Christians, followers of Jesus Christ, go through these seasons as well. Walking with Jesus does not mean we will have only happy days. Being a disciple of Jesus is not freedom from difficulties. In fact, a life of faith will have its share of troubles and challenges. There will be a cross to carry.

When in stormy seasons, when going through bad times, the Christian has Jesus, the Good Shepherd, who knows firsthand just how bad things can get. He had his own cross to carry and death to die. He had everything thrown at him: his friends scattered, he was ridiculed, denied, betrayed, rejected, abandoned, shamed, disowned, condemned, and killed. He experienced the worst human beings could do to other human beings. He knew we are “a species that will tie one of its own to a stake and strike the match.” That we hang fellow humans on a tree. Bad times and excruciating experiences were not foreign to him. He faced them all. In fact, he triumphed over them all, exchanging good for evil and conquering death with life. He showed us a new way to live. As followers of Jesus, we have before us his transformative, triumphant modelling, especially through the bad seasons. He has walked the walk. He broke the pattern of hate for hate and death for death.

It demanded all he had. He carried his cross and even fell beneath its weight. He sweated drops of blood. Christians are not greater than their master. Following him will have a Via Dolorosa, a way of suffering, a way of sorrows. But, in the very midst of that suffering and sorrow, with our eyes fixed on him, there will be the experience of grace. We will not feel totally without help or care. As if in the eye of the storm, we will know and feel God’s calming embrace and know for certain that we will make it through. Like he did! And making it through, we will be transformed and made new!

Being a disciple of Jesus is not all sunshine. There are dark, cloudy days. There is not abounding happiness every day either. There are heavy, painful days. There is not always understanding and glowing light. Sometimes there is no understanding and no light. It is on those low and dark days, though, that we lean on our Lord totally and completely. We can reach for him, and if only able to touch the hem of his garment, we will experience compassion flow from him to us, and we are strengthened. And like Julian of Norwich, we come to trust that “all will be well and all manner of things will be well.”

We then rise with his compassionate lift. We are held in his loving care, even on the most horrible days. He is our genuine God-friend, and we faithfully follow him because he is truly way, life, truth, love, peace, joy, healing, and reconciliation.

The post Discipleship in Difficult Times appeared first on Anglican Life.

Easter and St. Valentine’s Day belong together. The first speaks of God’s love. It is so deep, wide, and unconditional that God enters human existence and even the grave so that we are restored to life and love eternally. St. Valentine’s Day speaks to the bliss of two hearts joined as one. Both remind us that it really is love that makes the world, and even the universe, go around.

Both also hint at a winter’s day. Life on this planet is not all rosy or roses. There is bleakness and thorns. We get things right, and we get things wrong. We can hate as well as love. We follow Jesus and also deny him. Good Friday precedes Easter. There is Yin and Yang.

We need reminding of Easter and also of love. We need to be awakened from deadness to life, to spring even when in the dark days of winter, to love when the heart has hardened. Left to our own devices, we would be hopeless and fill the void with escapisms.

Easter and St. Valentine’s Day say to us that there is more to this earthly journey. It can seem like death is master and love is too fleeting. But with our soul and heart awakened, we come to see that God, the Source of everything, is Life! And death can have no permanent home in God. Equally, God is Love! And love is the essence of all that is and all that will be.

Easter and St. Valentine’s Day remind us that life and love are eternal, and that winter is but a season and it, like all death and every other negative emotion and thing, will pass. What remains is life and love, which is here and hereafter.

+John, Western Newfoundland

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In the Diocese of Western Newfoundland Labrador Straits, we have made discipleship our primary focus. During some of the training sessions in discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s writings on discipleship were referred to. He makes it abundantly clear that following Jesus Christ comes with a cost. Easter Sunday is preceded by Good Friday, which is a day when all of human weakness and mortality are on full display. It is even bigger than that, as the whole cosmic order, the universe, all of the heavens and spiritual realms, are drawn into that day, and re-ordered. A New Creation has been birthed. As no birth is without labour pains, this birth definitely is not.

