Episcopal Elections

Chancellor Henry Schultz explained that the motions relating to episcopal elections did not make any substantive changes to the process of electing bishops, but “filled in some gaps.” The changes:

• clarify deadlines to kickstart the electoral process
• create a new supplementary committee that will make an effort to encourage diversity in the number of candidates participating in an episcopal election. (This replaces a provision that gave the House of Bishops the authority to automatically nominate candidates.)
• create a new transition advisory committee, a group of officers who can advise the bishop-elect, enabling that person to get ready to take office and giving the bishop-elect an introductory role in the governance of the diocese. (This also acknowledges the existence of the office of bishop-elect, which was not in the canons previously).
• provide each candidate in the election with their own chaplain instead of just one for all the candidates

Episcopal remuneration

Schultz said that an interesting gap in the canons was that “We are one of the few dioceses that have canons that make absolutely no mention about remuneration of the bishop, so we are going to cure that gap.”

He noted that not only would the canons now confirm the authority to pay the bishop, but the changes in the bylaws make “the process of paying the bishop as transparent as the process for paying all clergy.” The process will be very similar to that for salaried clergy in the diocese, he added. “Basically, we’re saying that bishops will be paid a salary under a structure approved by Synod with rates for component elements of the salary structure determined annually by Diocesan Council, and that the Synod and Council may enact bylaws for pension and benefits.”

The changes also added the authority to provide at least some remuneration for a bishop-elect, which Schultz noted would be important if a bishop who came from outside the diocese were elected.  

Associate Incumbents

The changes also recognized the position of Associate Incumbents and defined the position as “a cleric who is appointed to a parish and who, in agreement with the Incumbent of the parish, shares collegially with the Incumbent in fulfilling the canonical and pastoral duties required of an Incumbent.”

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The team has interviewed 78 congregations across the Diocese and three special interest groups. Martin and Clysdale gently joked about some common themes that emerged in parish challenges: “Everyone seems pretty sure that if we could just get the young people back in church, all of our problems would be solved,” and “If we could only change everything up and be a new church while still doing all of the traditional things we already do, but better, then we would be fine.” But then seriously and sincerely, they expressed admiration and appreciation for the “amazing work being done in all corners of our diocese.”

Barbara Gagné thanked everyone in the parishes for all the hours and work that went into preparing for the interviews. 

She explained that the consultation team had produced two-to-three page parish profiles from the interviews combined with demographic reports and summary statistical review data. The profiles would be sent back to the parishes for review.  All of the profiles would then be published together in the Parish Compendium in late November.

The second stage of the work, moving from data gathering to analysis will run from November to February 2022, Gagné said. “The objective for every parish will be to use the Compendium to consider the local realities and how each parish relates to the wider Diocese. The SPM Team will provide a toolkit with training or facilitation as needed.

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Sanjay Grover, director of financial ministry, gave Synod delegates an overview of how the diocese weathered the pandemic financially in 2020 and how it is fairing in 2021.

Anglican dioceses across Canada experienced about a 20 percent drop in revenue across the board, Bishop Shane Parker told the Synod in his comments about his experience at the House of Bishops gathering in late September. 

“We did fairly well compared to other dioceses across the country,” said Grover, noting that the drop in revenue was just under 20 percent in the Diocese of Ottawa in 2020. 

And the Diocese was able to draw on its collective resources to help support parishes. “As you all recall, in 2020, diocesan support was provided to parishes in the form of forgiveness of parish fair share, insurance and ECOPS [equalized cost of priestly services], and that totalled an expense of the diocesan books of $1.735 million dollars,” Grover said. The Diocese then applied for the federal wage subsidy program and recovered $1.8 million. “I want to thank all of your for sending in your monthly reports as to the changes in revenue [and] donations,” Grover said, noting that those reports for each parish were needed in order to file claims for the wage subsidy.

“In 2021, we provided support for one month [the cost of] which was $875,000. To-date we have filed the wage subsidy reports until April. We project that we will recover $762,000,” Grover said. “The subsidy is based on revenue drops, and revenue drops have been smaller in the last year or so….so there is a bit of a deficit,” he explained. “All in all, the wage subsidy and the benefits provided to the parishes is going to cost the diocese close to $29,000, which we will absorb.”

