Category Archives: Formation

Divine Renovation

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Divine Renovation: From a Maintenance to a Missional Parish
By James Mallon
Novalis Publishing/2014/286 pages

Fr. James Mallon is pastor and priest at the Roman Catholic Saint Benedict Parish in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He speaks frequently on the topic of church renewal and has hosted internationally acclaimed DVD series on Catholicism and Dogmatic Theology. St. Benedict is an amalgamation of three former parishes and under Fr. Mallon’s care has achieved remarkable success in becoming a Christian community focussed on mission outside of its doors as opposed to an inward- looking maintenance ministry. In this book, the author offers practical guidance and a step by step blueprint on that process.

Its time to start making disciples. The future of the Church depends on it.

The Church today is faced often with the overwhelming task of maintaining property. While our buildings are an enormous gift from our past, they can also become one of our greatest burdens if we are not successful at becoming the missional church we are called to be. Jesus does not call us to be caretakers but, rather to serve him by serving the world and making disciples. “Its time to start making disciples,” says Fr. Mallon. “The future of the Church depends on it.”

Chapter two focusses on a grounding of the theory to be presented from Roman Catholic specific papal encyclicals and denominational specific documents. That goal completed, Divine Renovation progresses towards an insightful read for the Christian of any denomination. It is particularly applicable for any denomination that recognizes sacramental dimensions of the faith. “The sacraments are our greatest pastoral opportunity” and, perhaps one of the reasons I find it easy to recommend this book is that I agree wholeheartedly with most, if not all, of the author’s fundamental beginning points as well as the conclusions. Changing the “culture” of the Christian Community is necessarily at the heart of a transformation from maintenance to mission. It is that change of culture that consumes the majority of this text.

The practical road map leading to the transformation of church culture is divided into several sections. These might be alternatively titled: “Fr. Mallon’s marks of a healthy church.”

  • Giving Priority to the Weekend
  • Hospitality
  • Uplifting Music
  • Homilies
  • Meaningful Community
  • Clear Expectations
  • Strength-based Ministry

Inspiring, practical, challenging and a bracing call are among the terms others have used to describe an insightful book. A good read for anyone who cares about how to do Church in our current context. Fr. Mallon addresses the clergy of the Anglican Diocese of Fredericton during the clergy conference in August of 2016.

Geoffrey Hall

Celebration of Discipline

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Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth
By Richard J. Foster
Harper Books / 1998 / 228 pages / Revised Edition

We read in the New Testament about the “Gifts of the Spirit” and the “Fruit of the Spirit.”

But, what do people mean when they use the term, “the Spiritual Disciplines?”  What is a ‘spiritual discipline’ and how does the practice of these disciplines affect a person’s maturity in the Faith, as well as the corporate expression of that maturity in a local church community?

Richard Foster explores this important terrain in his book, Celebration of Discipline.  Originally published in 1978, this volume has been republished several times, in revised and expanded form.  Considered to be one of the best modern handbooks to focused, faithful Christian living, Celebration of Discipline explores the essential spiritual practices used today, and down through the ages.

Richard J. Foster is the author of several bestselling books, including Celebration of Discipline, Streams of Living Water, Life with God, Freedom of Simplicity and Prayer. He is the founder of the American intrachurch movement, Renovaré, an organization committed to the renewal of the Church in our day.

Foster divides the spiritual disciplines into three categories and explains how each of these expressions of the Spirit contribute to the symmetry and fullness of a person’s life-journey. The inward disciplines of meditation, prayer, fasting, and study, offer avenues of personal examination and change. The outward disciplines of simplicity, solitude, submission, and service, help prepare us to make the world a better place. The corporate disciplines of confession, worship, guidance, and celebration, bring us nearer to one another and to God.

“Like a child exploring the attic of an old house on a rainy day, discovering a trunk full of treasure and then calling all his brothers and sisters to share the find, Richard J. Foster has ‘found’ the spiritual disciplines that the modern world stored away and forgot, and has excitedly called us to celebrate them.  For they are, as he shows us, the instruments of joy, the way into mature Christian spirituality and abundant life.” ~ Eugene H. Peterson.

Selected quotes from Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline:

“God has given us the Disciplines of the spiritual life as a means of receiving his grace. The Disciplines allow us to place ourselves before God so that he can transform us.”

