Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada

Member church of the Lutheran World Federation

From the Bishop's Desk

On Welcoming Change

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The theme of this past summer’s Synod Assembly was drawn from the words of Isaiah 43:19. “Behold I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth. Do you not perceive it?’”  I think that many of us, have perceived that God is doing something new with us and we welcome it!

A lot of us feel like some cobwebs have been blown off and that we don’t have quite so strong a whiff of mothballs hanging over us. Of course, the pandemic has identified some very significant challenges for us; but its also identified some new opportunities that many of us are inspired to engage.

In February  of 2021, we invited congregations and rostered leaders to participate in a survey to help us assesses the impact of Covid-19 on congregational ministries. And according to your survey responses, you discern further change on the horizon; change that many of you welcome.

We asked you to identify “what elements of your congregation’s ministry you believe will change, post-pandemic vs. pre-pandemic.” This is some of what you told us.

With regard to “missional clarity” or “knowing what business you are in,” 53% anticipate experiencing some change and 12% predict extreme change. One of you wrote, “Post-pandemic realities will reinforce sense of urgency to sharpen missional energy.”  Another wrote, “We’ve made of an effort to reach more people than we did before. We have more volunteers to connect with others via phone, personal deliveries. It’s been a huge learning curve to figure out that we can get out of our building and be the voice of Jesus.”

With regard to the provision of pastoral care, 60% see some change on the horizon and 15% expect to experience extreme change.

One of you reported that, “Pastoral care and pastoral interaction with members increased significantly throughout the pandemic and will likely continue in post pandemic.”  Another wrote, “This time of pandemic has now guided us to use technology to its fullest. We plan to use these resources as well as the traditional means of pastoral care to reach out to people and allow for what is most helpful and needed. We also have now incorporated a “care-team” – a group of people reaching out and being there for their congregation and extended community as needed and helpful.”

And it seems that most of you anticipate that significant changes will continue to impact our worship life – 60% in some ways and 27% in extreme ways. One of you wrote, “The pandemic has opened up possibilities for us and has shifted the posture of the community.  A more missional posture and multiple access points.”  Many of you anticipate going into a hybrid worship model with both face to face and online worship, but have very real anxieties about how that can be done effectively.

I am gratified to see us become more courageous and generous in our support of emerging forms of ministry. Many of us are coming to realize that we can’t solely rely upon status quo models for ministry which, in many contexts, are unlikely to advance God’s mission in the ways that they once did. I applaud our church’s increased willingness to engage in experimentation, learn from the experience of others, and overcome our debilitating fear of failing.

During “covid-tide,” we have opened some windows and doors that we had long assumed were painted shut and immovable. That has proven to not be the case. I hope and pray we will withstand the temptation to shut them up again. I can feel the Spirit’s breeze blowing and it is oh so refreshing!

Behold I Am Doing A New Thing!

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The following is an excerpt from Bishop Michael Pryse’s reflection during the Opening Service of Synod Assembly 2021, June 25-26, 2021

Over the course of my ministry, I’ve often been asked “why it is that things have to change within the church.”” Worship books, hymns, practices, policies, theology. Why can’t you people just leave things the way they are!”

Surprisingly, or not, nobody has asked me that question in the last 16 months, in spite of the monumental changes that have taken place within our life as church! Interesting!

“Behold I am doing a new thing says the Lord; even now it springs forth. Do you not perceive it?” I think maybe we have. And that’s even more interesting!

Over the past year and a bit, I think that many – not all – of us have experienced a heightened spiritual sensitivity. In the midst of circumstances that, for the most part, have been just plain awful, many of us have experienced a renewed awareness of God’s gracious presence within our individual lives and within the life of our church.  And that’s really interesting!

It’s been a gift of God’s grace and the parables included in today’s Gospel lesson are pictures that describe a reign of grace. The tiny mustard seed grows into a tree that becomes a nesting place for the birds of the air! The birds didn’t and couldn’t do anything to make it happen. The seed – the reign of God – grew of its own volition and nature!  It’s pure grace!

Likewise the yeast – “God’s activating grace” – is mixed by a baker – “God” –  into three measures of flour – “the world.” Keep in mind that those three biblical measures are the equivalent of a bushel basket; 128 cups or 16 five pound bags of flour! And when the baker adds the 42 or so cups of water needed to make it come together, you are talking about 100 pounds of dough through which she needs to disburse the yeast!  Can you imagine?

But she does it. God kneads that dough until the yeast  – God’s grace – is disbursed throughout; until its everywhere! That’s the only way dough can become bread. The yeast breathes life into the loaf.  It is a gift of the baker; a gift of grace.

