Caledonia Times
May, 2016 Volume 48 - Issue #5 The Diocesan Section of the Anglican Journal
The Church needs to take aim at the Unfiinsihed Task
address, outlining recruitment, training of indigenous pastors and clergy in laying the foundation for future self-sustaining dioceses in Nepal and Indonesia.
By Jeffery Walton, as published on Anglican Ink
Advancing the Kingdom of God includes establishing justice, love and good works, but is not limited to these things, according to speakers at a major conference of Anglican missionaries.
“The Lord provides what his church needs for her life and mission,” Ponniah concluded, citing Luke Chapter 24. “You and I, because of his provision of scripture, sacrament and spirit, can give him our unconditional yes — there is amazing Kingdom advance when you least expect it.”
“We also need to ‘tell the story’: minister the power of the Gospel and disciple new believers,” declared Anglican Bishop of Singapore Rennis Ponniah.Anglican Bishop of Singapore Rennis Ponniah. “It is a story that grips and transforms hearts.” Ponniah spoke April 9 at the New Wineskins for Global Mission conference, a triennial gathering of more than 1,000 participants near Asheville, North Carolina. Formerly known as the Episcopal Church Missionary Community, the gathering attracts delegations from Episcopal and Anglican churches, seminaries, international missions groups and a sizeable contingent of overseas Christians. The 2016 conference, themed “Facing a Task Unfinished” called for churches to commit resources and young adults to reach those who had never heard the Gospel. The gathering, which has occurred since 1994, also witnessed a transfer of leadership from longtime Director Sharon Stockdale Steinmiller to incoming Director Jenny Noyes. “Giving an Unconditional Yes” “’Kingdom Advance’ involves setting people free from the powers of darkness and the seductions of the world,” Ponniah charged in his address, citing the story of a woman who had been dedicated to a local goddess and was afflicted with physical contortions into “humanly impossible” positions. After hearing the Gospel, “She was set free from spiritual darkness.” Ponniah, whose diocese includes the Southeast Asian nation of Singapore as well as deaneries in Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and Nepal, was joined by others calling for Christian churches to dedicate an increasing amount of their resources – both financial and missionaries – towards evangelizing unreached people groups, populations where few people have heard the Gospel. In contrast to missions targeting countries that already have large Christian populations, less than one percent of church resources go to unreached peoples, according to conference speaker Fred Markert of Youth With a Mission (YWAM). The total amount spent on unreached peoples is less than the amount annually embezzled from churches, Markert reported.
God at Work to Bless the World
“We also need to ‘tell the story’: minister the power of the Gospel and disciple new believers,” declared Anglican Bishop of Singapore Rennis Ponniah. “It is a story that grips and transforms hearts.”
Ponniah cited the unexpected growth of Anglicanism in the Himalayan nation of Nepal as an example of fruitful missionary activity among mostly unreached people. On a recent trip to the majority-Hindu nation, Ponniah confirmed 700 people at two different services, with the church growing from 9,000 to 12,000 members last year alone. “God is granting fruitfulness,” the Singapore Bishop reported of new Christians in Nepal. “This is because there is an utter desperate need for help beyond themselves.” “We need help from above — and that is what has happened there,” Ponniah reported, describing great difficulty following a devastating earthquake in 2015. “It’s one thing to cry for help, but when help comes from God’s loving heart, with his full moral glory, it requires humility.” Ponniah characterized the construction of 30 churches damaged in the earthquake and its subsequent aftershocks as “an arduous task” The evangelization of Nepal was also highlighted by Anglican Frontier Missions, which at a New Wineskins luncheon featured Anglican clergyman Norman Beale, who served with his family as missionaries in the country for 15 years. Beale was part of a larger Christian missionary effort that has been credited with growing the Christian population in Nepal from zero in 1950 to more than 800,000 Nepalese Christians today. Unexpectedly, it also produced an Anglican church when the Synod of the Diocese of Singapore voted to accept a group of interested independent churches in Nepal to be part of the Diocese in 1999 and has since grown to 77 congregations. “We are not in a numbers game, we are thinking of transforming lives,” Ponniah explained in his
