Category: Mission

Mission

Advent Letter

Dear Friends in Christ,

The Advent season has a special wonder. In the midst of the darkness of nature’s year and in a world of darkness and despair, Advent awakens us to hope and to the redemption of the desires of our hearts. Peace and good will, love and joy become suddenly possible, it seems. More than possible, the Advent message is that they are actual in the great good news of Christ’s holy birth, the mystery of Christmas.

It is the business of the Church, if I can put it this way, to uphold such visions of truth and peace and joy and hope and to do so in season and out of season, in good times and bad. That remains the task and the challenge of Christ Church.

We have pressed on with our programmes and activities. It has been a busy year. And there have been anxieties and worries – sinkholes and the fear of falling windows, for instance – all of which have been addressed and dealt with, God be praised.

We face the realities of decline, an aging demographic with more and more who are shut-in and an over-extended and distracted younger population. Yet events like the Parish Ham Supper were most successful this year both in terms of monies raised and fellowship enjoyed. Envelope givings are down slightly though our expenses, too, are down.

Unfortunately, the special Summer givings and the Thanksgiving offerings are below what they have been in past years, leaving us with the prospect of a $ 15,000.00 deficit for the year-end unless offset by Christmas donations. This will have an impact on our operations and outreach, particularly to the Diocese. We have wanted to contribute something to the wider church though not at the expense of our witness here in Windsor.

This is our present challenge: to see if we can end the year strongly and offset the current deficit and contribute to the life and work of the wider Church. Advent awakens us to the coming of God as righteousness and truth, as gift and sacrifice. The same things are asked of us in return. Love, after all, is in the nature of a first gift through which all gifts are given.

I can only express my gratitude for your support and encouragement and only prevail upon you for your generosity and commitment.

With every blessing,

(Rev’d) David Curry
Rector

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Mission

Report on the ordination of Fr. Gethin Edward, St. Matthew’s, Tisdale, Sask.

The Rev’d Gethin Edward, rector of our prayer partner parish, St. Matthew’s Church, Tisdale, Saskatchewan, was ordained to the priesthood on 11 December 2010. The Right Rev’d Michael Hawkins, Bishop of Saskatchewan, presided at the service.

A report on the event, with photos, has been posted at the Saskatchewan Diocese website. Click here to read about the celebration.

UPDATE (26 Jan.): Two photos from the Diocese of Saskatchewan website have been added to our photo library. Click here to view.

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Mission

Photographs of St Matthew’s, Tisdale, Sask.

The Rev’d Gethin Edward, Rector of our prayer partner parish, St Matthew’s, Tisdale, Diocese of Saskatchewan, has sent us some photographs taken at his church. They have been uploaded to our new St Matthew’s photo album and can seen by clicking here. (Click on thumbnail photos to view larger versions.)

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Mission

Mission: Prayer Partnership, Parish of Tisdale, Saskatchewan

The world is too much with us, late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers…

The romantic poet William Wordsworth may have had in mind the ways in which industrialisation and consumerism distance us from the natural world but there is a sense in which we become so preoccupied with ourselves and our own part of the world that we lose sight of God’s world and the Mission of the Church as well.

The Church, in a sense, is the mission. And that means looking beyond ourselves. Always. We are wonderfully reminded of the larger nature of the Church in the celebration of the Feast of All Saints. It signals a very important feature of Christian faith and teaching: the doctrine of the Communion of Saints.

The Communion of Saints connects with the mission of the Church both to the world that is indifferent and hostile to the Gospel imperatives of love and service and to other parts of the Christian Church, whether outside or inside Canada.

The challenge at Christ Church is to be an integral part of “the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church” not just in our parish life of worship and not just in the local forms of service in the community of Windsor and the surrounding area but also in terms of commitment to the life of the wider Church.

Prayer is the key component of any kind of commitment and any kind of connection to other parts of the wider Church. I propose that we enter into a Prayer Partnership with another Parish in another part of the Canadian Church.

The Parish of Tisdale in Northern Saskatchewan is part of the Diocese of Saskatchewan. The Deacon-in-Charge is the Rev’d Gethin Edwards with his wife Meg and their three boys, Steven (age 7), Crispin (age 4) and Sam (age 2). They just began there in July 2010. Gethin is from Prince Edward Island, studied at King’s and Dalhousie University in Halifax, and worked in the Diocese of Fredericton before going west and north. I have contacted him about the possibilities of entering into a prayer partnership.

What will it mean? It will mean keeping them and their parish in our prayers and sharing information about the various concerns of our parishes. It will be about looking beyond ourselves.

Pray for the Parish of St. Matthew’s in Tisdale, Saskatchewan!

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