Chris Barrigar, Author at Montreal Anglican

Outreach at CMP- finding creative ways to support others

Chris Barrigar — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 14:46:59 +0000

CMP has recently initiated a couple of new outreach projects.
One of these is a new project in the Plateau, to establish a fellowship out of the home of CMP members Paul Bode and Catherine Irwin-Gibson.
The vision of this project is to offer a safe space for francophones on the margins of faith (who have been dis-churched or are un-churched), and who are reluctant to enter a traditional church building or community, but who nonetheless are spiritually interested, to engage with Christian spirituality and community through a home environment.
CMP member Jeremy Favreau, who has extensive French-language ministry experience across Quebec, will be investing one-day per week to lead this project. While Catherine and Paul will provide the hospitality, Jeremy will be making connections and creating French resources, for which he will be remunerated.
CMP wishes to thank the Diocesan Standing Committee on Mission for their generous financial support for Jeremy’s work, and to the Bishop and Council for their support for CMP’s funding application to The Anglican Foundation.
CMP has also been seeking to strengthen its connections to Ville St Laurent.
To this end, CMP has recently joined the Comité des organismes sociaux de Saint-Laurent. Through this Committee, local community groups come together for shared planning, sharing resources, and for access to municipal government.
CMP is the only religious organization in the committee, and there was some wariness in the Committee about our application. However, through CMP’s programs supporting recent immigrants and refugees, and through the good relationships built by CMP’s Outreach Ministers, André and Fatima Leitão, CMP was accepted, and can now participate in municipal activities (such as the annual St Laurent Festival), and advertise our events through municipal channels.
For instance, on Saturday June 14, CMP hosted a “Family Fun-Fest” in the park behind St Laurent City Hall, in which our youth and their leaders provided an afternoon of food and games for local families and children. We were very happy with the turnout, of about fifty local children, plus parents and municipal officials.
Activities at the Family Fun-Fest included action games, along with table activities, such as face-painting and bracelet making, among many others!

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Montreal Diocesan Theological College Convocation, May 5, 2025 Fiona Crossling presented with honorary doctorate

Montreal Anglican — Sun, 25 May 2025 12:31:42 +0000

Montreal Dio’s 2025 Convocation was held on the evening of Monday, May 5, 2025 at St. George’s Place du Canada.
The service was a celebration of the accomplishments of students who will go into ministry in the Anglican and United Churches as well as other Christian denominations.
Master of Divinity graduates included Ozioma Obijiofor, Sarah Wicks-Potter and Felississima Mwambarangwe.
Fiona Crossling, a member of the Church of St. Mark and St. Peter in St. Laurent and a long-time advocate for the unhoused in Montreal, gave the Convocation address.
At the ceremony, Fiona was presented with an honorary doctorate for: “faithful and devoted lay ministry in the world that responds to a pressing human need in our context. This is an example of what baptismal ministry looks like and what it means to be a Christian in the public square.”
The following is an excerpt from Ms Crossling’s biography, written by her husband, the Rev Chris Barrigar.
Fiona Crossling did her BComm at McGill, and a few years later her MBA at HEC. Fiona’s early career was as a management consultant within the Bell system of companies.
During her MBA studies a friend invited her to St Stephen’s Westmount, where she encountered the Gospel in a new way and eventually gave her life to Christ.
In 1995 Fiona married Chris Barrigar, and in 1998 they moved to Bangalore, India, where Fiona moved into non-profit management for a Christian development NGO.
During her years in Bangalore Fiona also provided management consulting for other Christian organizations in India. In 2001 Fiona and Chris moved to the city of Chennai, India, where Fiona shifted back into the business sector, taking a position as Chief Operating Officer of a Swedish-owned software company.
In 2004 Fiona and Chris returned to Montreal, where Fiona took a position as Assistant Director of MultiCaf, a food-security non-profit in Cote-des-Neiges. After some time there, she moved to Assistant Director, and then Executive Director, of Share the Warmth, a community development organization in Pointe St-Charles.
Then at the very start of the Covid lock-downs, Fiona began her current position as Executive Director of Accueil Bonneau, which was founded by the Grey Nuns nearly 150 years ago to serve the homeless of Montreal.
Fiona is a frequent voice in the Montreal media, both French and English, on behalf of the homeless of our city, and frequently engages with the Mayor’s office and the provincial Minister on homelessness issues.
Fiona also believes in the value of research-supported practice, thus she has engaged her organizations with research teams from several of Montreal universities in social-sector research projects. As well, Fiona has been Chair of the Board of Interserve Canada, a human services organization that seconds Christian professionals to organizations (both Christian and secular) in the majority world. (This was the organization which seconded Fiona and Chris to their organizations in India). She has recently contributed a chapter, on leading change, to a book on non-profit leadership.
During their years since returning to Montreal, Fiona has also been a mother of two, and active in her home churches of St Peter’s TMR, and, more recently, St Mark & St Peter, St Laurent. This involvement has included teaching Sunday School, being involved in various parish groups, and on occasion helping organize certain parish events–not to mention giving moral and prayer support to her husband in his ministry.

