The Diocese of Ontario looks forward to welcoming synod delegates to its 146th Synod of the Anglican Diocese of Ontario — held from Thursday May 8 to Saturday May 10, 2025.
Theme
Communities of hope through disruptive grace
Bishop William Cliff: For a long time, we have been looking backward at the church as it was and grieving the state of the church as it is now. This is holding us back. We are not called to be the church of thirty years ago. We are called to be the church here and now...in the world we are called to serve. Not the world of before.
The engine of our communities is our hope in Jesus Christ, and so we are called to be a believable alternative to the desperation, hopelessness, alienation and brokenness of the world around us. To be a credible community of hope is to bear the Gospel, and all that the Gospel means, to our world as it is now. We are called to serve now. We are called to proclaim now.
This means that the grace of the Gospel is meant to disrupt things. The Holy Spirit convicts us of our sin. The Holy Spirit points us always to Jesus. The Holy Spirit converts us from the lives we were living to the lives God intends for us. The Holy Spirit motivates us to serve those in need around us. The Holy Spirit moves us to challenge the spirit of the age which corrupts or destroys the children of God. The Holy Spirit disrupts us out of the way we have been and propels us toward the love of Jesus Christ.
Theme graphics
For our synod theme graphics, the Diocese of Ontario has contracted Sarah Fuller, a visual artist in Ventura California, who works mostly in the medium of linocut printmaking. Her work explores themes of social justice, nature, mysticism and spirituality.
Sarah's work has been published in magazines such as The National Catholic Reporter, The Nation, and Geez Magazine. She also makes art for nonprofit newsletters, and hosts linocut fabric printing workshops.
Sarah spent over ten years involved in the Catholic Worker movement and other service communities. She spent many of those years working at the Los Angeles Catholic Worker, helping to run a soup kitchen on Skid Row. She is a member of a Mennonite church in Pasadena, California. She also has a Master of Divinity degree and an MA in Social Justice and Equity Studies. All of these experiences affect her subject matter and her approach to artmaking.
Sarah will be working with our Synod Planning Team to develop our theme graphics throughout the summer and we look forward to sharing with the diocese in September of 2024.
Location
Synod will be hosted at both St. George's Cathedral (Synod opening service) and Ban Righ Banquet and Conference Hall (Plenary sessions) at Queen's University, 75 Bader Ln, Kingston, ON.