Speakers at the New Wineskins conference reported that the growth of the Christian church outpaced overall population growth in vast majority of countries, with Markert of YWAM excitedly listing off examples of youth ministry producing new Christian believers even in the “10/40 window” of countries where most unreached people groups are located. Markert highlighted the work of discipleship training schools, full-time, residential training courses that begin with a 12-week classroom phase, followed by a 10-12 week outreach time. The schools primarily train young people for evangelism. Markert reported that the Anglican Church in North America’s International Diocese is partnering with YWAM to launch a discipleship training school, the first Anglican school of its kind. Markert’s message of empowering energetic young people to engage in global missions work was reinforced by Guy and Summer Benton, missionaries in Cambodia. Guy Benton explained that youth are looking for a place to belong, opportunity to gain mastery of something, find independence, and to be generous. Summer Benton spoke about the challenges of illegal land seizure and sex and labor trafficking in the majority-Buddhist nation. “How can we believe that God exists when stories like this surround us every day?” Benton asked. “How can we introduce them to a God who is loving and good, and encourage them to be in relationship with him, when they’ve lost everything?” Benton charged that those in developing nations are particularly vulnerable because they don’t have the same protections as those in developed nations. Benton declared that followers of Jesus need to push back from a response of fear, laziness, or feeling overwhelmed and ask what God’s response is. “God’s heart is deeply moved towards situations of injustice,” Benton added. For more on this article, please go to Anglican Ink. com
The Caledonia Times: Informing and Inspiring Anglicans across Northern BC since 1905
Bishop’s Notes Remember roots, renew the Church I attended a meeting recently where a speaker stated that the Church we have known is dead and that we are living into the new creation of a new church. This is a sentiment that many would agree with in our culture, if they thought about church at all. Decrying the institutional Church, many instead appeal for a new spirituality that is, they claim, more satisfying. While I admit some sympathy for those who criticize the institutional church, the reality is that an approach that does away with the institution simply does not work, because it ignores reality. It is in the nature of God’s creation that creatures organize themselves: whales into pods, ants into colonies, wolves into packs, and humans into families, tribes and various other groupings. Institutions are the way groups organize and collaborate for the common good and they are invariably hierarchical. We have schools to teach children, and those children are taught in an orderly way, the various disciplines we expect schools to teach. A realistic reading of the Gospels and the Acts of
the Apostles reveals that our Lord belonged to a Jewish family and celebrated the institution of marriage. He also travelled to the Temple where he taught and worshipped. The Apostles quickly organized the early Church, designating some as teachers, some prophets, some to care for the widows and orphans, and so on. This is not to argue that the institution of the Church does not need reform and constant improvement. But this is different from arguing that we don’t need the institution at all. It is a notion disconnected from reality as well as being an invitation to the kind of chaos that ensues when people refuse to work with one another towards common goals. A deeper concern is that when we cavalierly consign the church of our childhood, our parents, and grandparents, etc... to the past, we cut ourselves off from the very roots of our faith. Each generation through history has been both the recipient and the guardian of a great spiritual treasure which they are responsible for passing on to the next generation. Such an activity, such a trust, re-
quires both organization and stewardship just as teaching a class in advanced algebra requires preparation and awareness. We live in a time that has embraced radical individualism and the pressures to affirm each person’s notions of what our faith is about are consequently strong. I would submit that in the end, they are wrongheaded because they distort that which Jesus laboured and sacrificed to teach his followers. Such an approach serves only to isolate people from one another, particularly in times of crisis for it diminishes any common sense of purpose and mission that otherwise binds people together. The Scriptures speak of the faith delivered once for all, delivered to the saints. It is not ours to change for it is the gift of God to his Church. Let us never cut ourselves off from these roots.