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CMP visits Waswanapi

Chris Barrigar — Mon, 19 Aug 2024 19:47:32 +0000

For the past year, CMP has been exploring a possible relationship with the people of St Barnabas Anglican Church, Waswanapi—one of Quebec’s ten Cree communities, located about a nine-hour drive north of Montreal.
In 2023 this process included a couple Zoom meetings with Waswanapi community members, to hear what it means to be Cree and to hear their experiences of residential schools.
A visit to Waswanapi was planned by CMP leaders for June 2023, but was cancelled due to forest fires.
In July this year a team from CMP was finally able to visit, for 2½ days, to meet local residents to learn much more about Cree life and culture.
The members of St Barnabas warmly welcomed the CMP team, and possibilities for future engagement continue to be explored between the two church communities.

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CMP welcomes refugees & newcomers

Chris Barrigar — Mon, 19 Aug 2024 19:43:45 +0000

CMP has a husband-and-wife couple on staff, André and Fatima Leitao, who lead CMP’s outreach ministry in St Laurent.
André and Fatima, who speak English, Portuguese, Spanish, Arabic, and Niveau-7 French, have previously worked with refugees in Egypt and in their native Brazil.
André has a Brazilian soccer coaching certification, and uses sports to help integrate refugees and recent immigrants into life here in Canada.
This summer André has worked with CMP members and Action Réfugie Montréal to organize softball games, to introduce recent immigrants and refugees to the game through playing with CMP members. These have been a lot of fun, and especially a great opportunity to make new friends!

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Happenings at CMP (aka Church of St Mark and St Peter)

Chris Barrigar — Wed, 14 Feb 2024 17:38:03 +0000

“Quest” is the new name for the 20s group at CMP. A couple of Quest members recently launched a photo-essay project called “Humans of CMP,” inspired by the famous “Humans of New York” project.

Members of the congregation who wish to participate have an informal photo taken of them by a member of the project team, and then share important moments of their life-story to another member who writes up their story.

The photos and stories will be will be collected over the weeks and months ahead and then posted onto a special CMP website page.Me mbers of CMP will then be able to access the site and be surprised about the discoveries we make about each other’s lives! As CMP continues to grow, this will provide an important means for members to learn so much more about each other.

Several times through the year CMP hosts “Monday Night Discussions” by Zoom, to discuss issues of interest to our members. These have included such topics as residential schools, science and faith, medical assistance in dying, and, most recently, a discussion on “What to do with God and the Canaanites? The problem of God and violence in the OT.”

We typically have 20 or more participants for these discussions, which provide an important opportunity for us to work through challenging issues of faith and Christian discipleship. We also do book groups by Zoom. Currently one group is finishing Tom Wright’s Surprised by Hope, and another group will start up for Lent.

CMP member André Leitão has recently started a program at CMP called “Language Club,” in which immigrants to St Laurent have an opportunity to practice their English or French conversation with tutors from CMP.

Language Club is held Thursday mornings and Thursday evenings at CMP, in eight-week sessions, for participants at varying levels of ability. Childcare is also provided for the morning sessions. We are currently in the midst of our second cohort, with about 18 participants. Tutors do not need to be CMP members, and more tutors are always welcome, especially in French but also in English. If you or someone you know might be interested in tutoring, please contact André at andre@stmarkstpeter.org. (All tutors have to be vetted for both aptitude and security.)

On Saturday, January 27, CMP had its third annual ski, snowboarding, and tubing day in St Sauveur. We had our best turnout ever, with 53 CMP members participating. Each year there are immigrant members who join us for their first experience of this part of Canadian winter culture—it is wonderful seeing recent arrivals have so much fun discovering this part of life here!

