In the meanwhile, we offer this excerpt from a speech Archbishop Stephen Cottrell of the Diocese of York delivered at Lambeth Palace on Nov. 18 after he returned from a visit to the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem. He offered some reflections on Christian unity and interfaith relations in the current global context:

“And if we allow the ideologies of hatred and separation, and the dehumanizing of one set of people, then what will this do to our own humanity, and who might we choose to turn on, and who will turn on us?  The tectonic plates are shifting, and there is a real danger that the values, standards and rights we have cherished will be eroded and overridden to our shame and detriment.

“In each of the holy sites I visited, Bethlehem, Nazareth, and of course at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, I was received with joyful and gracious hospitality, by Orthodox and Roman Catholic sisters and brothers alike. This is the spiritual and theological foundation upon which our vision for peace must be built: for as Christians, as we come closer to Christ, we also come closer to each other. We see the face of Christ in each other. Or if we find that too hard, see the face of others reflected in the eyes of Christ, who looks on each of us with the same steadfast, tender and compassionate gaze of love. For it is Jesus Christ himself who makes the hero of some of his most famous stories people of another faith: a good Samaritan, a Syro –Phoenician woman, a Roman centurion, and the one leper who comes back and says thank you is a Samaritan too. We must also, therefore, see and honour the image of God in our sisters and brothers of other faith communities.

“It is this theological vision which is what our world needs and is the greatest bulwark against the erosion of human rights and human dignity, which is the image of God and the face of Christ in every human person. This is the Christian vision, and the recovery of that vision in our social and political discourse can enable us, as those great women in Ramallah asked us, to hunger and search for justice and build peace in the land of the Holy One  – and in our own neighbourhoods as well, where we see an increase in antisemitism and Islamophobia and where we are less and less trusting of each other, and this threatens to tear us apart.

“I know our Jewish and Muslim brothers and sisters will have themes in their own traditions that seek to bring us together, not in a way that dissolves our difference of belief, but that recognizes we all need to flourish.”

Archbishop Cottrell’s entire speech describing his experiences during his visit to the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem at this difficult time can be read on his website.

The post Week of Prayer for Christian Unity annual service to be celebrated at Saint Paul University on Jan. 22 appeared first on Perspective.

In our heart we initially are likely to call upon God to fix the situation with speedy observable action in answer to our prayers. God sometimes does use the Divine Energy to break into our circumstances, and mysteriously and awesomely alter them, transcend them, and change them in such a way that what we find ourselves facing is something very different. A biblical illustration would be in Mark 2, where a man is cleansed of his leprosy, and the flesh was restored on his hands, he was made new and fresh. These are times when God acts directly, in ways we might call: Miracle. However, I suggest that God does not always, dare I say often, work in this way, but rather in two other ways.

God often acts in what can be called Collaboration. God comes alongside us and activates the wisdom and courage of ourselves and others. God says, “I will solve the problems you are facing with you, instead of for you, in partnership.” A biblical example of collaboration is the story of Mary. She finds herself in a very difficult position of being pregnant and unmarried. The angel Gabriel comes to Mary with the proposal that she was to be the mother of Messiah. Much was being asked of Mary and when the Divine One proposed that she collaborate with him in the doing of this great saving deed, she said “yes.” God made a proposal and Mary said, in effect, “I second the motion.” In times of trouble in our own lives, God helps us in times of trouble by working with and through our spirit and in interactions with doctors, teachers, sages, spiritual leaders, friends, and others in our lives. In seeking answers to our prayers, we can look beyond Miracle to Collaboration.

A third way God acts in response to prayer in times of trouble is to give us the gift of Endurance. These are the times when the Holy One, for purposes of his own, instead of solving things for us, or even offering to work out things with us, comes to us in our quiet and dark places and says, “What I will do is to enable you to endure what will not be changed. The change that comes will be in your spirit, and in all those who are touched by this event, with the gift of endurance. A biblical example is with the “thorn in the flesh” of St. Paul (2 Corinthians 12:7). We don’t know what the thorn is, but I’m sure that Paul begged God to heal it. He probably sought whatever collaborative medical advice was available that day. However, there came a moment of tremendous revelation, where God says to Saint Paul, “The thorn in your flesh is not going to be removed; the situation is not going to be changed, but I will give you grace sufficient to bear it, and to endure that which will not be changed.” In seeking answers to our prayers, we can look beyond Miracle and Collaboration to Endurance.

