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Mental Health Awareness Welcome Letter

 in Mental Health by

Dear Friends,
Like many of you have had to do, we have been figuring out new and inventive ways to have discussions about mental health; ways to create awareness and to build on our resilience during these strange and often scary times of Covid-19 and the aftermath of a huge tragedy.
Since we cannot gather in person as was the plan for this series we have resorted to the use of our website to start us thinking so that when we can gather as a group we can have a rich and engaging discussion. It is important to keep in mind that we as individuals, as families and as communities have a lot of resiliency and many are tapping into that right now.
For those who stopped by on this page, welcome! Your mental health is important as your physical and spiritual health. As we go through these presentations and you have an awareness of your mental fitness I highly encourage you, if required to begin to have a conversation, to reach out and ask for what you need, or if you see someone that needs someone to reach out to them, do just that. For those who have sought in the past mental health care or for those who maybe currently engaged in care, please keep engaged.
For many of us we are experiencing some stress and anxiety; or hurt and sadness; for others loneliness and anger. Whatever it is you do not need to be alone. Many of us continue to have a sense of purpose and are doing well, tapping into social supports, good coping skills being resilient and mentally tough, and I say hurray! Keep doing what is working.
The first presentation has been a challenge to put together and give a voice to as I enjoy being interactive and engaging. I encourage you to listen, and to challenge yourself to being open, to try new skills to create new plans as we go through several presentations. We are all in uncharted territory so our response like the first disciples is going to be new and awkward. That is OK!

Mental Health

The first presentation is: Mental Health Awareness followed by Building Our Full Potential and later will be Creating a Resilient Community.
I will from time to time include additional resources and links to sites which allow for us to become more resilient people; to build resilient communities. In the interim however these presentations are only providing information. If you require additional assistance, professional intervention then please seek it immediately. This site cannot be the only tools at your disposal. I look forward to the time when our communities are open, and we can engage once again as a community, a newer community with a new mission. Warmest regards to you all!

In Service 

Mike Hobson

(Lay Minister Church of Saint Andrew)

Mike has been an inspiration for me to really delve into resiliency. He has opened my ears to hear the word “resiliency” in a new way. I have opened up my mind to see it as gaining tools and experience in how to approach unknown and difficult circumstances and thrive! I can see Jesus encouraging us to thrive as Spiritual beings. I am excited to engage the conversation with Mike and each of you who are willing to journey to learn and develop Spiritual Resiliency.

Archdeacon Katherine Bourbonniere
Rector Church of Saint Andrew

Lesson One

 in Mental Health by

Here we are in Week 2!

 in Front Page by

Church of Saint Andrew Parishioners,

Here we are in Week 2!

I am working very hard to practice what I have been preaching about Missional Church! I keep saying that church is not a building. It is about Christ’s love being shared in our world! Our building is a resource. Well, we are out of the building a lot these days! I have been calling, texting, emailing, and messaging many of our parishioners. It is exciting to hear ways people are reaching out from their Christian hearts to be missional in this world at this time! People are praying, reaching out to each other with phone calls, making meals, delivering food, sharing their pictures, helping a friend. Thank you for your inspiration!

I have had many comments about recording our services in the church building. Thank you for your support. It has been very intentional to record people in different places so that we are aware that we can be church outside the building in a very real way. I am so amazed with the vulnerability people are sharing by being recorded. Many are stepping into very uncomfortable places. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. This week we hope to add music!

In many of my calls there is the pain and worry of the economy. Please pray for our families as they encounter many struggles over the weeks ahead. Also, be aware that our CanadaHelps link on our Webpage leads you to a way of giving that can support our Needy Fund Fund and our Parish in the weeks ahead. The Diocese is also prepared for changes and additions in PAR (Pre Authorized Remittance)

The Leadership in the Parish is working hard to have many new offerings every day! Regular updates will be provided Monday, Wednesday, and Friday’s during Covid-19.

Email Distribution List:
Last week we sent out an email asking for people to opt in to be part of an email distribution list. Parish communications will be sent out via email and posted to our Website and Facebook Page. If you did not receive this email, and would like to be on the email distribution, please email the church office to be added to the list.

Pastoral Care
Our Pastoral Care Team are currently working on developing a plan on how to connect with Parishioners while we are in our homes. We have already made close to 300 connections but our Parish list is over 800 people. We will continue to make connections and have others join us in our calls. Please feel free to contact me if you need to. I am available by many methods. Connecting goes two ways. I love hearing from you too!

Sunday Services
Services will be recorded and posted on the Website by 8:30 am Sunday mornings! Our first time was last Sunday March 22.

Beer and Theology
Our first Beer and Theology will be held this Wednesday night, March 25th at 8:00pm by Zoom. Topic – Going off the Map! If you are interested to join contact Archdeacon Katherine or the office.

Family Ministry Email Communication
The family ministry group has been sending material to families to help center our lives in our faith. If you are interested on being on this distribution list please contact Nicki Hetherington or the office. Everyone is welcome!

Our Parish email is: office@churchofsaintandrew.ca

I hope everyone is staying safe!

