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Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada

Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada

Member church of the Lutheran World Federation

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From the Bishop's Desk

A Time of Hygge

Posted: January 28, 2025 | Filed Under: From the Bishop's Desk

December is my favorite month, and Advent is my favorite liturgical season- a time of anticipation and expectation. Images of the church beautifully draped in the shades of blue, contrast from the long season of green.

At home, the daily tradition of Advent candle lighting produces hygge, a concept of coziness, and comfort that warms my soul.

Darkness of the Advent season offers rest and renewal, protection, beauty and mystery.

Maybe the preparation of Christmas, with the sprinkling of gingerbread aroma makes the Advent season festive, musical, and texts filled with expectation and anticipation.

Advent can also be challenging.  

The secular merriment contrasts with loss or grief, an empty chair, once warmed by a loved one, traditions interrupted.  It can be lonely and jarring to be away from family, to be dealing with relationship challenges, addictions, ongoing racism, systemic homophobia, biphobia and transphobia. Loneliness, aging, health concerns.  Climate change with weather extremes flash on the news at alarming rates. The long nights and shorter periods of day light can also be hard.

My favorite Advent Hymn is Rory Cooney’s  “Canticle of the Turning,” inspired by the   Magnificat,  from the Gospel of Luke 1:52-33, about Mary and her longing for liberation, hope, peace and justice.  

My heart shall sing of the day you bring
Let the fires of your justice burn
Wipe away all tears
For the dawn draws near
And the world is about to turn!

Advent reminds us that Hope is born into chaos. God came and has come and will come and is coming again. Hope and promise, born into our challenges, into our grief, into our struggles.

Hope comes.

With Christmas just around the corner, we are reminded, the world is about to turn!!

Wishing you deep peace and love this season!!

Old Made New

Posted: November 4, 2024 | Filed Under: From the Bishop's Desk

 I love autumn, the hues of color, burnt orange, burgundy, deep green and shades of brown. The turning of the seasons is a brilliant reminder of the cycle of life.  

Birth.

New growth.

Fullness.

Letting go.

Death.

As humans we live in this cycle every year, every day. Every year, even in winter when we’re blanketed in cold, we all know the promise of new life.

Late October is a special time for the church. Reformation (or re-formation) and All Saints Day are important reminders.

Reformation Day, calls us to remember our formation and that we are a church in flux. We, the church, are not static; we respond constantly to the needs of those around us. At the same time as we’re always changing, our communities and the wider world are also always in the cycle of birth, new growth, fullness, letting go and death.

All Saints Day calls us to remember the great communion of saints that surrounds us. Look at the communion of saints that surrounds the church!!

As I begin to serve as Bishop of the Eastern Synod, I want to acknowledge Bishop Michael Pryse with deep thankfulness for the leadership, faithfulness, guidance and inspiration he has embodied during many years of leadership. Bishop Mike, you have formed a solid foundation for the Eastern Synod. Thank you.

Additional thanks to the officers, council members, Synod staff, rostered leaders and lay leaders who have worked tirelessly to forward God’s work in this Synod over many years. I look forward to sharing in ministry with you.

I started my life in this wide church of ours at Waterloo Lutheran Seminary (Martin Lutheran University College) in 1990. Two of our children were born in Waterloo, while I was in Seminary, and while Brent taught in Mississauga.  It feels like a full circle to return to the Eastern Synod and become your Bishop. I am deeply humbled as I step into this role.

One of the items the Bishop-elects are asked to acquire is a bishop’s ring.

Since I appreciate upcycling, I asked Regina artist, Megan J. Hazel, to design and craft a new ring from old rings. With a daughter’s ring from forty years ago, my wedding band and my mom’s wedding band, Megan created the most beautiful ring. A new ring made from sixty plus years of past woven into the future.

When I addressed the Synod Assembly in August, I talked about Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop’s analogy relating children’s literature to “Windows, Mirrors and Sliding Glass Doors.”

How like the church!

Windows to see other perspectives.

Mirrors to see ourselves.

And sliding glass doors through which to take one step at a time into possibilities for the future.

I give thanks for the opportunity and privilege to journey with you. I invite you to join me in looking forward with a great deal of hope and optimism for the future of this Synod. Because we are God’s church, and God will guide and inspire us in brilliant partnership!

Let there be Greening

Posted: August 29, 2024 | Filed Under: From the Bishop's Desk

From June 20 to 22, 2024, the Eastern Synod gathered under the ELCIC’s triennial theme “Let there be greening!” It’s a beautiful theme, a prayer that speaks to me about many of the things we hope for, pray for, and yearn for in this season of our synod’s and our world’s life.