The new challenge going forward for the church is that the federal government ended its wage subsidy program in late October. “We will not be receiving any more wage subsidies from the federal government, so there will be a decision made early in the next year about how we proceed going forward as far as any additional support going to the parishes,” said Grover. “Hopefully, with us opening up again and moving forward, we should have some good news as far as finances both at the parish level and at the diocesan level.”

Consolidated Trust Fund

The Consolidated Trust Fund (CTF) was the source of a bit of good financial news as well. 

The total investment asset value of the CTF is $59 million (In 2019, it was $52.3 M.) The unit worth at year end was $27.32 a unit, up from the previous year’s value of $25.14. “An 8.67 per cent increase year to year, which is quite good,” said Grover.

He noted that ownership of the CTF fund breaks down this way: Parishes (including Rectory Trusts and cemeteries) owned 59% of the fund, the Synod about 32%, the Cathedral Hill Foundation about 6% and the RAF (retirement fund) (and third parties) about 3%.

The dividend rate per unit of 77 cents was increased from 75 cents, the rate for the previous year.

Grover noted that $1,624,547 worth of dividends were paid, which represented a return of close to 3 percent. “As you are aware, even though our returns are higher, we do have a very conservative dividend rate at 3 percent, so that we can pay dividends regardless of what the markets do, so that provides stability in parish operations,” Grover explained. 

“Having said that, the property and finance committee has approved a dividend rate of close to four percent. There is more information about that being sent out to parishes down the road to expect a little bit more as far as dividends are concerned, which is a bit of good news during these times.”

Bishop Parker thanked Grover, the property and finance committee the auditors and audit committee. “I think we can all feel a reassuring sense of our collective strength as we see our financial reports,” he said. “It is only one dimension of our strength, but it is important, and I hope we can celebrate that in some way and use and leverage that collective financial strength as we go forward.”

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“Diocesan communications developed incrementally over the years without a guiding strategy or clear lines of responsibility. The Diocese has always had gifted staff who produce a variety of communications products, but these products were not integrated with each other and lacked consistent messaging and branding,” he explained. “As a result, the Diocese has not been as effective as it could be at communicating with parishes, individual Anglicans and the wider world. This weakness has been apparent for some time, but COVID-19 underlined the critical importance of improving communications.”

The Communications Advisory Panel, appointed in May 2020, developed a three-year strategic plan based on a vision of what Diocesan communications should be, focusing on target audiences and the best ways to reach them, and analyzing existing communications channels. The first priority for improving communications was a branding exercise that would explore and name the Diocese’s vision and values, and then express them in a logo and common look and feel for all communications channels. 

The Toronto advertising firm BT/A was chosen (in a Request for Proposals process) for branding the Diocese and rebuilding the website. BT/A partner Victoria Laurence unveiled the new look. explaining how the firm worked with various groups to develop a brand that would reflect the vision of the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa and help it connect with parishes, community ministries and people outside the Anglican church. Through that process, BT/A staff heard that the identity the Diocese wanted to communicate to target audiences, both Anglican and non-Anglican, was one of; 

• A collaborative leader, 
• Dedicated to lifelong formation, worship, and hospitality
• Effective stewards of parishes and ministries
• Open to change and engagement with the world
• Anglican: distinctly different from other Christian groups

Laurence described the concept for the new logo as “many different lines beam from and come together towards an invisible source or common purpose. The feeling is joyful and energizing.”

Thanking her, Bishop Shane said, “I believe that we can see how this celebrates us and how it will also challenge us to live up to those values and that essence and the way we wish to be understood in the world around us.”

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The first activity in a commemoration was the launch of the new diocesan brand at Synod.

The second is a series of anniversary lectures on four themes — Indigenous issues, affordable housing, the environment and reimaging church.

The first speaker will be Michelle Good, an Indigenous lawyer and author of Five Little Indians, which won the 2020 Governor-General’s Literary Award. Her lecture will take place online on Dec. 6 (See calendar on p. 16 for details) and is co-sponsored by the diocesan All My Relations working group.

