TENS was founded in the late 1990s by General Synod in partnership with the Episcopal Church,  our own diocese and several others in Canada and the States resulting from a series of successful international stewardship conferences. It is an association of church leaders who understand, practise, and proclaim God’s call to generosity. TENS’ vision is to provide training and resources for stewardship leaders across both national churches and beyond.

For more information and specifically how to access the resource library with our diocesan code, please contact committee member Archdeacon John M. Robertson, mobile phone 613.329.7540 or email, jrobertson@ontario.anglican.ca. Also, check the TENS website www.tens.org  or contact J. Davey Gerhard III, Executive Director, davey@tens.org.

Another helpful resource is provided through Gillian Doucet Campbell, Engagement Leader, The Cathedral Church of All Saints, Diocese of Nova Scotia & PEI. Office 902.406.8978 or cell phone, 289.808.5370. Gillian is convenor of a multi-diocesan stewardship network, formerly the Ontario Stewardship Network, founded largely by leaders of our own diocese of Ontario in cooperation with several other dioceses in the Ecclesiastical Province of Ontario and General Synod in the late 1990s. Recently posted to Nova Scotia from Niagara, Gillian sends out frequent newsletters inviting participants to share in online webinars and Zoom meetings in a variety of stewardship related topics, including gift planning. This is a welcome continuation of many worthwhile in-person day-long conferences held twice a year or so in Kingston, Canterbury Hills (Niagara) or Toronto.

Additional information about the work of our diocesan committee, please contact The Rev. Trish Miller chair, rev.trish.miller@gmail.com, mobile phone 613.640.0728 and/or The Ven. Wayne Varley, Archdeacon of Ministry & Programme, staff support to our committee, wvarley@ontario.anglican.ca Telephone 613.544.4774 ext. 138.

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When I read these words it made me realize that each one of us has a role to play in creating a true Christian life. The well-known passage in I Corinthians 13: 1-13, is a guideline, but very difficult to actually do. I especially find verse 5(d) … “It keeps no record of wrongs.” almost impossible. Every one of us has at some time done something we are ashamed about, and wish we could forget that it ever happened. Instead, it hangs over us.  

Many people, unfortunately, are long on memory and short on forgiveness. That doesn’t help. Carmen was a member of the church I attended in Ottawa in my early 20’s. He was very involved in this parish where he wore several hats. He fell on hard times as his employment was terminated when his company was amalgamated with another. In desperation one Sunday, he helped himself to money on the offering plate. He did so three Sundays in a row until he was caught. His shame was apparent to everyone. He stopped coming to church. I would like to say that the church helped him. Unfortunately, that did not happen. Carmen eventually was rehired by his firm and transferred to another city. But for years afterwards, the Finance Committee was diligent, and made sure that the offering plates were monitored to prevent another “Carmen episode.” As I wrote earlier, ‘long on memory and short of forgiveness.’

Fortunately the opposite sometimes occurs, and the memory has a positive take. Angelo is a good example of this. He belonged to the same parish I did when I lived in Scarborough, and attended St. Andrew’s Anglican Church. He was a survivor of WW II, and the Korean War. He was a broken man when he returned from the latter. He had been what was then called shell shocked. Thunder storms terrified him. In his mind he believed he was still fighting the enemy. He would drop to the floor and cry like a baby. I once saw this happen in our church. His wife immediately went to him but he fought her off and lashed out knocking her over in the aisle. As he lay there blubbering, the priest came down to him and laying his hands on his head said: “Peace be with you, my son.”  

Immediately Angelo stopped flailing about and was still. He saw his wife lying where he had knocked her over, and got up and helped her up. “What happened?” he asked her. Obviously he had no memory of what had transpired. The peace of the Lord had touched him. I have never forgotten that occasion. 

Many churches now make shawls filled with personal prayers to give to those who need encouragement. Both my husband, Fred, and I received gifts of shawls after our many health issues in 2021 led us to move to Kingston from our country home in Carrying Place in Prince Edward County. These prayer shawls are most appreciated. One came with a card which says:

 Prayer of Blessing “May God’s grace be upon this shawl … warming, comforting, enfolding and embracing. May the one who receives this shawl be wrapped in love. Our thoughts will be with you on the road ahead.” 

 I often wear my shawl. Its warmth is comforting, and I feel loved in it, knowing the prayers of many of our former parishioners are there to encourage and bring hope for the future. And, that also makes me feel total acceptance, and I know my past failures have been forgiven.

Thanks be to God!

dduncanfletcher2@gmail.com.

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There are lots of things we can do and collectively we can make a difference. I propose three tangible things: diet, transportation, and buildings. These are not facile or cheap, but we are already doing the facile and cheap, and the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere continue to rise.