“Humility, as we all know, is one of those virtues that is never gained by seeking it. The more we pursue it the more distant it becomes. To think we have it is sure evidence that we don’t.”

“Silence is one of the deepest Disciplines of the Spirit simply because it puts the stopper on all self-justification.”

“Of all spiritual disciplines prayer is the most central because it ushers us into perpetual communion with the Father.”

“To pray is to change. All who have walked with God have viewed prayer as the main business of their lives.”

“The purpose of meditation is to enable us to hear God more clearly. Meditation is listening, sensing, heeding the life and light of Christ. This comes right to the heart of our faith. The life that pleases God is not a set of religious duties; it is to hear His voice and obey His word. Meditation opens the door to this way of living.

“Fasting must forever centre on God. More than any other Discipline, fasting reveals the things that control us.

“Disciplines are not the answer; they only lead us to the Answer. We must clearly understand this limitation of the Disciplines if we are to avoid bondage.”

Gregg Finley

The Holy Longing

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By Ronald Rolheiser
DoubleDay/1999/257 pages

Ronald Rolheiser’s The Holy Longing is a modern classic.  It has been read and endorsed by clergy and lay people across the Christian world.  Essential reading for those seeking to understand and deepen their practice of Christian spirituality, this book explains the complexion of one’s personal spirituality and how to apply it to our worship, and our day-to-day lives.  This book is for folks with questions about what Christians believe and what it means to actually live life by faith, following the example of Jesus and the Saints.  It unpacks the key ingredients of an attractive, authentic spiritual life.

Rolheiser probes this question: “What is spirituality?”  He writes about the confusion that can surround this subject amid the wide assortment of spiritual beliefs and practices of our day.  With great sensitivity to debates and challenges swirling around the faith-life, he explains the “Nonnegotiable Essentials,” including the importance of community worship, the richness of ritual, the imperatives surrounding social justice, peacemaking, sexuality, the centrality of the Trinity, and more.  The book presents an outline of Christian spirituality that reflects the continuing search for meaning at the heart of the human experience.  Rolheiser writes about the search for love and wholeness in language accessible to all.

Ronald Rolheiser is a Canadian.  He hails from Cactus Lake, Saskatchewan.  He is a Roman Catholic priest and member of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate.  He serves as President of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, Texas, is author of the several books The Restless Heart, Forgotten Among the Lilies, The Shattered Lantern, Against An Infinite Horizon, and Sacred Fire: A vision for a Deeper Human and Christian Maturity. He is a community-builder, lecturer and writer, and his weekly column appears in more than 90 Catholic publications.   Rolheiser received an honorary doctorate from Fredericton’s St. Thomas University in 2005.  A substantial selection of his articles and reflections are available online at ronrolheiser.com

Selected quotes from Ronald Rolheiser’s The Holy Longing:

“Becoming like Jesus is as much as about having a relaxed and joyful heart as it is about believing and doing the right thing, as much about proper energy as about proper truth.”

“In this life, all symphonies remain unfinished. Our deep longings are never really satisfied. What this means, among other things, is that we are not restful creatures who sometimes get restless, fulfilled people who sometimes are dissatisfied, serene people who sometimes experience disquiet. Rather, we are restless people who occasionally find rest, dissatisfied people who occasionally find fulfillment, and disquieted people who occasionally find serenity.”

“Spirituality…is about being integrated or falling apart, about being within community or being lonely, about being in harmony with Mother Earth or being alienated from her. Irrespective of whether or not we let ourselves be consciously shaped by any explicit religious idea, we act in ways that leave us either healthy or unhealthy, loving or bitter. What shapes our actions is our spirituality.

“Write a book,” he told me, “that I can give to my adult children to explain why I still believe in God and why I still go to church—and that I can read on days when I am no longer sure why I believe or go to church.”

Gregg Finley

Surprised by Scripture

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Surprised by Scripture: Engaging Contemporary Issues

By: N.T. Wright
Harper-Collins / 2014 / 320 pages

N.T. Wright is a widely-read British Bible scholar and retired Anglican bishop. According to Time Magazine, Wright is one of the most formidable figures in the world of Christian thought. He served as Bishop of Durham between 2003 and 2010.  Currently he is Research Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at St Mary’s College, University of St. Andrews in Scotland.   Some commentators have referred to him as a modern C.S. Lewis.

