The congregation of St Clare’s Anglican Church thinks that it may be. Our church in Winchester, Ontario, south of Ottawa, has a three-acre parcel of land next to the building that has been planted in crops each year in support of the Canada Food Grains Bank (CFGB). The bank reports that 828 million people experience hunger on a daily basis.

Our three-acre parcel was planted in corn in the spring by volunteer farmers, seed, fertilizer and other inputs were donated by local industry and the harvest was done at the end of November by another local farmer.

The yield was recorded as 14 tonnes and by my calculations, which are mere guestimates, that would provide upwards of 628,000 meals.

Fourteen tonnes equals 31,240 pounds of corn. If corn is ground to flour, then each pound will produce approximately four corn tortillas for a total of 125,680 meals. The wonder of the Food Grains bank is that they have industry and government agencies that match the production by four times. So according to my math, that means our 3 acres provided food for 628,400 meals.

We can feed the multitudes! Are you doing your part?  You can help by donating to the Canadian Food Grains Bank at www.foodgrainsbank.ca

— Bob Weagant is a member of St Clare’s Church, Winchester, Ontario.

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Stuccoed or not, the local climate took a major toll of frame buildings. By the late 1850s, Saint James’s new rector, the Rev. Alexander Pyne, prepared to build a larger and more enduring stone house of worship.  The choice of William Thomas as architect for the new church suggests that some low church members of Saint James’s Church initially did not go along with the High Victorian Ecclesiastical Gothic Revival notions being considered for a new church at Almonte.  

No sooner had the walls of the huge new Saint James’s Church been built to half the height designed by Thomas in 1861 when it became apparent that the parish could not afford the building Pyne envisioned.  To further complicate matters, the architect then up and died.  That was when the architectural partnership of Thomas Fuller and Chilion Jones, then at work on the original Centre Block of Ottawa’s parliament buildings, was called in to cut down the design. 

We see the result in this engraving published in the Toronto Mail on 14 May 1877.  This is the earliest known image to survive of the new Saint James’s Church, showing how, despite its new look, it conformed to the old siting, together with Saint Andrew’s Church of Scotland flanking the courthouse—the supreme symbol of the Crown, certainly power, where justice was meted out and where the county council met.  

By the time this engraving was made, the Church of Ireland was dis-established and the Church of Scotland in Canada had been rolled into the larger union of all Presbyterian churches.  Even the traditional visual symbol of being an “established church”—a church tower—which in the British Isles only the three established churches had been allowed to build, was missing from the fabric of Saint James’s Church, but only temporarily for lack of funds to build it.

The details of the side wall are muddied here, but placing the main entrance at the centre of the west wall was a holdover from the Regency Gothic Revival and was retained from Thomas’s original design, apparently because it already had been built and paid for.  

In Fuller & Jones’s pared down design, the front façade was barely twice the height of the doorway arch.  The simple pointed archway of the main doors and the great west window above it with its leaded diamond panes were left as the main features of the Drummond Street front.  

The large base for the tower was a declaration that, if built, it might become a visual signpost not only for the church but for Perth itself from miles away.  The temporary roof on the tower base shown here has a Château or even French Second Empire feel to it; in being mixed with the Gothic Revival details, a mix that proclaims it was authored by two men combining English Gothic and French Second Empire in their design for the Canadian parliament.

The Diocesan Archives collects parish registers vestry reports, service registers, minutes of groups and committees, financial documents, property records (including cemeteries and architectural plans), insurance policies, letters, pew bulletins, photographs and paintings, scrapbooks, parish newsletters, and unusual records. 

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When I graduated from high school and went to university, I plugged into St. Francis Chapel, the church at which my father was chaplain. I served and attended there until I left to come to Canada. St Francis was a fascinating congregation. We had loud and expressive music, vibrant liturgy, and a culturally diverse and multigenerational congregation.

My identity as a Christian and as an Anglican was deeply entrenched when I came to Canada in 2003, so naturally, the first congregations that I tried to find connections with were Anglican.

My transition to Canada was not easy. I struggled to find work. I was a computer programmer and 2003 was a terrible time for somebody with my qualifications to show up in Ottawa. Adjusting to the culture was very difficult. On the surface, everybody was very polite and, at times, helpful, but it was incredibly difficult to make friends or lasting connections because the only way to penetrate the veneer of politeness and make actual connections is through personal introductions into social circles. If you’re new to Canada, you know how difficult those are to come by.