Do you feel like you’ve been getting kneaded – k-n-e-a-d- kneaded – for the past 15 months? I know that I have. It’s rarely felt good or even comfortable! But I also know that that’s the way that yeast gets disbursed so it can breathe life and growth into the loaf.  I’d like to believe that that has happened for me, for you, and for our beloved church.  I’d like to believe that in significant ways, we are being made new by gifts of grace that were always present, but have been re-discovered and newly revealed!

Ecclesia reformata, sed semper reformanda.

The Church reformed, but always in the process of being reformed. This was the rallying motto of the reformation; a motto that could have been written as much for us today as it was for our reforming forebears of old.

I welcome the animating presence of these seeds and grains of grace in the life of our church. In the heightened levels of collaboration we’ve experienced within and between congregations! In the adaptation and renewal of our worship life whether high tech, low tech or no tech! I welcome it in our heightened attentiveness to maintaining connection with one another and to questions of inclusion and exclusion.

Behold I am doing a new thing says the Lord; even now it springs forth. Do you not perceive it?  Praise God! I think we have and I pray we will! AMEN

All About Relationship

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For most of my time in ordained ministry, I have been privileged to participate in efforts to build and nurture our Full Communion relationship with the Anglican Church of Canada.  Through this work I have been blessed beyond measure!

During my term as co-chair of the Anglican Lutheran International Coordinating Committee I was privileged to experience how Lutheran-Anglican partnerships were, or were not, being lived out around the globe. And I can say, with more than a little pride, that our international partners consistently marveled at the scope and breadth of how Full Communion was being lived out here in Canada. Joint National Assemblies. Full recognition and transmutability between traditions for orders of ministry. Joint Lutheran Anglican congregations.  They wondered how any of this was possible. In response I would say that anything we’d accomplished was fully dependent on the depth of our lived relationships.

Our 2001 Full Communion declaration did not fall out of the sky “fait accompli”. It was proceeded by an 18-year process of careful and conscientious relationship building across various expressions of our respective churches.

 In 1988 Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Burlington, Ontario, where I then served as pastor, was one of dozens of Lutheran and Anglican congregations across Canada that were asked to engage a designated local partner. In our case, we were partnered with St. Luke’s Anglican Church and thus began a wonderful and enlightening series of shared worship, learning and fellowship gatherings. Neighbourly relationships were established.

In 1989 our respective churches chose to enter into an experience of interim eucharistic sharing; wisely recognizing that unity at the Lord’s table would be the means, rather than the end, of experiencing deeper unity. And so, across the nation, Lutherans and Anglicans gathered at one another’s altars to share Christ’s body and blood. Sacred relationships were nurtured.

In 1991 National Bishop Telmor Sartison and Primate Michael Peers made a commitment to hosting an annual gathering of our church’s bishops in a retreat setting for the next ten years. Telmor and Michael knew that if full communion were to become a lived reality it would all depend on having established real person to person relationships with one another. Collegial and trusting relationships were forged. 

By 2001, all that remained was for our two churches to publicly acknowledge what we had already experienced in relationship; that we, in fact, were churches whose relationship was one of Full Communion in Christ. And so that relationship continues to grow and deepen today.

As I reflect upon my own experience working with the Joint Anglican Lutheran Commission, it is not the countless conversations, papers, negotiations and meetings that stand out for me. Rather, it is the deep friendships that were established and nurtured; relationships whose strength provided the means by which we were able to engage the important work that our churches had set before us. Like most everything in life and discipleship, it’s really all about the relationships. And how could it be otherwise?

From left: Archbishop Fred Hiltz, Very Rev. Peter Wall, Bishop Michael Pryse and National Bishop Susan Johnson at tree planting to commemorate 10 years of Full communion in 2011.

Pastoral Letter – March 2021

Posted: | Filed Under: COVID, From the Bishop's Desk, Uncategorised

Dear friends in Christ,

Grace and peace be to you from God our father and from our Lord and savior Jesus Christ!

In recent weeks many of us have been contemplating how and when our congregations might return to in-person worship. Some of us have already begun to physically gather. Others are contemplating a return during Holy Week. And many of us are, as yet, unsure as to when we might be able to return to our sanctuaries.

It seems timely, therefore, to reiterate some of the basic principles that I have shared with you in previous communications.

Read more →

History Matters! Black History Matters!

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In his letter to the Galatians, St. Paul tells us that for those who are clothed in Christ there is no longer Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female. It’s a beautiful picture! But in life, we know that those distinctions most certainly exist! We know that in the church of Galatia they most certainly existed. Why else would Paul have written this, if there were not struggles related to the status of Jew, Greek, slave, free, male and female?

