‘The Spirit has been present in new and exciting ways’

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Planning, disruption and hope in a pandemic year

'What do you do when you’re trying to come up with a plan, and a pandemic hits and stops everything in its tracks?

'...Over the past seven months the SPWG (Strategic Planning Working Group of the Anglican Church of Canada), guided by the theme, “A Changing Church. A Searching World. A Faithful God,” has left the normal planning processes behind and instead invited small groups of laity and clergy from across the country to come together (over Zoom, of course!) to listen and learn. Groups have been led by teams consisting of members of CoGS and the SPWG, and have been organized according to particular areas of interest and responsibility. There are listening groups of bishops, synod staff, diocesan councils, financial officers, young clergy, Indigenous community leaders, Anglicans focused on social justice and community ministries, communications officers and congregational development leaders, and others. In all, more than 125 individuals have met—some of them up to three times—to share their experiences, to support each other, to build relationships and to foster hope for the future.'

Read Monique Stone's article on anglicanjournal.com, here.