The Rev. Canon Peter John Hobbs retires

The Rev. Canon Dr. Peter John Hobbs, director general of the Anglican Community Ministries, is retiring at the end of the year.

Dean Beth Bretzlaff took a moment at Synod to thank him for his decades of devoted ministry in the diocese.

“You are the heart and soul of this Diocese, both our parishes and our community ministries. You’ve been a student, you’ve been a priest and a pastor and a teacher and a mentor, a leader as an archdeacon, a canon and director general, a whole new title that we made up just for you,” she added affectionately. “And most of all, you’ve been our friend, and we’re really glad that you’re just retiring and not going anywhere else. So, we look forward to seeing what this next chapter has for you, and we’re going to hold you in our hearts and souls, and we want to thank you.” Synod members spontaneously stood to give him a heartfelt standing ovation.

In October, he kindly took time out of his busy schedule to reflect with Perspective on his years of ministry.

Before Hobbs was a priest of the diocese, he was a child of the diocese, born in Cornwall, Ont. His father, the Rev. R. Harry Hobbs, served in Christ Church Long Sioux, Emmanuel in Arnprior, St. John the Divine in Nepean, and later as the deputy director of program for the Diocese, before the family moved to Manitoba. Asked when he first felt called to ministry, Hobbs said he remembers playing church when he was very young. “Some Sunday afternoons I would have bread and juice and I’d preach a little sermon and distribute communion, all in an old choir room.”

As a young man after finishing his undergraduate degree he considered an acting career and attended theatre school in Montreal. Realizing that wasn’t the path for him, he returned to Winnipeg, uncertain. His father had died in a car accident when he was 16. “I was 24 years old, and I was not a churchgoer at that time. I knew the church very, very well. I had lots of people who I knew were praying for me and who were supporting me, but I was not going to church,” he said. Suddenly something changed. “I had this profound sense of calling, ‘You’re going to be a priest.’ I remember waking up in the house full of rock musicians and actors that I lived in, going down that morning and saying, ‘Guess what? I’m going to be a priest.’”

A few days later, he phoned Bishop Edwin Lackey and said he wanted to be a priest in the Diocese of Ottawa. Bishop Lackey asked him to come to Ottawa to talk with him and sent him a plane ticket. The bishop was supportive but told him to go back to church to start with. “That was great advice,” Hobbs says. He went back to Winnipeg for two years and in that time met and married his wife Diane, and then they moved to Ottawa so he could attend Saint Paul University.

Clearly, he found his way. “I knew the power and the depth of community that can be wrought … with all of the liturgical life of a parish. I knew that there was something wonderful and beautiful about that, but also this sense for social justice was also very much a part of my own sort of emerging ideology and being ordained seemed to be a great marriage of the two.”

Hobbs was ordained in 1992 and served in the parishes St. Matthias on Parkdale Avenue from 1992 until 1995, Chelsea, Lascelles, Wakefield until 2001 and at Christ Church Bells Corners until 2013. He loved his years in parish ministry. “It’s very affirming. …Once or twice a week someone takes you aside and affirms you, says ‘You’re awesome.’ And it’s because you’re doing natural things that a priest would do.”

He added that there are many great helping professions, but “very few that allow you to be with people in some of their most intimate moments in life, moments of great loss, moments of great joy, of accomplishment, of sorrow. And we are asked to be with people in their homes, at their hearth, if you will, in ways that I don’t think other helpful professionals are. And that’s an incredible, deep honour.”

In 2013, Bishop John Chapman offered Hobbs the opportunity to become director of mission for the Diocese, and his interest in the Community Ministries was deep enough pull him away from parish ministry. “I was very happy to come [to Ascension House] … I was always attracted to the Community Ministries of our Diocese and watched them with great interest and volunteered at Centre 454 for a couple of years on my days off.”

During the 13 years since, the Community Ministries have grown along with the expanding and deepening needs of the population they serve. Hobbs estimates the budget for the combined ministries when he became director of mission was about five to six million dollars. Now it is between $15 and $20 million.

He has been a powerful voice for the Community Ministries. “We cannot underestimate just how difficult it is for people who are addicted, people who are living in poverty and struggling with issues like trauma, mental health, addiction. It is a complex web of realities,” he said, speaking to staff last year. “It’s a very different world in which we’re living right now with the acuity of those in need being that much higher than certainly it’s ever been in my life from my observation.

“I think this is a point in time where we as a diocese need to decide, are we going to invest in this ministry? Not that we haven’t, but I think we need to renew that commitment in a way that it shows up in our financial life. It’s great that we have the kind of funding agreements that we have with the City of Ottawa for Cornerstone and Belong Ottawa, and we’re certainly working on it in Cornwall. Each of the Community Ministries in one form or another have a very healthy group of individual donors and parish donations…. But we, as the Diocese, need to really take a look at how we are going to invest in these ministries to ensure they’re sustainable. Because I believe it’s core gospel.

And I believe as we move forward further into this century, the church will largely be measured and the church will be attractive because of its ability, commitment, to care for those who are most vulnerable in our midst.

“There’s lots and lots of people who make the Community Ministries happen, and it’s just simply been an honour to be on this perch as the DG [director general].

Canon Monica Patten, chair of the Community Ministries Committee, praised Hobbs’ extraordinary ability to be a bridge between the Community Ministries and secular organizations, such as the Alliance to End Homelessness.  “He would go there and bring the perspective of the ministries and of the church and learn about what matters in the community.”  She added that he was always a remarkable support for the executive directors. “He genuinely loves the ministries and people they serve.”

As he steps away from the work he has been so passionate about, Hobbs said he feels confident that the Diocese is a living system that will be able to figure out how to ensure that the Community Ministries continue to thrive and grow.

He thanked the Diocese and all five bishops he has worked with. “I’ve been able to not only have the fullness of ministry that this diocese provides me, but it’s also allowed me to be educated and teach. I’ve done three graduate degrees since I was ordained and that means the world to me.”

What’s next? Hobbs says he will continue to teach graduate students at the Virginia Theological Seminary, where he’s been teaching since 2000. But he is looking forward to more time at home with his family and new grandchild. “I love going to church every Sunday morning. It’s the highlight of my week, to be at the Eucharist.”