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ONE WISE COMMENT I overheard when a group was discussing our theme for this Synod was that, in addition to becoming a learning, just, and diverse church, we would benefit from being a praying church.

I couldn’t agree more — let us pray.

O God of unchangeable power and eternal life,
look favorably on your whole church, that wonderful and sacred mystery.
By the effectual working of your providence,
carry out in tranquility the plan of salvation.
Let the whole world see and know
that things which were cast down are being raised up,
and things which had grown old are being made new,
and that all things are being brought to their perfection
by Him through whom all things were made,
your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Back in 2020, I stood at Synod with a few others in the Great Hall (Cronyn Hall) of St. Paul’s Cathedral to give the Bishop’s Charge. It was a virtual Synod so those of you who were delegates that year were participating from home—due to the pandemic.

I remember this clearly. I was nervous.

Not because I am unaccustomed to public speaking but because it was a very uncertain time in the world and we were not too sure how well the Anglican church in Huron would weather the storm.

But this was the one thing I knew for sure. So, I started with it. “The world needs what we do.”

The world needs healing, grace, gospel, hope.

It really means that the world needs God. We know this because we need God. That’s all we need. The God who is revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The God who disrupts, empowers, and guides us through the Holy Spirit. The God who reaches out to us in times of need providing what is best for us. And, crucially, the God reaches out through the church, as it is faithful, to do this work.

The world needs what we do.

The world needs us to be a peaceful, healthy community—where beauty, truth, hospitality, mutual-respect, vulnerability, trust, and the bearing of one another’s burdens are prized and are allowed to flourish.

We need more of that.

So, since that time, we have been trying to “shift our centre of gravity” towards more of these good ways.

A centre of gravity is the point around which things tend to rotate. Shifting the centre of gravity is the work of culture change. Change in the ways we tend to speak and act. Change in the things we take for granted. The culture that we seek is not yours, not yours, not yours, not mine—but ours in Christ. The Christian life is one in which we receive and embrace and indwell the language and culture of Christ…the goal is to be permanently-present in the language and culture of the Gospel.

We are not there, yet. Not fully. But that’s the goal.

It is not surprising that we are still burdened by the challenges of keeping the ship afloat—keeping the operation going well, and all sorts of other things. There is a lot to do. Yet, we still need to regularly step back and recommit—to a culture shift in our church, to a prioritization of the kind of time, energy, and resources needed to do the central mission—which is: the joy of coming alongside the Holy Spirit and the Risen One in the work of worshipping, serving, reconciling, and healing.

The center of gravity is Jesus. We gather around him. We find our movement in his ongoing life— his mysterious but real life in us and among us. Stay close to Jesus, church, and we will be fine.

Stay close to Jesus.

There. If you tend to drift off after the first few minutes of the Bishop’s Charge, there you have it.

Stay close to Jesus. That’s my charge.

However, if you feel like I should keep going a bit to earn my keep, I can say more. Starting with some very brief updates on work we’ve done together, then moving on to recapitulate some themes of our work, and finally to lift our eyes to the future and our part in it.

I don’t want to make this a long, detailed update on how we are doing (that information is available on other ways) so here are just three key areas we continue to address:

People, Property, and a Plan.

  1. People:

Vocational discernment and leadership development is vitally important right now. Everyone in the church has a vocation—it comes from God through your baptism. At this point in your life, what is your gift to give? What is God drawing out of you for the sake of all? The engagement and ministry of lay people is the most important resource to be developed in the church. The most important. May the Holy Spirit stir up God’s people!

In addition to this, some people in the church have a call to ministry in holy orders. Who will be the deacons and priest and bishops of the future? This is an interesting question because the gifts and training that are needed are evolving. What kind of leadership does the church most need?

How can we organize the work of lay and clergy ministry leaders for the needs of today and tomorrow. Please remember, we are keeping an eye on what the church needs now and in 2050 and beyond.

One example of this reorganized leadership is our experiment with Archdeacons over the past two and a half years. As promised, after two years we commissioned an independent study of what impact and value there has been in increasing capacity for the ministry of Archdeacons. A report has been received and will be discussed at Diocesan Council very soon. Basically, the report says that the new way of resourcing Archdeacons has been very helpful, and we want to strengthen it further. We are working on ways to provide that support and leadership. Thank you, Archdeacons for your very effective ministries.

