Of course, to talk about these assumptions, I have to make some assumptions of my own. I am assuming she paid for the lunches of my colleagues because she knew or assumed they were all clergy. My rage was ignited because her generosity towards them meant she, for some reason, assumed that I was not a member of the clergy. I wondered: what about the situation spoke to this being the truth? Was it the fact that I wore leggings and a sweater (which are the only clothes in my closet that my pregnant body will currently accept)? Was it the fact that I was younger than my ministerial colleagues? Or was it because I am a woman? Maybe it was some combination of all three. Or maybe it was none of these things at all.

Regardless, the moment was a jolt to the system. It reminded me that, no matter how far we’ve come in the world of equality for women, women clergy members still have to climb invisible ladders—ladders that men will never have to climb. These assumptions, those first thoughts that people have, the ones that will either guide their actions or at least cloud their perception of the women clergy they meet—we will always be fighting against them. This playing field is not yet equal and, quite honestly, I’m not certain it ever will be.

I lament this truth. I lament it and I accept it. I will keep showing up. I will keep claiming the space and the call that God has given me. I will be gracious and courageous. I will not allow the people in my communities to keep holding onto assumptions that harm women, regardless of how harmless they seem. And I will do all this in the name of making it at least a little easier for the next woman who hears God calling her to this vocation, in the hope that one day she can be with a group of male colleagues and be seen as an equally important part of the ministry of God.

The post Free Lunch and Assumptions appeared first on Anglican Life.

One thing I know has contributed to this hiatus of sorts is I’ve let go of the habit. I used to write something—anything—every day. I stopped doing that almost a year ago now: a mistake, for sure. But I’ve had no reason to pick it back up. And I’ve been finding it increasingly distressing. Writing isn’t just an exercise for me, it is part of my spiritual practice. It is part of who, as I understand it, God made me to be. To not write feels like a betrayal of my soul.

So why can’t I just do it? Why am I not drawn to my pen and paper the way others are drawn to their pianos or prayer books? I am left to conclude, though not necessarily accept, that this season must mean something important for me in my relationship with God. I must be meant to learn something from these feelings of untetheredness, adriftness, of absence. I must be meant to do some sort of reflection on the integrity of my spiritual life and how, when I don’t feel connected to God, God is still connected to me. I am sure I am meant to cling to God ever more closely in my own time of spiritual lack. I am confident in all those things. I am confident that in hindsight there will be a lesson in this sunset of the soul, but I’ve never had perfect vision in the moment.

So right now, all that reflection and clinging and trust will have to wait. Right now I am still sitting in the discontent and the lament. God will need to feel far away for a little while longer, while I work up the courage to say I’ve had enough and it’s time for God to come back. Until then, I suppose I will pray in the way we all know how, on my knees at the side of my bed, asking God to remember me, remember us all, when we come into God’s Kingdom.

The post When There’s Nothing To Say appeared first on Anglican Life.

I think the Church needs to pay attention. Right now, Toronto Blue Jays fans are unifying the masses in a way the Church could only ever hope to do. They are better evangelists than the Church could ever hope to produce. And the dedication these athletes are eliciting is beyond anything any priest could ever expect.

Are these parallels superficial and over-simplified? Absolutely. But as Church leaders and Church goers, we must pay attention to what unifies us—not to mimic those things, but to understand what our fellow neighbours need. What this moment in times tells me is that what they need right now is a reminder that all hope is not lost, that there are ways for us to love each other, and that there is still meaning to be found in our lives.

By the grace of God, we have a chance to do that this Advent. In preparing for the coming of Jesus, we meditate on the meaning and character of hope. Which is the feeling we have in anticipation of the coming of Jesus and after his birth. Hope is also the person, Jesus, come to earth to reconcile all things to himself. All hope is not lost because Christ made a promise to us that there is a future without pain and suffering. In remembering Jesus’s birth, we witness love in its purest form, that of a child, and we commit to embodying that love in our lives. Christ’s sacrificial love empowers us to love one another. In waiting in expectation during Advent, we rediscover the meaning of the coming of the Messiah—a declaration of love to the entire world which is characterized by the defeat of death. The meaning in our lives comes from Christ’s promise of eternal life.

We have the message the world longs to hear. Let’s make sure we preach it this Advent Season. And let’s keep honouring what brings our people joy. Because it is in this listening and learning that we can hear the voice of God. We can learn from this moment in time. People want and need to hope and love and find meaning. Our calling is to teach them how to do these things year-round, not just during the World Series. I pray that Advent reinvigorates us for this task, which has become more important than ever.