In January, the series will feature the Rev. Dr. Jason McKinney, a Toronto priest whose lectures and workshops on the theology of land have been highly recommended by the Homelessness and Affordable Housing Working Group. 

In February, the series will have a lecture or panel on the environment.

In March, the series will conclude with a lecture on the theme of Reimaging Church by Sam Wells, the Vicar at St.-Martins-in-the-Fields in London, U.K. Theologian Walter Brueggermann describes Wells as “having the liveliest, most agile, best-informed, critically disciplined mind in the entire Christian community.

The lectures will be live-streamed and available on the Diocesan YouTube channel afterward.

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Gibaut began by recounting an analogy he used while working at the World Council of Churches when speaking to visiting groups of young people.

“I’d start to talk about mobile phones. Who had an Apple? Who had Android? Which was the best? Which had the coolest apps? And then I would ask why aren’t all of these apps compatible with each other? And the answer of course, is different operating systems,” he said. “I like to think of ecclesiology as the operating system of a church. I expect most of us are more comfortable talking about apps than operating systems. For Christians, most of us are more comfortable talking about apps like prayer, Bible study, mission, justice and peace, worship, but to be functional, churches also need people, like members of diocesan synods, who understand ecclesiastical operating systems because apps do not function without appropriate operating systems.”

He went on to explain that “the diocese is the basic building block of what we understand the church to be and how we relate to one another, as parishes, between dioceses, within an ecclesiastical province, as a national church and indeed the Anglican Communion.”

Gibaut then took his listeners back to the historical origins of the concept of a diocese. “The term diocese doesn’t appear in the church until the 4th century, and the word itself comes from an administrative subdivision of the Roman Empire, but the roots of our diocese are clear in the New Testament, especially in the letters of Paul to various churches. I often think that the introduction to Paul’s letters are kind of a short form for New Testament ecclesiology. Consider these:

• Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, to all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints

• Paul, an apostle and all the members of the family of God who are with me, to the churches of Galatia

• These and other churches were rooted and bore costly witness in places—villages, towns, and cities. For ecclesiology, from the very beginning, geography matters.”

Gibaut described how in the church of the first three centuries, a town would have had “one Christian community that would have gathered as a house church led by one bishop, the pastor and shepherd of the whole community….Many of these local churches owned buildings for worship, gathering, and hospitality. Often the bishop and his family lived in such a house. It was typically called in Latin, the domus ecclesiae, the house or the home of the church, and it would have been pretty close in size to any modern Anglican parish, with hundreds, maybe a few thousand people.

“Ecclesiologically, the ancient house church is the direct ancestor of the modern cathedral, which is the bishop’s church but also the diocese’s home church….That means that members of parishes can never be visitors and guests in their cathedral because as members of a diocese, we are members of the one cathedral, which is home to us all. These early house churches were also the direct ancestors of a modern diocese,” he explained.

“When Christianity was decriminalized by the Romans in the 4th Century and whole populations became Christian, the ecclesiastical structures were significantly modified in the new context. Rather than increasing the number of house church communities with their bishops and other ministers, they did something more creative. The numbers of bishops remained pretty constant in cities and towns. What changed was the multiplication of house churches in a town or city, still under one local bishop who is represented in these local communities by a priest delegated to represent the bishop in the celebration of the sacraments, leadership, teaching and preaching. The local church that had spread out in different places was still the one community gathered around a single bishop, now called by a new name, the diocese, the basic expression of local church,” he said.

Returning to the present day, Gibaut referred back to Bishop Parker’s charge to the Synod, comparing the priorities he identified — communications, the shape of parish ministry and their buildings, engagement with the world and life-long learning, Project Anti-racism and affordable housing—to the apps in his opening analogy. “These six priorities, these six projects, these six apps, will be nothing but window dressing without a corresponding operating system—the diocese and a functioning, informed diocesan ecclesiology. No parish could take any of these on alone, but a diocese can.”