At baptism, each Christian is signed with the cross. We are baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection. It is both: death and resurrection. We also enter the road of suffering and the harsh realities of discipleship, of following Jesus Christ. Ultimately, it is resurrection and abundant life. Eternal life even!  But with following Jesus Christ comes a cross. We too must die to self and live for Christ. We too must carry a cross.

C.S. Lewis said, “If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.”  If wanting a religion that puts you on a potter’s wheel and molds you over and over again, then Christianity at its best will do that for you. If wanting a religion that lets us love God and neighbour, and even our enemies, then Christianity is that religion. If wanting a religion that lets us speak truth in love and receive truth in love then Christianity will do that for us as well.

This Lent may we go to that barren place of the desert and be with Jesus Christ. The more genuine time there, the more strength we will have for bearing the cross, and the more transformed we will be to receive the fullness of the Glory of Easter.

The post Shaped Through The Desert and The Cross appeared first on Anglican Life.

It has been an extraordinary year of nurturing our following of Jesus Christ, whose birth in Bethlehem brought good news of great joy for all people! Our diocesan focus of intentionally following Jesus has drawn us closer to God and to one another. Love increases among us.

“A people who walked in darkness have seen a great light,” said Isaiah. Jesus is the light of the world that no darkness can extinguish. Guided by the light of Christ, many positive changes happen within and around us. Darkness is overcome. Light increases among us.

Christmas gifts us with everything we need to live joyful, peaceful, loving, helpful lives. Receiving Jesus as our Saviour and friend puts us on “The Way of Love”—love for God, self, others, and creation.

As we look a little deeper into the theological and spiritual significance of Christmas, we find God has come among us in human form, restoring us to our best selves, lifting us out of selfishness and indifference, sin and death, grief and sorrow. We are empowered to turn swords into ploughshares, and hate into love. We are learning to care for ourselves, to reconcile with one another, and to make our communities better.

By listening more closely to the message of Christmas, we hear it announcing a new way for the world—a new way for each of us. The old way of anger and discord, bitterness and envy, fear and despair, hate and violence, self-interest and self-serving, has proven to be the wrong way. Jesus provides a way that is shaped by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control. His way makes life much better for us and for the world.

Let us see through the tinsel and the party. Let us go deeper and see that there is so much more. Christmas is the true gift that keeps on giving.

Merry Christmas!

+John, Western NL

The post The Gift of Christmas: Embracing Christ’s Light appeared first on Anglican Life.

The Discipleship Campaign is being conducted from 2022 to 2026. A peak highlight of our campaign has been the recent visit of The Most Reverend Stephen Cottrell, Archbishop of York, who led a weekend of discipleship training for our diocese. This was followed immediately by our diocesan synod, and nearly a whole day of discipleship training led by The Right Rev’d Mariann Budde, Bishop of the Diocese of Washington D.C.

The spiritual energy and excitement brought by these two enthusiastic disciples have been enormously uplifting and encouraging to all who gathered at the Civic Centre and our Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, Corner Brook.

In Matthew 28:18-20, Jesus made it perfectly clear that his followers are to Be Disciples and to Make Disciples.

We are called to be students of Jesus, helping others to be students of Jesus, and learning how to be like him at home, at work, in the Church, in the community, and in the world. Why? Because in the person of Jesus are the highest and best qualities of being human. Moreover, in Jesus we find God and discover how deeply and wonderfully God loves each one of us. Shaped and transformed by God’s love we also grow in love—for God, for self, for others, and for creation. Imagine more love at home, at work, in the Church, in the community, and in the world! Imagine more love between Russians and Ukrainians, and more love between Israelis and Palestinians!

The aim of Jesus is to bring compassion to our world and to give each person abundant life. He does not want us to be religious fantastics or joyless people. Jesus wants our best, which means we are to be loving human beings, joyfully alive, making the world a better place. Jesus also wants us to know that in him life does not time out. He has restored life in all its fullness and that includes life beyond this life.

When we truly catch hold of who Jesus is and what Jesus is about, we realize in him there is everything we seek and need.

The post Exciting Discipleship Campaign Launched and Diocesan Synod Held in Corner Brook appeared first on Anglican Life.

