Five existing Anglican and Lutheran churches in Peterborough could be merged into a single church, and a new “mission church” planted elsewhere in the city, under a proposal put forth earlier this month by the area bishop.
On October 1 and 2, Riscylla Shaw, area bishop for Trent-Durham within the diocese of Toronto, presented the plan to parishioners at two public meetings. It foresees three Anglican churches—St. Barnabas Anglican Church, St. Luke’s Anglican Church and All Saints’ Anglican Church—and Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church all closing “in the immediate future,” with parishioners gathering to worship for traditional services at the one remaining church, St. John the Evangelist Anglican Church.
At some point after that, Shaw proposed, a new church might be built, probably in the city’s southwest corner, to house a “new missional congregation.”
The idea, Shaw told the Anglican Journal, is that the newly-merged congregation at St. John the Evangelist would focus energetically on “bringing the Word, the good news of Jesus out into the street, into Peterborough and out to meet the people where they’re at,” gathering new parishioners to the point where the new church would need to be built to house them.