Gibaut ended by quoting a part of Bishop Parker’s charge, “as diocesan ecclesiology in a nutshell:

‘Our diocese, not the diocese. We, not they. Every parish is ours. Every community ministry is ours. We are in communion with one another, deeply and inextricably. And it all belongs to God in Christ Jesus.’ ”

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“Like Saint Simon and Saint Jude, we belong to a generation who must look ahead to the future in a new way,” the bishop said. “We live in a time where the past we have known is giving way to a future we must give shape to. And we, too, must trust that God the Holy Spirit is already in our future, and be confident and faithful as we move forward.”

The year 2021 marked the 125^th anniversary of the founding of the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa, but as has been broadly recognized, the church is in a very different place in the present-day secularized society than the position of power and influence it once held.

Bishop Parker said the work for this generation “is to break free from structures which hold us to a time that has passed, and to be visionary and courageous as we face the future.”

To that end, the bishop said he prays that “we will fully embrace what it means to be a diocesan church and see ourselves as collectively strong, resilient, and resource-filled. I believe our future depends on doing so.” 

Strategic Priorities

In his charge to Synod in 2020, the bishop had highlighted four strategic priorities, and this year’s charge charted progress made in each of them

Communications has been the top priority. “The Episcopal Communications Panel has prepared a comprehensive strategic plan, and is working closely with our director of communications and stewardship and her staff to implement it,” he said. “Significantly, the panel advised retaining a professional agency to work with us to rebrand our diocese,” which he announced would be officially launched during the online meeting of Synod on Oct. 30. (see story p. 11)

The second strategic priority concerns the shape of parish ministry and buildings. 

The bishop thanked the Shape of Parish Ministry Consultation (SPMC) Team, who have spent many hours in conversation with every congregation in the diocese creating profiles of every parish. 

“Stage II of the consultation will move us from description to analysis, as we together review all parish profiles and consider what we are seeing—and what the Holy Spirit is calling us to see. Stage III of the consultation will move us from analysis toward making concrete proposals—leading to consensus decision-making at our next Synod,” he explained.

“Undergirded by common prayer, let us, as bishop, clergy, and people, courageously address the urgent questions facing us, and let us creatively use our collective resources to give new shape to our parish ministries so they can thrive.”

The third and fourth strategic priorities are engagement with the world and lifelong learning.

Bishop Parker said that the Governance Committee is conducting a governance review, with particular emphasis on those parts of committee structures not adequately suited to supporting and achieving these two priorities. The review, he noted, “will see us being more intentional in building partnerships with other groups who seek engagement with the world in proactive, Christ-like ways.”

The education committee proposed in the governance review “will seek out or develop resources to enable all of us to be equipped to address the insidious and dehumanizing effects of racism.” 

In the meantime, we must continue to make space to hear Indigenous, Black, Asian, and other racialized peoples speak of how racism cuts into self-esteem, safety, and opportunity.” Already underway is Project Anti-racism, which began during this past summer. It is a mandatory awareness and capacity-building program for all clergy in parish ministries, all managers in community ministries, and senior staff. “Once our key leaders have completed Project Anti-Racism training early next year, they will be charged with bringing what they have learned to every ministry context,” Bishop Parker explained.

The pandemic

The bishop also spoke about how the pandemic has affected everyone in the diocese and its continuing impacts. “The Holy Spirit has spoken to us during the coronavirus pandemic, causing us to see how rates of infection, mortality, and vaccination are affected by grossly uneven distributions of wealth and power, locally and globally; and how generosity, justice, and compassion can bring relief, equity, and healing. I pray the Holy Spirit will continue to guide us more deeply into the experience of those of us who constantly live with deprivation and restrictions—and through our parish ministries and community ministries to find new ways to accompany and assist all our siblings who live precariously.”

He expressed his profound gratitude “to all our clergy, lay leaders, and staff in our parish and community ministries, and to our senior staff for being responsive, careful, and undaunted as we have implemented and often revised our pandemic plan.” He acknowledged that the pandemic has caused real stress and fatigue and encouraged them to take care of themselves “and one another, keeping things as simple as possible and setting a sustainable pace.”

The bishop added, “I am deeply thankful for all the people of our diocese, who have, with much good will, supported the restrictions and changes which had to be imposed.”

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