Our diocese continues in a time of transition, and that can be somewhat unsettling for us. This month will be a month of decision for us, however, and so I have felt led to offer some solid common ground, at this time. By the end of the month we will have held our electoral synod, and so the decision regarding our next bishop will have been prayerfully made with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The one who will lead us into the future that God has prepared for us will have been chosen, by divine selection. To get us to that place of clarity from the uncertainty that we currently face, it is important for us to remember where we have been and where we are going.

Perhaps because, at time of writing*, our Sunday lections have included the Exodus stories of the people of Israel in the desert, this has become my metaphor for our diocesan journey. We are not in a settled state – either in Egypt or in the Promised Land – but the in-between place of the wilderness. To get through the journey and to arrive at our destination holding on to the faith that God has led us to, it is important that we hold on to the truths that we have learned from the struggles we have faced in the past; important that we continue to trust our Great Provider to attend to our needs again.

We are not a stepping stone. The Diocese of Brandon is not a holding place for clergy to raise themselves up by degrees in preparation to go elsewhere. The Diocese of Brandon is a place of vital ministry, where the Name of Jesus is proclaimed and people’s lives are transformed by God’s Spirit.  Bishop William did not consider the work of this diocese to be some kind of dress rehearsal for 

“the real show” somewhere else.  He saw the intrinsic value that the ministry of Jesus held for the people within this diocese.  What we continue to labour at, in the freeing service to our great Redeemer, is an end in itself – not a means to some other end.

In our parishes we have become accustomed to clergy who come and go in the midst of what God has called them to. For a time, God calls them to serve in our parish; then God calls them to serve somewhere else. The lessons they learned while serving in previous parish settings will inform the shape of their future work in the Church – but those earlier experiences in ministry were not steppingstones. They were the exact places that God had prepared for them, and prepared them for, for those times. There is nothing more delicious, in life, than to live with the assurance that we are where God would have us be, doing what He has invited us to do there.

So it has been with Bishop William. He has been called to a different episcopal ministry in another diocese, but we were not a stepping stone to something else, in his mind. We were the place that God had called him to be; the people that God had moved him to work among; we were the place of God’s delicious life for him, while he was here. God has now called him to minister elsewhere, and we wish him well in that, recognizing that while God uses his experiences among us to inform his ongoing work in the Diocese of Ontario, God will also use our experiences with Bishop William to inform our ongoing work in carrying out God’s mission for us, here.

And if God has been preparing us for a next stage of ministry in our diocese, with a new leader, then we know that God has also been preparing that new leader to come to us. The experiences that they are having in faithfully serving God where they are now will inform their leadership of our diocese when they come to us. While we don’t yet know who this person is, we know that God does; we know and trust that God is moving in our next bishop those formative experiences in ministry and in discernment which will serve the ongoing work of this diocese in powerful ways. Please pray for our next bishop, as yet unknown to us yet even now in God’s hands.  Please pray for our diocese as it continues to seek God’s Kingdom first as God’s mission is carried out through our parishes.

If there is a stone associated with our diocese, it is not that we are – collectively – a stepping stone, but that Jesus Himself, who is the stone rejected by the builders but has become the chief cornerstone upon which He has built His Church; this is the stone of the Diocese of Brandon. And we, ourselves, are living stones built into His Church – fitted together according to His will upon the testimony to Jesus and the trust in God handed down to us by the generations of Christians who were in this diocese before us.  And we place ourselves in God’s hands to form His Church as He will, that the way would be prepared for those generations who will follow us.

Our task is to rise to the faithful discernment of God’s choice for our next leader – may God’s will be done among us!

*Editor’s Note: this article went to print around the Thanksgiving long weekend.

The post This Is Our Cornerstone: A Word from the Archdeacon of Brandon appeared first on The Mustard Seed.

Our General Synod was scheduled to overlap with the National Convention of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC), who have been full-communion partners with our national body for over 20 years. Partnerships at the local level aren’t as abundant in our diocese as they are in some places across the country, though we are moving to work more closely as time progresses, where possible.  Because of our proximity, we had some sessions together with the Lutherans, and we shared meals and certain times of worship, also.

