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We Together is our diocesan biennial family reunion. It's an opportunity to reconnect with old friends and a time to make new ones. Together we learn about, pray about and share what God is up to in our lives, strengthening ourselves, as the diocese of Islands and Inlets, for the journey God is calling us to.
The theme of this year’s conference will be “Here in This Place.” We will begin our time together with a banquet on Friday night with Bishop Anna providing our opening address. Two keynote address will take place on Saturday with opportunities to break into small group and discuss material.
Our first keynote speaker is Jillian Harris, a knowledge holder, Elder and former Chief of the Penelakut Tribe. She studied at Vancouver School of Theology and is a traditional funeral worker in her community. She will invite us to remember the earliest Church of England missions here on these islands and inlets, and what they might mean for us now.
Our second keynote speaker is Rachel Brown. Rachel is the program coordinator at the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society at the University of Victoria. She is a religious studies scholar who has had an integral role in the project that has culminated in the publication of Religion at the Edge: Nature, Spirituality, and Secularity in the Pacific Northwest (UBC Press 2022).
We will end our time with the celebration of the Eucharist and a closing sermon by John Thatamanil, our diocesan theologian. John is a comparative theologian and professor of theology at Union Theological Seminary. John will reflect on our time together and send us back into our places with a renewed sense of what it means to be here in this place.
To register for this event, please CLICK HERE.
July 25, 2022 update from Bishop Anna:
Join us at We Together
Dear friends,
I am writing to invite you to consider joining me in Nanaimo on September 30 and October 1 for We Together.
There have been precious few opportunities for us to be together, in person, since I began as bishop and this weekend event will be an important time for us to check in with one another and to engage, faithfully, in the work of discerning what particular work God is calling us to in this diocese of Islands and Inlets. The weekend is designed to be engaging, interactive and fun, and to send people away inspired and energized.
FRIDAY
We will begin Friday evening at St Paul, Nanaimo, with an opening worship marking the National Day of Reconciliation. We will pray and reflect on the particular work of reconciliation we are called to do in our diocese. We will then adjourn to the parish hall for a meal and my Bishop’s Address. I look forward to sharing with you some of my own thoughts on our diocese’s history, present and potential future.
Ministry in this part of the world has never been and will never be simple. In 1881, the first bishop of this diocese, Bishop George Hills, after 21 years of serving, lamented the “constitutional religious apathy [of the] people of the whole Pacific slope.” All these years later, the secularism of this land has only intensified; surveys suggest that British Columbia is the most secular part of North America with those who identify as having “no religion” outnumbering those who identify with any and all religions combined. All of this, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, presents challenges and opportunities for churches in this part of the world. I look forward to beginning to explore this with you Friday night as we share a beautiful Middle Eastern meal.
SATURDAY
On Saturday, we have invited Jill Harris to help us learn some more of the history of this diocese by sharing stories of the early Anglican missions in this part of the world. The history of these missions is not well documented or known and I am grateful to Jill for taking the time to learn of these missions and to share with us. We must know the history, particularly our complicated colonial history, for us to move forward faithfully into the future.
On Saturday afternoon, Rachel Brown, who has contributed to a recent book called Religion on the Edge: Nature, Spirituality and Secularity in the Pacific Northwest, will go deeper into the themes I began on Friday night about the particular context we find ourselves in. The conference will close on Saturday afternoon with a Eucharist at which John Thatamanil, diocesan theologian, will tie together some of what we have heard and shared over the weekend.
AN INVITATION
Please consider joining us for this weekend. The work that we all do in parishes, in the wider community, in our church building and as church in the world is part of a long, rich and complicated history. Understanding our history and our context and faithfully asking, alright then, what next, is an important part of our journey and our work together. The weekend is also an important opportunity to build relationships, to meet with people from other parishes and regions, to laugh and talk and just be together.
Hoping to see you there,
+Anna