+William: Caledonia The Right Reverend William Anderson is the ninth Bishop of Caledonia. He was consecrated and installed in February, 2002. He is in the 15th year of his consecration. He plans to retire from active ministry on December 31st 2016. - Ed.
Wider Church Life: Canada in Brief
A Publication Notice
Rupert’s Land names urban Indigenous ministry developer
To our faithful watchers and readers: We wanted to let you know that there is going to be a planned one month pause in the printing for the Caledonia Times . Thus, there will be no June Paper in the lead up to General Synod. There will be lots to cover over the spring and so a triple sized edition is planned for September. Deadline for the September issue will be August 1st, 2016. - Ed.
Bishop David Edwards, retired Bishop Bill Hockin and several other Anglican clerics joined dozens of their fellow citizens to sign An Anglican priest and program co-ordinator the petition supporting the Declaration on Eufor the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) thanasia and Assisted Suicide jointly released has been named to the newly created role of by the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada and urban Indigenous ministry developer (UIMD) the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishfor the diocese of Rupert’s Land. ops. The signing took place at Fredericton’s Cathedral Memorial Hall, after presentations “After many months of discernment, Bishop by Peter Ryan, Executive Director of the New Donald Phillips is pleased to announce the apBrunswick Right to Life Association, Edwards pointment of Vincent Solomon to the new posiand others. tion of Urban Indigenous Ministry Developer,” the diocese announced March 4, 2016. “This “The basic ethical question is, ‘How should we appointment is the culmination of much hard live?’ ” Edwards said. “We need to pause and work by the UIMD working group, with input consider the implications of this act and ask, ‘Is from the Rupert’s Land Indigenous Circle and a this how we want to live?’ ” confirmation and blessing by members of the Last year, the Supreme Court of Canada struck Elders’ Circle.” down an existing ban on physician-assisted Solomon, of Norway House Cree First Nation in death for the “grievously and irremediably ill” Manitoba, will start his new role May 1. Pre- as unconstitutional. The court has told Ottawa viously, Solomon worked as Indigenous neigh- it has until June 6 to enact new legislation albours co-ordinator for MCC, a Mennonite relief lowing the practice. organization. —New Brunswick Anglican As UIMD, Solomon will be tasked with developing a ministry for Indigenous people in the Niagara hoping to fund Ghana micro-loan diocese, focusing on residents and visitors to project Winnipeg. The diocese of Niagara is hoping to raise —rupertslandnews.ca Prominent N.B. Anglicans sign right-to-life petition
money to fund a $20,000 micro-loan project in Ghana this spring, says Bishop Michael Bird.
Bird says he’s hoping to be able to hand a cheque to Bishop Kobina Cyril Ben Smith, of The Bishop of Fredericton and one of his pre- Assante-Mampong diocese in the West African decessors were among the prominent Anglican country, when he travels to Ghana in May. The clergy who gathered in Fredericton this Febru- idea is that the diocese of Niagara would alary to sign a petition against physician-assisted low its Ghanaian counterpart to establish the Assante-Mampong micro-loans project, an inideath.
The Caledonia Times Publication of the Diocese of Caledonia Pubilsher: The Bishop of Caledonia Editor: The Very Rev. Jason Haggstom, Associate Editor: Audrey Wagner
Published monthly, except July and August by: Diocese of Caledonia, 200 – 4th Avenue West Prince Rupert, BC V8J 1P3 (250) 627-1143 or (250) 600-7143 Address correspondence and copy to the address above or to caledoniatimes@gmail.com Submissions must be received by the first day of the month for the following month’s issue. Send subscription orders, address changes Diocese of Caledonia c/o Anglican Journal 80 Hayden St. Toronto, Ontario M4Y 3G2 Printed and mailed by: Webnews Inc., North York Ontario
See Canada in Brief on p. 4 Page 2
Caledonia Times — May 2012
Skypilot moments Getting ready to meet again
I
n getting ready for my trip to Toronto for General Synod this summer, I thought I would go back to the beginning and have a look at the first Synod that the Church had. Specifically I looked at Acts 15 which recounts the Synod in Jerusalem where the controversy over keeping the covenants and the commands of Moses, including circumsion were debated and decisided upon.
