Bishop’s Column

Empty pews and self-emptying

In 2021, Russell Daye and Robert Fennell published Turning Ourselves Inside Out: Thriving Christian Communities. Having researched thriving mainline Christian communities in Canada, the thesis ...
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Anglicanism and Anglianism

At the end of September, our diocesan conference, We Together, was held in Nanaimo. In the opening address on the Friday night, I spoke about ...
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Asking the right questions

While I am incredibly proud of how all our parishes have innovated and persevered through COVID-19, I am also hearing a common refrain about how, ...
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A new thing rising amidst grief

As a diocese we are all experiencing the shifting realities of our lives in similar and distinct ways. Our past is marked with both stories ...
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Discerning a postcolonial presence on ‘Yalis 

During the second week of May, I will be travelling with Brendon Neilson, vision animator, and Elizabeth Northcott, archdeacon of the Mid-North Islands region, to ...
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Where God might be calling us next

About a month ago, all the clergy of the diocese gathered (on Zoom, of course) and, together, we pondered the question of where God might ...
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Looking injustice in the eye

Recently I found myself talking with members of the Parish of Pender and Saturna Islands and one of them reflected that COVID-19 has brought out ...
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A place of love and safety

During the month of January, the lectionary worked its way through some of Paul’s first letters to the church in Corinth. We heard Paul remind ...
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Humility and hope

“Liminality: A quality of ambiguity and disorientation that occurs in transitory situations and spaces, when a person or group of people is betwixt and between ...
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Watching for the light

In 1944 on the first Sunday in Advent, Alfred Delp, a Jesuit priest incarcerated in a Nazi prison on charges of high treason against the Third Reich, offered the ...
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What is postcolonialism?

At a recent meeting of the Canadian House of Bishops, we were discussing the possibility of asking General Synod 2022 to pass an aspirational statement ...
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Discernment and deacons

On Sunday, September 12 Stephanie Wood, John Thatamanil, Colleen Lissamer and Marion Edmondson were ordained to the Sacred Order of Deacons.  Prior to the recent ...
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Our chief obstacle is what we have become

There is an old joke, “How many Anglicans does it take to change a lightbulb?” “Change!? My grandmother donated that lightbulb!” This joke illustrates the ...
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Let’s walk together gently into our future

This summer, I am inviting the entire diocese, lay and clergy, to read Challenging Racist “British Columbia”: 150 Years and Counting. The book was co-produced ...
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Uncharted territory

As a church in the 2020s, one of the things we need to realize is that we are living in changing times and uncharted territory. ...
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