Friends I am so glad to introduce you to one of the most innovative ministries I know in Canada, and worldwide. Because they’re coming to our church.
A Rocha is an evangelical ministry of creation care and conservation. It started in Portugal—the word is Portuguese for “the Rock,” after the place of its founding. Located on the southwestern coast of Portugal, it is a major migration point for birds flying between Europe and Africa, and was threatened with… Read more
Last Monday night we were honoured to host a gathering for prayer with three neighbourhood congregations—Grace Church on the Hill, Congregation Beth Tzedec, and Holy Blossom Temple. This sanctuary was full, with some 600 of the 800 people here our Jewish neighbours. It seemed every one of them thanked us, often with tears: ‘it’s been lonely. Thank you for your kindness.’ What we did was not hard: my sermon was short, Elaine’s conducting and Stephen’s playing were simple compared to a normal Sunday.… Read more
Friends, I am glad to tell you about a new partner sharing space in our building.
City High School in Toronto is a college preparatory program for Chinese-speaking secondary school students. They are using classrooms on our third floor, down the hall from my office, and office space off our East Chapel. I’m bumping into high school kids when I head down the hall to the water cooler or to the kitchen. And I love it.
There are three other places in town that I’ve preached at most often besides TEMC. One is Upper Canada College for its chapel service. The second is Wycliffe College at the University of Toronto. The third is Christie Gardens, where a number of our elderly members live and worship in chapel once a week. I got to preach there again recently and was struck how much I learned.
An opinion piece made the rounds among us pastor types recently. Its author was saying goodbye not just to a congregation, but to pastoral ministry. It’s an old and creaky narrative that congregations are stuck in their ways. We clergy fancy ourselves more forward-thinking than our timid flocks. It’s also a… Read more
I’ve been grateful to hear from our finance folks that y’all have responded well to my financial appeal. Several dozen of you have gotten in touch with that office to increase your giving and explicitly mentioned the letter. We’re a church that steps up when called upon. I’m proud of that.
My colleague Bishop Jenny Andison of St. Paul’s Bloor Street tells me of a meeting with a new family at their growing church. They were eager to join St. Paul’s. They turned to her with enthusiasm and asked, “How much are the… Read more
“Hey Jaclyn, we want to do something fun, what should we do?”
I noticed this sort of request to our own Jaclyn Didiano early in my time at TEMC. The staff would be gathered at the church or elsewhere. We’d have time to kill. And Jaclyn would alleviate our boredom. Soon we would be playing some game or icebreaker, something Jaclyn accrued from her years in camping or recreation. Ice would be broken. Laughs laughed. Tears shed. Humans humanized.
You probably know Jaclyn… Read more
Friends, TEMC’ers and beyond: we are doing a brave thing this weekend. We’re launching a new ministry initiative. We don’t even know what to call it yet. But we know it needs your prayer and well-wishes and support.
It’ll be launched by our own Nupur James-Araujo, our beloved minister for children and youth, who now has “young adults” added to her portfolio. We don’t know exactly what a young adult is, but we figure it’s around 18-35 years old. Nupur and her husband Aaron have had a hankering for a version of church… Read more
One of the pilgrims on a recent outing of your church’s council said, when he heard me call this a field trip, that he felt he needed a permission slip signed by his parents.
Our church council did an unusual thing recently and met off-site. Rev. Jenny Andison of St. Paul’s Bloor Street was kind enough to show us around her beautiful sanctuary. That church and ours have a historic relationship, punctuated by the quarter century friendship of her predecessor, Barry Parker, and mine, Andrew Stirling.