St. Mark’s Anglican Church in Ottawa wound up its 75th anniversary celebrations with a special worship service on Oct. 6.
Bishop Shane Parker offered the homily, beginning by remarking on how much things have changed since St. Mark’s was founded. “There weren’t solar panels on the roof back then. Oil was endless and in great supply….. If we said we were going to build an Anglican Church, people would be lining up and when the church was finally built it would be filled and we didn’t need to do to much to make that happen.
Now we live in a very different context where we’re not really noticed as much as we used to be. And we need to come to terms with that, not in a way that discourages us. The simple truth is that we are a smaller church in a city, in a context where many people are suspicious of religion, have no religion, or are members of another religious tradition. And we need to learn how to be faithful in such a change of context. And as many of you know, our diocesan church has done a lot of work in recent years to come to terms with the things we know we’re being called to do in this changed environment.”
The bishop recommended the diocesan Learning Commons, designed to offer resources to help learn how to be healthy parishes and to learn how to be the church in the world at this time. He encouraged parishioners to focus on discerning how God is working in the world around them and around St. Mark’s and to look for ways to “participate with other people in serving the common good.”
The bishop thanked Father Julian Campbell, the Incumbent of St. Mark’s, for his ministry in the church and in the diocese and prayed for blessings on all of his and the parish’s endeavours.
At the end of the worship serve, the parish officially welcomed a group of individuals and families who had joined St. Mark’s during the pandemic when such in-person ceremonies were deemed to be unsafe.
As everyone gathered in the parish hall to have lunch and celebrate the anniversary together, Father Julian told Crosstalk that parishioners had also marked anniversary over the year at different points during the year by planting a tree; holding a strawberry tea; hosting a musical performance by the group “Aged in Harmony;” and creating a pictorial directory of parishioners. This special worship service and celebratory lunch capped off their celebrations.
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