To love God with all we are and have is a big ask! It demands a lot of us. Let us take stewardship as an expression of loving God. This includes tithing, placing before God 10% of our income. Biblically, 100% of all we earn comes from God through the gifts and talents God has given us. As an expression of our love for God and gratitude for all God has bestowed upon us, we return a tenth to God.

Our love for God can grow through our stewardship.

Fasting can be an expression of our love for God. Fasting frees the body for prayer and enables greater communication with God. It is disciplining our appetites and reducing our distractions. We become more available to the presence of God and our relationship deepens. As we dwell in God’s presence, our love for God grows and we experience God’s love for us.

Our love for God can grow through fasting.

Jesus asks us to love our neighbour as ourselves, and even to love our enemy. God is love. The more we dwell in God, the greater our capacity to love God, our neighbour, and even our enemies.

Loving our neighbours and our enemies increases our love for God, and helps us to experience the power of love to overcome hate.

Discipleship prevents us from reducing Christianity to mediocrity. Being a Christian is much more than a cultural identity. Following Jesus Christ has to do with how we live our lives.

We have freedom to follow Jesus or to not follow him. To genuinely follow him is to be fully committed to Christ. Being halfhearted about following Jesus will not allow us to truly know God and God’s transformative power to make our lives really impactful.

Depending on who you listen to, the Church is in a nose-dive decline. Some say that God is calling the Church to something completely new. Others say God is calling us back to basics. Discipleship is basic. It is first principle Christianity—“Come, follow me.”

The Church can be about many things. It can be about a building. It can be about a tradition. It can be about an in-group. It can be about clinging to what is no longer working. It can even be about hate, division, and exclusion.

Discipleship will not be about those things. Instead, it will be about Jesus Christ. It will be about following Jesus and helping others to follow him. It will be about being shaped especially by love and hope. It will be about God and the Kingdom of God. It will be about a quality of life that meets all obstacles with confidence of success. It will be about knowing all will be well, even though we are going through tough times. It will be about knowing that life has purpose, meaning, value, and victory.

Christians can get caught up in things that don’t really matter. We become more attached to bricks and mortar than to the living stones. We get caught up in the earthly mundane, and lose sight of the spiritual domain. Our vision blurs and we don’t see the glory being revealed. We become caught up in our own importance and lose touch with the bigger enterprise of God’s mission. We hold on to what is dying and turn away from what is bursting into life. We can be convinced of being right even though we are wrong.

We have been warned about being a noisy gong. We have been warned about making much of religion and little about love. Christianity is about love. Discipleship is about love. Church is about love. Make any of those about other than love and we are in trouble.

There is a desperate need for love in our world. Jesus is all about love. Indeed, God is all about love. Discipleship is all about love. If a Christian moves away from love of God and neighbour, then there is something terribly wrong. Love is paramount. Not clothed with love, the Christian is not wearing the right garment required to be part of the heavenly banquet.

Where there is love we find God. Where there is hate we have the absence of God.

There is no nose-dive decline for love. The world and our communities are in desperate need of love. God is love. Following Jesus is following the way of love. We gather as Church to grow in love for God and one another. We can gather in a designated sacred space, or in a rented space, or in a home. What matters is that the Church, the followers of Christ, gather and together grow in love for God and neighbour.

Discipleship is basically living out our baptismal vows. Those are first and foremost rooted in love. The Church will always be strong when its members are filled with that self-giving love demonstrated in Jesus Christ and which he demands of all who follow him. A Church made up of people genuinely following Jesus Christ will have a bright future.

The post Living Love: Discipleship in Following Jesus appeared first on Anglican Life.

This is all God’s doing! Creatures and creation are God’s own decisions and intentions to ‘let us make!’

Invested before time and through time and beyond time, God stays attached and determined to see it all through to perfection and glory: to life and light; to love and peace.

We human beings made by God and for God have been provided for in every way by the redemptive love of Jesus Christ, the third person of the Holy Trinity, the God-Man, fully human and fully divine.

In Christ, we are transported from the finite to the infinite! In him, we mortals have put on immortality! We are forever raised up!

