The Archbishop's Charge to Synod: 2011

Here are parts 1 and 2 of the Archbishop's Charge to Synod for 2011. It was given to about 700 people gathered on the first day of the semi-annual meeting of parishes in the Diocese. It was a busy and intense few days!

Part 1

Part 2

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What's God Up to in the Diocese of Toronto

This was the third and final video created this summer by Matthew Carter, the "Video Intern." He shot almost all of the video for this and did all of the editing. I got a "Producer" credit for mentoring and guiding him at various points in the project. But mostly this is really Matt's impressions based on his summer exploring what God is doing in the Diocese. Some say this is their favourite of the three videos, and I can understand why.

Special thanks to Tim Elliot who volunteered his time and skill to play some of the music you hear on the background of the video. That's him playing Piano at the end (at Messiah). He was impressed by our piano and the acoustic of the church, which made me quite proud. Actually, the church works very well for recording piano.

Funny story, while Tim and I were at the church recording, I left Henry with Tim's son Jeremy at the Paul Hahn Piano store. Jenny Andison, a priest and friend of mine, walked in with her husband piano-shopping. She says to Jeremy, "You have a very cute son, he looks a lot like Henry Moss." "Well," said Jeremy, "In fact it IS Henry Moss...." Small world, heh?

When I came back to pick Henry up after our recording was done, Judy Maddren, Tim's wife and Jeremy's mother, was just returning from taking Henry for a walk. She threatened to kidnap him. So he was clearly in affectionate hands while I was gone.

"Reach"

This is the first of three videos that I produced for the Diocese of Toronto. I co-supervised Matthew Carter, an summer intern working as a Diocesan Videographer. Matthew did all the shooting and editing, and I think he did a great job. This first video, "Reach," focuses on a micro-grant programme that provides relatively small grants ($500-$5000) to churches that are looking to try new things to reach new people. Mad props to Matt who did such a great job with this and the other three!

This is part of of my work with FEWG - The "Fresh Expressions Working Group" - a committee of folks reporting to the Archbishop that work to promote new church planting and mission work in the Diocese of Toronto. We decided last spring that we needed to do more to tell the story of the what the Holy Spirit and God's people are doing in Toronto, so we came up with this video project.



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A Day at the Diocese

I had back-to-back meetings at the Diocese today. First there was the pre-meeting meeting. Then there was a meeting. Then a post-meeting meeting. Then another meeting. Then another post-meeting meeting. Uhhg. But at least they were interesting meetings. Several of them were about the upcoming Vital Church Planting Conference. I'm one of the organizers this year. One of my responsibilities is organizing the workshops. One of these will be given by Archbishop Johnson, so I had a meeting with him and two of my colleagues to brainstorm about the workshop.

It's the first time I've been in, or even seen, his Grace's Office. I've been in Bishop Yu's office a few times, of course, but never my boss's boss. It's nice without being opulent. Certainly it's much smaller than the positively palatial episcopal offices I remember from the Diocese of Connecticut! There were the usual religious nick-knacks: icons and crosses and portraits of his predecessors. I noted that the Archbishop doesn't care for the overhead florescent lighting, using window light and lamps instead. The couch was comfortable, seemed like it would work well for napping (my main criteria for judging couches). I showed him a baby picture of Henry and showed me a picture of his newest grand daughter.

The meeting itself went quite well. We had little difficulty organizing our thoughts about what we need to cover and how we will go about doing it. Eventually "++Colin Toronto" opened up a diptych-thing hanging on the wall to reveal a white board. I smiled, thinking of the white board in my own office that currently has notes about Holy Week. At the end of the meeting I took a picture of the white board with my cell phone camera and e-mailed to one of my partners in crime, who is going to type them up. I think we all felt energized by the upcoming Conference. The coffee his Assistants brought us didn't hurt, either.

From there it was straight into another meeting. This time it was the "Fresh Expressions Working Group." These are the folks that oversee church plants and other new ministries emerging in the Diocese as they come to the Diocese seeking support. It's a wonderful committee to be on, because we get to talk about all the new, wonderful things happening. it's exciting and humbling to hear about the kinds of ministry happening all around us.

Also, the sandwiches were quite good today. The Admin. Assistant that ordered them is new, and so the caterer was new, too. None of us get paid to serve on this committee, so good sandwiches are probably a sound investment considering that some very talented people volunteer their time on committees and boards like this! I look at people like Duke V. and Jenny A. with a certain amount of awe. Check out The Church of the Resurrection to see what I mean--Duke did an amazing job rebooting that parish. Jenny is now the Canon Missioner for the Diocese and has recently produced this Lenten Bible Study to help parishes begin to think in terms of the Missio Dei. The Diocese has come a long way even in just the last couple of years towards realigning the entire organization towards a missional future, and I'm really excited by the possibilities that creates for a place like Messiah.

The truth is, my participation in all these Diocesan projects is not entirely altruistic. The future of the Diocese and the future of my parish are very much linked, and the opportunities for Messiah's future are to be found in the conversations around Fresh Expressions and Missional Church. I'm learning a ton about the new reality of the church in the 21st Century through my service to the diocese and I expect that my parish will benefit. Churches that are willing and able to adapt to the new ways of being church will thrive. Those that don't are going to continue the long, slow slide into obsolesce. I'm not saying that "inherited" church won't continue, it will, but it will be touched by transforming grace, too. Mission is not optional.

It was an exhilarating five and a half hours straight of meetings for me. Sitting in the car to drive home I realized that my brain felt like cottage cheese left out on the counter too long. I spent the balance of the day working from home, answering e-mails and making calls. For supper I cooked a quick stir-fry to use up some veggies. So it goes.

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FEWG

FEWG--The Fresh Expressions Working Group--is a Diocesan Committee that primarily is responsible for overseeing church planting in the Diocese of Toronto. That means both serving as gate-keepers to the money set aside to assist in setting up church plants (through the grant process and ultimately controlled by Diocesan Council), but even more importantly we companion on-going projects, think strategically about where God may be calling the Diocese next, and recruit and discern potential missional leaders.

I'm a very junior member of this committee and have only been to three meetings so far, but I have to say that I am extremely impressed with how they do business/ministry. I'm not sure I have been a part of a committee than has been more open to the work of the Holy Spirit. It is not uncommon for people to speak about how they think God has been active in the work they are talking about. And we speak quite a lot about how God's providence is working itself out in the Diocese of Toronto. It's a very "spiritual" sort of discussion that we have around that table. It's also quite down-to-earth nuts-and-bolts, too, but there is no contradiction there. I wish there was a way to share some stories from that committee because I think people throughout the Diocese would be encouraged both by the good news of what we are discovering in this process as well as by the amazingly holy way that the committee and the planters have gone about the work of building up the Kingdom. Very, very cool.

I also appreciate how fun these meetings are. Lots of laughing and joking around. They feed us lunch (sandwiches and pop), and we do a devotional time before the meeting starts in earnest. The Archbishop, Colin "Double-Cross" Johnson, joins us. (His nickname "double-cross" comes from the way he follows the tradition of putting two crosses in front of his name since he became Archbishop.) The meetings last about two hours.

A sign of a good meeting is that everyone leaves feeling even more excited about their work than when they entered. Something about getting a group of enthusiastic people together ought to create something between them that it is powerful and exhilarating, you know?

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