Setting Sail: Conversations before General Synod
Latest columns
2005
Becoming bread
The young man joins the crowd at the edge of the water. He hears the preacher’s words, abrasive words made harsher by the shouting that makes the baptist audible above the rumble of a thousand murmurs.
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Emails and sleeping on the subway
This is about communication, silence and lost opportunities.
Putting words into the mouth of someone else, let alone the resident CEO is a task that a communications underling approaches with some trepidation and not a small measure of due consideration. So it was that when I recently crafted a statement on behalf of the Primate to [...]
The walk and the gift
A memory that is rich in my mind and I suspect that comes easily to you is that of the priest or lay reader rising from his or her knees to read “the Comfortable Words” following the confession and absolution in the Book of Common Prayer Communion service. Most of us have those biblical sentences [...]
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A diverse strategy for a diverse church
The Anglican Appeal gives Canadian Anglicans the opportunity to directly support the mission and ministry of General Synod. Many years ago, there was an appeal for the North and overseas. Anglicans in Mission was able to provide sufficient funding for this work, but when this campaign ended, the capacity for mission and ministry was drastically [...]
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The focus of General Synods’ Office of Financial Development
Thoughtful lay and clergy leaders across the country are helping the whole Canadian church to move away from a theology of scarcity to one of abundance, of generosity. This shift – which is really a move from maintenance to one of mission – is clearly noticeable and, frankly, about time! Helping committed Anglicans in Canada [...]
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Fostering partnerships on stormy seas
The Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund has counted on the faith filled generosity of Canadian Anglicans since it was founded 45 years ago. This generosity has enabled PWRDF to reach out to people in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and aboriginal communities in Canada in order to forge enduring partnerships with community groups, agencies, coalitions, [...]
read moreSafe arrivals
Volunteers in Mission is a program where Canadian volunteers are assigned to work for partners overseas who have asked for their services., usually for a period of two years. One of the responsibilities volunteers agree to accept is to communicate regularly with parishioners back home. Here is a sampling among recent letters.
I am lodged in [...]
A financial cornerstone of the national newspaper’s existence
A decade ago, when Anglican Journal first made an appeal to donors for financial support, its expectations were that the newspaper would be able to offset the results of reduced funding (38 per cent) from the national church. This occurred during a time of financial crisis in the church: a $2.5 million spending reduction to [...]
read moreEnsuring that church obligations are met
In March, 2003, the Primate signed an historic agreement with the government of Canada to resolve the disputes between the church and government around who was responsible for abuse in the Indian residential schools. Former students had filed approximately 12,000 claims against the government, and roughly 20 per cent of these involved attendance at schools [...]
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Working to repair the damage
The Indigenous Healing Fund was established in 1991 to give grants to Indigenous community or church groups for healing programs designed to address the damage caused by the residential schools experience. While the original mandate of the Healing Fund was restricted to dealing with the trauma arising from residential schools, this has since been expanded [...]
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