Lots of love in Christ
Archdeacon Katherine

First Video Service!

 in Front Page by

Hello and Welcome!
With the current COVID-19 epidemic, service gatherings in the church have been cancelled for now. So please join us for our Sunday service via pre-recorded video found here:
Video Services
Please note, this was the first test, and we will be working out the kinks for the next ones.

God Bless

Christmas Services 2019

 in Uncategorized by

Christmas Eve Services:

6:30pm – Family Eucharist

This service brings together the joy of our children and the beauty of Christmas.  There is a Children’s time instead of a sermon. There is Communion and lots of singing and surprises!  It is fun and enables us to allow our inner child to shine!

9:00pm – Contemporary Contemplative Eucharist

This is a quiet, reflective service that will be a time to listen to the Christmas message in a beautifully candlelit surrounding.  We offer the opportunity to sing the Christmas carols we love to hear along with Communion.  A nice mix of music, silence and prayer!

11:30pm – Traditional Midnight Eucharist

Our late service is our traditional Christmas Eve Eucharist. This service includes a Christmas message, singing of Christmas carols, a beautifully prepared choral piece and Holy Communion followed by the candlelit singing of Silent Night making this a perfect way to enter into the beauty and joy of Christmas.

Student Welcome

 in Front Page by

We are pleased to be welcoming Dawn-Lea Greer, as a student from AST for the 2020-2021 placement. Her first day with us will be January 5, 2020. Please join us to welcome Dawn-Lea in our midst.

 

Yukon bishop’s ministry of presence brings him back to parish life

 in News from General Synod  tagged Matt Gardner by

Yukon bishop’s ministry of presence brings him back to parish life 

Bishop Larry Robertson (left) joins a craft-making session during a Lenten event at the Church of the Northern Apostles in Whitehorse, Yukon, where he currently serves as rector. Submitted photo

By Matt Gardner

Making crafts with children is not the first activity one typically thinks of when considering Episcopal ministry. But for Bishop Larry Robertson, it’s all part of the job in his new role as rector of the Church of the Northern Apostles in Whitehorse, Yukon.

Since last summer, Bishop Robertson has been serving a hybrid role as both parish rector and diocesan bishop in the Anglican Diocese of Yukon. The move is part of an effort to meet the ministry needs of the community with limited resources in a diocese that has just three stipendiary priests. The bishop and the diocesan executive have developed a new ministry of presence, calling the bishop to engage in parish ministry for a three-year period. This will be in addition to Bishop Robertson’s Episcopal ministry.

On March 24 at the Church of the Northern Apostles in Whitehorse, Yukon, a Lenten event was held to prepare for Easter. Participants—including elders and young people—gathered for teaching and children’s ministry, a longtime focus for Robertson since before his ordination to the priesthood. Approximately 18 people attended the event, which also included a potluck, craft-making, and learning new songs for Easter.

Crafts consisted of making butterflies out of tissue paper and cellophane, as well as creating family prayer beads, which the bishop saw as a helpful way to teach children to pray.

“This is the first time we’ve had [the Lenten event], to see how it went, and it went very, very well … I thought it was a good time,” Robertson said.

“I [felt] rather awkward, because I just started [at the parish]—I haven’t been in a parish in … almost 15 years I guess, now,” he laughed. “So I’m sort of re-learning again, and the parish is just beginning to gel together.”

Officially, Bishop Robertson is only present at the parish half-time. Lay leaders and other community members support outreach, lead Bible studies, and produce bulletins and schedules for daily readers.

Along with his focus on Anglicans already attending the parish, Bishop Robertson is mindful of new outreach opportunities. He noted that construction is currently underway on a new Whitehorse suburb known as Whistle Bend, located just south of the parish.

“We’ve been very blessed with a congregation that wants to grow … We’re going to have to look at how we reach out to this whole new sort of subdivision which is just opening up,” he said. “They’re talking about 8,000-10,000 people being in there in the next few years … We have to be prepared and be ready for them.”

While the idea of a bishop taking on a parish role may be relatively new, it reflects the unique conditions that many bishops face in some northern dioceses, where parishes are often remote and isolated from each other and stipendiary clergy are a rare commodity.

“Our work compared to southern city bishops is different,” Robertson said. “Our ministries are different. I find we’re much more pastoral in the sense of hands-on [activity]. Many of our parishes don’t have clergy, and so we find ourselves doing services. We find ourselves doing AGMs. I did the AGM for St. Christopher’s [Anglican Church] in Haines Junction this year, simply because there’s no minister there now this year.”

Though he has received queries from other bishops asking about his ministry of presence and the experience of taking on a parish, there is as of yet no sign that other dioceses are considering similar proposals.

With the experiment still only in its first year, the diocese will need time to evaluate the program and decide on how it plans to proceed after the conclusion of Bishop Robertson’s three-year parish tenure.

For now, the bishop is content to enjoy the experience of returning to ministry to a parish community.

“It’s refreshing,” he said. “Oftentimes [bishops] don’t get a chance to be there, and to be with children and to be with parish things. These are the sort of happy, joyful times in a parish where you see them gathering and growing together, and for me, that’s exciting … I’m enjoying it tremendously.”

