Alastair McCollum loves Harleys, slings beers and likes to listen to Ozzy Osbourne after a long day at work.
He’s also the newest rector at St. John the Divine Anglican Church on Quadra Street.
For the 44-year-old transplant from Devon, England, breaking stereotypes is an important part of connecting with his Anglican community.
At the height of the controversy over same-sex blessings, which led to the departure of some clergy and laypeople ”“ including the former bishop ”“ the quiet and soft-spoken Pitman surprised many when he asked clergy in his diocese to declare their loyalty to the Anglican Church of Canada as they renewed their ordination vows and renewed their licences.
“Today, my friends, is a fresh start,” he had said in his sermon at a mandatory gathering held Jan. 21, 2008 at the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in St. John’s, Nfld. “It’s not a power grab as has been suggested by some. Whether someone is of a conservative bent or a liberal bent or some other bent, whatever these labels mean, I will support you”¦ But let’s not make any mistake about it. There are boundaries.”
The Anglican Church of Canada has asked clergy for its support in a plea to Ontario pension fund regulators to give it a three year extension of time to address a cash crunch in the church’s pension plan.
In a July 2013 letter to the 1,600 active members and 2,600 retirees covered by the church pension programme the plan administrators told the clergy their approval was needed before the government would grant the plea for more time. “With funding relief, we will have three years to try to improve our plan’s funding level,” they wrote. “At the end of three years, we will do another valuation of the plan. If there is still a solvency funding shortfall, we will likely have no choice but to cut benefits.”
The average age of plan participants is 52.5….
In the Rev. Laurette Glasgow’s world things may always be changing, but the basic realities tend to stay the same. As special advisor for government relations for the Anglican Church of Canada since March 2012, Glasgow has seen her position evolve as both she and the church learned what it was to have an ”˜ambassador’ to the federal government.
“Sometimes it grows organically,” says Glasgow, “and that’s what we always thought… that two years down the road we’d look back and say ”˜it’s a bit different than what we thought it was.’ But the fundamental elements are the same, the fundamental elements of relationship building, of building bridges, or interpreting the church to power, and interpreting power to the church.”
The resolution on peace and justice in Palestine and Israel, passed by the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada at its Ottawa meeting earlier this month, has met with mixed reactions from Palestinian and Israeli organizations.
The resolution reiterated the church’s established positions, recognizing “the legitimate aspirations, rights and needs of both Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace with dignity within sovereign and secure borders; condemning the use of all kinds of violence, especially against civilians; call[ing] for an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian Territories”¦”
– See more at: http://www.anglicanjournal.com/articles/mid-east-resolution-stirs-reaction#sthash.DbfK4NwW.dpuf
A Terwillegar church at the centre of a debate over plans for a supportive housing complex in the neighbourhood has been vandalized.
The words “No Homeless” were spray painted in three spots on the exterior walls of the Holy Trinity Anglican Church, at 1428 156 Street in Terwillegar Towne.
[The] Rev. Nick Trussell said he was informed of the vandalism Wednesday evening when he got a call from the instructor of a Highlands dance group that uses the church for its practices.
Archbishop Fred Hiltz described the recently concluded Joint Assembly as a “spirit-filled, spirit-led” gathering that can only strengthen the full communion relationship of the Anglican Church of Canada and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC).
“The very fact that these two churches, who have all kinds of challenges in front of them, were prepared to make this step to meet is really quite incredible,” said Hiltz, primate of the Anglican church. “What I saw through the Joint Assembly was a very positive, upbeat spirit.” The assembly was held July 3 to 7, at the Ottawa Convention Centre.
From here:Our Mission is Jesus Christ
St. John’s Shaughnessy is a small but flourishing congregation,
living our calling as Christians by faithfully walking the Anglican path.
Our road is less travelled.
We do not claim absolute knowledge of the Divine.
We really welcome everyone and are enriched by the dynamic tension of differing beliefs.
We embrace doubt. Pray hopefully. And celebrate diversity.
We practise our faith in our every day lives. Are strongly committed to social justice.
And believe in the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to transform lives.
Come as you are. Leave uplifted.
I do remember how many folk on the other side of the argument about 10 or so years ago were at pains to point out this was about blessings, not marriage ”“ marriage was not going to be touched. We were not fooled by that, even then.