In reading the chapter, there was a phrase that caught my eye and then my interest: The whole assembly became silent as they listened to Barnabas and Paul telling about the signs and wonders God had done among the Gentiles through them (Acts 15.12). What will we hear at General Synod that we will consider to be the “signs and wonders” of God in our midst? As I say this, I recall my first time to General Synod 25 years ago this summer, noting that people were more interested in the political games to get their desire political outcomes on a wide range of issues. So there is no small wonder that there are already many who are lining up on both sides of different issues, ready to do battle. How many will take the time to stop and pray, asking for the Spirit to calm them and show them a way forward? There is a real need for us to stop and hear the things that God is doing in his Church. How he is blessing ministries and where people are being given their sight, their hearing; where they are learning to walk properly and where the dead are rising. We need to hear where people are struggling in their faith and ministry. We need to hear in the midst of the struggle and the pain, the choices to be faithful to God. We need to hear how the ministry has proven not only effective but costly. We need to hear how God has been merciful and gracious, slow to anger while abounding in stead-
fast love and faithfulness to thousands, forgiving their iniquity. We need to hear where we need to be healed and to respond as a community of faith in the living God. I am reminded that this is still the Easter season and coming to the important point of Christ’s ascension to the Father. We are in this moment, living out the life that we have been given by God in Christ because we have and are participating in Christ. We do this by living out his death and rising again: daily and possibly more often when necessary. The resurrection of Jesus and thus the risen life of his Church is about this life and this moment. We are trying and searching for those places, spaces, and people where we will encounter salvation being brought because Jesus is Lord, in this place at this moment. Because he lives, Jesus rules. It is not about the empty cross or the vacated tomb, it is about his real body and his real presence amongst us. We need to decide many things at General Synod, know that we are bought with a price; the life of the Son of God. (1st Corinthians 6:20) So what are some of these decisions you ask? Well, we will consider a report on a stance on doctor -assisted death, the work of the Council of the North (to which we belong and receive money from) along with Sacred Circle and the relationships we have with First Nations, changes to the canons that govern the First Nations Ministry and the work of the Bishop Ordinary to the Canadian Forces. There will be reports from a Task Force on Social and Environmental Investment, updates on dialogues with the Mennonite and United Churches. Plus there will be discussion and work done on new prayers and new liturgies for the Church to use.
Books on the Way By Ruby McBeth People understand generally that it is not a good idea as an outsider to get involved in family disputes. This holds true for countries as well; it is best to let people solve their own problems. Sometimes however a civil war can turn into a genocide and then thinking people are not really thinking if they ignore the situation. But that is what the world did in the spring of 1994 - they ignored the genocide in Rwanda. The conflict between the Hutu majority and the Tutsi minority was not simple. It had its roots in the colonial past. John Rucyahana an Anglican bishop in Rwanda explains the roots of this genocide in Rwanda and gives a thorough history before going on to explain how he is leading his people towards reconciliation. Bishop John’s book is about genocide generally and about genocide in Rwanda in particular. He tells the story of his conversion as part of the story. This autobiographical book will be of special interest to clergy. Another man who was involved in a genocide was Gilbert Tuhabonye. Gilbert lived in Burundi and like Bishop John was a Tutsi. He was in school when the students were attacked by Hutus Caledonia Times — May 2012
seeking revenge for the killing of Hutus. Gilbert was the only student to survive the attack. Gilbert received strength from his faith in God. He is a Roman Catholic and had been brought up in the faith. When he was badly burned he heard a voice inside him telling him that he would live -hence the title of the book: “This Voice in My Heart”. Gilbert lived for running and that is what helped him to survive. He ran from the burning building which was meant to be his funeral pyre and escaped. Gilbert does not explain genocide but he lived through it which becomes as strong a message as Bishop John’s message. While the Bishop lives in his home country and works for reconciliation there Gilbert found that he could not continue to live in Burundi. He moved to the United States on an athletic scholarship where he now teaches running and acts as a motivational speaker. It is realistic that he fears for his life if he lived in Burundi.