His writing actually opens up the Bible so that it can “speak” into the down-to-earth realities of one’s life. Wright offers fresh perspectives on how to approach Scripture; how readers can be nourished by the Bible day by day.  He presents good reasons to ponder and pray through sections of biblical text. His insights encourage readers to ask important questions about how to go deeper in their faith-journey.

The 12 chapters of this book present a collection of N.T. Wright’s essays and talks — case studies that explore how and why the Bible speaks to some of the most pressing contemporary issues.  There are interesting surprises between the covers of Surprised by Scripture.   Some chapter titles follow:

  • Can a Scientist Believe in the Resurrection?
  • 9/11, Tsunamis, and the New Problem of Evil
  • Idolatry 2.0
  • Our Politics Are Too Small

Selected quotes from N.T. Wright’s Surprised By Scripture:

“The question for us, as we learn again and again the lessons of hope for ourselves, is how we can be for the world what Jesus was for Thomas: how we can show to the world the signs of love, how we can reach out our hands in love, wounded though they will be if the love has been true, how we can invite those whose hearts have grown shrunken and shriveled with sorrow and disbelief to come and see what love has done, what love is doing, in our communities, our neighborhoods:”

“science takes things apart to see how they work, but religion puts things together to see what they mean.”

“But from the start the early Christians believed that the resurrection body, though it would certainly be a body in the sense of a physical object, would be a transformed body, a body whose material, created from the old material, would have new properties. That is what Paul means by the “spiritual body”: not a body made out of nonphysical spirit, but a physical body animated by the Spirit, a Spirit-driven body if you like: still what we would call physical but differently animated.”

“The church is not simply a religious body looking for a safe place to do its own thing within a wider political or social world. The church is neither more nor less than people who bear witness, by their very existence and in particular their holiness and their unity (Colossians 3), that Jesus is the world’s true lord, ridiculous or even scandalous though this may seem.”

“Here is the challenge, I believe, for the Christian artist, in whatever sphere: to tell the story of the new world so that people can taste it and want it, even while acknowledging the reality of the desert in which we presently live.”

Gregg Finley

Confirmation Preparation Continues

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Preparation for confirmation by 6 students from each of Christ Church Cathedral and the Anglican Parish of New Maryland continues. Confirmation is scheduled for June of this year.

Each participant has an adult mentor who is walking through the process with them. The programme includes nine group meetings of instruction punctuated by 9 meetings with mentors. The meetings are scheduled between the Cathedral and Holy Trinity, New Maryland.

PROGRAMME OVERVIEW
In the Anglican Church, we are all about making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. We have the great privilege to help our young people and students take the next step in their relationship with Jesus, and we are excited by the work God is doing in their lives. One of the ways we are able to help students develop spiritually is through the Sacrament of Confirmation and the meaningful preparation for it.

Through the process of confirmation preparation, students are encouraged to take ownership of the faith that their parents/guardians/sponsors at Baptism have passed on to them. The confirmation program seeks to launch students into the life of a disciple and member of the Body of Christ in the Anglican Church.

PROGRAMME STRUCTURE
Through individual study, Bible reading, group discussion, projects, prayer, and mission/field trips, and mentor sessions, students are led to a point of personal decision. They are presented with an opportunity to make a public response to God’s grace, the reaffirmation of the baptismal covenant and proclaim faith in Jesus Christ.

16_confirmation_class

PROGRAMME OUTLINE

Parent Mentor Training

UNIT 1: The Faith Through Scripture and Worship
Memorize: The Lord’s Prayer

Class 1 – Expectations/Initiation
Session – Getting Acquainted

Class 2 – Worship and Prayer
Session 2 – Holy Baptism

Class 3 – The Holy Bible
Session 3 – The Gospel of Luke
Mission Field Trip

UNIT 2: The Faith Through Doctrine
Memorize: The Ten Commandments

Class 4 – God/Creeds/Doctrines
Session 4 – God/Jesus/Holy Spirit

Class 5 – Ministry/Structure
Session 5 – The Body of Christ

Class 6 – Commandments/Rule
Church Visit / Interview

UNIT 3: The Faith Through Symbol and Sign
Memorize: The Apostles’ Creed

Class 7 – Symbols and Seasons
Session 6 – Spiritual Life
Cathedral Guided Tour – Cathedral

Class 8 – The Sacraments/Eucharist
Instructed Eucharist
Session 7- The Journey Continues

Class 9 – Wrap up OR Retreat?