Copyright © 2017 The Anglican Church of Canada, All rights reserved.
www.anglican.ca

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Find a Church website offers handy reference for Anglicans, Lutherans

 in Blog / News from General Synod  tagged Anglican / Lutheran / Matt Gardner by


 

A collaboration between the Anglican Church of Canada and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, the Find a Church website allows users to instantly find the closest Anglican or Lutheran church in their area.

By Matt Gardner

Locating an Anglican or Lutheran church anywhere in Canada is quicker and easier than ever thanks to a convenient new website.

A joint venture between the Anglican Church of Canada (ACC) and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC), findachurch.ca uses a simple interface to help users instantly find a church near them or in an area where they plan on travelling.

Web manager Brian Bukowski, who played the leading role for the Anglican church in developing the new site, said the idea evolved out of talks with ELCIC communications director Trina Gallop Blank.

While the ACC had long floated the idea of a church locator for Anglicans, the ELCIC had its own church-finding website which was then in need of redevelopment.

“She and I had a conversation and there it became clear that we were both looking for a solution,” Bukowski said.

The Rev. Dr. Larry Kochendorfer, bishop of the Synod of Alberta and the Territories and a member of the Joint Anglican Lutheran Commission (JALC), praised the joint website as a “great and visible sign” of the full communion partnership between the two churches.

“The fact that you can search for Anglican and Lutheran congregations at the same time opens up a whole breath of possibilities,” Kochendorfer said.

He noted that someone looking for an ACC congregation in an area not served by an Anglican church can, “in a very Full Communion way,” locate a Lutheran church in the same area, and vice versa.

The evolution of the website, he added, further reflected that communal spirit.

“The Lutherans have had a Find a Congregation online resource for quite some time now,” Kochendorfer said. “It was great that the ELCIC site could provide the starting point for the new joint Find a Church resource.

“By working collaboratively between the two national offices, my understanding is they were able to streamline the process and provide enhancements to the resource that would mutually benefit the wider Anglican and Lutheran communities.”

With the findachurch.ca domain donated from the Anglican diocese of Ontario, the new site was built from scratch to meet modern web standards, accessible on phone, tablet and desktop alike.

The landing page features a search box in which users can type an address, postal code or the name of a church, with the option of bringing up Anglican churches, Lutheran churches or both.

Search results will pull up a list of churches with each entry containing a street address, mailing address, contact information and map. Users who wish to narrow their results can also use the Advanced Search option, which allows them to search by province, diocese, synod or by using keywords.

An additional feature, Find a Person, is currently available only for the ELCIC, but may be expanded in what Bukowski refers to as “Phase 2” of the website rollout.

To ensure information is accurate and up-to date, users may contact the web manager at any time to request changes and offer feedback—with the latter helping to further develop the site as new features are added.

“We know that as it’s being used, people will use it in new and interesting and creative ways and have ideas to improve it,” Bukowski said.

“We’ll find weaknesses to it and we’re very much open to hear what people think, both in the positive and what could be changed to make it improved, because we see it as a living site.”

Visit the Find a Church website.

Copyright © 2016 The Anglican Church of Canada, All rights reserved.

This message has been sent by Communications and Information Resources department on behalf of the Anglican Church of Canada.

Our mailing address is:

The Anglican Church of Canada

80 Hayden Street

Toronto, Ontario M4Y 3G2

Canada


A Response to the Statement from the House of Bishops, February 2016

 in Blog / News from General Synod  tagged House of Bishops / Rev. Don Phillips / same-sex relationships / Special Meeting by

 

 

 

 

To the Rt. Rev. Don Phillips, Secretary of the House of Bishops


The Council of General Synod acknowledges receipt of the statement from the Special Meeting in February 2016. We appreciate the bishops’ integrity in communicating to the Council.

We share their concern that the report,
This Holy Estate, has not been more widely engaged with across the church. We look to our bishops to ensure that members of their diocese, especially delegates to General Synod 2016, have read and engaged the report.

In their statement, they wrote that they wondered if a legislative process is “the most helpful way of dealing with these matters”. The Council has also considered other options. If a legislative solution were not the best way to proceed on this question, we would ask the House of Bishops for some concrete examples of other options.

They expressed a desire to “explore other options for honouring and fully embracing committed, faithful same-sex relationships”. We would welcome concrete examples.

We share their commitment “to achieving the greatest pastoral generosity possible.” We ask the bishops for some concrete examples. For example, if a local option is the way forward, will the House be prepared to live with and honour the choices of individual dioceses?

We continue to pray for the work of the House of Bishops and ask that they continue to uphold the Council of General Synod, and those who are delegates to General Synod 2016 in their prayers.

Copyright © 2016 The Anglican Church of Canada, All rights reserved.
This message has been sent by Communications and Information Resources department on behalf of the Anglican Church of Canada.


Our mailing address is:
The Anglican Church of Canada
80 Hayden Street
Toronto, Ontario M4Y 3G2
Canada