“Isaiah 40: 28-31: The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint and strengthens the powerless.  Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted, but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

Acknowledgement: This article was inspired by listening to a talk given many years ago by Rev. John Claypool, an Episcopalian priest, at an International Anglican Fellowship of Prayer Conference. 

The post Praying for help in times of trouble appeared first on Perspective.

Depend on it, gentle reader. This is NOT Saint Paul’s Church, Dunrobin. This is apparent for a number of reasons. First, it is much too large a building. Second, there is a tower showing in this image where there never was a tower on the house of worship at Dunrobin. Third, there never were eyebrow windows on the roof of Saint Paul’s Church. Fourth, we remind ourselves that Saint Paul’s Church at Dunrobin was built in 1896. Even at that late date, it accorded with the precepts promoted by the Tractarians. It must have seemed the latest word in the Tractarian canon. At least it must have so seemed in the Ottawa valley. In that respect, it was in decided contrast with the two other rather old-fashioned churches in the then Parish of March—Old Saint Mary’s Church at Pinhey’s Point on the Ottawa River (built 1827) and Saint John’s, South March (built 1842).

The two older churches in the Parish of March were rectangular auditory boxes, one of them fronted by a central tower on the front façade, while the other simply had a centrally located front entrance porch and boasted no tower.

Saint Paul’s, by contrast, was built according to a rubric whereby the external features were emblematic of the internal functions. A bell-cote for a sacral bell was located midway along the roof ridge, just like at Saint Albans in the Sandy Hill area of Ottawa, as an external indicator of the boundary between the congregation and the chancel indoors. There is no evidence of that bell-cote in this photograph. The notation on the back of the photograph notwithstanding, we repeat, this is NOT Saint Paul’s Church at Dunrobin.

But, then, where is it? There is a certain whimsy to the gable above the main entrance and the chancel gable, suggesting timber and plaster work of an earlier time as reimagined by some backward-looking Edwardian architect.

There is whimsy as well in the rather fine details of the belfry at the top of the tower—apparently designed so that the sound of the bell calling parishioners to worship will sound as far and wide as possible over the surrounding countryside.

Wait a minute! There is something eerily familiar about the tower, with the four pylons of stone at the corners supporting the belfry—the unmistakable hallmark of J.W.H. Watts who designed and built churches churches at Port Elmsley (1900), Renfrew (1900), Galetta (1902), Holy Trinity, Riverside (1902), Saint Mary’s, North March (1908), Saint John’s, Innisville (1911), Saint Thomas’s, Woodlawn (started 1913) and Christ Church, Ashton (1915).

Come to think of it, is what we see here not the same design of belfry that we see on New Saint Mary’s Church, North March? And are those not the same timbered gables we see on new Saint Mary’s Church, North March?  Why do they look so similar?

And yet, it is demonstrably clear that this is NOT Saint Mary’s Church, North March any more than it is Saint Paul’s, Dunrobin. Something here is tied up in the internal politics of the Parish of March.

It is only when we look more closely that we realized that not only is this NOT the church at Dunrobin, NOR is it Saint Mary’s, North March. Small wonder that someone in the past trying to identify this obviously Anglican house of worship from the Ottawa valley somehow perceived it to be designed by J.W.H. Watts, but had difficulty in placing this building.  After all, we today have our own difficulty placing the church.

A crazy idea strikes us. Is it possible that it doesn’t exist anywhere? Indeed, is it possible that it isn’t even a photograph?  Or, to put it another way, perhaps we should say that it is a photograph but not an actual building.

Instead, it is a cleverly taken photograph of an artist or architect’s (probably Watts) sketch for a large new church that was proposed to combine the congregations of Old Saint Mary’s and the more recently built Saint Paul’s, Dunrobin in an enlarged building either at Dunrobin or halfway between Pinhey’s Point and Dunrobin?

