Filmed at the recent Council of General Synod meeting in Mississauga, Ont.
Review responses from other Canadian Anglicans below (most recent responses are at the top). You can also view responses by diocese, and add your own story.
Message from Bishop Michael Hawkins, Diocese of Saskatchewan
Sent to us on May 19th, 2009Message from Rev. Michael Canning, Diocese of Quebec
Sent to us on May 19th, 2009
Filmed at the recent Council of General Synod meeting in Mississauga, Ont.
Message from Dr Randall Fairey, Diocese of Kootenay
Sent to us on May 15th, 2009
Filmed at the recent Council of General Synod meeting in Mississauga, Ont.
Message from Lela Zimmer, Anglican Parishes of the Central Interior
Sent to us on May 15th, 2009
Filmed at the recent Council of General Synod meeting in Mississauga, Ont.
Message from John D., Cowichan Bay, BC
Sent to us on May 14th, 2009We have a comprehensive website which describes what our parish is about at:
I will paste in some portions below which give a quick overview of us and our life as community:
We wish to maintain and grow a church family with worship and ministry based on the Anglican tradition and on current, progressive thinking. To do this, we welcome and minister to all members of our rural community, both within and outside the church and we work with our neighbours to centre and strengthen that community.
We also reach out to a wider, local area and worldwide to assist those in need.
By calling ourselves “Progressive Christians”, we mean that . . . . .
1. . . . we have found an approach to God through the life and teachings of Jesus.
2. . . . we recognize the faithfulness of other people who have other names for the way to God’s realm, and acknowledge that their ways are true for them, as our ways are true for us.
3. . . . we embrace the freedom and responsibility to examine traditional Christian practices and beliefs acknowledging the human construction of religion, draw from diverse sources of wisdom and in the light of conscience and contemporary learning, adjust our views and practices accordingly.
4. . . . we centre our faith on values that affirm the sacredness and interconnectedness of all life, the inherent and equal worth of all persons, and the supremacy of love expressed actively in our lives as compassion and social justice.
5. . . . we find more meaning in searching for understanding than believing in dogmatic certainty – more value in questioning than in absolutes.
6. . . . we form ourselves into communities dedicated to equipping one another for the work we feel called to do: striving for peace and equality among all people, protecting and restoring the integrity of all God’s creation.
7. . . . we invite all people to participate in our community and worship life without insisting that they become like us (including but not limited to): believers, agnostics, conventional Christians and questioning skeptics, women, men and those of all sexual orientations and gender identities, people of all races, cultures, classes and abilities, those who hope for a better world and those who have lost hope.
8. . . . we recognize that being followers of Jesus is costly and entails selfless love, conscientious resistance to evil and renunciation of privilege yet we commit to journeying together regardless. We will do our best to ensure that our ongoing growth is characterized by honesty, integrity, openness, respect, intellectual rigor, courage, creativity, and balance.
Thank you for giving us, and me personally, a chance to share our ideas and hopes.
I would like to see the ACC reduce the current bureaucracy by at least 1, maybe 2 levels and increase its existing inclusivity. It would be wonderful if our parish could co-exist with those who have formed the ANIC in communion.
Message from Kevin D., Vancouver, BC
Sent to us on May 11th, 2009I am pleased that the national church is engaging in this Vision 2019 initiative. We live in a time of transition, and the national church has faced challenges in recent years: residential schools liability, financial hardship, theological dispute, decline in church participation relative to the post-WW2 peak, and conflicting priorities regarding the mission of the church.
One of the realities, in a country so geographically large and with as small a population as Canada’s, is that communications and delivery of program are expensive for the national church.
We may talk with pride about “sea-to-shining-sea” but in this case all that glitters is not gold!
Goegraphy impacts our identity in many ways. Some of theological differences among Canadian Anglicans are shaped by regional (urban, rural, northern) and cultural (immigrant, First Nations/Inuit, white anglosaxon) factors. These differences are exacerbated in an era of rapid information transfer.
Message from Education For Ministry Mentors in Victoria, BC
Sent to us on May 11th, 2009
Education For Ministry Mentors in Victoria, British Columbia answer the question “Where is your church now, and where do you think the Anglican Church of Canada should be in 2019?”
Message from Martina L., Chesterville, ON
Sent to us on May 7th, 2009Pondering my vision for the Anglican Church in the future, I remembered my time as a organist/choirdirector in Moose Factory,Ontario. My work helped me to connect to the local community, to overcome the feeling of isolation up North and to integrate those two difficult years into my life in a meaningful way. Since then I have become a political activist, and I no longer believe that religion makes sense without political awareness.
Since the Israeli war on Gaza I have been reading up on the BDS movement and believe that people worldwide need to show their solidarity with the struggle of Palestinians for human rights and a just peace. Western governments are quite unwilling to speak out forcefully against housdemolitions, illegal settlements or even the bombing of civilians in Gaza.
Where will Palestinians find a voice for justice and human rights?
Will the Anglican Church add its contribution to this struggle? Church funds should never support companies who profit from the occupation! Where do we stand?!
Yours sincerely
Martina Lauer
Chesterville, Ontario
Message from Michael B., Guelph ON
Sent to us on May 6th, 2009The original question asked was, “Where is your church now, and where do you want the Anglican Church of Canada to be by 2019?” I take ‘my church’ to be the Anglican Church of Canada, rather than my parish church, St. George’s, Guelph, because I can say pretty confidently that where the ACC is, there is St. George’s, and where the ACC goes, St. George’s will follow. So I ask the question, “The Anglican Church Of Canada: Where Is It Now, And Where Do I Want It To Be By 2019?”
Where is it now? We have just come through a very painful and costly schism over the status of Same-Sex blessings, led by the bishop and diocese of New Westminster. I don’t wish to enter into the endless argument over this, except to say that the two camps have two ‘authorities’ on which they base their argument. The supreme authority of one is the Holy Spirit, the living Word in the world today, and leading us into all truth; the supreme authority of the other is the Holy Bible, the written word. Read the rest of this entry »
Message from The Rt. Rev. Gregory Kerr-Wilson, Bishop of Qu’Appelle
Sent to us on May 6th, 2009
Filmed at the recent House of Bishops meeting in Niagara Falls, Ont.