During Synod Assembly 2024 we reflected on the need for a greening of our environment. Care for Creation needs to be a top priority for all of us as congregations and individuals. Kudos to those congregations who have registered as being a Greening Faith Community or joining the Zero Emission Churches partnership, and to all who are working to identify annual stewardship of creation goals and to encouraging each other in seeking and working toward climate justice.

We reflected on the need for there to be a greening of peace within our world. The Geneva Academy of International Law and Human Rights reports that there are currently 110 armed conflicts happening in the world right now and that more countries are experiencing such conflict than at any time in the past 30 years. Our global mission companion, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land is experiencing horrific levels of distress as they seek to proclaim Christ amid the war in Gaza and associated acts of violence and oppression in the occupied West Bank. In a video address to the Synod Assembly, Bishop Ibrahim Sani Azar expressed deep thanks to those of you have supported our church’s appeal in support of the ELCJHL and to our Synod Council who have provided just over $50,000.00 to that appeal in the name of our synod.

We reflected on what the synod is doing to help encourage a greening of our congregational ministries. In the past three years, Eastern Synod congregations and related organizations have received $725, 000 and counting in grants to support new and innovative mission initiatives. Those grants have been made possible through the generosity of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada via the ELCIC Mission Fund and because of generous bequests provided to the synod by our forebears in the faith.

And, finally, we made electoral decisions that will translate into a greening of our synod’s leadership. I am heartened and very pleased with the election of Bishop-elect Carla Blakley, Vice-Chairperson Sara Whynot, Secretary Chris Hulan and Treasurer Frederick Mertz! These newly identified leaders bring new vision and new skills that will bless our synod immeasurably in the coming years! Please do everything you can to support them and encourage them so that the greening they represent might flourish and grow in rich abundance! I know that I will be!

The Poverty of Having Been Chosen/ Not Chosen

Posted: May 9, 2024 | Filed Under: From the Bishop's Desk

In June 2024, the Eastern Synod will be electing a new bishop. As we engage in this time of discernment, Bishop Pryse continues his reflections on where and how the bishop’s ministry is exercised.

By the time you read these words, you will have been presented with a slate of names identifying those persons who have been nominated for election as our synod’s next bishop and vice-chairperson. Allowing one’s name to stand in nomination is not easy and all the nominees are to be commended for engaging this process of discernment with us. It takes a lot of courage.

A few months after I was installed as bishop of this synod in 1998, I attended an event where the then primate of the Episcopal Church USA was discussing episcopal ministry. He began by telling us a story about how he had responded to his own nomination to allow his name to stand for election to that particular office. Upon receiving notice of the nomination he went to his spiritual director saying he was at a loss as to how to respond. His spiritual director – very pastorally – said to him, “Face it, Frank – you’re a coward!” “You’re afraid because either way – if you participate in this process – you will have to deal with your own poverty – the poverty of not being chosen, or the poverty of “being” chosen.”

Most of us can probably understand the poverty of not being chosen. But few of us experience the poverty of having been chosen, of being pulled from a place of vocational confidence and competency to a place of vocational questioning and uncertainty.

Now retired Bishop Michael Ingham from the Diocese of New Westminster put it this way in an Anglican Journal article. “I remember a day early in my episcopate when I entered a room full of friends and colleagues. I was astonished when they all stood up! In the next few weeks, my jokes became funnier, my casual observations strangely more profound, and great interest was taken in my well-being in a way never shown before! The process of distancing and elevating had begun.”

“I was overwhelmed with demands. Every organization wanted me to articulate my “vision” for the church. Every priest and deacon wanted time with me. Every lingering conflict turned up fresh at my door. I was asked to make decisions about matters of which I had no understanding.” That is part of the poverty of having been chosen.

When I was elected, Bishop Huras told me that no one would sit beside me when gathered in a circle with colleagues. “No one wants to look like they’re sucking up!” I was stunned by his words and sadly surprised to learn that he was right! I was startled by how quickly the process of distancing had begun! Sadly, that, too, is part of the poverty of having been chosen.

As we prepare to elect new leaders in the life of our synod, I urge you to be urgent in prayer, generous in spirit and compassionate of heart. All of those who we will consider, whether identified in the nomination process or in the ecclesiastical ballot, are precious and beloved human beings; whether elected or not.  In their offering to serve they will, indeed, experience a poverty. We owe them our deep respect and most generous gratitude.

