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Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.
Valerie Bennett and Stacey Neale

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So, with this in the back of our minds, we were thrilled that more Mile End Mission kids got to have a break this past summer to experience a fun-filled and peaceful week within the beautiful arms of nature at the Quebec Lodge Outdoor Centre on Lake Massawippi in Hatley, Québec.

Once again, this camp experience was made possible through the Anglican Foundation of Canada’s annual ‘Say Yes! to Kids’ fundraising initiative and generous donors in our community.
For a second year, another one of our campers, Devon, loved the experience so much that he now wants to become a camp counsellor. Paige, who went to camp with the Mission kids last year was hired this past summer as a camp counsellor in the Laurentians!

More than ever, our kids need to experience the wonders of nature, be shown new paths and be inspired.

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You are cordially invited to attend the Mile End Community Mission’s 15th Annual Thanksgiving Benefit Dinner. This important annual fundraiser will help the Mission continue its vital work of providing care, inspiration and hope to disadvantaged individuals and families in the Mile-End and surrounding areas.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, guests will have the opportunity to support our community while enjoying a wonderful evening surrounded by old and new friends of the Mission!

Tickets are $200 per person and a tax receipt for $125 will be available. The evening will also include an auction and a raffle with many great prizes donated by friends in the community.

For additional information about the dinner or to purchase tickets, please call Lou or Lori at the Mission: 514 274-3401 or send us an email at fundraising@mileendmission.org
We hope you can join us!

If you are unable to attend, your kind donations will help us include two VIP tables of Mission members.

Thank you!
Lou & all your friends at the Mile End Mission

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It has been interesting to learn about the ways that the Bible Story Walk has impacted communities and encouraged engagement.

Here is some of the feedback I’ve received:

“We had it here (St Paul’s Greenfield Park) for a month and I got to see all sorts of different people coming and taking advantage of it. There were young people, high school students walking by and reading it and older people and families. All sorts of different people came to take advantage of the space and just see what it is that has been installed in the front lawn of the church.

One gentleman came and knocked on the door and said what’s the story with this? How come I wasn’t notified that this was here earlier? I love this. I want to go and tell all my neighbors.

Another lady that was making her way to the library stopped and even came to tears she was we later found out that she was going through these and pondering the wondering questions and she told us I’m going to go to the library I want to invite everybody who’s at the library down the road to come and enjoy this as well. That lady has since started attending the 8AM service that is here at St Paul’s.

The only downside is that we couldn’t keep it all summer and we wish we could have. We wish it could still be here but we understand it’s going to be at other churches so others in the area can enjoy all for the glory of God and for his kingdom.
I just want to say thank you to the diocese and to Lee-Ann and Bishop Mary and everybody who is involved in this for making this available to us and allowing us to participate in it. Thank you.”

-The Rev Trevor Potter
(May 2023)

“Everyone enjoyed the story – there was engagement from the kids answering Neil’s questions and even the adults answered. Several people commented on how lovely the posts were and this was a great idea. Neil Mancor did an excellent job at reading – and talking with the kids.

It was great, it was very good for St. Barnabas. It showed that we are more than just a church building – and that there are fun things going on so check us out.

… it introduces the kids in an easy, simple and fun way to hear about God and His existence; to see what He is like and how He made all things.

New families and people showed up… the Bible Story was a bonus. We got to meet and chat with them. They know we are inviting them. It’s about mission; Jesus sends us out and this was a good way.

I noticed a couple of times during the Sunday service, when I was at the altar and the main doors are open to let air circulate (I can see straight outside the front to the display) I’ve noticed people walking by and reading the posts.”

– Deacon Debbie Galt-Shane (June 2023)

As this is something we haven’t done before, we are in an experimental phase, adapting as we go. Each church has been encouraged to invite neighbours to their lawn for an event to celebrate the Story Walk, serve lemonade etc. This has proven to be fruitful and has provided opportunities to connect with families and the spiritually curious of all ages and stages of life.
The project broke ground at its first stop at St. Paul’s Greenfield Park in May then to St Barnabas Pierrefonds, followed by All Saints by The Lake, Dorval, St Thomas Church in NDG and St Philips Montreal West. Its final destination for the season will be Christ Church Beaurepaire in October 2023.

If you are interested in hosting the project in 2024 or are inspired by this project and have other ideas you wish to share, get in touch with Lee-Ann Matthews: lmatthews@montreal.anglican.ca

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At its best, this process involved Board members and staff from both Colleges speaking openly about their denomination – as well as College-specific experiences of faith, education, and religiosity – and listening to each other in a creative way, not just hearing, but actually making something out of the information they received.

This kind of creative exchange also characterised the 2023 French for Ministry Intensive, run by the now-ecumenical College with a mixed United-Anglican cohort.

Over the course of five incredibly rich days, we spoke frankly about our experiences of church and of the Church, coming together in conversations that were transformative and profound at times and full of joyful hilarity at others. And all of it happened in our second language.