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I hear this question so often from faithful Anglicans. It’s a valid one that I believe we should be wrestling with. But so often in these conversations, we end up blaming everybody but ourselves. We think that when they started opening the stores and scheduling hockey practices on Sundays, it lured children away from the Church. We think that when they stopped saying the Lord’s Prayer in school, it gave children the impression that religion didn’t matter anymore. Are families confronted with competing worldviews and activities now that they weren’t before? Absolutely. Do I think they are responsible for the decline of youth in our Church? I do not, because none of these “reasons” has done the hard work of self-reflection. The life of Jesus teaches us that when we see a problem, the first thing we need to do is look at ourselves. We need to embody the humility demonstrated for us by Christ and ask: “What about the Church has taught children that they don’t belong there?”

As a priest whose age puts her somewhere in between the young and the old, I have some thoughts on this question. On an institutional level, I believe the intergenerational spiritual harm caused by the Church to various marginalized groups has a lot to do with young people’s disillusionment with the Church. As an institution, however, we have started to repent for these detrimental mistakes. So what is it, despite our attempts at reconciliation, that keeps children and families away? This continued absence, I believe, is due to the contradictory messaging given by the majority of our churches.

Here is a short, non-exhaustive list of examples of this messaging:

• We tell young people they are welcome in our churches, but when they show up we do not make an effort to know them
• We tell young people we want them to be themselves, but then we try to fit them into what we do instead of letting them express themselves in ways that are honest to them.
• We ask young people to conform instead of letting them belong
• We express great desire for young people to become part of our Church families, but then when they come through the doors we separate them from us
• We expect young people to meet our need for a younger demographic, but we do not ask about or meet any of their need
• We want young people to come to us, but we are unwilling to go to them
• We declare young people have a lot to teach us, but we don’t give them opportunities use their voices
• We tell young people we love them for who they are, but then we see them only as symbols (of hope, degeneracy, change)
• We have high expectations for how young people should behave, but we do not demonstrate mature, responsible behaviour in return

I hope you felt uncomfortable reading some of these observations. They should be confronting. They should make us question what we truly value in our faith communities. These observations aren’t just true now. They were true long before the children disappeared. If we want to see youth in our churches we need to do the work. If it didn’t require work, if it didn’t require change, then our pews would be full of young people already. We need to be intentional about our desire to see young people in our churches again.

Not least because Anglican youth do, in fact, exist. They are alive and well. In June I went to General Synod where there was a large youth delegation from across the country. These youth didn’t just attend Synod; they played a major part. They were instrumental in the election of the primate. They brought forth several motions regarding youth involvement in the National Church. They were engaged in discussions on all topics. And they brought joy to worship and prayer. I was impressed and proud to be amongst them as they left their mark on the Anglican Church of Canada.

Just because there are no youth in your own church doesn’t mean there are no youth in the Church as a whole. Youth across this country, including right here in Newfoundland and Labrador, are doing amazing things. They care about the future of the Church because it is their Church too. They are committed to the life of Jesus. Their faith is alive and vibrant and active in exactly the way Jesus asks it to be. As one young person said at General Synod, youth are not the future of the Church, they are the present. They are here right now loving God just like you and me. We would do well to start acting like it.

The post Youth Are The Present appeared first on Anglican Life.

Serendipity

When the forecast was wrong
on the day you watered the garden
And you found a dime on the ground
when it’s been a couple months
With the sun now shining you determine
It’s a fine day to hike the trail
And you find the blueberry bushes
ripe and ready to be picked
You gather them in your palms
And wish you had a bucket
In that moment your neighbour
walks up with an extra one in hand
Back home, the bucket calls from the counter
Begging to be emptied
into the crust of a blueberry pie
When your boss calls from the airport
The meeting’s been pushed
A couple more days
You’re not sure why things work out
This way – why rest comes
When you need it most
Is it serendipity
or God
You wonder
Why not both?

The Parable of the Mustard Seed

I have travelled long and far
Looking for the Kingdom you speak of
The stars watch me as I pray
For a way to describe the future you dream of
Then I held that grace-filled hand
In it the smallest seed I could think of
Watching it grow, I began to know
The something I’ve always been part of
Can I build my home in you?
Like the birds your son once taught of
Because in that tree, I’ve been set free
I have seen the Kingdom you speak of

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When I think about that—the complete misuse of the name of Jesus, I wish I was surprised that we’ve ended up here. We’ve been watching the message of Jesus get warped and twisted throughout the centuries. It’s not surprising that millions of people are convinced that to hate is to be holy. However, it doesn’t make it any less devastating. I did not envision writing in condemnation of fascism, genocide, and patriarchal oppression in my adulthood, but here we are. Navigating the very real possibility of destruction on a global scale. Again.