I went to the church hoping it would be different. The assumption that I came to Canada with was that, even though I did not have my biological family with me, I would be able to build family with my spiritual family. What I found was the same polite smiles and occasional helpfulness, but no real connection.

One Sunday, I decided to take the initiative. I had been sitting behind a couple that had politely shared the peace with me and had smiled or given a polite nod when we made eye contact. I introduced myself and told them a little about my story and how I had ended up in Ottawa and at their congregation. When I was done, the gentleman said something to me which he must have thought was helpful.

“You know what congregation you would really like,” he said, “You’d really like the Baptist church down the road.”

I found his response to our conversation quite confusing. I did not know what to make of it and so I just shrugged it off. Weeks later, I left that congregation and started attending another when I moved house. I spent a few months at this second congregation, and my experience was the same. I had the same polite smiles and numerous similar suggestions to try out different congregations that they thought I would really like.

Eventually, I took the suggestions of my well-meaning acquaintances and tried out different churches. I attended and worked at a Baptist Church. Following that, I attended and worked at a Pentecostal church. My wife and I planted a church with the Free Methodists. And right before the pandemic hit, I was asked to help out part-time in a transitional role at the first Baptist church that hired me in the early 2000s. During my tour of the other denominations, I found more and more people like myself—people who had come to Canada as Anglicans and had been “helpfully” ushered out the door by seemingly well-meaning people who genuinely thought that they would like another church better.

At Synod in 2022, I shared my story as we discussed the proposal to start new worshiping communities in the diocese. After the session, five people who had immigrated to Canada over the years told me that they had had the same experience. What initially seemed unusual turns out to be rather commonplace. I think that should trouble us.

The Anglican Church is a global communion, and as an increasing number of people like myself from other parts of the world choose to make Canada their new home, they are likely to try to find a spiritual home in the Anglican Church.

I think there is an intuitive understanding that the Anglican Church—especially in the global south—is of a more charismatic flavor within the communion. I know that I am stating the obvious when I say that there is not much singing, dancing or drumming in our churches in Ottawa. An Anglican from Brazil, or from the Philippines, or from Nigeria is more likely to have been in a more outwardly expressive congregation. It’s natural for people like myself to comment on such differences in conversations about the congregations we left and those we are trying to join. But I think this intuition is the unfortunate driving force behind the advice that is given to people like myself to leave and find spiritual homes elsewhere.

In the process of trying to be genuinely helpful, what has been created is an unofficial sorting of cultures. The impression people like myself are is that “the Anglican Church in Ottawa is not really home for you. Your loud and energetic version of Anglican-ness will have a better home at other denominations or congregations than it will with ours.” I am sorry if this comes off as harsh, but it is an experience that is common to many.

I had the privilege of being on one of the Shape of Parish Ministry committees. In our conversations about new worshipping communities, I started to become more vocal about my opinion that we have not been very good at providing a landing spot for new Canadians. I am sure there are exceptions in your congregations, but I am also sure many of them have been sorted out in the same way I was. 

During our meetings, we talked about the fact that while our Anglican tradition gives great comfort for those who understand it, there is a great chasm between the culture outside our congregations and the culture inside. For many people checking out Christianity for the first time in a long while, or for the first time ever, this cultural chasm can be daunting. When new or old worshipping communities seek to reach people outside, work must be done to either bridge or explain the divide. New Canadians may also be affected by this chasm as they try to put down roots in congregations built by denominations that they were familiar with in their home countries.

It also became apparent that there was a disconnect between the membership of parishes in the city and the changes in ethnic and cultural diversity in the communities around them. Could it be due, in part, to many subtle and inadvertent sorting conversations? The Anglican Church in Ottawa is a historically caucasian church with an entrenched tradition. It would not be a stretch to see how one could, without having any malicious intent, simply be a vessel in unconsciously sorting people based on what one might think they would better connect with.