We covered several of the items that were the business of the General Synod, though time didn’t allow for us to address everything on the agenda. The matters that the General Synod was unable to attend to will be dealt with by CoGS (the Council of General Synod – sort of like our diocesan executive, which handles the business of the diocese between our synod meetings).  Members of CoGS are selected by the provincial bodies of our church: Canada (composed of the civil provinces of Newfoundland, the maritime provinces and Quebec); Ontario (composed of most of Ontario); Rupert’s Land (covering northwestern Ontario, the prairie provinces, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut); and British Columbia & Yukon (self-explanatory).  When our ecclesiastical province met, it selected two of our General Synod delegates to represent the province on CoGS for the next two years: myself and Nadia Sinclair.  Please pray for us both as we move to serve the Church faithfully on this council.

For me, there were many highlights.  I saw friends that I hadn’t seen for many years: friends from seminary and friends from other dioceses that I’ve served in.  I really enjoyed hearing our national indigenous archbishop share the Gospel on multiple occasions: twenty years ago Archbishop Chris and I were in most of our seminary classes together (except for electives, although some of those as well!).  At the time we were in the midst of Bishop William being inhibited, and so many people expressed heartfelt support for him and for us – it was moving.

My primary takeaway from it is that we are one.  Sometimes it takes a little more imagination to see that, than at other times.  But we are one.  When we disagree with one another, and even more so when those disagreements feel like they are drawn along racial lines, or economic lines, or even geographical lines – when we disagree with one another, it can be easy to lose sight of the unity that we have in Christ.  But we are one, and as we hold Jesus at the centre of our life together, as we learn to seek Him first and not ourselves, as we listen to one another as brothers and sisters rather than as enemies (which seems to be the default, when we have disagreements!), we will grow in our love for one another as we know His love more greatly.

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We are in a storm of unknown intensity and duration. It is a strange thing, to know that our beloved bishop will be serving another diocese before long; it is a strange thing, to know that his time with us would be limited; and then in the midst of adjusting our thinking to these realities it is a strange thing to discover that even for the time we thought we had, he will be unavailable to minister among us. We are in a strange storm, and the default reaction to this time might be to despair of the future – there are so many unknowns. But don’t do it.

We are Easter people, people who know in our souls that new life springs forth from death. We know so, because here we are. Every one of our lives have seen storms, and God has brought us through them; challenges that might have engulfed us, that we might have succumbed to, but He has brought us through.

As a friend of mine used to sing, God is “the salty old captain with the wheel in His grip, and a stubborn commitment to go down with this ship.” And I find, in the assurances of God’s love and faithfulness presented in Scripture (represented in my friend’s words), the comfort of knowing that whatever storm we face, our Lord is with us.

So here are some anchors, or safe-harbours, that remain unchanged and unwavering for us. The Church doesn’t have a mission in the world, but the God of mission has His Church in the world. We are His, and the mission that we engage in is His. That mission does not change. Remember Jesus’ words in Matthew 28: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me: therefore, go and make disciples of all nations – baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded. And behold, I am with you to the end of the age.”

We may have specifics of how we carry out that mission, and those specifics may be different from one parish to another, and from one time to another. Yet whatever those different manifestations may look like, they are all in service of that one mission – God’s mission. This hasn’t changed and whatever tossing and turning the sea may do, we have a fixed point on the horizon: God’s mission for His Church.

In our diocese we have discerned and worked for three imperatives of that mission: we share the Good News of God in Jesus Christ (the Gospel), which is to say that we engage in evangelism. Second, we support the spiritual development to Christian maturity among the people of God, which is to say that we encourage and equip the saints to carry out God’s mission for His Church.

Finally, we seek out those opportunities that God puts before us where the gifts and skills for ministry which He has enabled in our lives intersect with the needs of the world around us, which is to say that we empower the saints in the actual carrying out of God’s mission for His Church.  Sharing, Supporting, and Seeking: these are our actions in service of God’s mission; Evangelism, Encouragement, and Empowerment: these are the intentions behind the things that we do.  This does not change, and it remains an anchor-point for us.

Think of the storm that Jesus’ disciples faced at His crucifixion, and the new life that God brought about in them through His resurrected presence with them, and the grace of their eyes being opened to see Him, again.