[The] Rev. Nick Trussell was humbled last year when members of his Terwillegar Towne church turned down a developer’s offer to buy the whole property in favour of leasing some unused land for a housing development catering to the formerly homeless.
“I walked into the meeting, selfishly hoping we would sell,” Trussell said Sunday, explaining he had great visions for expansion of the church at a new location.
“When they all spoke in favour of leasing I was humbled and then I realized; we are the only place where this could happen.”
For some Canadian Anglicans, General Synod’s decision on July 6 to bring to its next meeting in 2016 a resolution changing the church’s law to allow same-sex marriage will bring new life; but others argue it will only serve to precipitate its decline.
Bishops, clergy and laity have expressed wide-ranging emotions about a resolution that will ask members””at the triennial meeting of the church’s governing body””to change Canon 21 on marriage, to allow the marriage of same-sex couples.
The Anglican Journal interviewed an equal number of representatives from each order and from opposite sides of the divide to gauge opinions about the controversial resolution.
After a long and passionate debate, the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada meeting in Ottawa has passed a resolution on the issue of peace and justice in Palestine and Israel.
The resolution reiterates the established positions of the church, which “recognize the legitimate aspirations, rights and needs of both Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace with dignity within sovereign and secure borders; condemns the use of all kinds of violence, especially against civilians; calls for an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian Territories (West Bank and Gaza); and calls upon Israel, as an occupying power, to recognize the Fourth Geneva Convention, which forbids the transfer and settlement of its citizen in occupied territories. ”
However, it also calls on Canadian Anglicans to take some new steps, including educating themselves more deeply.
You may check it out here (including the “watch live” link provided).
In spite of assurances from Bishops and senior church officers that a change to the marriage canon would not be pursued at the 2013 General Synod, two members from the Diocese of Nova Scotia will do exactly that.
The motion reads:
Be it resolved that this General Synod direct the Council of General Synod to prepare and present a motion at General Synod 2016 to change Canon XXI on Marriage to allow the marriage of same sex couples in the same way as opposite sex couples . . . (Resolution #C003)
It offers this defense:
It has been 6 years since General synod last debated this issue. Since then, some dioceses have proceeded in a manner they deemed necessary to meet the local pastoral and other needs with respect to the blessing of same sex civil marriages. It has been over 10 years since such civil marriages were legal in Canada. The general public has become much more accepting of same sex unions since we last discussed it. This is also true of the church, though not, of course, universally so….
A fire destroyed St. Andrew’s Anglican Church in Morinville early Sunday, the second church fire in the town in nine months.
Morinville RCMP officers and about 20 volunteer fire fighters from Morinville and Legal responded to the blaze at 107th Street and 100th Avenue at 2:30 a.m. No one was injured. The cause is under investigation.
When Tracy Roulston, chief of the Legal fire department, and his five member crew arrived, he said the fire was “as big as they get.
Less than half of the Anglican Church’s 30 Canadian dioceses bless same-sex marriages and not one performs same-sex marriages. The Saskatoon diocese does not bless same sex marriages.
[The Rev. Emily} Carr was married in a United church, not an Anglican Church.
“Getting married was a priority for me. It was something that I wanted to do. If it were to happen that I would lose my job – that was a possibility – I had to understand that was the decision I was making,” she said. “Fortunately for me, that didn’t happen.”
She believes the Anglican Church still has a long way to go in terms GLBT rights.
I will take comments on this submitted by email only to KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.
The second day of Synod… [in 1994] I turned towards the issue that would in many ways define the life and ministry of the diocese, as well as my own, for the next decade. These were some of my remarks on that Saturday…:
We are living in a time when issues of human sexuality have acquired a new urgency in our culture. We did not choose this, and many of us would like it to go away again. But sex is here before us, and we must accept the fact that we are the generation in the church that has to wrestle anew with this old, old question. What is human sexuality for? What has sexuality to do with God, and how can we understand it in the light of our creation by God and our redemption by Jesus Christ?
Little did we know back then al that would lie before us in our attempts to answer these questions faithfully and with compassion. In those days we had never heard of Lambeth Resolution 1:10; no one could have anticipated the Windsor Report; I had never been trained in seminary to spend two days on a witness stand in the Supreme Court of British Columbia.