So cleverly has the sketch been done, and the photographer has complied to keep the image small, so as to convince the viewer that he or she is beholding an actual building that exists, not simply a sketch of a proposed building. Artists refer to this as ‘trompe l’oeil’ which is a French expression that means “deceive the eye.” A well-known example of ‘trompe l’oeil’ in Ottawa can be found in the fantastic marble pillars in Notre Dame Basilica which, in fact, are pine pillars cleverly painted to give the impression of rare, imported marble.

At a time when Anglican clergy still remained in short supply in the larger Ottawa region, this sketch was part of an attempt to reduce the number of places where the parish priest would be obliged to hold service on Sunday morning. This seemingly logical solution came up smack against the pride of the Pinhey family descendants whose ancestor had built and paid for the building of the original Old Saint Mary’s on the Pinhey property—right down to the remarkable masonry of the ogee-arched windows.

The Pinheys refused to let the name of the church they had built and funded lapse by being merged in some new larger building at Dunrobin—the building proposed here. They were willing to compromise only in allowing the New Saint Mary’s to be built in a more central place in the concessions of northern March Township.

If you would like to help the Archives preserve the records of the Diocese and its parishes, why not become a Friend of the Archives? Your $20 membership brings you three issues of the lively, informative Newsletter, and you will receive a tax receipt for further donations above that amount.

The post Saint Paul, Dunrobin — Ottawa West Deanery appeared first on Perspective.

Gwynneth Evans (Church of St. Bartholomew, Ottawa)

Every pilgrimage is unique, both in the nature of each day and the arrival at the destination. The ‘way’ from Sarria to the Cathedral square and then into the interior of Santiago de Compostela, where St. James’ bones are in the crypt, offered me the unforgettable experience of elation and fatigue, thirst and fulfillment, joy and bewilderment and the overwhelming sense of joining others, near and far, now, then and always, in God’s presence. I travelled with UTracks and 12 others; for each person, it was a personal Camino, but friendships were forged.

Christine Boucher (St-Bernard-de-Clairvaux, Ottawa)

Le 10 octobre dernier j’entrais à Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle (Santiago) après 36 jours de marche. J’étais l’une des 3184 pèlerins qui sont allés chercher leur compostela ce jour-là attestant que nous avions bien effectué le pèlerinage et parcourus les 779 kilomètres depuis St-Jean-Pied-de-Port en France. Ai-je accompli quelque chose de spécial en marchant tant de kilomètres jour après jour, sur tous types de terrains, mais quand même dans des conditions météorologiques plutôt favorables? Je ne pense pas… J’ai simplement marché chaque jour, poursuivi mon chemin, un pas, un kilomètre et une journée à la fois ajoutant ainsi le nombre de kilomètres parcourus à ceux des jours précédents, jusqu’à ce que le total devienne impressionnant. À bien y penser, avec du recul, les kilomètres n’avaient aucune importance… Les rencontres elles, ont été des cadeaux. Les pèlerins venus de tous horizons portaient avec eux des histoires, des blessures, des rêves et plus souvent qu’autrement un besoin silencieux de se retrouver. Il s’est tissée une complicité que seule le ‘’Chemin’’ peut offrir. J’ai rencontré la bienveillance, l’empathie, la fragilité, la solidarité, la compréhension, l’entraide, la gratitude…c’est un chemin qui parle profondément on appelle ça ‘’l’esprit du camino’’- il est ressenti plutôt qu’expliqué, il laisse tout doucement sa marque sur nos pensées. Ce n’est pas toujours avec les oreilles qu’on entend les messages! Quiconque a parcouru un chemin de Compostelle sait qu’il ne s’agit surtout pas d’une longue marche. C’est une traversée intérieure qui transforme et éveille.

Je suis partie en solo, je ne sais pas trop pourquoi, mais je sentais que c’était ce que je devais faire. Les premières journées, en traversant les Pyrénées je me suis demandée dans quoi je m’étais embarquée? Je n’ai pas tenté de répondre à la question… J’ai plutôt laissé l’expérience me traverser. La solitude, le silence ça t’ouvre l’esprit pour faire de la place à ce que tu n’aurais pas imaginé. C’est ce qu’on appelle la Grâce du chemin. La marche devient une forme de méditation active. Chaque pas, chaque souffle, chaque regard échangé sur le chemin devient une véritable leçon d’humanité.

