Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada

Member church of the Lutheran World Federation

Liz Zehr

Clergy Coaching Canada- Let’s talk to Rev Ilze Kuplens- Ewart

Posted: | Filed Under: Local, News

Who are you?
Like you, I’m a rostered Eastern Synod pastor, but I’m recently retired,. Over the years I’ve been in parish ministry I’ve served small, large, and multiple site congregations. I have a family, and now grandchildren. I love the church, but at times it, and ministry, has driven me crazy.

My relationship with God and living out my call has been key to my ministry. It’s sent me in some amazing directions.

What is coaching? 

Faith-based coaching is what I offer. I’m here to listen carefully, to help you work through the issue that’s bothering you, so you can find a way forward. 

At times I’ll be challenging you, but all in the context of supporting you as you listen to the Spirit’s prompting.

I hold my clients in my prayers.

Why would a rostered leader engage a coach?

Being a pastor is a pretty lonely calling. We all get stuck at times, and need someone we can open up to freely to share our ideas and feelings with. What will help you is not someone to tell you what to do, or advise, or take your side, but someone who can help you see how your gifts and abilities, and the other resources you have available to you, can  help you move forward.
And now, post Covid? The church is going to be different. How are you going to shape a path through this and lead your congregation in doing so?

How does coaching benefit the pastor/congregation?

I truly believe faith-based coaching makes for stronger and more aware leaders. Coaching opens you up to a different way of seeing your ministry.

What is the time commitment? 

That’s up to you. Each session is around 45 minutes. You set the pace, the frequency of sessions, and that depends on your needs at any given time.

What has your experience been with coaching?

I was coached when I was stepping into the role of Area Dean. 

What I learned about myself and
the confidence I gained from having someone help me understand my gifts and what and how I needed to develop was amazing.  Being coached showed me what a gift coaching can be for ministry.

What training have you had?

I’ve had the privilege of training with the ELCA where clergy coaching, and coaching in general has been in place for over twenty years. Their training programme is affiliated with the International Coaching Federation. I have completed training at Basic 1 and 2 levels, Team coaching, and most recently at the Associate Certified Coach level. I’m now working to accrue the needed hours for certification as an ACC coach.  I am a member of the International Coaching Federation.

I am also a member of Spiritual Directors International.

Is coaching considered an eligible group benefit or continuing education expense?
The answer is yes on both counts! ELCIC Group Services has confirmed that expenses incurred to secure certified coaching are eligible for reimbursement from both the ELCIC Continuing Education Plan and the Group Benefits Lifestyle Spending Account.

The current fee is $75 per session with a reduced rate if 4 sessions are paid for in advance.

Please take a look at this Youtube video for an insight from one pastor. The person doing the interviewing is Jill Beverlin, National Coordinator for coaching for the ELCA who has supported me greatly in this venture.

Ash Wednesday

Posted: | Filed Under: From the Bishop's Desk

Psychologists tell us that in order to be healthy people we need to be able to mourn. It is healthy to give voice to our grief. It is healthy to acknowledge the frailty of our human condition. This is not news for Christians. In the beatitudes Jesus tells us that those who mourn are blessed. We know that it is good for us to collectively acknowledge not just the happy things of life, but also the sad; to acknowledge, as one, that things are not as we would wish them to be and not as God intends them to be.

Each fall I am thankful that we have a national day of thanksgiving wherein the general public is given the opportunity to officially acknowledge our need to offer thanks to God. I often think that we could use more such secular holidays! Perhaps it would be wise to institute another national holy-day, in this case, an official day for repentance and mourning.

In the state of Israel, they publicly observe the Jewish holy day Yom Kippur. Those who have experienced an Israeli Yom Kippur tell me that a mystical silence settles over the whole nation. Everything stops. Everything is disrupted as the nation engages in a collective act of repentance and mourning that acknowledges all the injustice, hurt and violence that we share as a people, both corporately and individually.

The church’s liturgical calendar provides us with similar points of reference. Our lives, too, are ordered by the cycles of Advent, Christmas and Epiphany, Lent and Holy Week, Easter through Pentecost, and then by the long weeks of Ordinary Time. It’s a wonderful gift that provides us with a special lens through which we experience the rhythms and movements of what constitutes the stuff of our everyday lives, even in the midst of pandemic days where every day seems like yet another “blursday.”

In her book Things Seen and Unseen, Nora Gallagher speaks of “living by a calendar that runs parallel to my Day-Timer: a counterweight, one time set against another. The church calendar calls into consciousness the existence of a world uninhabited by efficiency, a world filled with the excessiveness of saints, ashes, smoke, and fire; it fills my heart with both dread and hope. It tells of journeys and mysteries, things ‘seen and unseen,’ the world of the almost known.”

