Reconciliation Matters - Ecumenical Worship

At 9am on Sunday, May 31st, 2015, representatives of Reconciliation Canada, a group established to support awareness of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission activities lit a sacred fire in the Wall Centre Plaza, beginning a day of support for TRC events taking place that same day in Ottawa.  

A significant part of this event, (entitled Reconciliation Matters) was a 10:30am church service at St. Andrew’s-Wesley involving the congregations of three downtown churches: the host congregation, St. Andrew’s Wesley, United Church of Canada; Christ Church Cathedral, Anglican Church of Canada; and Central Presbyterian. A fourth congregation, First Baptist and pastor, Darrell Johnson was also involved.  

The Christ Church Cathedral congregation does not have access to their 126 year old Burrard and Georgia Street location due to construction and are currently celebrating the main Sunday worship service in the ballroom of the Century Plaza Hotel located next door to St. Andrew’s Wesley. Central Presbyterian has also been involved in a renovation project involving their building. The three pastors: Reverend Dan Chambers of St. Andrew’s-Wesley; Reverend Jim Smith of Central Presbyterian; and Dean Peter Elliott of Christ Church Cathedral brought together their respective congregations, music leaders, children’s ministry leaders, intercessors, readers, and greeting teams assembling a truly ecumenical worship event. First Baptist located across the street from St. Andrew’s continued with their scheduled 11am service, however they hosted an ecumenical service later that day at 2:30pm which included participation of the three aforementioned denominations, members of the Holy Rosary Roman Catholic Cathedral congregation and others.  

By 10am the nave of St. Andrew’s was beginning to fill, the chancel area a hive of activity with the three combined choirs rehearsing the music in worship and the children’s and youth ministry leaders organizing the participation in the service by younger members of the congregations. At 10:15, St. Andrew’s, Minister of Music, organist, Darryl Nixon and bassoonist, Gwen Seaton delighted the arriving congregation with a number of prelude selections.  

Worship began at 10:30am with a welcome from Rev. Dan Chambers who introduced Ruth Adams of Hummingbird Ministries, a ministry to Indigenous people located at Central Presbyterian. Ruth welcomed the 800+ congregation on behalf of the Coast Salish peoples and offered the traditional song of welcome, “Wo He Lo”. This was followed by the Four Directions Prayer led by Hummingbird Ministries Director, Mary Fontaine, assisted by Hummingbird Ministry elders, Ruth Adams, Dorothy Vissar and Laura Fortin, and then Mary led the Cree Song of Honour, “Kinan’askom’tinan”. The four women were presented with a gift of new blankets by the three pastors.  

Prior to the Opening Hymn for Trinity Sunday, “Holy, Holy, Holy”, three children representing the three congregations lit the Christ Candle. Darrell Johnson of First Baptist offered the Opening Prayer. Following the prayer he shared with the congregation what the organizing of this ecumenical event has meant to him. He said “Something much deeper is happening here,” there is a spirit of “ecumenical reconciliation” in the air. He thanked all three pastors present: Rev. Chambers “for his winsome, gracious competence”; the Rev. Smith “for his quiet strength”; and Dean Elliott “whose unconditional welcome to me as a brother means more than he can ever know.” And then he had to make tracks across the street to First Baptist for the 11am worship.  

With the opening hymn concluded, the three leaders of the children’s programs gathered all the children in front of the chancel steps. The three took turns explaining to the children a different component of the history of European settlers and Indigenous people. They told the story of the desire of the settlers to homogenize the cultures of the aboriginal people and their attempt to destroy those cultures and force them to conform to the “only way” which was their way. This was largely done through the establishment of Indian Residential Schools. The leaders explained to the children that the past six years of the TRC gave Indian Residential School survivors and their families, children and grandchildren an opportunity to tell the stories of “how they were hurt.” Rosie Hewett, youth and children’s ministry coordinator at Christ Church Cathedral told the children that after today and subsequently the June 2nd receipt of the TRC’s recommendations there will be a great deal of work to be done. First Nations peoples do not have the same access to things as basic as clean water and education. Rosie informed the children that there is much less money directed to schools in First Nations communities than there is “to your schools”. She concluded by saying that God loves everyone and God celebrates our differences.  

The speaker for the service was lawyer and teacher, Douglas White, Interim Director at the Centre for Pre-Confederation Treaties and Reconciliation at Vancouver Island University. He began by thanking the three host First Nations: Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh. He expressed his thanks at being invited to speak and added that he was very conscious of being a representative of all his people and “felt that burden”. Douglas addressed these feelings by offering an ancient chant to the Creator. Following the song he said that events like these are the groundwork for reconciliation, building a foundation for social change.  

Douglas said that his understanding is that “it goes back into the early 17th Century, the first iterations of the residential school system. And that the residential school system became an important part of the project, and the work of Canada to try to displace and set aside Indigenous peoples and their identities. The Chief Justice of Canada just spoke in Toronto the other night and talked about how the work and the policies – all considered, amount to cultural genocide…we know very clearly that the intent of the residential schools system was to remove and to take out the Indian from the child…they were viewed as incorrect, unworthy.”  

Douglas then made reference to what he had heard from his mother regarding her residential school suffering. She had shared her experiences of loneliness, lack of affection and hunger. How these painful early experiences have affected her relationship with food. While at the school she could not acknowledge her relationship with her brother. They were split up, segregated in order to break down the structure of the family, to destroy the culture at its most basic elements. The legacy of this are entire families, entire communities without the knowledge of how to be a relative. The absence of children created an environment where no one knew how to be a parent, a grandparent, uncle, or aunt because there weren’t any children around to be grandchildren or nieces or nephews. “I’ve seen in my own community the continuing echoes and implications of all of that experience unfold – in the most ugly and disastrous ways… this is not something from our past, it continues to be absolutely relevant in the lived lives and experiences of Indigenous peoples across this country.”  

Then Douglas said that this did not only damage Indigenous people, it significantly damaged the country of Canada, “that a people in a society cannot inflict this kind of harm on another people without also harming themselves.”  

At the end of his address he offered some hope to face the “fundamental brokenness  about all of us.” Douglas urged the congregation to “continue to do what you are doing -  to bring your hearts, to bring your minds, to bring your love, to build the reconciliation that is so desperately needed and can be at the foundation of beautiful whole lives for all of us.” (A video of Douglas White’s speech is available by clicking this link.)  

The intercessions led by a representative of each congregation reflected the tone of the morning’s worship and of Douglas’s words, asking God’s forgiveness, support and guidance, as we endevour to enter into a new way of being, with our hearts and minds committed to reconciliation through love.  

As the service entered the final sections there was a “Call to Offering” and gathering of gifts while the combined choirs sang Edgar Bainton’s “And I Saw A New Heaven”. It had been decided by the organizers of the ecumenical worship that the loose offering be directed to Hummingbird Ministries.  

At the conclusion of worship, the congregation was encouraged to go across the street to enjoy the street fair being held in the Wall Centre Plaza. There were: two food trucks, a cool band, information tables, a place to buy blankets, volunteers ready to share the history of Canada’s Indian Residential Schools and some craft tables displaying beautiful works by First Nations artisans.  

In closing, here are the words of Christ Church Cathedral parishioner, Jeffrey Preiss who in a social media post wrote, “It was one of the most moving services I've ever attended. We were not Anglican, United, or Presbyterian. We were Christians -- all parts of one Body -- gathered in solidarity and love, seeking truth and reconciliation.”  

To view a photo essay of this event please visit Anglican Conversation - the Diocese of New Westminster's Facebook Page.