Le plus important des voyages n’est pas celui qui mène vers Compostelle, ce dernier n’était que le commencement d’un chemin beaucoup plus large et plus long mais plutôt celui qui est en nous et qui nous conduit, pas à pas, vers L’ESSENTIEL, vers soi, les autres dans l’ici et maintenant.

O camińo empeza agora (Le chemin commence maintenant.)

Carole Breton (diocesan director of Communications and Development)

I had been longing for silence, for a quiet mind, and for a spiritual journey. Over the years, several people around me had walked the Camino de Santiago. Some completed long routes over many days, while others stepped away from their busy lives to walk only a short portion. It always sounded mystical. When I first heard about it, I could not imagine myself walking even for a few hours. I did not understand what it meant.

In the summer of 2023, a friend walked part of the Camino, and that is when I began exploring the possibility myself. I looked into it more seriously, unaware of how deeply it would shape me, the very next year.

The many routes can be confusing, especially when time is limited. My children, then eight and 10 in July 2024, were away at summer camp for a week. With the support of a dear friend, my mother and my sister, I was able to extend an international trip by a few days. After some research, I chose a 100-kilometre stretch from Vigo to Santiago de Compostela.

I could describe the preparation, heat, hostels, gear, and the small logistical details. But what mattered most was the spiritual journey.

I walked alone. No music. Just a backpack and a notebook I assumed I would use for writing. I walked, but it was the people I met who shaped the experience. Encounters. Stories. Conversations full of meaning. I shared daily reflections on FaceBook and revisiting them still brings me back into the heart of that pilgrimage.

My spiritual guide, Father Francisco, sent daily prayers and Scripture passages to reflect upon. I stopped in churches, prayed quietly, attended mass when I could, and reflected on God, on hope, on love, and on my life as a solo parent of two energetic boys. The Camino offered long stretches of silence, but also rich exchanges with other pilgrims. One of my posts from July 21 captures that spirit:

“Day 2 of the Camino — Arcade to Pontevedra, 13 kilometres.
Sun, heat, elevation, sore feet. A simple women’s room in a hostel.
Pilgrims share advice, confidences, and words full of wisdom. We receive and we give. Everyone walks for a reason: a 70th birthday celebrated by visiting seven countries; a father honouring his daughter who died 10 years ago; a woman marking the anniversary of her father’s passing. Some walk as a family; others walk for faith, challenge, or healing. Each story is unique. Even without knowing each other, we listen and accompany one another. We say: ‘You are loved.’ ‘You are not alone.’ ‘You are beautiful.’”

Despite the intense heat and the pain of the final days, I found myself able to notice the beauty around me and to pause—something rare for me. Prendre le temps de vivre et de respirer. To be truly present and open to others with a steady, gentle attentiveness.

On July 24, I arrived in Santiago de Compostela on the Feast of Saint James. I attended mass, prayed to Saint James for a special grace, and later joined the celebrations and fireworks. The journey was short—too short. Intense. Transformative.

Will I return? Absolutely. I am already exploring a Québec pilgrimage inspired by the Camino— a way to continue walking, praying, and rediscovering that sacred rhythm closer to home. Prendre le temps de vivre et de respirer now guides me in my daily life.

The Camino invites us to slow down, to breathe, and to rediscover the sacred within and around us. For me, it offered the ideal setting for reconnecting with my own heart and with God.

The post Pilgrimage: Three reflections on walking the Camino de Santiago appeared first on Perspective.

At our gathering, we heard about new and ongoing projects that many of you are engaged in and we all shared the challenges of competing priorities, diminishing resources and not knowing how to get started.  We also talked about how the All My Relations Episcopal Panel could support parishes/congregations wherever you’re at with learning opportunities, guest speakers, workshops and by sharing stories; an AMR newsletter was suggested as well as a more visible and accessible AMR webpage on the Diocesan website.

