On December 31, I will step down as rector of St. Margaret’s Anglican Church in Edmonton, and I will also retire from full time ministry in the Anglican Church of Canada. Both of those roles have been long term commitments for me. I started work in this parish on Feb 1, 2000, so I will be just one month short of twenty-four years in this position when I step down. Going much further back, I was commissioned as a full time evangelist in the Church Army in Canada on May 5, 1978, and began my first job on June 1 that year. Since then i have worked in parishes in rural Ontario (1978-79), Saskatchewan (1979-84), the Northwest Territories (1984-91), northern Alberta (1991-2000), and finally in the city of Edmonton (2000-2023).
I’m looking forward to what lies ahead. I will continue to do some work for the Diocese of Edmonton (especially in my role of Warden of Lay Evangelists), but I will not be doing any Sunday ministry for a period of at least one year. Marci and I have sat separately in church for almost 44 years now, and we are looking forward to being able to sit together in a church pew and worship as members of a congregation. And it will not be St. Margaret’s; much as we love this congregation, we need to get out of the way so that the rector who follows me doesn’t always have the old guy looking over their shoulder!
Many of you will know that I enjoy writing, both fiction and spirituality, and I expect to do more of that in the days ahead. I enjoy my participation in the folk music community in Edmonton, and I have a large circle of musical friends; I’m looking forward to spending more time with them. There are also lots of lovely walking trails to explore, in the city and the surrounding area, and we would like to do some travelling as well.
And then there is our family! Three of our children live here in Edmonton, with one in the Peace River country, and our two grandchildren are here in the city. I will enjoy having more time to spend with them on a regular basis. The clergy role requires a lot of evening and weekend work, and it’s easy for family time to suffer. My family has been very patient over the years, but I’m looking forward to making it up to them now. It will be a luxury, for instance, to be able to choose which Christmas service I will attend, rather than having to be at every single one of them!
But there’s more to it than that. I am aware that for the past forty-four years, my experience of Christian spirituality and discipleship has been largely shaped by my calling as an Anglican minister and priest. This has been wonderful, but it has also taken quite a few decisions out of my hands. I have a strong sense that I’m being given the opportunity to do some fresh exploring now, and I’m quite excited about that.
But it’s not December 31 yet! There are many things that need to be done to prepare for that day. We have a parish list with about a hundred and twenty addresses on it (individuals and families), and I’m sure some of it is not up to date. Like all churches, we have people on our parish list who we haven’t seen for years, and we don’t know whether or not they still see themselves as part of our church, or whether they’ve moved on. So I’ve taken on the enormous undertaking of doing an every-member visitation of the parish from September to December this year. I say, ‘enormous undertaking’, because it will require me to do about eight visits a week in order to get around to everyone during this time. But I think it’s important, because I need a sense of where people are at, and I need an accurate picture to pass on to my successor.
Our vestry and wardens also have a ‘To-Do List’. It includes things like creating a church policies and procedures manual (a scary amount of that sort of stuff only exists in my head, and the head of the rector’s warden!) – making sure we’re fully compliant with the diocesan ‘safe church’ procedures – beginning to move toward having a paid keyboard player on Sundays, and finding the funding for that – and other things like that.
I’m privileged to lead a congregation with a very high involvement of lay people in ministries. We have six licensed lay-readers (lay people who are trained to lead or assist at Sunday services, and preach), and I also have two volunteer clergy (‘honorary assistants’) who minister regularly in the parish. We have excellent churchwardens and vestry members, a good hospitality committee, and many others who serve Christ in various ways as part of our parish family.
Our parish is also changing. It is almost two years now since we came back from the Covid-19 shutdown and began holding on-site Sunday morning services again. Some of our pre-Covid-19 membership has not returned, but we have been blessed with an influx of new members over the past two years, and many of them are from Africa. This new cultural mix is exciting and challenging; it brings us fresh joy (and fresh youthfulness!), but it also challenges us to examine our cultural assumptions and make sure we are truly an inclusive church.
What will not change for me on January 1 is my love for Jesus and his gospel. I will continue to see myself as a follower of Jesus, doing my best (with his help) to learn from him the new way of life of the Kingdom of God. The two great commandments—to love God with all my heart and soul and mind and strength, and to love my neighbour as myself—will continue to be right at the centre of my life. And I will continue to learn how to live and share the love of Christ with the people God brings my way.
My old friend Terry Buckle used to say “Jesus is wonderful, and people are wonderful, and the most wonderful thing of all is to bring them together.” Maybe that sounds trite and simplistic, but i have found it to be profoundly true. The thing I look back on with the most gratitude has been the opportunity to help people connect with Jesus for the first time, and grow in that new life. In every parish I’ve served, I’ve tried to keep that ministry front and centre in the life of the church. I know I haven’t always succeeded in that, but the struggle has been well worth it.
So now, onward and upward! It’s not December 31 yet, and there’s a lot to do!
Faith, Folk and Charity 
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