[Ken Gray] With many others I was shocked to learn of the termination of the position of National Animator for Youth Ministries a few days ago. While I fully support restructuring initiatives at the national, General Synod level, I am puzzled why the first position to go directly affects the welcoming and support of an emerging generation of adherents and potential leaders. To me, such a strategy seems deeply flawed.
I find the content of the detailed letter below to be compelling and ask addressees to seriously consider and respond to its questions in a timely, public, and detailed way. I have asked that my name be added to the extensive list of signatories listed below. I encourage others to likewise as you feel led.
Letter: https://docs.google.com/…/1LVf7c9Q734GbIMeqcjRg…/edit…
Form to sign: https://docs.google.com/…/1FAIpQLSdgf8DOPwvwXH…/viewform
The creation of the Pathways document represents a threshold moment for the Anglican Church of Canada. General Synod is embarking on a new chapter in its form and mission, recognizing that its existing structures no longer fit the contemporary realities of the Anglican church.
As leaders, supporters, and beneficiaries of youth ministry from across the Anglican Church of Canada, we honour this commitment to finding new, effective, and sustainable structures for the work and ministry of our church. In fact, flexibility and innovation are at the very heart of youth work. We are constantly assessing what will meet the needs of our young people in our various contexts, and we strive and long for a wider church with this sort of mindset as well. We believe transformation – rooted in Christ, empowered by the Spirit, and responsive to the needs of the world – should be at the very essence of our church.
We are deeply concerned, however, about the recent termination of the position of National Animator for Youth Ministries1 and the decision to put youth ministry work on hold at the national level. As local practitioners can attest, youth ministry requires continued, sustained investment to bear fruit, both in the lives of individual youth and the communities and congregations of which they are a part. For many kinds of ministry, a pause for a year or two can be relatively easily recovered from, but for young people and for youth ministry, that amount of time feels much longer, and makes it so much more difficult to move forward.
This work, particularly as has been led by our National Animator for Youth Ministries, is vital to a thriving ecosystem of youth ministry in the Anglican Church, and to the shared youth ministry we lead with our Full Communion partner, the ELCIC.
Youth Ministry and the Pathways
The Pathways document lays out three core areas of work as foundational to the ministry of General Synod: Communicating, Connecting, and Convening. We see youth ministry at the very heart of this work and essential for the future of our national church.
- Communicating: In a church wrestling with decline and change, it is essential for its people to be reminded that meaningful ministry with rising generations is taking place. Youth and young adults are active in the life of our church. Most recently, Sacred Beginnings, CLAY, and the level of engagement of youth delegates at General Synod are tremendously hopeful examples of young people impacted by and impacting the life of the national church. For the present and future of the church, General Synod needs to be able to continue to communicate these stories.
- Connecting: National support for youth ministry is vital in creating space for youth to connect with one another and with the Anglican Church of Canada. The Canadian Lutheran Anglican Youth gathering 2 (CLAY) facilitates networks of relationships between youth across the country, who are delighted to find that there is a place for them in the Anglican and Lutheran churches. It facilitates connections between Anglican and Lutheran youth and partner organizations like Alongside Hope and Canadian Lutheran World Relief through workshops, Large Group Gatherings, and the National Youth Project. And it has been leading the way in reconciliation work, by concentrated learning from and relationship-building with Indigenous peoples – evidenced at our most recent CLAY – and by seeking to deepen our Christ-shaped welcome to young people of all economic backgrounds, abilities, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, and other identities.
The annual Rhythms of Renewal retreat has offered similar meaning for youth leaders from all over the country – who often feel isolated or minimally supported in their ministries – facilitating connections and mutually beneficial relationships that strengthen those leaders as well as their ministries.
In addition to these keystone gatherings, things like the Holy Land pilgrimage for young adults, Zoom book studies, and online workshops serve a vital role in connecting youth and resourcing their leaders, and supporting them as they continue to grow in their faith. These offerings are especially important in rural parishes or struggling dioceses, where capacity for youth ministry is low, and the need for young people to have supportive, safe communities to be part of is high.
National support for the work of the National Animator for Youth Ministries and the Youth Secretariat, which is comprised of and represents youth ministry leaders from across the country, also allows Anglicans to meaningfully collaborate with our Full Communion partners, the ELCIC. The ACC’s Animator and the Secretariat work closely throughout the year with the ELCIC’s Assistant to the Bishop for Youth Ministry and Program Committee for Youth Ministry. Together they organize for CLAY, Rhythms of Renewal, and other initiatives as needs and interests emerge. Youth ministry in both of our churches is stronger because of this collaboration and cooperation, multiplying our impact far beyond what we could accomplish separately. The fruitfulness of these relationships and the ministries they sustain – impacting hundreds, if not thousands, of young people across Canada – cannot be overstated.