In response to the excellent presentation at Synod about the ceramic feathers gifted to parishes at the conclusion of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and in light of our discussions at the Circle Gathering about honouring and integrating them into parish life, the AMR Panel is considering how we might support this across the diocese in 2026.

Everyone who attended expressed a desire for another virtual Circle Gathering in the new year and then an in-person meeting once winter is over. So, stay tuned!!

We hope all of you will join us as we continue to live out the commitment of our Diocese and the Anglican Church of Canada to this vital and deeply meaningful work, and we invite you to be in touch with us if you have questions or simply want to check in for a conversation about something.

Contact us at: amr.workinggroup@gmail.com

The post All My Relations Circle shares ideas and inspirations appeared first on Perspective.

In his 2020 autobiography, What I Remember, What I Know: The Life of a High Arctic Exile, Larry Audlaluk exposed this Qallunaaq to the life-threatening lies and promises the Canadian government told his family, friends and community, forcing them to relocate, survive and thrive in a foreign environment, known as Grise Fiord, now Aujuittuq (Inuktitut for “place that never thaws”) 2,200 kilometers northeast from their home in Inujjuak.

While Larry was only three at the time of their forced exile in the 1950s, the collective memories and stories from living witnesses provide some of the weathered material for his early childhood experiences. The seven families from Inujjuak who were forced into exile were victims of a multi-purposed, inhumane, experiment: to populate an area against the invasion of Greenland hunters’ to “rehabilitate” the Inuit to become less dependent on government handouts by moving them to less populated areas to “follow the native way of life”; “to determine if Eskimos can be induced to live on the northern islands”; to use them as human flagpoles for Canadian sovereignty.

The human flagpoles became thin and battered in their desolate new environment. Given empty promises of “a land of plenty” and provisions to be provided, they arrived to a stark reality of a barren land and no provisions. They lacked basic necessities: food, shelter, heat. They arrived in August in a land that lacked some of their usual food sources. On their first day, three large families and at least six dog teams had to survive on one harp seal some of the men caught. The only shelter they had were tents because they were expected to build igluit, but the snow required to build them does not arrive until December in that region. Due to the lack of vegetation, they had to heat with moss they collected kilometres from the site. They weathered their first winter wearing their clothing day and night. That winter of near-freezing survival led to lifelong arthritic problems for some of the displaced people.

The aptly named “Prison Island” chapter of his autobiography recounts the imposed incarceration of Larry’s family in the new environment. They lacked medical services. Tuberculosis and starvation plagued them. If, due to hunger, they foraged for leftover scraps in the base dump at the Department of Transportation six kilometers away, they were reprimanded. Despite the government’s promises to return the deportees back to their homes from where they were taken, if requested, after two years, multiple requests were repeatedly denied. In addition, the northern bureaucrats lied in their reports to their southern counterparts about what a positive success the relocation was, in accounts generally being accepted by the exiles.

By the 1960s, the deportees were coping and surviving. Larry says they were the best years of his childhood, and in general, those of his whole family. Their homemade shacks were replaced with houses from the south. Radio and television were enabling them to experience new sounds and sights, even in their Inuktitut language. Although he wrangled with the notion that “the world is much smaller now,” due to the report of the new Russian and American space race, he enjoyed listening to musical shows such as The Max Ferguson Show, Gilmour’s Albums, Wolfman Jack, Kalaallit (western Greenlandic comedy).

I felt in step with Larry, for we were born but 10 days apart. As he grew in his teens, we shared similar experiences of teen crushes, taste in music, hairstyling, clothing. But he was torn being in two worlds, forced from his family to attend distant boarding school and abandoning the hands-on learning of his traditional life skills.

Larry had to endure loneliness and separation from his family, not only leaving for school but also numerous times for medical treatment, crossing swaths of the country and staying in new cultural settings. He had an adventurous spirit, which allowed him to marvel at his new encounters, yet he missed his family, country food and being on the land. The notes he wrote on his experiences provided the wealth of material for this autobiography.