Confirmation – A “New” Approach?

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This year at the Cathedral, we’re offering preparation for the Sacrament of Confirmation, the Laying on of Hands by the Bishop. The programme outline is here. The goal is age-old, to bring those who seek strengthening in the Faith by the Holy Spirit into closer relationship with God and with the rest of the Church. But the approach this year is different. Recognizing what Confirmation really means in our Anglican tradition, we’ll be employing a mentor model which should add an exciting dimension to what may have been in the past a somewhat mundane attempt at enlivening faith. Making disciples will be our primary goal.

The goal is age-old … But the approach this year is different.

fred-hiltz-credit-anglican-church-canada

Archbishop Fred Hiltz

We’ll recognize that those who are preparing for confirmation are members of the “Catechumenate.” The process will include various components:

  • “classes” where all gather for a time of instruction and discussion;
  • “sessions” where confirmands and mentors will meet for a more one on one experience of conversation on topics reinforcing some of the class material;
  • supplementary activities like an “instructed” eucharist, a Cathedral tour, or mission field trip(s) to explore what it means to put faith into action.

We are also excited about the involvement of the Anglican Parish of New Maryland as they partner with us in this ministry this year. The Report of the Fredericton Archdeaconry Commission in 2012 (Supplemental 2013) encouraged Fredericton area parishes (Fredericton South Cluster) to work together to build relationships, share resources and more fully exemplify the Church as One.

confirmation2What is the Catechumenate?
The teaching customarily part of confirmation preparation (or confirmation classes) is the Catechism (page 544-555 Book of Common Prayer). In times past, this “instruction” has been minimally a simple memorization of the contents of Catechism. In contemporary times, we’ve come to understand traditional methods of “learning” are less than effective and would look now to other educational methods that better lend themselves to deeper learning experiences. No area of our lives could benefit more from these newer ways than our knowledge and understanding of our faith.

What is Confirmation?
Confirmation is one of the rites of Christian initiation. Once thought of as a completion of Baptism, we now more commonly look to Confirmation as representing the event at the age of discretion when we make a profession of the faith that was made for us at Baptism, probably as an infant. Confirmation does not complete our Baptism, as we become full members of the Church when we are baptized. Confirmation is an opportunity to confess the faith personally. Confirmation is but one more step in the life-long process of becoming disciples.

Will you who witness these vows being made do all in your power to support these persons in their life in Christ?

15_confirmation_pnsj

2015 Confirmation in the Parish of the Nerepis and St. John

What’s our part in this process?
At the time of a baptism, the congregation is asked a very pointed question: “Will you who witness these vows being made do all in your power to support these persons in their life in Christ?” We answer: “We will.” Unfortunately, for many of us, that’s the last time we think of the answer. But the community of faith has a responsibility of nurture and support for those individuals. That will be expressed through the participation of mentors this year, who will carry a burden of that support on behalf of the congregation. We all also have a responsibility to pray regularly for those who are part of the Catechumenate. On Sunday, 28 February we’ll officially admit confirmands, parents and mentors to the Catechumenate.

If you would like to explore more fully what a renewed emphasis on the Catechumenate could mean for the life and faith of the Church or have been lead simply to be asking what this is all about, several articles are available, all on the Anglican Church of Canada website:

Making Disciples
What Is the Catechumenate?
The Ritual Shape of Catechumenal Ministry
Custom Designing the Catechumenate for your Parish

We say goodbye to Willis Noble

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At the Cathedral we’ll say goodbye to Willis Noble, Director of Music, on the last Sunday in March.  Willis plans to embark on a journey of further academic studies early next fall and will be moving to Toronto.

The Cathedral congregations will say thank you to Willis on Easter Sunday, 27 March following a 10:30 a.m. combined worship when he insists that he will provide the cake, as his own  expression of thanksgiving. “I have nothing but fondness for the people and of my time at the Cathedral,” Willis said.

“The past ten years are some of my most cherished memories and I am thankful for the time I’ve spent with the Cathedral community.”

As an accomplished organist, teacher and choral director, Willis has also successfully continued to nurture a contemporary Christian music group leading the more informal styled 11:45 a.m. worship on Sundays.