All of this brings me back to my question: Where do we see or at least hear of the signs and wonders of God? Where is the prayer focused and where is the power falling on the Church for its ministry: first in Caledonia but then also in the wider Church; Canada for sure but also to the wider Anglican Communion. Where are we finding, worshipping and serving God in Christ through the Spirit? If there is hope in this time of Synod for me (and I hope for you too) it is in remembering what happened on the way home from my first General Synod. Those of us traveling back across from St. John’s to Vancouver were the last to get out before the fog shut everything down. But in being late we missed our connecting flight and had to hop scotch across the country from airport to airport. I was going to be late for a BCAYM Council meeting. To the rescue came Bishop Jim Cruickshank, who at the time was Dean of New Westminster. Because we were so late getting in to Vancouver and we had no way now to get to Abbotsford, he opened his home to us and took us to Abbotsford in the morning as he was on his way to Sorrento. In the process, sprang up a friendship and companionship becuase of ministry and need not theology and doctrine. That came later. The issues are not going to go way. The work of the early Church in Acts is proof of that. Just because something gets decided or tabled, it is not going to cause society as a whole to change. Through it all, may we as a diocese, come out of the experience of this General Synod stronger in God and ready to be faithful to Christ and see the signs, wonders and the fruit that comes from a mature spiritual life in the Church.
Jason+
Editor, the Caledonia Times
Both men love their country. Both men are happily married. The books give us a glimpse inside countries which have very different cultures from our own. In Burundi it was the Hutus who suffered persecution first in 1972. In Rwanda in 1994 the Tutsis suffered. The conflict spilled over into the Congo a neighbouring country. Rucyahana, John. The Bishop of Rwanda: Finding Forgiveness Amidst a Pile of Bones. Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 2006. Tuhabonye, Gilbert. This Voice in My Heart: A Genocide Survivor’s Story of Escape, Faith and Forgiveness. New York: Harper Collins, 2006.
While Gilbert is not preaching to us his life is a special kind of sermon. His book will interest the general public. Gilbert is straightforward about mistakes he made. He made a conscious choice to live and to devote his running to God’s glory rather than when younger to his own glory. Page 3
Wider Church Life: Canada in Brief
Alberta Anglicans fund Burundi maternity ward improvements
Continued from page 2
A Burundi hospital will be growing and upgrading, thanks to funds raised by the diocese of Edmonton, says the Rev. John Gee, the diocese’s community development facilitator.
tiative for providing small amounts of money to people in the diocese to allow them to create small businesses and become more selfreliant. “I know that ministry in Africa has a special place in the hearts of many of the people in our diocese,” Bird says. “This project will give us a chance to make an incredible difference in the lives of struggling people in that part of the world.” Bird will visit Ghana with his wife, Susan, in May for the Consultation of Anglican Bishops in Dialogue, a meeting of 26 bishops from Canada, Africa and a few other regions intended to help Anglicans across the Communion overcome their differences. Bird’s visit to Ghana follows a visit by Smith to the diocese of Niagara last summer. —Niagara Anglican Mississauga Anglican, Lutheran parishes merge Two Mississauga, Ont., congregations—one Anglican and the other Lutheran—are now officially merged after a ceremony earlier this year. On February 28, Bishop Philip Poole, area bishop of York-Credit Valley, and Bishop Michael Pryse, of the Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC), signed an agreement merging the former Peace Luther-
an Church with the former Anglican Church of the Holy Spirit, both of Mississauga. The merged church, called the Church of the Holy Spirit of Peace, will see members of both congregations worship together in the building of the former Church of the Holy Spirit. The merger arose out of a situation created when Peace Lutheran Church, which had rented its space from a shopping mall for 37 years, was told its lease would not be renewed and that it had six months to leave the premises. The Rev. Susan Climo, the church’s pastor, approached Anglican churches in the area, and eventually learned that the Church of the Holy Spirit was facing financial difficulties. She began discussing a merger with the incumbent of that church, the Rev. Judith Alltree. The two congregations began to discuss a full merger; vestries of both churches voted to approve the proposal in February 2015. Alltree had in the meantime left to become director of the Missions to Seafarers for Southern Ontario, and Climo was named interim priest-in-charge when the two congregations began to worship together last summer. At this February’s ceremony, Climo was officially installed as incumbent pastor of the merged church. The Anglican Church of Canada and ELCIC have enjoyed a full communion relationship since 2001.