Pray.  Pray as Easter people, who believe that whatever death our current circumstances represent will give way to new life for this diocese.  Pray because it is our vocation: we, together, are the temple of God’s Holy Spirit; God’s temple is to be a house of prayer for all nations.  Pray for the Holy Spirit of God to enliven us with His fire for the carrying out of God’s mission through the Church – even through our local churches.

The post Stability and Clarity: A Word from the Archdeacon of Brandon – June 2023 appeared first on The Mustard Seed.

Seven years ago the people of St. George’s, Brandon, pondered a possibility: was God leading them to continue the mission that He had entrusted to them from a different location?  Was God leading them out of the building that they had gathered in to worship Him together for 60 years?  The results of their consideration were, at that time, inconclusive.

A Church building is a great resource for ministry, it is a focal point that both brings us together as we do the work of God’s Kingdom, and gives us a secure place to launch out of as we minister to the surrounding neighbourhood.  Church buildings carry a burden of visible presence in a community, and St. George’s building has been no different from other Anglican Church buildings, in that regard.

But something has happened over the past seven years.  When a priest comes to serve a parish, there is an agreement between the parishioners, the priest, and the bishop – an agreement that this is a team that will work alongside one another for the sake of God’s mission through that community.  Since arriving in the parish shortly after the indecision regarding the ongoing ministry of the parish through the current St. George’s building, I have urged that the building is a great resource for ministry – until it isn’t.

The agreement of the Church around a ministry relationship is only one factor in carrying out God’s mission for His Church.  God’s mission, itself, is another factor (and it comes in multiple sizes: God’s mission for all of His people; God’s specific mission for a specific people in a specific time and place).  The people that a church is called to minister the healing balm of God’s Kingdom among – well, the people are the other factor.

When the Church fails to fully understand who it is they minister among, terrible things can happen; when the Church fails to recognize what it has been equipped with, by which to meet the needs before it, terrible things can happen; when the Church fails in carrying out God’s mission to administer the healing balm of the Gospel to the sinful ailments of our world, terrible things can happen.  But when we bring all three of these factors together: when there is consonance between our God’s mission, our parishioner’s ministries, and our community’s need; when we get it right, something beautiful can happen.

You may have heard that now, seven years later, St. George’s has petitioned the diocese for permission to sell their building. You may have heard that our Diocesan Executive Committee has granted that permission.  Please understand that God is doing a new thing among us, and that inasmuch as He isn’t finished with us yet, we are not yet done. St. George’s was founded as a parish in 1905, and their first church building was located at 801 10th St. in Brandon.

From what I can tell, fruitful ministry was carried out by the parish while it met there.

But that wasn’t the end of the story – because God opened a new door, and in 1956 the parish was rehoused, under the leadership of Fr. Dan Noonan, at its current location, 1011 5th St.  Over the past 67 years there has been a fruitful ministry carried out from this building – Christ Jesus has been honoured, people have found the freedom of serving Him; they’ve grown in love, in joy, in peace; lives have been transformed by God’s Holy Spirit.

The story doesn’t end there, either.  God has opened a new door, and given a fresh vision to His people in this parish.  The parishioners of St. George’s are in a time of transition, and it is not a time of ending.  Instead, it is a time of re-focusing, a time of re-imagining.  God’s mission for His Church is to make disciples of all nations, and with these people – at this time – that means finding a new neighbourhood to be His presence in.

I invite you all to pray for the people of St. George’s as they explore God’s future for them, and seek the people whom He is calling them to now: people He has gifted them to minister among; people He has entrusted their ministry to them for.

I write this piece to you at this time both to apprise you of the situation as it is, but also to challenge: how is your parish fulfilling the ministry God has entrusted to it?  What of those three factors – God’s mission (and the local manifestation of it in your midst), the gifts and abilities that He has entrusted your people for ministry, and the people among whom you minister – what is the intersection of those three factors?  How might your parish best serve God’s Kingdom purposes where you are?

As we mourn the way things were before the pandemic, and adjust to the current realities, my hope is that we would face the future keeping God’s mission front-and-centre in our decision-making processes.  God bless, all!

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