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The Church of St Mark & St Peter Tries Something New

Chris Barrigar — Wed, 17 May 2023 17:16:25 +0000

The Church of St Mark & St Peter has been quite active in the first half of this year.

We have had a couple book groups meeting by Zoom; one group reading Our Home and Treaty Land, by Matt Anderson and Ray Aldred, the other reading Am I Just My Brain?, by Christian neuroscientist Sharon Dirckx. Dr Dirckx joined us from her home in Oxford, England, for the final session.

Liturgically, we have recently made some changes to reflect the multilingual nature of our congregation and of our location in St Laurent. Our opening greeting on Sunday mornings is now in French, English, and Arabic.

The other change we have implemented is that, every Sunday, the Psalm is now led in one of the mother-tongues of our congregation members (on a rotating basis, ranging from Mandarin to Malagasy).

The way this works is the text of the Psalm appears in English (on the front video screens, since we project our liturgy using PowerPoint), but the Psalm leader reads the initial, then alternate, verses of the Psalm in their mother-tongue. Everyone understands what is being said because they read the English on the screen; then, when the reader stops, everyone responds together with the next verse; and so on, alternating between mother-tongue and English, for the duration of the Psalm. It sounds awkward, but it actually works well and people find it quite a moving representation of God’s inclusiveness of all nations (ethne in Greek) in worship.

Following the ice storm, CMP had electricity for Easter Sunday, but not for Maundy Thursday or Good Friday, so these services were cancelled and replaced with a Good Friday service by Zoom. Easter Sunday was a wonderful joy-filled service.

After Easter, for the second year in a row, we are offering a series of evening Zoom meetings called “Monday Discussions.” These are on a variety of topics – most – though not all, led by members of CMP.

Topics include Understanding Homelessness, My work with Afghan Refugees in Albania, Mennonite Peacemaking Theology, What it Means to be Cree, and Meeting with Residential School Survivors, among others.

The last two topics are part of a process in which CMP and St Barnabas Anglican Church of Waswanapi Cree Nation, QC, are exploring the possibility of a relationship together. (Waswanapi is about a nine-hour drive north of Montreal). Diocesan College has also had connections with this community in the past.

Other recent events included a group of CMP members building vegetable-garden boxes on our property and a bowling fundraiser for the CMP youth group. Remarkably, over 50 parishioners came out for the bowling–we had no idea the event would generate so much support from the congregation!

The last Sunday of April, CMP joined with other churches in St Laurent for a spaghetti lunch at St Sixte Roman Catholic Church—it was a fun opportunity for local church communities to get know each other, in both English and French.

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At the Church of St Mark & St Peter: from Music Director to Technology Director

Chris Barrigar — Wed, 01 Sep 2021 14:14:23 +0000

At the Church of St Mark & St Peter (CMP), St-Laurent, a confluence of factors have come together that will see the position of Music Director eliminated by the end of August this year, and a new position, Technology Director, added as of September 1. For many years, the Music Director role has supervised both traditional and contemporary music at St Peter’s TMR, then, post-merger, at CMP as well. Over the years, as new members have joined the church, the number of parishioners able to lead the contemporary music has grown from one (Stephen Mullin, the Music Director) to about half a dozen. Within a vision of parishioners leading as much of parish ministry as possible, this means that CMP is now in a position for parishioners to take over leadership of the contemporary music. The positions of Organist and Choir Director will be retained, with Mr Stephen Mullin remaining in those positions.
At the same time, three other developments have converged for CMP around the theme of technology. First, our society (especially younger generations) has become increasingly technology-centric, and so the vision of CMP’s Leadership Team includes figuring out the potential implications for how we do worship, ministry, and mission in such a technology-centred age. Second, the renovations to CMP’s facilities are now completed, and these include advanced audio/visual technology for our present and future needs. Third, the pandemic has opened-up new technological options for how we engage in community life, ministry, and mission, through such platforms as Zoom, YouTube, and social media.
Given this convergence of factors, the CMP Corporation is making technology in worship, ministry, and mission a strategic focus for the future of CMP, and thus has created the position of Technology Director to coordinate and lead our efforts in these areas. This role will also be filled by Mr Mullin, as audio/visual technology is actually his principle profession. We are excited about these changes, and we are eager to see how God will use these new directions in future at CMP.

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