In the last month I have discovered that my biological father is not Gavin Welby but, in fact, the late Sir Anthony Montague Browne.This comes as a complete surprise. My mother (Jane Williams) and father (Gavin Welby) were both alcoholics. My mother has been in recovery since 1968, and has not touched alcohol for over 48 years. I am enormously proud of her. My father (Gavin Welby) died as a result of the alcohol and smoking in 1977 when I was 21. As a result of my parents’ addictions my early life was messy, although I had the blessing and gift of a wonderful education, and was cared for deeply by my grandmother, my mother once she was in recovery, and my father (Gavin Welby) as far as he was able. I have had a life of great blessing and wonderful support, especially from Caroline and our children, as well as a great many wonderful friends and family. My own experience is typical of many people. To find that one's father is other than imagined is not unusual. To be the child of families with great difficulties in relationships, with substance abuse or other matters, is far too normal. By the grace of God, found in Christian faith, Page 4
“Like most of the infrastructure in Burundi, the hospital has not been kept up to date because of the disruption from the lengthy civil war that ended in 2005,” he says. “As a result, the maternity ward is tremendously overcrowded. Rooms designed to hold four beds now contain 10.” The ward is also plagued with cracked walls, a leaky roof and an operating room that poses an increased risk of infection to patients because of its closeness to the rest of the unit. The hospital was built in the 1940s, when the area’s population was much smaller. Currently, some 5,400 women give birth in it each year, he says. The money donated by the diocese of Edmonton, he said, will allow the hospital to double the size of the maternity ward, from three rooms to six, add another delivery room, repair the walls, ceiling and roof, and make several other improvements. —The Messenger
—The Anglican
The Archbsihop of Canterbury on his parentage By Justin Welby (from Anglican Ink, UBP)
In late February, the diocese presented a cheque for $47,450 to The Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund (PWRDF) to pay for renovation and expansion of the maternity ward at the hospital in the diocese of Buyé in Burundi, Gee says.
through the NHS, through Alcoholics Anonymous and through her own very remarkable determination and effort, my mother has lived free of alcohol, has a very happy marriage, and has contributed greatly to society as a probation officer, member of the National Parole Board, Prison Visitor and with involvement in penal reform.
“We greet you in the name of Christ. Who are you, and why do you request entry?” To which I responded: “I am Justin, a servant of Jesus Christ, and I come as one seeking the grace of God to travel with you in His service together.” What has changed? Nothing!
Church Comic
She has also played a wonderful part in my life and in the lives of my children and now grandchildren, as has my stepfather whose support and encouragement has been generous, unstinting and unfailing. This revelation has, of course, been a surprise, but in my life and in our marriage Caroline and I have had far worse. I know that I find who I am in Jesus Christ, not in genetics, and my identity in him never changes. Even more importantly my role as Archbishop makes me constantly aware of the real and genuine pain and suffering of many around the world, which should be the main focus of our prayers. Although there are elements of sadness, and even tragedy in my father's (Gavin Welby’s) case, this is a story of redemption and hope from a place of tumultuous difficulty and near despair in several lives. It is a testimony to the grace and power of Christ to liberate and redeem us, grace and power which is offered to every human being. At the very outset of my inauguration service three years ago, Evangeline Kanagasooriam, a young member of the Canterbury Cathedral congregation, said: Caledonia Times — May 2012