As we seek to shape parish ministry for the future, we have to stop creating off ramps out of our congregations for new Canadians and help them find a spiritual home with us. This may require that we change some things, explain things we’ve taken for granted, make room for rhythm, volume, and movement. This change will have to be more than tokenism. I believe this not just because I am a black man asking the church that I love to love me back and integrate me into the family. I believe this because I believe that it is what Jesus would have done. There is no indication anywhere in Scripture that Jesus would have met a stranger in a strange land, and instead of making room for at his table, would have funnelled them off to another table.

In October 2022, Archdeacon Mark Whittall, myself and a group of other people decided to take a chance and try an experiment. A service at 4 p.m. on Sunday afternoons at Trinity on Bank Street. We set out to see if we could do the thing we’d been talking about. 

Now, before you rush over to see this perfect service where all problems have been sorted out, I have to tell you that we are quite far from perfect. Our attendance fluctuates from week to week, and there is much work still to be done. But whether our experiment works out or fails and teaches us lessons for the future, we have to try. 

My prayer for our diocese is that more and more people will try little experiments where they are at. My prayer is that the “helpful” sorting out of people would cease and that we would be congregations that throw our arms open wide and welcome all spiritually seeking people.

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This YIP year we welcome nine new interns and have welcomed back one. Please meet:

Daniel is taking a gap year this year and is interested in psychology, business, leadership and coaching soccer. He is fascinated by the psychology of trauma. He wants to help people improve their psychological state as he believes in equality on more than a materialistic level—that we need to establish equality on a psychological level, so that everybody can have the ability to be happy. 

Deborah is a Grade 12 student and a second-year intern with YIP. With a passion for visual expression and a new interest in architecture, Deborah is interested in creating art by manipulating the viewer’s space using forms, colours, and sizes. She is looking for more opportunities to explore art in her community. This year, Deborah chose to continue her placement at Extendicare Starwood so she can interact with more people of diverse backgrounds. …Being a new member of All Saints’ Westboro Anglican Church, she has quickly engaged with volunteering at the food bank and the New-to-You shop. These opportunities are helping to develop a deeper sense of empathy for those living in different circumstances and recognition of her own privilege. Deborah’s goal with YIP this year is to acquire mediation and facilitator skills in conflict management and organizational strategies in time management between hobbies, commitments, and school responsibilities.

Emmet is an active member of his faith community St James Carleton Place. Emmet is currently attending Confederation College and is taking the social service worker program with a bridging program into a bachelor of social work. 

James is a second-year student at the University of Ottawa doing a major in political science with a minor in public administration. He applied to YIP to gain practical experience in areas he is passionate about [politics, environmental justice, writing (especially essay writing), and social justice], to strengthen his connection with the Ottawa and Anglican community, and to deepen his connection with his Anglican faith and God. Those aims are difficult to fulfill in environments where learning is often deeply impersonal and very theoretical. His work placement is with Citizen for Public Justice. 

Li Xiu is a student at the University of Ottawa and a returning YIP intern. Li looks forward to actively participating in group events as well as the new work placement. Li is the YIP intern for the Anti-Racism Forum organizing team. Li enjoys wandering the city and finding delicious food spots or cooking with friends.

Malachai is a high school student and member of the LGBTQ+ community who enjoys reading and the creative arts.

Nana is the YIP intern for St Columba Anglican Church. In this role, Nana will act as their outreach resource coordinator, researching, analyzing and identifying outreach activities to determine if existing programs should be maintained, expanded or dropped; and if new outreach activities would have a more expansive and positive impact on the surrounding community.  

Rebecca is currently in her fourth and final year of a Human Kinetics degree at the University of Ottawa. A member of St. John the Evangelist Anglican Church, she is honored to serve on their Parish Council and to be the Diocese of Ottawa’s youth delegate to General Synod this summer in Calgary. Originally from Vancouver she was very involved in her childhood parish as the Head of the Server’s Guild, a youth delegate to Diocesan Synod, an Outreach Committee member and a church-school teacher. She is looking forward to participating in YIP to make connections with other youth throughout the diocese and gain new skills and experiences through her placement. 

Thomas is a first-year student at Carleton University and wants to become a social worker. He applied to YIP to develop leadership and communication skills. Social justice is important to Thomas as he wants to live in a society where everyone is respected, included and safe. He would like to see high quality and affordable therapy to be available to everyone who needs it. Thomas also loves learning about new topics and having in-depth discussions with people. Thomas will be doing his work placement with Centre 454.