Ash Wednesday is a day of “grieving for a purpose” – a day of ritualized mourning that has a discernable and clear end in sight. We grieve for the sake of healing. We mourn for the sake of cleansing. We plead in the words of the great penitential Psalm 51 that we might be “washed and made clean.”

As a young pastor in rural Ontario, I was surprised when a parishioner taught me – thank you Ruthie Mae – that ashes are used in the making of soap. I had no idea but was delighted to learn that the church’s preferred symbol of lament and mourning could at the same time be seen as a symbol of cleansing! But it made sense!

For in Ash Wednesday’s sign of the cross, we also recall the gift of baptism and how through its waters we have died to sin and risen to new life in Christ. We recall both actions; dying and rising and by wearing ashes, ritually step towards new life!

Ash Wednesday is a heavy day. It is a dark day – definitely not a party day! But such days can also hold special gifts. Pray and watch for one never knows what miracles of life might rise from these ashes!

Lenten package available at Trinity

Posted: | Filed Under: Local

Again, material was collected for a Lenten package for children and adults which is available at church in March.   The display board contains many of the activities:  3 pancake recipes for Shrove Tuesday, information about Lent and Ash Wednesday, a pictorial record of our Lenten journey,  information about St. Patrick and how he used the shamrock to teach about the Trinity and a few craft ideas.  Another package is being planned for Easter and Earth Day and possibly Mother’s and Father’s Day.  Our Sunday School will not be in operation for a few months so, as a result, these activities will help retain interest until, at such time, we can resume classes.  Our church must be a church of action! 

Love messages from Trinity, Ayton

Posted: | Filed Under: Local

Messages of love (valentines) in all shapes and sizes were created by children and adults alike from our church and local community. Covid restrictions demanded thinking outside the box to involve children and adults in a way to create the messages and more importantly to send or deliver these messages to our older adults, sick and shut-ins who found themselves isolated because of the pandemic restrictions. We also delivered to the local fire department, places of business and a residential home to say thank you.
   A call was made on a local Facebook site called What’s Up Ayton for help informing our community of this project.  Brown paper bags were filled with coloured paper, sparkly heart-shaped items, pipe cleaners and the like with instructions to create valentines for their families and give back one valentine for the church to send on to others. When these valentines were given back, the paper bags were decorated and included a stapled greeting from Trinity Ayton sending a message of love.  Interested people contacted the number and made their request for the number of bags needed. Over thirty were submitted for distribution.
   The Sunday School is also sponsoring a food drive for our local food bank and, on this site, have invited the community to participate along with our congregation. Pastor Heather has a large plastic tub on her front porch where people can deposit their contributions during this annual Lenten project.
   During this lockdown, social media was very useful to connect with people and allowed us to send these messages of love. This method of communication has been successful in keeping our church community and local community, before and during Covid, able to support each other when needed.

Prayer Service for Ukraine

Posted: | Filed Under: Local

Because of the recent aggression of Russia into Ukraine, Trinity Ayton held a prayer service on Wednesday, March 2, prior to the Ash Wednesday service at 7:00 p.m.  This come and go service was open for the community to come to pray and light candles.
   Pastor Heather Spencer- Stoltz began with prayer followed by music and a slide presentation about the Ukraine.  A table was displayed with bread, sunflower seeds, flags and tea lights for lighting.  The service ended with quiet contemplation and more prayers from pastor Heather.
   Participants were invited to donate to CLWR to assist with the great need of the refugees. Thanks to Sharon Machina  who operated the new, recently installed technology, during the prayer service.   People were invited to take an artificial sunflower home as a reminder of this service and its meaning.


The service can be viewed on Prayers for Ukraine – Trinity Ayton on Youtube for people unable to attend.
Submitted by MaryLou Peffer

The End of the Radio Golden Hour
ministry at St. Matthews

Posted: | Filed Under: Local, News

As of January 1st, 2022, the 91-year Radio Golden Hour ministry at St. Matthews, Kitchener has regretfully come to a close. This difficult decision was made in large part due to Kitchener FaithFM 93.7 (our most recent radio partner) no longer being able to offer same-day broadcasts, and thus our contract with them was not renewed. We regret this decision, esp. as it impacts upon those local listeners who are not online.

   It’s been a good run, from our beginnings on February 23rd, 1930 up until the final broadcast on Dec. 25th, 2021. In our final year, we were, to our knowledge, the third-longest continuous radio broadcast in the world (after the Grand Ole Opry and the Mormon Tabernacle). A big thank-you to various congregations throughout the Synod who have promoted and sponsored our Radio ministry over the decades. We’re so glad you have been part of the extension of our worship and ministry here in the heart of downtown Kitchener.

While our radio broadcast has ended, our 9.30 Golden Hour audio livestream via our website continues.

More information on the history of the Golden Hour can be found here:  https://stmattskw.com/worship/golden-hour-90th-anniversary/