For us all to live on a sustainable planet we must change our eating habits. We have to reduce our consumption of meat, since cattle, lamb, and goat emit methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. The production of animal feed takes many, many acres of farmland, and animals consume considerable amounts of water.  Much of our food is trucked or flown long distances, adding to carbon emissions. Choosing local, plant based foods will make a significant difference to the health of our planet, and to the well-being of all of us who live on the earth. On the plus side, plant-based diets have been shown to reduce the incidence of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and dementia. To make things even better, a plant-based diet can be significantly less expensive, and especially if you grow some of your own food, a whole lot tastier!

According to some experts, transportation is our biggest contributor to greenhouse gases. Active transportation, like walking and cycling is healthy both for us and the planet. For longer trips, another option is to carpool and to plan our trips to reduce emissions. Driving at the speed limit will reduce gas usage by up to 20%, making a big difference not only to emissions but to our wallets!  Of course, electric vehicles are the way of the very near future. The transition from gas powered to zero emission transportation is happening very rapidly. EV’s are zero emission and becoming equivalently affordable with gas cars, when we account for how inexpensive they are to drive considering the current and rising price of gasoline and diesel. For those of us who must own a car, driving an electric vehicle makes a very significant reduction to one’s carbon footprint.

The third area to make a major difference in our greenhouse gas emissions is with our buildings. Currently most buildings are heated with some form of fossil fuel. For those of us living in apartments, we can adjust the thermostats, and do other simple, low-cost things, like the use of drapes or shades. Homeowners can conserve energy by sealing air leaks and increasing insulation. Water heated by electricity is more ecofriendly. Recently, air source heat pumps that are efficent to -30 degrees C have come on the market. The up-front cost is high, but then there is no gas or oil bill, and no emissions! The first step is to investigate the several sources of grants available from Enbridge, the Government of Canada, and the city of Kingston. 

Professional energy audits are a good place to start and are rebated when upgrades are made. 

For further information on any of these measures, check out https://www.ontario.anglican.ca/mission/diocese-of-ontario-green-group .

Runaway climate heating is not inevitable, when we all play our part. All of these lifestyle adjustments are beneficial both for our personal and collective health, as well as for our wallets. But an even more compelling reason for considering them is that they are an important part of our Anglican covenantal promise to strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth. May God bless you in your efforts in behalf of God’s earth.

Ten ways you can help fight climate change from the David Suzuki Foundation:

1. Urge government to take bold, ambitious climate action now

2. Help raise climate ambition by painting your town with climate art

3. Use energy wisely — and save money too!

4. Eat for a climate-stable planet

5. Start a climate conversation

6. Green your commute

7. Consume less, waste less, enjoy life more

8. Invest in renewables and divest from fossil fuels

9. Mobilize for local climate action

10. Get politically active and vote

The post Diocese of Ontario Green Group What can I do about Climate Change? appeared first on Dialogue.

According to AFC, there are approximately 20 fundraising teams nationwide. Campaign goals range from $2,500 up to $25,000 and programs include: learning enrichment for newcomers to Canada, support for young people who are experiencing homelessness, music and drama, student bursary funds, youth retreats, and summer camps. 

In the Diocese of Ontario St. Mary Magdalene Anglican Church (SMMAC) in Napanee is currently the flagship team. They launched their campaign with a Say Yes! to Kids and Sing! benefit concert on Saturday, May 7. “More than 80 people came to enjoy a variety of church and community performers singing both sacred and secular music,” says Chris Yeomans, Warden, SMMAC. “With the generosity of our parishioners, people in the community, and a $1,000 match from AFC we have already raised $2,400 towards our $3,500 goal.” 

Yeomans says the church is determined to see youth programs come back from the pandemic stronger than before. “Funds from the Say Yes! to Kids campaign will increase our church’s support for The Heard Youth—investing in some outdoor recreation equipment and helping to subsidize their annual retreat—while also helping to sponsor Morningstar Relief Mission’s High School lunch program.”

For every $10 donated to a Say Yes! to Kids fundraising team, $4 will be shared between youth-focused ministry at the diocesan and national levels. This year the diocesan share of Say Yes! to Kids campaigns will support the Anglican Diocese of Ontario Foundation (ADOF). “In 2021, we partnered with AFC and the Say Yes! To Kids movement with a gift of $5,000 to help fund two youth-focused food security programs in the diocese,” says the Ven. Bill Clarke, Chair, ADOF. “This year, the diocesan proceeds from Say Yes! To Kids fundraisers will help us launch our very own Ontario Says Yes! To Kids Fund. Whether we are helping a young person to live a life of unlimited potential, or break a cycle of hardship, or when our churches need support for their ministry and outreach to young people, we want to be able to say ‘Yes!’” 