Zara (AKA Theodora) is a first-year student at the University of Ottawa studying finance. She is the second daughter in a family of four siblings. Zara is doing her work placement at the Glebe Wellness Centre. Her older sister Alexis was a YIP intern for the last two years. 

If you have any questions about the Youth Internship Program, please email me at donna-rourke@ottawa.anglican.ca

Youth Ministry:

The KAIROS blanket Exercise has been re-scheduled to Saturday Feb. 25 at St Aidan’s Anglican Church. For information and to register please email donna-rourke@ottawa.anglican.ca 

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At the closing of the Sunday Eucharist service, the Rev. Canon Gary van der Meer said that the parish had recognized that they value and seek the gifts that an Indigenous engagement co-ordinator could bring as “someone who will lead and teach, guide, focus and encourage us in our experience, in our knowledge and in our actions.”

In the time since Breen-Johnson joined the parish, she “has been offering gifts of leadership already, helping our community to move in concrete ways, including the care and reserving of medicines kept here in this church, smudging prior to worship services and conversations with respect and warmth with the people on the street In front of our building and within our community,” van der Meer said.  

This led the parish to discern that she had the “gifts, compassion and calling to be St. John’s Indigenous engagement co-ordinator.”  

He presented Breen-Johnson with a basket to keep and carry traditional medicines, and she gave van der Meer a pair of moccasins for their journey walking along side one another.

Breen-Johnson then told the congregation a bit about her own journey growing up in the United States as the daughter of a Cherokee (Tsalagi) father and English-Irish mother. 

“I am fortunate to have known my Tsalagi family and my aunts that are my ancestors now. I knew my great grandfather. He was a medicine man, and my grandfather would take me to his house and tell me to sit down and watch him as people came to him,” she said. “I am blessed to have heard from my great grandmother the stories of our ancestors who walked the Trail of Tears. I was with her when she would hunt and when she would tell me what was in her raisin pies,” she said. 

Breen-Johnson said that she heard her Tsalagi language spoken, but she was not encouraged to speak it herself except in private, just as her family only observed ceremonies privately “to keep them sacred and to keep them from being disrupted,” she explained. “So now, I’m trying to capture that Tsalagi language again and learn about my own nation.”

With hundreds of Indigenous groups in the U.S. and hundreds more in Canada, Breen-Johnson said she was keenly aware that there will always be more to learn.

She mentioned exploring what terms such as “connection to the land” mean to different Indigenous groups, as well as learning more about cultural teachings, such as smudging and sacred medicines and the seven grandfather teachings. She also mentioned the 94 Calls to Action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, noting that it is the responsibility of individuals and communities to educate themselves with the resources that are available. 

“I want us to become strong allies and strong helpers,” she said, but reminded her listeners that they must respect Indigenous people and ask how to help or be an ally. “We don’t make the choices,’ she said. 

“We have a lot of learning to do, for a lifetime, and I am looking forward to what Creator is going to do for us.” She noted that there will be a Kairos Blanket exercise at St. John’s on April 22.

The commissioning was followed by a beautiful peace prayer sung by Haudenosaunee singer Merlin Homer with the St. John’s choir and followed by a ceremony led by Louella Tobias, a traditional knowledge keeper from the Delaware Nation.

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Australia has launched its Community Refugee Integration and Settlement Pilot (CRISP), which is modelled on Canada’s community sponsorship program and aims to support 1,500 refugees over four years.

As a Sponsorship Agreement Holder with the Canadian government, the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa has worked in partnership with parishes and other groups to sponsor and help resettle hundreds of refugees in Canada for more than 40 years.  Australian officials wanted to learn more about the Canadian experience. They were also joined by staff from Refugee Hub in Ottawa.

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“It felt like another blow on top of everything else,” says Rachel Robinson, executive director of the day programs. Everything else was the three years of innovation, increased need and stress to staff and clients during the pandemic.

It didn’t help that the fire came at a time when the staff were coping with another challenge — illness from COVID, the flu and various respiratory ailments that swept through front-line workers who are routinely exposed to viruses.

“It makes we want to cry when I think about what we’ve been through in the last three years,” Robinson says. She set about to maintain continuity as much as possible for the community that had come to rely on the Table for food, laundry, hygiene and counsel. 