Many people may think this fear is an overreaction. But oppression thrives when privileged people remain complacent. We cannot sit idly by and hope for the best. The prophets would demand more of us. Jesus requires more from us.

I have spent most of this Lenten season sitting with this grief, lamenting the destruction of a connected society, longing for a missing sense of empathy and compassion, crying out to God for help. I have been using Lent for Lent’s purpose—wandering in the wilderness as I wait for Christ to come. And I believe He will.

As Easter approaches, as we make our way out of the wilderness of Lent, I must believe in the promise of resurrection. I must trust that God plans to breathe life back into all the souls that have accepted defeat. I need to hold onto my God who seeks justice and lifts up the downtrodden, who is angry on behalf of the oppressed. Because if I don’t, if there won’t be a resurrection of empathy and connectedness and humility, then what is there left to believe in?

Easter is the way out of the death we’ve been living through. Easter promises a life worth living, where every human being is loved, cherished, and respected. That means our work, during Lent and beyond, is never in vain.

Easter is a reminder to keep fighting, to keep declaring the justice of Christ in the face of injustice. Easter is a reminder that there is a God who lives—who is living for us and with us as we navigate the responsibility of being Christ in a world that’s trying to use, abuse, and kill him. Easter is the moment we cling to as we hold out hope that this madness can be turned around and that the true God of peace and love can be known once again.

I pray you hold onto hope this Easter Season. It is the posture that will spur us toward action, that will bring us together to fight the evil that threatens to take away our humanity, that will bring us to the beginning of a new day.

The post Holding Out Hope appeared first on Anglican Life.

It’s been a month since the start of 2025. You’ve slowly been settling into this new year. And by now, have probably discovered that, despite your best intentions, and your declarations of “new year, new me,” not much has changed. You are still just as messy. Your brokenness is still on display for the world to see. You have seen no miraculous shift in perspective. And our kids still seem entirely uninterested in what you have to say.

Even though it is tempting to give in to discouragement, I hope you resist. I hope you resist hopelessness and instead accept and embrace the truth behind your circumstances: God is with you. The Church is the Body of Christ. Which means there is good to behold, even if it is hidden behind your hypocrisy and your mistakes.

My hope for you, the Church, this year, is that you would learn to bring this goodness to light, that your proclamation of the good news would not be shrouded by fear or a need for self-preservation but emboldened by a desire to show people the justice of Jesus.

My hope for you, the Church, is that you would be honest and vulnerable when admitting your flaws, and earnestly repent and seek forgiveness from God and also your neighbours.

My hope for you, the Church, is that the deepening of your relationships—with Christ and one another—would be at the centre of every single step you take this year. That your desire for reconciliation and unity would drive your ministry, and that the relationships you build would be evidence of the coming Kingdom of God.

Most of all, my hope for you, the Church, is that you’ll still let me be part of you. That I’ll keep belonging to this messy, grace-needing, grace-giving Body, that I’ll find Jesus there, and continue preaching Jesus there for as long as God calls me to.

In hope and love,

Your member,

Amber

The post A Letter To The Church appeared first on Anglican Life.

I am a planner. In my work life I am often thinking about next December before I am even thinking about this one. And I am definitely thinking about next week before Friday ever comes around. As a consequence, it has historically been quite difficult for me to “live in the moment.” I have at times felt this phrase was overrated. To me, living in the moment meant not being prepared, not being aware of what God was planning.

Now, I feel differently. I understand living in the moment in a different way. I still plan. And I have also learned to slow down. I have lived so much of my life jumping from one moment to the next, moving ahead in order to “get ahead,” that I have missed the thing happening right in front of me. The slow moments, the moments when we are forced to wait, those moments are actually the essence of our lives. Our lives contain more of these moments than anything else. Why would God give them to us if they were not meant to be treasured? These moments are gifts God has given us that make us a full person.

It could not be a more important time to reflect on these small instances in our lives. As Advent begins, most of us are working in overdrive. We are so busy buying things, attending parties, making plans, that all attention to the present moment disappears. But imagine if it didn’t.