Larry’s family’s story of forced deportation, separation, death, survival, adaptation and resilience is as well-sculpted as the sculptures he and his father have produced. Their sacrifices have enabled this Qallunaaq to live in peace in the sovereign nation of Canada.

Nakurmiik Larry!

kamiik—a pair of seal/caribou boots;

Qallunaaq—a white person

igluit—snow houses [previously mispronounced and spelled “igloos”]

nakurmiik—thank you in one of the Inuktitut dialects

The post Reading Larry Audlaluk’s What I Remember, What I Know: The Life of a High Arctic Exile appeared first on Perspective.

Dr. Thomas Barnardo came to London in 1866 from Ireland in the midst of an outbreak of cholera that swept through the East End killing more than 3,000 people and leaving families destitute. Thousands of children slept on the streets, and many others were forced to beg after being maimed in factories where they were forced to work. The following year, having decided to abandon his desire to become a missionary in China, the doctor set up a ragged school in the East End where poor children could get a basic education.

In 1870, Barnardo opened his first home for boys in London, and it would become the first of many Barnardo orphanages across Britain. A sign was posted on the front of that home: ‘No Destitute Child Ever Refused Admission.’ While the charity no longer runs homes for boys and girls, Doctor Barnardo’s mission is alive and well in the good work they continue to do: “that every child deserves the best possible start in life, whatever their background.” It is a philosophy that still inspires the charity today.

With the help of Barnardo’s meticulous records, we heard something of Joseph’s story whose father became blind at a very young age and had to leave his employment. Despite his affliction, he continued to support his wife and three children by playing a violin in the streets, until his death of bronchitis at the age of 32. A while later, Joseph’s mother also died of consumption and as a result he and his brother were left homeless.

As you may have guessed, Joseph was my grandfather, and the story of my great-grandfather playing a violin on the streets of London in a desperate attempt to feed his family has had a powerful impact upon my life and ministry. I know, first-hand, the potential that this kind of poverty and deprivation can have to reach down and touch the lives of those in the generations to follow.

What was remarkable to me and so encouraging for all of us in our diocese was the fact that Cornerstone was a ministry that began when a few faithful Anglicans saw a need in their neighbourhood and responded from their hearts and in response to their baptismal calling. As stated on our website our five community ministries: “serve those most vulnerable in our midst. They are often people struggling with issues around homelessness, poverty, mental illness, trauma, and addiction. All are welcome and accepted regardless of faith, race, gender, or orientation. Together, we strive to nurture the health and well-being of all those who seek our services, creating communities of compassion around them.” I invite you to learn more about each of our five remarkable community ministries and, if you are not already doing so, to consider supporting them financially.

We have just concluded our Christmas celebrations and given thanks that in the humble setting of the birth of the Christ-child, the glory of the Lord shone around an unlikely people with a message that has echoed down through the ages: that no life or no situation, no matter how difficult or how impoverished, is beyond the reach and desire of God to enter into and to change in dramatic ways. May we all be inspired by the wonderful directors, staff members, volunteers and board members of each of our Community Ministries so that we too may be instruments of this transforming love of God to the world Christ came to save.

The post Community Ministries put compassion into action appeared first on Perspective.

Heather Fawcett joined the OPC as its executive director in 2023. She is also one of its practicing registered psychotherapists with more than 16 years’ experience.

With its cold temperatures and long, dark nights, January has a bad reputation for being a depressing month. How do you distinguish between Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and depression?

With SAD, you have a lot of the depressive symptoms. Oversleeping …it’s a desire to hibernate, to become socially withdrawn. You crave carbohydrates and comfort food. …It’s just a low mood. It can feel like a heaviness… like things have become too much effort. …. And if you’re experiencing it for the first time, it can be hard to identify … because it’s not something that is sudden onset. It’s not that you wake up one day and you feel depressed, or you’ve got brain fog… It’s definitely the frog in the hot water kind of scenario. It starts off and the heat gets turned up and you become used to it, but you know that you’re just not yourself.

[It’s seasonal.] We’re getting a lot less light. For some people, it makes a huge difference to their mood. That’s one of the differences between depression and SAD… Depression doesn’t automatically lift because the days start to get longer. You might feel better, but you still don’t feel yourself.”