Likewise, those distinctions most certainly exist within our church. Not literally Jew and Greek. But most certainly the “in” and the “not so in.” Perhaps not slave and free. But certainly those with power and those without power. And who would deny that there are distinctions between black, brown, yellow, red and white; male and female, gay and straight, rich or poor, indigenous and non-indigenous! Those distinctions most certainly exist and testify to the measure to which we fall short of the standard of what Paul says it means to be clothed with Christ. Our seating plans are not aligned to those of the kingdom.

In February 2020, in recognition of Black History Month, I joined colleagues from the Atlantic Ministry Area in a visit to the Black Loyalist Heritage Centre in Birchtown, Nova Scotia. It was part of a several month study wherein these pastors had taken concrete steps to learn a history that most of us knew very little of. They had acknowledged that their lack of historical knowledge was a liability and took concrete steps to do something about it. They did so recognizing that history matters!

One of the most enlightening courses I took during my undergraduate studies was an introduction to African American history. Our primary textbook was. “From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African-Americans,” published in 1947 and revised several time thereafter. It remains a classic.

Its author was John Hope Franklin, who was born in 1915 and raised in segregated Oklahoma. Graduating from Fisk University in 1935, he earned a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1941. Over the course of his career, he held faculty posts at a number of institutions, including Howard University, the University of Chicago and Duke University. A giant in his field, Franklin served as president of the American Historical Association, the American Studies Association and the Organization of American Historians. 

In an address commemorating the 100th anniversary of Franklin’s birth, Harvard president and historian Drew Faust remarked that  “Franklin insisted not just upon the relevance of history, but indeed its pre-eminence as the indispensable instrument of change and even salvation from legacies that left unexamined will destroy us. ‘Good history,’ Franklin remarked in 2003, ‘is a good foundation for a better present and future.’ ”

“For John Hope Franklin, history was a calling and a weapon, a passion and a project,” Faust said. “Fundamental to the task at hand would be to revise the ‘hallowed’ falsehoods, to illustrate how the abuse and misuse of history served to legitimate systems of oppression not just in the past but in the present as well.”

Make no mistake, friends. History matters! Black history matters! In this year’s Black History Month I invite you to learn some new history. Check out your public library or Google for a recommended reading list. I promise that it will change you, and us, for the better!

Adieu…To God…2020

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

I’ll be glad to see the end of 2020. January and February were standard form, but from then on, it’s been pretty much awful. I’m happy to say good-bye and good riddance to 2020. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass!” 

But a new calendar year is on the horizon and a new liturgical year has already begun. And while I’m praying and hoping that Advent will help me to turn a proverbial page, both psychologically and spiritually, I know that I dare not miss this year end opportunity to give thanks for the rich insights and new learnings that have been gifted to us in the midst of an admittedly miserable time. 

In the last nine months I have learned that: 

Our church has a much greater capacity to change than I ever thought imaginable. We pivoted and established new models for ministry in a matter of weeks. We figured out new ways to engage in worship, learning, pastoral care and outreach ministries! I was amazed! And I hereby pledge to never again utter the words “how many Lutherans does it take to change a lightbulb.” “Change?” The last nine months have proven that we can and we did! So let’s quit with the excuses. 

Physical distancing does not have to mean social distancing or soul distancing. In many ways I feel more connected with our synod’s rostered ministers and lay leaders than I ever have. Many of you report the same dynamic has happened within your congregations. We need to ensure that these newly forged connecting points -whether high tech, low tech or no tech – are strengthened and enhanced moving forward. 

We are not as bound to bricks and mortar expressions of church as I thought we were. Our understanding of what it means to “go to church” has been fundamentally altered and expanded and I hope it sticks. The truth of that old Sunday school song has been made plainly apparent. “The church is not a building. The church is the people!” As Luther would say, “this is most certainly true!” 

Crises really do create new opportunities. Flowers really can bloom in the midst of a desert. As the scope of this crisis became apparent, I was assuming that the best we could do was to hold on and maintain some measure of normalcy in church life. I never imagined that so many of us would experience an awakening of new gifts for ministry. But as hard as it’s been, many of our ministries and ministers have been newly enlivened by this sudden change of context. We’ve learned that when “same old” is no longer an option, new things can come to expression. That’s frightening for some of us but liberating for others. While tending to the former, we must continue to give space to the latter. 

Adieu! Translated literally it means “to God.” In bidding adieu to calendar year 2020, we commend it to God. We commend all of it; our fears, hopes, pains and yearnings. We commend it to the God who has been present and blessed us so richly throughout these strangest of days. We commend it all to the God who also awaits and will assuredly offer new and unexpected blessings in the year to come!