I hope that many of you will read this and consider it as a call to mission in your Parish. We as a faith have so much more to offer, give and do for a community called our town. It is important to tell other’s of how you a single Anglican can make a great difference. You are the Church Catholic in all you say and enable every time you take your faith into the twenty blocks around your home.
While the counting of people is a view of value, like an account balance, the ANGLICAN expression is about even more. Parishes are closing in some areas as people migrate, yet the body of individuals doing things inside the parish and community remains an incredible experience. I sense the real work of the body and mind of the Anglican faith in Canada is alive, vibrant with will and determination. When we all renew our hopes and wishes with rolled up sleeves and strength, what is can stop us in our quest for scripture, tradition and a reason to be a community of belief in each other.
The question for us today as in 1965, remains how to make our hopes, religion and expression the will of us, now today while sharing the gifts with three generations: teenagers and youth 17-27, young family members 27-47, who want a seat at our tables, and finally a generation of mature people who have not loss faith, just tired of waiting for parishes to grow, where clearly a vibrant plant of Anglican beauty still offer fruits of faith, bread of affirmation and waters of refreshment to our body, soul, spirit and mind, in love of trinity in action.
Before you all think I am silly, read though my comments. Where is a church a building, structure or location? When you make the institution about who you share, life, adventures, stress, ideas, worship and meals as the base of your role in a community, that group prospers. You can not hold them back from the pain, joys, prayers, words and deeds in how they interact. Invite all to the table of Eucharist, and seldom will anyone not be fed by the body of Christ, the cup of salvation and renewal. However worship is not solely acts or actions. When we depart the location with a prayer of thanks on our lips and minds, then walk the streets of any town, city or open area you will find ways to share that gift of faith. Accounting is for business, or agencies to gauge values and profit or loss. We have a no need or benefit to a ledger sheet to determine our faith. It is alive, and ready to do amazing things when we move in ways to give others care, consideration and some love, by faith in various expressions.