Dear People, Neighbours, and Friends of St. Thomas’s,
On Wednesday, our Advisory Board met for the first time in several months. In addition to the usual business of receiving reports on what the parish has been up to recently, we considered what sort of parish we wanted to be in the future. I laid out my own vision for the parish, which focuses on growing the 9:30 and Evensong congregations through strengthening the musical excellence at each, a vision that would require robust staffing in the form of two full-time musicians and, ideally, a full-time assisting priest. The challenge is to discern whether this vision isn’t simply my vision, but our vision. You have to decide whether it’s the direction we want to take, for the glorification of God and the edification of God’s people.
Discernment is a big thing for me. I don’t expect, nor do I even want, a “Yes, Father” culture, in which I badger people into doing my bidding, but a culture in which together we build partnerships that are transformational personally, institutionally, and community-wide. After all, this church isn’t my church, and in fact, it’s only your church insofar as you want it to be God’s church—that is, a place that reflects God’s active redemption of the world.
Thus, my job is not to get things out of you, or to get you to do things, but rather to help you discern who you are called to be and what you are called to do. It is my job to help you live into your individual callings, and to do everything in my power to equip you to become that person and to accomplish those things, with God’s help. The primary way I do this is by advocating for what St. Thomas’s needs to be most effective in pursuing its mission. But this advocacy isn’t worth anything unless you discern that the direction in which I’m pointing is a direction you’re willing to go.
The most I can offer, in essence, is an invitation to engage deeply in what it means to be a member of St. Thomas’s, or a neighbour in partnership with St. Thomas’s, or a friend who seeks some form of companionship or fellowship, religious or otherwise, alongside of St. Thomas’s.
If you count yourself among the people of St. Thomas’s, I invite you to share in the transformational mission of this parish. Through it, you will become a more intentional disciple of Jesus through the riches of the Anglo-Catholic tradition, and you will feel empowered to help St. Thomas’s flourish and thrive as a community of faith that works for the common good.
If you consider yourself a neighbour, I invite you to share in the transformational mission of St. Thomas’s as a community centre. If you do, you will feel empowered to use St. Thomas’s as a place of beauty and service, of neighbourly affection, and you will want St. Thomas’s to flourish and thrive as a centre of your community because you will feel that St. Thomas’s connects you to your neighbourhood in ways that you could not be connected without it.
If you are reading this letter as a friend of St. Thomas’s, my hope is that wherever you are in Toronto, in Canada, or in the world, you count St. Thomas’s as a meaningful part of your life, whether you get here in person or online often or not, and that you want to see St. Thomas’s continue to be that for you and others, because our mission is life-giving to you and to the world.
St. Thomas’s is already a source of spiritual nourishment, community engagement, and personal inspiration. But we could be and do so much more. As a parishioner, neighbour, or friend, I hope you see that St. Thomas’s enriches your own life and the lives of many others, whether they are fellow members, choristers, neighbours, university students, friends from other churches and communities of faith, or simply people who come in contact with some aspect of our buildings, our website, our music, our livestreaming, or even simply this weekly email. I personally am hoping that you will respond to this invitation in ways that will result, with God’s help, in the transformational life that really is worth living.
So, yes, I’m banking on the fact that there are a couple of people out there right now whom we need to recruit and equip if we are to make good on our potential for transformational growth. Whether any of this comes to pass comes down to the question: Do you think God is living and active at St. Thomas’s, and can we more effectively be the parish God is calling us to be if we take these steps? It is entirely up to you to decide whether such an investment in people would be worth the financial risk it necessarily entails, and if so, to do whatever it takes to make this vision a reality, trusting in God to take what we offer and use it to transform us and the world around us.
Yours in Christ’s service,
Fr. Nathan J.A. Humphrey
VIII Rector