Dean Geoffrey Hall said, “I’ve not known a church musician with whom it is easier to work.  Willis hasw_noble a grasp of liturgy and the theological and a breadth of musical ability that has made him a very good fit for the needs of the Cathedral over the past decade.”

“I’ve not known a church musician with whom it is easier to work.” Dean Geoffrey Hall

Of course the Cathedral has been only part of his contribution to the musical community while in Fredericton.  Willis has also been part of the adjunct faculty in the Department of Fine Arts at St. Thomas University. Reporting his being honoured by the New Brunswick Choral Federation for his distinguished service to choral music in the province in 2013 and the Stanley B. Cassidy Memorial Award by the Fredericton Music Society for his outstanding contribution to music in the Fredericton community, the STU website had this to say about him:

“Willis is not only a fantastic musician with an illustrious professional career, but also an extraordinary teacher and a wonderful colleague,” says Dr. Martin Kutnowski, Chair of the Fine Arts Department. He teaches a wide range of courses. Given the satisfaction of his students, it’s clear that Willis feels equally at home when teaching the most basic elements of music, as in a music rudiments class, or when teaching the challenging subject of music and meaning, and everything in between. We are very lucky to have him at STU.”

choirBeing of the Christian faith few at the Cathedral would  put luck high on a list of why things are the way they are. We can only give thanks that God called Willis to spend these past ten years with us.  We wish him well as he moves on to new endeavours.

From 1997-2005, Dr. Noble was Director of Music at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene in Toronto and Director of Music for Trinity College, University of Toronto. He was also an Associate Professor of Divinity at Trinity College.

Until 1997, Dr. Noble was head of the Department of Music at Mount Allison University, where he taught church music, organ, and choral music. He also conducted the Chamber Choir. He was also the Organist and Choir Director of St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Sackville, a position he held from 1984 to 1997.

Dr. Noble has extensive teaching experience, including history of choral music, church music (especially Canadian repertoire), and Baroque music. He was also a member of the board of the New Brunswick Choral Federation, and Director of the Diocesan School of Church Music. He is an active recitalist specializing in Canadian Organ Repertoire.

Willis has a Master’s Degree in Music from the University of Toronto, and has earned a doctorate from Indiana University in 1982.  He is the author of ‘Sacred Choral Music in Canada.’

Lenten Study 2016

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Prayer will be the suggested focus for Lent.

Our Bishop has recommended a book for use throughout the Diocese entitled: “Meditative Prayer: Entering God’s Presence” by Richard Peace.

The plan will be to form small groups for study and we’ll need both willing hosts and/or facilitators. Each group can schedule as it prefers. The Dean will attempt to visit each of the groups for one session during Lent to provide an informal celebration of the Eucharist and a blessing of the home (if desired).

View a preview version of “Meditative Prayer” or read the jacket overview that follows.  Register and share your participation preferences HERE.

From “Meditative Prayer:”

Our prayers should go as deep as our souls.

Spiritual disciplines are simply ways to open ourselves to God. They help us become aware of the many ways God speaks to us and provide us with ways to respond to God. This book explores and explains how the historical disciplines and perspectives of the Christian faith can deepen both our walk with God and our community with others.

In today’s society we ore often handicapped in our spiritual growth by too narrow a horizon when it comes to spiritual practices. Each generation suffers a kind of collective amnesia, forgetting the practices and perspectives that nourished countless followers of Christ in centuries past. Rediscovering these skills is one way to respond to our culture’s—and our own—deep spiritual hunger.

While it is seemingly preposterous for us to suppose we can interact with the God of this universe, Scripture repeatedly invites us to do that very thing. Prayer is not a minor idea tucked into the cracks of the text; it is central, normative, and expected. Why is it, then, that our prayers are so often dry and difficult?

In Meditative Prayer, you’ll discover those ways of prayer that make use of your mind and imagination, that address your needs as well as strengthen your spirit. By drawing from a number of different sources —from Scripture, from wise men and women who have gone before, and from one another—this study guide will enable your soul to drink deeply from the inexhaustible well of prayer. Though you can use this guide for a personal journey of prayer, it is ideally suited for exploration with a small group of like-minded friends.

Dean Geoffrey Hall
08 January 2016