In embracing these moments not only am I more relaxed, but I experience more of the joy God wants for me. I see God more in everything I do. As people of God, we are called to a life of seeking God, of longing for God’s presence. I’ve been so focused on seeking God in my future that God had to teach me how to seek God in the present. And from this lesson I’ve truly internalized that God is in all things. Every experience is precious. Every moment is sacred. Because every moment is proof that we are alive, that we worship a God who saves, that we love a God who loves.

As is my practice, I wrote a poem in response to reflecting on this change in me. It’s called Sacred Moments.

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Seeing these tombs and memorials reminded me that Christians of the past were so much more comfortable with death. In many ways they were more connected to the eternal truth of our faith. We walked over and sat on top of plaques announcing the final resting places of those people with enough privilege to claim a spot in the Abbey. As I thought of all the people throughout history who have done the same, I instinctively knew that where for us it was odd and slightly creepy, for them it made absolute sense.

To worship next to those people who had already begun the next part of their eternal life was to be ever reminded of the way all of us are connected through the body of Christ. Death was an event that witnessed to the eternal love of God. And burial within the church was a very visible reminder of how thin the veil between eternity and earth truly is.

There is something about the past’s understanding of death and our current understanding of death that interests me, but which I cannot quite put into words.

Our Christian culture seems to me to be disconnected from death. We do everything we can to avoid the reality of death. When somebody dies, we say they have “passed away.” When we hold a funeral service, we insist on calling it a “celebration of life.” We will do anything to put off processing loss. We will do anything to postpone accepting that a person’s earthly life has come to an end.

The people of the past seem not to have had these problems. They were surrounded by death each time they walked through the church doors. Death, though I’m sure still devastating, seems to have been front and centre in their theological understanding of the Christian life. And I have a suspicion it is because eternal life was at the centre as well.

Which leads me to my actual theory: That the more important disconnect comes in our disconnect from eternal life. I think we have lost the balance between the now and the not yet, between this world and the next. We have become so enthralled with our earthly lives that our eternal identity is out of reach. But maybe we have never had a balance. Maybe the past was too obsessed with the life to come and neglected what was right in front of them.

As a religion, we have always strayed too far one way or the other. And we will perhaps never get it right. I do not have any answers for this predicament. I don’t know how to fix it or if we need to.  But I do know that worshipping in that place reinforced for me something about this faith that we cling to. When Jesus says, “do not be afraid,” it is the truth. We do not need to fear death. Our own or its presence in our lives. Because Christ has conquered it. And we are saved.

The post Visiting Westminster Abbey appeared first on Anglican Life.

The weekend was filled with workshops meant to open our minds to the width and depth of what can be spiritually formative for our own lives and the lives of those in our faith communities.

As I reflected on the weekend, the prayer In Ephesians 3:14-19 kept coming to mind.

This prayer alludes to the breadth and length and height and depth of God. This passage opens our eyes to just how expansive God’s transformation of his world is. I feel like my experience at this conference was a lived example of this meditation on God in Ephesians. So many of the things we do can be spiritually formative: cooking and eating together, going for a walk, playing games, listening to music, writing, or fishing. To be a Christian is to be completely enveloped by the love of God, meaning everything we do is Spirit-breathed. The Spirit can use each instance in our lives to further reveal to us the fullness of God and the riches of his glory.

This experience reminded me that we can always go deeper as followers of Christ. God will always desire that we know him better. The good news is because God is always near, because God is in everything, there are so many ways to connect with him. There are so many entry points to the love of God. Our job as leaders is to first, find those connection points for ourselves and then, help our communities make those connections too. The crucial task for us is that we find the connections that root us and ground us in Christ’s love, as the author of Ephesians prays for us. These connections may be different for different people. There is no one secret formula. To proclaim that there is, is to try to control the work of God.

All our communities could do with a wider and deeper understanding of what is spiritually formative. All of us could do with putting fewer limits on the mystery that is the almighty God.

It was a blessing to gather, collaborate, and make connections with ministry leaders from across the country. It is so clear to me that we have so much to learn from each other. These leaders embodied the hope made possible in Christ, and I have never had a clearer sense of what it means to be part of the Body of Christ.

There was something particularly holy about even the simplest parts of our time together, in the eating and drinking, in the waiting and watching, in the carpooling and contact exchanging.

This gathering was proof that the fermentation of a culture of spiritual maturity happens most reliably when we love one another, when we are vulnerable with one another, when we share ourselves and our time with one another.

We spent the weekend learning about spiritual formation. For me, the conference itself was one of the most spiritually formative experiences I’ve had in a long time. I am grateful for the opportunity, and I pray God uses my experience for the good of his kingdom.

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