And yet now, twenty years later, many things have changed….
The Bishop and clergy of Rupert’s Land have completed preparation of a protocol for the pastoral practice of blessing same-sex unions. T h e p ro t o c o l s ay s why same-sex unions may be blessed in Rupert’s Land parishes and how this should be done. It acknowledges the differences of view among faithful Anglicans about blessing of same-sex unions. It directs each parish that wishes to explore this practice to follow a careful process of prayer, study and consultation before deciding to bless same-sex unions.
The protocol arises out of a vote at the 2012 Rupert’s Land diocesan synod.
Read it all (page 5).
Victoria’s Christ Church Cathedral may soon step up its security system after the May 11 theft of at least $10,000 worth of historical artifacts, some dating back to the 17th century.
Officials think a thief or thieves likely hid themselves in the cathedral before its customary closing at 5:30 p.m.
The missing items include antique coins, gold and silver chalices, a communion plate and a long-handled mote spoon with a sieved bowl, used before the era of teabags to strain loose leaves from freshly brewed tea.
“It’s hard to say what the items are worth exactly, but the historical value for us and the faith dimension are far more than we can put a price on,” says the Very Rev. Dr. Logan McMenamie, rector of the cathedral and dean of Columbia.
As we prepare for the first Joint Assembly of the Anglican Church of Canada and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, we know that there are some who, like our ancestors in the faith, may be just a little dispirited as we face the challenges of our times. But just as surely as God’s Spirit inspired the fi rst generation of believers, that same Spirit is working in us to give us the words to speak to one another and to those who are seeking something-dare we say, “Someone”-to believe in.
Our coming “Together for the Love of the World” will be a visible sign of the Spirit working in and among us. It will be time to take counsel together for the common good of both our churches and for the common good of our world. It will be a time to set our fears aside and arise with “bold new decisions.”
I stand before you not in any way a self-made man. I have been a product of a lot of people who have loved me and poured into me in a way that is transformed my life, not only as a small child, but as I’ve grown as an adult, and I would be remiss if I didn’t share . . . with you about that, in the hopes of leaving you with what I feel could be something that you could take and remember in an effort to make a difference in the lives of other people, which you inevitably will be called to do in some capacity.
So to that end, I got to a place where I was in my life about six years ago where I was at the end of myself. I have spent some time ”” I became a Christian when I was 13, but I didn’t have the follow-through that I needed ”” but nonetheless I found myself in the fall of 2006 at the steering wheel of a car with all the windows rolled up and a garden hose attached from the muffler to the passenger-side window in the hopes of ending it all. Why? Because I had done some things in my life and come to a place in my life where I had realized that I had made a lot of mistakes, and not only had I made a lot of mistakes, but I had been the victim of some things that are tough to wrap your arms around, a Christian or not. So I was in that place and I was about to turn the key and I really felt the Holy Spirit saying, “R.A., I’m not done with you yet. Don’t do that.” Like literally those words: “Do not do that.” And so as lonely as I felt in that moment at the steering wheel of a Chevrolet Cavalier, I never felt truly alone. I think there’s something to be said in that.
I share that with you and I’m vulnerable with you in this moment because I really believe that God has called me to be here for a reason. I do believe in divine appointments, I believe this is one of them.
The Bishop of Niagara is suing a blogger over online material he claims was fashioned to hold the spiritual leader of 25,000 Anglicans up to ridicule and contempt.
The defamation lawsuit claims that Michael Bird, Hamilton-based bishop for the 90 parishes in the diocese, which includes Hamilton, has been pilloried on the blog as a weak, ineffectual leader, portrayed as a thief, described as having a sexual fetish and labelled an atheist.
In 2003, after the Episcopal Church consecrated the first openly gay bishop within the Anglican Communion, the Province of the Southern Cone severed its relationship with the Episcopal Church. It also broke communion with the Anglican Church of Canada after one of its dioceses in 2002 authorized a rite for blessing same-sex unions. Are you still in broken communion with these two provinces?
Yes. In 2010 when an earthquake struck in Chile, I received many, many phone calls from [the Episcopal Church Center in] New York offering us money. But I said no; not out of arrogance but because we had broken communion with TEC and it would not be right to accept their money.
Did you ask permission of the local Anglican Church of Canada bishop to visit here?