Assured of everything and for all time, we can now live life with faith, hope, and love. We can make our life count and help make the world a better place. We can live out our forgiven, grace-filled lives with love for God, neighbour, and fellow-creatures. We can stand at the grave and see it is the gate to eternal life, where death and sorrow are no more!

Don’t miss the meaning and power of Easter! It is the greatest gift humanity and the world has ever known and could ever hope for! It makes life better here and lets us live forever hereafter. Rejoice!

Happy Easter,
+John Organ,
Western NL

The post Embracing Easter: A Celebration of Renewal, Abundance, and Everlasting Life appeared first on Anglican Life.

Today we can feel that Christianity is waning. A deeper look however reveals that there are approximately 2.4 billion adherents to Christianity around the globe. Census 2021 revealed that in Newfoundland and Labrador, 21.5% of the population identified as Anglican, some 110,000 people! Add our sister-churches and Christianity are alive and well in our province. 

That being said, there is a recognition by mainline churches in Europe and North America of declining numbers. There are fewer and fewer people in the pews on Sunday mornings. The reason for this is neither simple or singular. Secularization has a part to play. Wrongdoing has a part to play. Christian formation has a part to play. 

There is room for repentance and profound change. 

Some of this repentance and change must come from within each individual member of the church. Each Christian must be genuine and intentional about their own health and well-being, their own transformation by God’s Spirit, especially to be people of love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, kindness, and self-control. There is a daily demand to sit under the influential rays of the Holy Spirit and be more and more transformed into Christ-like people. 

Hate must give way to love; war to peace; selfishness to selflessness; self-interest to other-interest; exploitation of the earth to its conservation; racism to equality; despair to hope; indulgence to discipline. 

It is a healthy relationship with God that can help us with all that. Not religion for it own sake, but a faith that is rooted in what is core to that religion. And for Christians that is Jesus Christ. It is where we meet the depths of humanity’s best and also where we meet the spiritual, the divine. As we draw closer, knowing Jesus better, the Father better, and the Holy Spirit better, we will be transformed more and more into a person worthy of the name of Christian. We will also transform our faith community, the church, to be aligned with its truest core and good. 

We can be hopeful for Christianity. We can be wonderfully transformed and empowered by following Christ and belonging to his body, the Church. There is required of us an openness to spiritual growth and transformation. We cannot stay the same but must always be maturing in Christ. Our Christian formation cannot just be confession but also profession. Following Christ is a way of life; it demands everything of us. It is costly. But that costly following will make us new and produce in us fruit that heals and does not harm, builds up and does not destroy, gives life and not death. 

There is no lack of a future for such a faith and its practice! 

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Christmas can mean different things to different people. Generally it is a time of generosity and gift giving.

It was not so for the Charles Dickens’ character, Scrooge, who despised Christmas:
“Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster.” (A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens)

Eventually, the true spirit of Christmas would transform Scrooge; his heart of stone would become a heart of flesh; his covetousness was overtaken by kindness. 

The deeper, spiritual, religious meaning of Christmas tells us that God came among us in Jesus, a babe born in a manger in Bethlehem to Mary and Joseph. The Sovereign of the universe was no Scrooge: God left all that power and glory to dwell among us, identifying and empathizing with the most humble and ordinary of human life. Why? Because God loves God’s creation; God is not cold, distant, and indifferent to human beings; God cares and comes to our help and aid. 

In Jesus a light has come into the world, and darkness cannot extinguish it! True, human beings create a lot of darkness! Nothing darker than the wars we wage, the harm we do, and the pain we cause. Much of this stems from having hearts closed to those around us—too closed to those who are different—too closed to love. Before we know it we are caught up in the darkness of dehumanization, exclusion, racism, hate, and even violence.  

Human beings can get it wrong. We can prefer the dark to the light. We need an intervention. Christmas is exactly that! God has intervened and come among us. In Jesus Christ we are taught how to live and even how to die; instead of hate, he shows us how to love; instead of death, he gives us life; as we draw near to him, we are transformed to be like him. Starting with our own heart, light overcomes the darkness; one by one, as we follow him, we become the person God intends us to be, and in the process he helps make the world the place God intends it to be.

