been to me. During the last five years, I have alternated every week between days spent in my part-time psychotherapy private practice and days spent as the part-time incumbent of St. Theodore of Canterbury in North York. It is, I suppose, an unusual rhythm: on Mondays and Thursdays I am Susan, the psychotherapist, and on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays I am Mother Susan, the parish priest.

While my professions may seem to outsiders as so similar as to be almost identical, they are not. This configuration requires me to be constantly alert. Not only is it vitally important to remember, as I open my eyes every morning, exactly what day of the week it is, it’s also vitally important to remember with precision the “clothes” I’m wearing at any given time. However, for me, there is both professional and personal fulfillment, as well as a stimulating synergy created by the tensions between the two, which more than compensate for the effort required in staying alert and switching gears.

What exactly does my part-time parish ministry look like? Like that of any incumbent of a small parish, with all the regular liturgical, pastoral, teaching, administrative and diocesan responsibilities of any other church leader. I do it part-time and on a proportionate basis. But not always! The vast majority of my administrative tasks cannot be delegated, and during Advent, Christmas, Lent and Holy Week, I preside at the same number of liturgies and find myself as stretched and busy as my full-time colleagues.

While, like most of my colleagues, I struggle at times with work/life balance and discerning when to forge ahead and when to say no and retreat to the mountain, I perceive that for the bi-vocational person the stakes are even higher. Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, once said that the greatest gift a priest can give her people is what she cannot do. How very true! This is not so much a recognition that no ordained person has all the necessary talent, time, and energy to minister to all the needs of a parish and to fulfill God’s mission in that place; rather, it is that the limitations of an ordained leader open space for others to find and serve in their equally important ministries. While Archbishop Williams’ observation has broad relevance, it has a particular urgency for the bi-vocational parish leader and the people she serves.

When I began my ministry at St. Theodore’s, one of the first tasks I set for myself was transforming the understanding of my role and the congregation’s role, to accelerate the process of awakening in us a more baptismally oriented view of leadership and service. The homilist at my celebration of new ministry told the congregation bluntly that “Mother Susan will not be able to do this on her own.” Following her lead, I spent much time in exploring, inviting, and encouraging the gifts of others. Just one example: I saw early on that having a deacon would be a huge asset, and so moved as quickly as possible to discern with the parish and a potential candidate whether we and she were called in this way. By God’s grace, we were.

This opening of space brings lovely surprises to the life of a parish and to the blossoming of lay individuals, who might not otherwise develop or exercise their own ministries. A year ago, we conducted a very successful capital campaign that was conceived and executed by a former churchwarden who wasn’t a natural fundraiser but felt called to undertake a vital project that I could not have led myself. Time and again, I have observed that being a part-time incumbent creates a steady, salutary pressure on others to harken to God’s call to step up to fill the gaps that are so obvious and at times so large.

Finally, my bi-vocational status is a tremendous gift to today’s Church at large. Many churches in our diocese are somewhere towards the end of their life cycle; like St. Theodore’s, they may have years of Godly mission in which to engage still but not the numbers or financial resources to maintain a full-time priest. There is no reason for them to close; neither must they of necessity resort to non-stipendiary ministry, which may not be fulsome enough for the tasks at hand.

It is also a gift to the Church to have ordained servants who are “at the edge of inside.” In an op-ed article in The New York Times, David Brooks described the unique contribution to an organization made by those members who are neither inside and deeply embedded nor outside and throwing “missiles from beyond the walls.” The part-time priest with another active professional vocation is at the edge of inside, with “the loyalty of a faithful insider, but the judgment of the critical outsider.” As a person standing at the doorway, she is not “confused by trivia” nor “locked into the status quo.” Instead, her experience of watching constant comings and goings makes her comfortable with the process of perpetual questioning and transformation, and so able to evaluate and speak with a fresh perspective.

The voice of the bi-vocational priest is a unique voice amongst many other important voices – a voice the Church needs to hear. Hers is a unique vocation with plenteous gifts to offer the Church in our times, as it adapts and re-configures itself in response to new and sometimes challenging opportunities.

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But the Bible not only calls us to serve the vulnerable directly; it calls us to speak up on their behalf. Examples of this kind of advocacy include Moses and Esther, who risked their lives to bring the plight of the Jewish people before Pharaoh and the King of Persia. Again and again, the prophets call God’s people to establish justice (Amos 5:15, Micah 6:8) and to speak out for those at the margins (Proverbs 31:8-9, Isaiah 1:17). Even in exile, they are to seek the welfare of the whole city to which God has sent them, not just their own community (Jeremiah 29:7). That advocacy on behalf of the vulnerable is part of the mission of the church is made explicit in our baptismal vow to “strive for justice and peace among all people” and in the marks of mission of the Anglican Communion.

Throughout the history of this diocese, bishops and other church leaders have spoken out on social issues affecting our communities. Diocesan and area bishops regularly communicate with government through letters and meetings, and they are invited to comment on budgets and new legislation. Recognizing the importance of charitable organizations’ public witness on the impact of government policies, Canadian law considers these communications aspects of the church’s charitable purpose.

Over the past decade or more, the Social Justice and Advocacy Committee has drafted annual vestry motions on concerns with which our diocese is connected: poverty reduction, affordable housing, care for the environment, welcoming refugees and reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. These motions are non-partisan, and the diocesan College of Bishops must approve their final wording before commending them to parishes for consideration. When parishes across the diocese support these motions, it strengthens the bishops’ voices in their advocacy with government. For example, Archbishop Johnson’s response to the recent provincial budget and proposed labour legislation drew on parishes’ support for the 2014 vestry motion in support of raising the minimum wage.

The motions also serve to inform parishes about diocesan social justice concerns. Some Anglicans have first-hand knowledge of the impacts of poverty, lack of housing, environmental damage or unjust policies, but many others do not. The vestry motion campaign is an opportunity to learn more from those who do experience these impacts so we can add our voices in support of theirs. Each year, the Social Justice and Advocacy Committee prepares a brief “backgrounder” on the issue at hand, which can be used as a bulletin insert. Lately, we have also offered workshops in each episcopal area for Anglicans to learn more about the issue before vestry, as well as providing resources for further learning. The past two vestry motions around reconciliation with Indigenous peoples have motivated many parishes to learn more about the impact of colonialism and residential schools on First Nations, a welcome development.

More and more parishes, recognizing the need for education around the issues addressed in the social justice vestry motion, have asked us to make the motion and supporting resources available earlier in the year. To encourage parishes to take these opportunities for learning, we announced the subject of the 2018 motion in May, posted resources on the diocese’s website over the summer, and presented the wording of the motion to the bishops for approval in September. All these materials are available on the diocesan website at www.toronto.anglican.ca/socialjustice.

Some parishes shy away from presenting a social justice motion at vestry, seeking to avoid conflict. This is understandable, particularly in certain situations, and no parish is required to present the motion. However, the Anglican Church cannot be insulated from issues that affect the world God loves. Learning about and speaking out on these matters – even learning to disagree well together – is part of the witness we bear to Christ, who makes all things new.

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