Nationally, funds raised through Say Yes! to Kids will support Indigenous youth initiatives that are national in scope, and that complement the transformational work being done at both the local and diocesan levels. Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada and Chair of AFC’s Board of Directors, Linda Nicholls, says, “Our Say Yes! to Kids champions are wonderful examples of sacrificial love and service, showing us in ways large and small how to be adaptable, how to persevere, and how to keep the faith amid uncertainty.” 

For more information on registering a fundraising team for the 2023 Say Yes! to Kids campaign, contact Michelle Hauser at mhauser@anglicanfoundation.org.

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DOORS Refugee Settlement Co-ordinator Mimi Merrill reflects on 2020 as the start of what was already a difficult journey for refugees around the world. COVID-19 only made things worse. “Expectations we had when people would arrive changed dramatically. In 2020 there were very few arrivals. We would expect to see about 40 or so people arrive in a year, we were seeing less than 20” says Mimi. 

2021 Was not much better. Travel restrictions continued here in Canada, compounded by the challenges of Visa offices closed in countries where refugees were travelling from. Mimi explains that in some cases, finding successful travel routes were hard to find. “Even when the Canadian government was ready to process or to put someone on a plane, if there was a country that was not allowing anyone to travel out of that country, that prevented a refugee from being able to come to Canada.” 

The longer refugees stayed in a country of asylum, the more difficult their situation became. “Because of COVID-19, refugees did not have access to limited employment opportunities and resources were being used to help citizens of the country they were in” says Mimi. A lot of suffering and difficulties were the result, both for the refugees themselves and the sponsors waiting for them to arrive.

And it has not just been the pandemic causing problems over the last two years. We have seen an increase in global conflict in countries such as Yemen, Ethiopia, Afghanistan and now Ukraine. There are now more than 82 million men, women and children displaced worldwide. “We have this increasing demand that is happening. We can only do so much. We can’t sponsor every single person” says Mimi. 

This year, as travel restrictions begin to ease, DOORS is doing everything they can to work with Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada to bring refugees to Canada. “We are starting to see more arrivals. I would not say it’s back to normal, but IRCC and everyone is trying to find a way to cope with the way things are now. We are starting to see a bit more speed in the processing. Starting to see more refugees being called in for their interviews” says Mimi. This is a positive step going forward. 

Canada has been increasing targets for how many people can enter our county. Not just for refugees but for people who come to Canada on work permits, study permits or spousal sponsorships. With DOORS and the Diocese of Ontario as Sponsorship Agreement Holders, the diocese is only allowed so many applications to bring refugees into Canada. “For the past couple of years we have requested just 50 spaces. There is always opportunity to request more” she says.

Mimi also indicates the challenges now of finding sponsors here in our diocese. There was huge momentum in 2015 with the Syrian crisis with sponsorship groups in Canada. Many will remember the viral photo of the body of two year old Alan Kurdi who drowned in the Mediterranean Sea. The picture created a dramatic worldwide concern over the refugee crisis. Mimi says that less and less parishes and people from our diocese are currently involved in sponsorship. In many cases people who were sponsors before have moved on and there are now new people who may not have considered sponsorship.    

DOORS is actively looking for more parishes to pursue sponsorship and have begun creating profiles of refugees as a way for potential sponsors to connect and see that this is a real person that is actually waiting and needs sponsorship. “We have some people who have been on the list for three or four years and no one has stepped up to sponsor them” says Mimi. DOORS is also creating a new information package and organizing parish visits to educate people on the benefits of refugee sponsorship. “We will always help refugees no matter who is sponsoring them. The reason the program was created was to help parishes be able to participate and these sponsorships have been highly successful” Says Mimi.

To find out how your group or parish can become sponsors or to arrange a parish visit contact Refugee Settlement Co-ordinator Mimi Merrill at doorsref@gmail.com or visit the DOORS webpage on the Diocese of Ontario website: www.ontario.anglican.ca.

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Our Scriptures witness to the reality that human relationships are often subject to intractable division brought about by the sin of the world, rendering us blind to injustice or complicit in its foment. But Scripture does not simply leave us with problems that are easily identified, clearly articulated and bereft of solution. Scripture always goes on to provide us the light to illumine our path and to guide our feet on the way as the Psalmist writes.

Jesus provides us with ample direction that is underpinned by the Great Commandment to love one another. When Christian love is at the core of our being and we find ourselves in the midst of conflict, it is clear to me that we have to go over, above and beyond the usual paths to forgiveness. 