Moving Diagonally

Posted: March 19, 2024 | Filed Under: From the Bishop's Desk

In June 2024, the Eastern Synod will be electing a new bishop. As we engage in this time of discernment, Bishop Pryse offers some reflections on where and how the bishop’s ministry is exercised.

It’s not uncommon for the bishop to become an object lesson for the Sunday morning children’s message. In a laudable effort to introduce the visitor at the front of the church who wears a big cape and carries a big stick, the bishop gets trotted out for a visit with the kids. And invariably, the pastor asks, “Who knows what a bishop does?”  

One Sunday morning an all-too-clever pre-teen shouted out, “They move diagonally!” We all laughed, but there was more than a little truth contained in that youngster’s answer!

The bishop is always moving, sometimes diagonally, sometime forward and sometime backward; always moving between different expressions of the church. One Sunday in a rural congregation in Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia and the next to an urban ministry in the heart of downtown Toronto.  Then off to a meeting of the National Church Council or a solidarity visit in support of one of our Global Mission Companions. The bishop is always moving back and forth between the church’s most local and widest expressions. And in that movement, the bishop can become a means of connection that strengthens the bonds that unite us as fellow members of the body of Christ.

All human beings and human institutions are vulnerable to the dangers of parochialism. We are all tempted to value only our own very particular perspectives, experiences, and aspirations. As someone whose ministry engages a wide variety of local and wider expressions of church, the bishop can help broaden perspectives and make connections that can enhance the functioning of the whole body.

When the bishop sits at meetings of the National Church Council or the Conference of Bishops, they must carry their synod’s congregations and rostered leaders with them. Likewise, when the bishop engages with congregations and rostered leaders at the most local level, they must always carry with them the experiences, perspectives, and aspirations of our wider church partners.

St. Paul, writes, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many.”

No single expression of the church can live in isolation. Bishops are called to help make connections and broaden perspectives.  They move diagonally. They must listen carefully, reflect prayerfully, and share generously. And in that sharing our experience of discipleship can be made richer and the health of the whole body made stronger.

The Table

Posted: February 8, 2024 | Filed Under: From the Bishop's Desk

In June 2024, the Eastern Synod will be electing a new bishop. As we engage in this time of discernment, Bishop Pryse offers some reflections on where and how the bishop’s ministry is exercised.

Our synod’s constitutional documents tell us that the bishop is called to “provide pastoral leadership and counsel to ordained and diaconal ministers, congregations, synodically recognized ministries and areas of this synod.”  Eastern Synod Bylaws Part VII, Section 1. In my experience, the primary locus of that work is the table, the Lord’s table, the meeting table, and the dining table.

The Lord’s Table

The bishop exercises a full Word and Sacrament ministry, presiding at the altar and proclaiming God’s Word in congregations and regional gatherings of our synod. Congregational visits have been the beating heart of what has sustained me during my term of service in this office. The discipline of regularly preparing and delivering sermons at services across the territory of the synod is a spiritually grounding exercise that provides a frame within which the day-to-day work of the bishop is held and supported. Presiding at the table reminds me of the church’s calling to provide good food to hungry people, to help fill whatever part of them feels most empty.

The Meeting Table

The bishop convenes gatherings of people around a myriad of meeting tables. Meetings of the Synod Council, Officers and staff. Meetings of the Synod Assembly. Congregational Council meetings and meetings of pastors and deacons. The bishop participates in the meetings of the National Church Council and the Conference of Bishops. The bishop will be called upon to sit at the table of other committees and working groups, some ecumenical, national or international. They will sometimes engage with government officials and secular media. They will be called upon to arbitrate conflicts, resolve disputes and administer discipline. They are called upon to be wise counsellors and prudent mediators, always honouring their promises to uphold and abide by the constitutions and enactments of our church.

The Dining Table

The bishop is privileged to share food and drink with God’s people in their churches, homes, and communities.  At these tables we can establish friendly and mutually supportive relationships with leaders, both lay and ordained, across the territory of the synod. The bishop needs to be genuinely curious about other peoples’ lives, their communities, experiences, and perspectives.  This table offers a steady diet of ham, scalloped potatoes, baked beans, chili, Solomon Gundy, and the widest possible variety of noodle and rice-based casseroles. (Jellied salads are purely discretionary!) More importantly, it offers a steady diet of understanding, mutual support and care. It is an honour to sit at the synod’s dining room tables.

Always eat what is set before you. Always be thankful! And always remember to keep your fork!

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Recent Posts

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