[Therapists] know what markers to look for, so we can help somebody determine if it’s SAD or situational or even chronic depression. We cannot officially diagnose, so we would say go talk to your doctor.

When people are depressed, they often hear: ‘You just need to get out more.’ ‘You just need to have more faith.’ especially in Christian circles. ‘You need to stop worrying’. … It’s a biochemical situation. It’s not choice.

If the causes are biochemical, how can therapy help?

Psychotherapy can help somebody understand what’s going on, to assess and develop the coping skills and techniques. What’s healthy? What’s working? How come? What’s that accomplishing?… Part of our training is to know what questions to ask and what to look for, which makes it different than talking to a friend.

With SAD, it is more a case of understanding or learning that this is simply how your body reacts.

That’s one of the reasons why medication works in conjunction with therapy. It works really well because you get to understand what’s going on, why it’s going on, what triggered it, what you can do about it, build your coping skills. Do that and take a serotonin uptake inhibitor, which is basically an antidepressant, and the serotonin is in your system, and you can really start to feel like life is manageable again.

What do you find most rewarding in your practice?

When a client says, ‘I don’t need you anymore. It’s been good. I can see the changes, and I feel like I just don’t need to see you.’ That’s awesome….My goal is always to do myself out of a job. Or when a client says, ‘I tried that thing and it worked,’ or ‘I never knew I had this much value.’ Life changing insights.

What do you want readers to know about the OPC?

It’s a place where you can talk and explore with freedom from condemnation…. There are so few places we experience that….We protect dignity….It’s a place where you can feel secure without the need to have your defences up. It’s a place where it doesn’t matter who you are. It doesn’t matter what you’re struggling with.

The other thing is that, honestly, whatever you’re facing, it doesn’t have to stay this way. One of my favourite quotes is from and Eagles’ song. “So often time it happens that we live our lives in chains, and we never even know we hold the key.” That’s what we do. We find the keys so that you don’t have to have the chains.

The post Spotlight on The Ottawa Pastoral Counselling Centre (The OPC) — Heather Fawcett appeared first on Perspective.

As a part of a strategic visioning process in 2023, the Anglican Diocese of Toronto hired Johnson to analyze responses from 45 listening sessions with more than 500 lay Anglicans who were invited to imagine their local church and the diocese five years in the future as having new life and to consider how they might get there. Johnson said that she expects the anonymized responses she examined would be common in Anglican and many Christian congregations in Canada and the U.S.

A predominant theme (discussed in 42 of the 45 listening groups) was that their congregations consist mostly of older people, and they need to attract younger people. Johnson quoted one typical comment: “We are in crisis mode. We have to do things differently to attract more people, especially the youth.” Young people are mentioned 3.5 times more than Jesus, she noted wryly. This problematic pattern reflects what Johnson describes as “an ecclesiology of survival—a vision for the church that is primarily focused on attracting young people in order to sustain local institutional structures in familiar forms for their own sake.”

“This way of thinking about the church is deeply disconnected from the realities of the contemporary Canadian religious landscape.” The Canadian population is aging, and most of the population growth comes from immigration, Johnson pointed out. “Younger Canadians are more likely to be recent immigrants. More than half of recent immigrants are non-Christian or non-religious. Christian immigrants are most likely to be Roman Catholic or evangelical. Recent immigrants are very unlikely to be Anglican. Before 1946, 26% of immigrants to Canada were Anglican. By the year 2000, that number was 1%.” Furthermore, throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, each generation born in Canada has been successively less religious than the preceding generation in measures of affiliation, belief, and practice.

So, while it is important to welcome newcomers who are Anglican into our parishes, it is unlikely to result in a significant demographic shift. Similarly, she added that “it is important to be intentional about passing on our faith within our own families and to younger generations, but this is also unlikely to result in a significant demographic shift.”

The Canadian population looks very different in 2025 than it did in 1960, and Anglican parishes will look different as well. “The ways that participants in these listening groups speak about young people suggest that they do not know this or have not taken it to heart. The overwhelming focus on young people and an ecclesiology of survival is closely linked to what I call a transactional approach to mission,” Johnson said.