Without the pressure of perfection that can come from a ministry context – in a space where we were welcome to make the kinds of mistakes that we would learn to avoid in the future – we engaged in deep theological, liturgical, and ecclesiological reflections that sometimes went deeper than some of us thought we could go without reverting to a first language!

In just five days, it somehow felt like we left neither linguistic nor content stones unturned, and yet the experience did not feel rushed. My brain worked hard all day, but I would leave feeling refreshed and renewed in a way I have only rarely felt – a testament, I think, to the way the Intensive is conceived as an opportunity to refine already-existing skills and to bolster students’ confidence in their abilities.

This atmosphere owed much to the generosity and good humour of the cohort and to the inspiration and nurturing care of the Holy Spirit. But much of the credit should go to the instructor, Clara Maranzano. She deftly handled questions from the sublime to the ridiculous, and often used the content of our pre-class and lunchtime discussions as instructional material. Her patience and encouragement – paired with a clarity of expression and a true pedagogue’s heart – were central to creating a space for not only improving grammar but improving our understanding of each other’s church contexts and our shared context of the Church in Quebec.

In the process of Dio and UTC becoming one body, I often heard French programming described as a central tool in UTC’s arsenal, a specialisation that would enrich any partnership they entered – and that is certainly true.

Theological education in the language of the context is just as crucial now as it was in the vernacularizing movements of medieval Europe. But the Intensive in particular is also something more: it is a space of co-creation and of wrestling, and it is a model for how intentional, gracious vulnerability and genuine curiosity are central to building up the (ecumenical) Body of Christ.

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This year’s participants were placed at various organizations around the city including The Nazareth Community, Ministry to Seafarers, and Christian Direction.

“I was drawn to this program as I was looking for a summer opportunity to serve others in simple ways and grow in my abilities to help vulnerable people and try to love them the way God loves them,” said one participant, Katharine Mallet. “I have learned to identify the unique gifts God has given me and the importance of loving people in such a way that they can receive it, among many other things. It has been hard but God has been showing me that He is definitely worth it.”

Tashiana Boodhoo, who travelled all the way from Mauritius to study at the University of PEI last year, was excited by the opportunity to spend the summer in another Canadian city, all while drawing closer to God through service.

“MMI has not only helped me to achieve my dream of experiencing life in another part of Canada while deepening my faith, but it has surprisingly enabled me to live the Montreal city life through a lens of profuse honesty and acceptance of what has been, is and can be,” she says. “I embarked on this journey with an expectation of it being just another job, but what I am ending up receiving is so much more than I could have asked for. At this point, I have learnt not to set expectations and instead be welcoming of what I am meant to experience.”

Program Director Alan Ma is optimistic about the way God worked in the lives of each of the interns over the nine weeks of the program. “From prompting vocational questions to discerning daily actions to personal healing, it has been marvelous witnessing the work of our Lord in and around the MMI participants,” he says. “I am thankful to God for the precious time that we received together as a community – walking alongside one another.”

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One of the biggest challenges facing ministry in our rural corner of the Diocese is building a sense of unity and teamwork across the twelve churches of the Eastern Townships Regional Ministry. The geography of our region is vast. It is not unusual for clergy to cover 100 or more kilometres between churches on any given Sunday: it often feels like swinging from tree to tree or flying and never quite getting the landing gear down!

Moreover, most of the church communities in this area have a strong historic sense of identity, one which is linked to a particular location and building, and not so easily expanded to a broader notion of the Christian family. Yet, without deep and genuine Christian collaboration, a regional ministry is nothing more than a financial agreement. Instead, the hope is that we are truly building something stronger together, leaning into the vocation that God has for this place.

Ironically, COVID19 provided the initial momentum towards a team ministry here, as we all gathered online for a single Zoom service from across the whole region — and beyond. We regularly had over 100 participants on our Zoom services, and while no one wishes the pandemic lockdowns to return, many reminisce on the creativity and fun that we shared online. We even had a Shrove Tuesday pancake supper online!

More still, these Zoom services provided an environment for fostering new relationships and friendships from across the region. Those who now travel around to different churches for Sunday worship often remark how they already know so many friendly faces because they met online.

To strengthen this sense of unity, our Regional Ministry now hosts special joint worship services on months with a fifth Sunday, during which we all worship together in a single service and share a potluck meal afterwards. There are no other services scheduled in the region on those Sundays.

There is a tremendous feeling of fellowship at these joint services, and it is a real joy for everyone to see their churches so full.

We had an explosive attendance of 147 people for our fifth Sunday service hosted in Bishop Stewart Memorial Church in Frelighsburg in April. In July we always gather outdoors for a picnic service in Stanbridge East under the big, old maple tree at the centre of the church yard. We experimented with outdoor services during the pandemic, and “under the big, old maple tree” has become something of a slogan for our joint ministries together, hinting at the all-encompassing nature of it.

For small, rural congregations that normally get less than a dozen people on a Sunday morning, these big regional services also provide a tremendous sense of life and hope for the future! Alone, the churches of this region have limited futures; together, we have an opportunity for greater longevity. God is not finished with the Townships! God is now calling us to try something new: “Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness” (Isaiah 43:19).

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