Jesus instructs us that If we have sinned against another, we are told to “leave our gift at the altar and go and be reconciled and then return to offer our gift.” Jesus is telling us here that deep self examination and action go hand in hand in order to face our own sin and its effect. It is so important in his teaching, that the central act of our faith, offering ourselves as a reasonable, holy and sufficient sacrifice through our worship of God, needs to be set aside against the imperative of being reconciled with our neighbour.

Jesus also reiterates this “over and above” importance of reconciliation in those times when we have been wronged. Peter comes to him with the question: “How often shall I forgive one who has sinned against me, seven times?” Jesus’ reply is quick and clear: “Not seven times but seventy-seven times.” The hyperbole in this directive again underscores the central importance of reconciliation for the disciple of Christ.

Jesus even provides us with a framework for achieving reconciliation when, just before Peter’s question in Matthew’s Gospel chapter 15, he lays out a step by step process for reconciliation. Go to the person one on one, if that doesn’t work, take a friend with you, if still no result, come before the assembly and finally, treat the person like a tax collector and Gentile. We all know what Jesus did with tax collectors and Gentile’s don’t we? He ate with them, called them and never ceased in reaching out to them.

We are following the one who looked down from the cross, the sinless one dying for the sins of all, who endured the hurled accusations of the crowds and the violence of the Roman authorities. From the cross, Jesus uttered the words: “Father forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.” If anyone doubts the centrality of reconciliation to the Christian message, the words of our Saviour, “who came into the world to reconcile the world to God, not counting their trespasses against them”, remove any doubt at all.

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Douglas was ordained as deacon in 1999 in St Mary’s Cathedral, Johannesburg and was ordained to the priesthood in 2000. After serving in churches of the Diocese of Grahamstown and the Diocese of Johannesburg, he moved to the Diocese of Toronto in 2013.  He has been incumbent of the Parish of All Saints’, Collingwood, Ontario since 2013. Doug has served on the Diocese of Toronto Executive Board and as the regional dean of Nottawasaga. He is committed to a ministry of teaching, pastoral care, outreach, and social justice.

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“Father, enliven the Church for its mission, that we may be salt of the earth and light to the world.”

-A New Zealand Prayer Book

A number of years ago, while serving as the senior national stewardship and gift planning officer of General Synod, my colleagues and I in our travels across Canada often used this short prayer to help focus on what parish life should really be about.  

In those far off days, stewardship education was ideally a year-round priority for parish and diocesan life, along with a good example shown by General Synod. In cooperation with our friends in the Episcopal Church, General Synod and several dioceses, including ours, co-sponsored four international stewardship conferences at the Kanuga Conference in North Carolina, with a large gathering of enthusiastic lay and clergy participants, including in every case two primates and Episcopal presiding bishops, as well as many diocesan bishops. When the dollar exchange rate became so challenging, we moved to Toronto and had three wonderful, similar well-attended events with strong episcopal support, outstanding speakers and small-group leaders. Years later, slightly older and experienced participants are now wondering, why can’t we do this again? Where is pro-active stewardship education (in all its fullness)  in the life of our church?

One of our guest speakers was Kennon L. Callahan, a well-respected author and champion of congregational development – who also visited our diocese soon after one of the international conferences. I will never forget his thoughtful and profound statement: “The congregations who do the best in church finances have a rich, full, abiding compassion for mission. They are motivated by a theology of service, not a theology of survival.  Their compelling, driving spirit is one of striving, serving, loving mission.”

He began his teaching, typically, by addressing the anxiety parish leaders often have about

finances, as if that were the real reason we had churches in the first place – to meet an operating  budget by Dec. 31st of each year. Needless to say, Dr. Callahan focused on the purpose and mission of a parish community and diocesan family. He stressed the absolute necessity for parishioners and diocesan leaders to be serving members of their communities, leading by example to develop and expand creative ministries, projects and programmes to benefit those who were outside the four walls of a church…especially the most vulnerable people in our midst, regardless of age, background, or circumstances.

Some of us had Dr. Callahan’s stirring words in mind when we established the Anglican Diocese of Ontario Foundation in 2003, leading to our first disbursement of funds in 2009. Since then we have awarded $ 246,031 to help parishes and community groups define their purpose and mission through creative and visionary projects, ministries and programmes. The impact statements and reviews received from those to whom grants were given have in every case referred to a heightened awareness of the meaning of service, reaching out in love and acceptance, especially to those who were the most vulnerable and at risk. The thought given to a proposed project, a grant request and approval, and the beginning of something new and worthwhile, led in turn to a revitalisation of many aspects of parish and community life. People began to understand more fully, “this is what church and our community group should be all about”, a community family serving others rather than serving a budget.

Our Foundation can help. With the support of ideally every parish and generous parishioner, along with our friends in the wider community, we can make a difference…often, a life-changing difference. We look forward to your active participation with us.

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