  1. Property:

In various places around our diocese, Anglicans are taking seriously the challenge and opportunity of our inherited land and aging property. With the help of some resources and consultants we have started several major projects that will see churches redeveloped and reused: for housing, for community hubs, for places where the arts can be developed and performed, and for service to those in most need. Spaces are being reimagined and partnerships are being formed. Some diocesan properties have been sold to others for good use and the resources have been reinvested in other ministries of our diocese.

Our diocese is consolidating resources in strategic and creative ways, and this is really important work. Thank you to all who are courageously and faithfully undertaking this task. We are consolidating, tending and tilling, pruning and growing, and it is good. 

  1. Plan:

and, of course, today we will have the opportunity to launch a Diocesan Plan, “Turning to Grace” which was developed from the wisdom and love of this diocese for our work over the next number of years.

I am grateful to all of you who contributed to the Diocesan Plan that is proposed now in its final form. In some ways, it is not the final form—that only happens as it become a reality in your lives and in your communities. I pray that it will be guide for you, a catalyst for your faith, an encouragement for your service.

Instead of repeating what you will hear in the presentation later this morning, I’d like to use the remaining time hold up a continuing “charge” from me to you—but, I pray, from Christ to all of us.

What is a “charge”? It is “to charge”, or to entrust, someone with a task or responsibility.

It also could mean, “to charge” like you would a battery-operated device! OR even, “to charge” as in “the world is charged with the grandeur of God” (Gerard Manley Hopkins)

Here is an ultra-succinct summary of that last five changes to Synod. One sentence each.

  1. Remember who we are and what we (2020)

  2. Live in community by yielding to the life of the Spirit in your (2021)

  3. Expect to meet the Risen Jesus along the (2022)

  4. Be ready to sing the Lord’s song in a strange new (2023)

  5. Continually turn to the God of (2024)

…

These are things to do—not just ideas. They involve a total-community, full-life, plunge into the language and culture of Christ and his Reign.

I know that this is very abstract language. But you already know what I’m talking about.

You know that, once you really commit to living the out your baptism, once you really commit to living a Christian life—it is both a holy delight and a sacred task. It involves a lifetime of small conversions—a continuing conversion to the fullness of the Gospel. It involves developing, over time, a set of dispositions, perceptions, appreciations, and actions that make possible the life of faith in Christ. This is the habitus of the Christian Community in action.

We are in a time where it is essential that we spend the time to develop these habits again and to offer them to anyone who seeks such a life.

I seek such a life! That is why I pray that I may be open to the continuing conversion of heart and mind and soul and strength—that only God can provide, and only the church can help me to live.

So, turning to grace involves a life of continual conversion to the goodness of God and a habitual way of living that becomes a resource for healthy life in community.

 Deepen your practices of Prayer, Fasting, Study, Worship, Confession, Forgiveness, Sabbath, Scripture, Sacraments. All of it leading us to love and serve the poor, the weak, the lost, in Christ’s name. God is found in these practices. Or better, God finds us in and through them.

A word about the future... 

This continues to be a liminal time. From the Latin limen, it means “threshold”. Something is ending and something else is beginning and the two exist overlapping and at the same time. Already, but not yet. It’s still the same faith, we still carry out the same practices in community, but we slowly begin to practice them in new ways and in new places. This is potentially transformative.

As I’ve said before, sometimes we behave as though there will be nobody around in ten or twenty years and we’ll just shut out the lights. Maybe that will happen in a few places, but not in most of them. We will be changed by God over that time, but it will be for the sake of life. I wouldn’t be here if I thought that God was done with us.

There is a deep wisdom in the Anglican way of Christian life. I am quite confident in that. I think that you will see, decades from now, communities living and thriving in these Anglican ways. We have a lot to learn, especially from the resurgence of life in Indigenous communities. But there is a very deep, very alive spirit in our traditions—and when all of them come alongside one another, it is powerful and beautiful.

This is for sure: people will continue to be drawn to Christ, and humans will always need healthy spiritual communities, and even now babies are being born who will embrace these ways—in their own ways. They, like us, will turn to God and find grace. They, like us, will be led by the Holy Spirit of God and the one through whom all things are made, Jesus Christ our Lord.

+Todd