“We absolutely were not going to close down the program.” Staff and resources were deployed on the day of the fire to locations at The Well and Centre 454.  The food delivery van that played such an important outreach role during the pandemic was pressed into service to supply breakfasts prepared at The Well.

By late November space had been rented in the basement of Bronson Centre, four blocks from St Luke’s at 211 Bronson Ave., that will be a temporary home for at least a year.

Robinson describes it as semi-permanent and semi-perfect.  On the positive side, it provides a convenient, welcoming space for much-needed social connections. Participants can get food, support, games and friendship to break out of isolation.

It’s not perfect because participants must travel to The Well or Centre 454 for laundry or shower services.  “It’s hard on people,” Robinson says. “We’re giving them bus tickets to get back and forth.” And not least, between 60 and 70 people are being served daily at Bronson, compared with more than 100 at St Luke’s.  There is an extra demand on staff by the requirement to set up chairs and tables every morning at Bronson and put them away at night.

While there has been normal turnover, the core staff has remained constant at about 30, all of whom have contracted COVID, slowing the program’s capacity to serve.  “They like working with the people we serve and they are really dedicated,” Robinson says.

Volunteers have provided essential backup. They are typically people with regular jobs who step up to help on weekends or during outbreaks of illness.

Robinson is confident that the program will move back to the St Luke’s location at 760 Somerset St West.  “It’s our home. It’s where the participants have access to all their basic needs. It’s the place where we belong and once the rebuild is complete we will move back.

The Rev. Canon Dr. PJ Hobbs, director general of Community Ministries, says reopening at 760 Somerset is a top priority. The church building has been cleaned and prepared for repairs and plans are going ahead to begin construction as soon as possible. He estimates the project will take at least a year.

(Anyone interested in making a donation or volunteering to help is asked to contact Laura Macdonald at: laura@the-well.ca).

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The feather, which carries special significance in most First Nations’ traditions, represents a commitment to building relationships in a new way with all Indigenous peoples through a journey based on truth, justice, and reconciliation.

The feathers were originally crafted in 2017 for an outdoor public art installation at the Canadian Museum of Nature named “Populace” marking Canada’s 150th anniversary. The symbol was chosen with the local Algonquin community as a representation of their presence on this land at the time of confederation. The feather has special significance in most Indigenous traditions. In the installation a rose represented the English people and a fleur de lys represented the French people.

Kirstin Davidson of the Parish of March, one of the artists behind the 2017 installation, generously made the feathers available through the All My Relations Circle. “Placing a feather with each congregation could be a part of the journey that includes an inward promise and an outward, demonstrable commitment to embracing the uncomfortable truth of our history with Indigenous peoples and to taking a personal step towards change,” she said. 

AMR is inviting all parishes to share how they have displayed their feathers along with any written text that accompanies it. Photos of the installed feathers and their explanation will be included in an upcoming Crosstalk. Please send your submission to AMR at allmyrelations@ottawa.anglican.ca

Christ Church Cathedral

The feather is mounted on a photograph of the land acknowledgement that is found mounted on a rock outside of Ottawa City Hall. At our Cathedral, it hangs on the wall in the foyer at the entrance, serving as a powerful reminder of the land upon which we stand and the importance of relationship, reconciliation and healing, in all we do. — Dean Beth Bretzlaff

Trinity (Bank St.)

Trinity Anglican Church in Ottawa keeps the feather displayed in a prominent location over our high altar as a symbol of reconciliation.

— Archdeacon Mark Whittall

Church of the Epiphany, Ottawa

I designed this plaque to represent the feather (a gesture of reconciliation) resting on a pebble beach on the North shore of Lake Ontario. I gathered the pebbles from a favourite beach in Southeastern Prince Edward County. The small, white spiral shell is a symbol of eternity and a sign of hope that now and into the future we can live in harmony as humble guests on the unceded land of the Algonquin people. — Steven Heiter

St. Mary’s, Russell

When the reconciliation feather was given to St. Mary’s Russell we wanted not to just display the feather. We wanted be able to display it in different settings. It can hang on a wall, stand on a table or flat surface and the feather can be easily be removed for teaching.  It is made with a variety of wood types representing inclusion and  diversity. The majority of the wood is pine native to this area.  We added the dove of peace which also symbolizes reconciliation. Can you find the canoe? — Sheldon Box

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