Charles Dickens’ Scrooge reveals the power of Christmas to change a man hard as flint into a caring, generous, and loving human being. Christmas, at it deepest level, brings to each of us the capacity to be light instead of darkness, love instead of hate, life instead of death.

The world needs Christmas. We need Christmas. I need Christmas. With the shepherds, we all need to hear and inwardly digest the “good news of great joy” that is for all people everywhere. God has come among us! A path is set before us! It leads us from our worst to our best! Will we let the light that has come into the world be our gift this Christmas? Will we allow ourselves to be transformed? Will we become gifts of love, joy, peace, kindness, gentleness, and self-control to those near and far? Will we hear and receive with the shepherds and magi that a Child has been born to us, who is Jesus, the Messiah, the Saviour? Will we follow him and be transformed by him? He is the gift of Christmas! The gift of light, love, and life! Each of us needs Christmas!

The post The Gift of Christmas appeared first on Anglican Life.

Discipleship is a relationship. It is a relationship between the follower and Jesus. It is also a relationship between the individual Christian and the Christian community, the Church. A disciple is committed to Jesus and day-by-day learning to know him better and follow him more closely. At the same time, the disciple is one who lives out their following of Jesus in community with fellow-disciples. The individual disciple spends time reading Scripture, especially the Gospels, praying to enable communion with God, making petitions for others and creation, and in silent listening waiting to hear from God. These practices help transform the disciple into being the person God calls them to be personally. In the faith community of the Church, the disciple is further nurtured and transformed by Word, Eucharist, and the work God sets before the whole Church in service to the world. Developing a rich inner spiritual discipleship and participating with fellow-disciples in worship and work, followers of Jesus flourish individually and as a faith community. 

Healthy and effective discipleship requires a relationship with God, the Holy Trinity, and with the People of God, the Church. When we look closely at Jesus’ life, we see his example of personally drawing close to God the Father, and of regularly attending the synagogue and being among the gathered people of God. It is critical to know Jesus personally and for each of us to spend time alone with him. At the same time, it is critically important to gather with fellow Christians. We need both if we are to follow Jesus well. 

During the Canada Census of 2021, 21.5% of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians self- identified as Anglican! We are the province with the highest percentage of Anglicans in all of Canada. There are more than 110,000 Anglicans in Newfoundland and Labrador. There are some 20,000 Anglicans in the Diocese of Western Newfoundland Labrador Straits! Wow! Our Lord began with just 12 disciples. Imagine all Anglicans in our province taking our rightful place in the Anglican Church and living out fully our discipleship! Imagine how much more we could glorify God and serve the common good! 

The truth is, we have a lot of Anglicans, not too few Anglicans. Discipleship calls us to be fully involved; to follow Jesus intentionally and genuinely, and to participate regularly in the worship and work of the Church, the Body of Christ. This we can all do! It is simply our deciding to take our discipleship seriously and living it out with fellow-Anglicans all around us. 

Being a disciple is what it means to be an Anglican. Being a disciple is what it means to be a Christian. Jesus calls us to follow him and to take our place among fellow-disciples in the gathered family of the Church. Through baptism we are children of God and we belong to God’s family. Like every family, it is important to take our place and do our part. But, we not only give, we receive! Our lives are enriched and empowered by living close to God and in fellowship with the people of God. 

With 110,000 Anglicans in our province, imagine our strength! Imagine all of us following Jesus and gathering regularly with fellow Anglicans in our communities! What an even greater love we could have for God and neighbour and creation! What an even greater service we could render to our community, province, country, world, and planet! 

Discipleship is the key to a spirit-filled Christian life and to a vibrant and vital Church, locally and globally. Following Jesus, the way of love, is the source for fruitfulness among Christians and in the Church! Discipleship brings us close to Jesus and fills our hearts with his teachings and love, overflowing to those near and far! Discipleship is a continuous relationship with God in Christ, with one another, and our growing in love and compassionate-caring. We are called to be disciples and to help one another to be disciples. The outcome is spirit-filled Christians and a vivacious Church! Discipleship is at the core of of the life of the Christian and the Church. It produces in us the gifts and fruit of the Holy Spirit. It is continuous relationship and life-giving! Thanks be to God! 

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