No, because I am coming to another, different Anglican church.
n 2003, the Province of the Southern Cone offered Episcopal oversight to conservative Anglicans who had left the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada but who wanted to realign with another province. Does this make you a primate of the Anglican Church in North America along with its elected primate, Bob Duncan?
No. That is over. We provided temporary supervision. When ACNA was founded in Texas in 2008 the very next day I had breakfast with Bishop John Guernsey and said, “My churches in the States will now be under your supervision. Let me know what I should do to pass them to you.” Others like [Bishops] Frank Lyons of Bolivia and Greg Venables may have taken a bit more time but the Southern Cone decided to pass the [North American] churches to the new ACNA primate.
In recent years, I often recall the first time I saw my dad pray. It was unsettling. I came upon him in church, where he was kneeling, his hands shading his eyes. He had a type of intensity that, at three or four years old, I had never seen before. Nor had I had ever seen him kneel before his God””or anyone else, for that matter.
My mind drifts back, because what I witness today in times of worship is such a contrast. My father was spiritual, as we might say today, but he was not very religious. It is not the memory of his posture that remains vividly with me; it was the demonstration of an aspect of his heart””a spiritual point of view””that captured my budding spiritual imagination. Today, we may kneel, but so many of us, I fear, have strayed far from the reverence of heart that our elders knew, not so long ago.
Our worship has been deeply influenced by a culture that is immersed in the consumption of media. We bring that point of view to our worship. What will it give me? What will I learn? Is it helpful? The focus has shifted from deity to the consumer.
A Barbados native has been elected suffragan Bishop of the diocese of Toronto. On 6 April 2013, the Ven. Peter Fenty, archdeacon of York and the executive officer to the Bishop of Toronto, was elected on the seventh ballot. Bishop-elect Fenty, (61) who was born and raised in Barbados and came to Canada in 1992, will be the first person of African descent to be a bishop in the Anglican Church of Canada.
St. Luke the Evangelist Anglican Church, the 106-year-old church at Brock and Elgin streets, brought in Hudson after months of searching and interviewing.
“It takes a very special individual to work here because we have a lot of ceremony,” says parish council warden Jim Blyth.
“We needed an individual who is passionate about living the ceremony and we had a difficult time finding a clergyman with that skill set and passion, but we found Bob.”
Hudson, 63, has just shepherded his new flock through the extensive and almost daily services of Easter week but continues to fulfil his duties as the chaplain at the Mission to Seafarers in Hamilton.
St. Luke’s parishioners are renovating their old stone and brick church to reduce energy consumption and maximize their use of the space after an energy audit discovered they were practically throwing money out the front door.
“It was a wake up call more to realize that of course this is a serious issue,” said the minister at St. Luke’s Anglican Church, Rev. Gregor Sneddon. “Churches these days, which were at one time almost the fabric of culture and society, are now struggling for their existence and how they’re relevant and meaningful in a secular Western society. So the free lunch is kind of over and we’re wrestling with how do we be efficient and lean in our costs and how we operate.”
Almost half a century ago, the Episcopal Church Foundation’s Pusey Report foretold, among other things, consolidation and radical change among the denomination’s theological seminaries. Such change is finally upon us. Several schools in the United States and in Canada have closed, a number are alive in name only, and others in each country approach their demise. Several years ago I was surprised to hear that a majority of Episcopal ordinands had attended none of the established 11.
In the face of this dire climate, the Episcopal seminaries’ effort at cooperation did not touch on core tasks; similarly in 2010 in the Anglican Church of Canada, when all the stakeholders were gathered in Montreal, the life-and-death institutional issues had to be bracketed and left aside. Simultaneous with a major reordering of our parishes and dioceses, this is a turning point for theological education, but we should not expect some grand compromise or new deal. This is as it should be, since the network of schools was never planned systematically. The remedies sometimes float about as well-meaning generalizations: diversity, lay empowerment, the missional. True enough, but such themes do not get to the heart of the matter….
An appeal board has overturned an order by the town of Portugal Cove-St. Philip’s to the local Anglican parish to repair the slowly deteriorating church.
The town declared the old building a heritage structure to prevent the parish from demolishing the building in order to build a new one.
However, the parish, which still has ownership of the building, refuses to make repairs and it has been rotting for three years.