“The underlying transactional assumption is that the church must identify the needs of younger people and that meeting these needs will bring them back to the church, which will in turn meet the needs of the church,” she explained.  In addition to being harmful in the context of ministry with young people, a transactional approach to mission and an ecclesiology of survival are theologically problematic, Johnson said, noting that both the Anglican Church of Canada (in its Transformational Commitments) and the Anglican Communion (in its Five Marks of Mission) understand mission as participating in God’s action in the world bringing about God’s reign rather than maintaining church institutions.

People focused on trying to attract younger people to church often focus on the style of worship. Johnson said that participants in listening groups suggested a variety of liturgical changes, yet more than any other topic, they discuss music. “Upbeat music and different instruments help attract young people,” one participant said, summing up the misguided theory. Johnson says that there are several studies that call this assumption about musical change attracting young people into question. There is also some research that suggests that young people appreciate a diversity of liturgical practices, including research with emerging adults who are drawn to traditional liturgical forms, she said. “I am not arguing that traditional liturgical forms will attract young people to the Anglican Church. Instead, I am arguing that a focus on style is problematic, regardless of the style in question.”

She added that “A focus on musical style is a red herring that is misleading and distracts from more relevant questions, including facing demographic realities, challenging the underlying transactional framework, and developing a more robust understanding of what it means to be the church today.”

Frustrated with a lack of research focused on listening to young people themselves, Johnson has teamed up with Emily Snider Andrews and Nelson Cowan from Samford University, a Christian university in Birmingham, Alabama. “Young People in Christian Worship Experiences, Stories, and Values” is a bi-national, multi-site, mixed methods ecumenical study of how teenagers and emerging adults experience Christian worship. “The purpose is to listen deeply to how young people age 13 to 29, experience public Christian worship in a range of liturgical expressions, Roman Catholic, mainline Protestant, evangelical, and charismatic,” Johnson says.

“The goal of this research is to amplify the often-marginalized voices of young people and to integrate their insights into liturgical theology and congregational practice in order to support their full conscious and active practice in worship and to enrich the liturgical experience of all participants,” she said. “Our focus in this qualitative research is listening to highly religious young people. We are complementing the qualitative research with a nationwide survey in the United States conducted in collaboration with Springtide Research Institute.”

The research is still in progress, but Johnson shared a few of the responses they have received when asking 18 to 29-year-olds the question “What do you wish older people knew about how younger people experience Christian worship?” Young people name and reject the transactional framework, she said, quoting some responses: “We don’t need to be catered to. Things don’t need to be dumbed down for us. You don’t need to make things cool or edgy or punk or hip.” And, “Young people don’t like to be pandered to. Don’t do something because, ‘Oh, this will get the young people to come to church.’” These same kinds of comments are made by young people who attend megachurches and Latin mass and small mainline Protestant congregations in Canada and the U.S., Johnson said.

Participants in interviews often say they can only speak for themselves.

They underline that young people have diverse experiences and values when it comes to worship.

So it is important to avoid preconceived notions of what people want and instead be very open.

Even within one generation, people have very different styles and tastes. Participants express a desire to be heard and valued as equal members of the community. Emerging adults in interviews want to be treated as ordinary participants, not token representatives of their generation. One made the clear-sighted point that “It doesn’t feel like it should be my job to tell you how to get all the other young people in church, because I’m already here.”

“One of our goals in listening deeply to diverse young people in this research is to encourage others to listen deeply to the teenagers and emerging adults in their own contexts, in our diocese here, in our parishes, and in our families,” said Johnson. “The goal of listening is not to ask what young people want to facilitate a transactional approach to mission anchored in an ecclesiology of survival, but instead to listen for stories and values that can teach us all about worship, so that together we can explore the mystery of encountering the divine in scripture, song, and prayer, in water, bread, and wine, in relationship and action, so that together we can give glory to God from generation to generation.”

More information about the Young People and Christian Worship study: https://www.samford.edu/worship-arts/young-people-and-christian-worship.

The post Listening to, learning from and worshipping with young people appeared first on Perspective.