Connection is generative, and this is especially true in youth ministry. Investments we make in this work, when coordinated and sustained, have an exponential impact. When leaders find meaningful connection with other leaders, they are more confident in their ministry, and they share what they’ve learned through national church opportunities with others back home, furthering that connection and empowerment. When young people find meaningful connection in faith-based settings, particularly the high-impact ministries that the national church has supported, they come to understand themselves more fully as part of the Body of Christ and members of our beloved church. Knowing this, they become connection points for others, and on it goes. We see no future for the Church apart from nurturing, in every place possible, these sorts of connections with young people.
- Convening: To participate meaningfully in deliberative bodies like General Synod, especially being an underrepresented demographic in a predominantly older denomination, young people require accompaniment, orientation, and community. The work of the Animator for Youth Ministries helps create space for them to engage deeply with our church’s processes – work we saw bear fruit this year in the creation of a youth council 3, and the motion to put forward additional candidates for Primate. It is next to impossible to imagine how such a youth council, as it is created, could be enabled to thrive and contribute meaningfully to our body politic without continued, ongoing support from Church House staff.
Much was said in regard to Connection to speak to the ways in which youth ministry at the national level contributes to the building up of our common life, but it bears repeating that much of this is only possible at the national level. Very few dioceses have paid youth ministry staff, and most parish youth ministry is volunteer-led, so having support available and programs delivered nationally provides opportunity for many youth and leaders to get a real sense that there is a common life and a wider community of youth ministry in the Anglican Church of Canada.
A Kairos Time for the Church and Youth Ministry
As those involved in youth ministry, we know that the window of time in which we have to reach youth is so short. Middle school and high school last just a few years. Thriving youth ministries rely on maximizing that time to forge deep relationships with youth and offer them transformative experiences they will want to share with others. Stepping back from our commitment to national youth ministry will have massive implications. Youth forget, they lose interest, and there may be all manner of other, more immediately exciting, opportunities to pursue. Renewing passion for Christ and Christian community, once lost, can take years. We saw the implications for youth ministry from COVID, something we had little say over. We don’t want to see that from the church itself!
To be clear: we love the Anglican Church of Canada. And we are hopeful for its future. But in this moment of transition, this kairos time for our common life, we worry that the church we love is losing its heart for young people, at the moment when it should be most attuned to them. We hope to be proved wrong. We ask that you step back from a needlessly heavy-handed approach to youth ministry in suspending it and terminating the national youth staff position, and that you prioritize re-investing in this vital work. We can hold the relationships that matter, all the while finding a good pathway together.
Pathways for Action
As leaders, supporters, and beneficiaries of youth ministry in the Anglican Church of Canada, we are calling on the Primate and Council of General Synod to:
- Offer a meaningful apology and compensation to its former Animator for Youth Ministries for its inappropriately abrupt handling of her dismissal and the conclusion of her ministry, and to any other individuals who have been similarly mistreated in the Pathways process thus far;
- Articulate and implement a clear forward vision for supporting youth and young ministry at the national level, resulting in new structures equipped to support deeply rooted and sustained national youth and young adult ministry – most obviously through, but not limited to, appointing a national staffperson;
- Prioritize the establishment of a National Youth Council, as commissioned by General Synod 2025, and provide it with meaningful support by a national staffperson. Young people championed this for themselves and for our church, and while we are glad that some forward motion has begun on this, we know that more can be done to give young adults this meaningful platform sooner rather than later;
- Reconsider the decision not to move ahead with CLAY 2027 and purposefully allocate national resources to help fund and staff this event, enabling us to better fulfill our commitment to convene it as a joint ministry of the ELCIC and ACC, and to share the load of planning and coordination;
- Provide clarity as to when and how a governance level review of CLAY will take place, who will be involved, and how the results of such a review will be communicated and implemented. If we remain unable to move ahead with CLAY 2027 until such a review is completed, we ask that it be swift and completed within the early months of 2026.
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The Gospel is good news for all people, but especially for those young ones Jesus bids come to him. Like the the Magi who followed an unknown star until they knelt to offer their gifts to the Hope of the Nations, may we find in this kairos time the wisdom and courage to journey new pathways, pathways that uphold and prioritize young people at the heart of our life and ministry, in order to better offer our church’s gifts for the flourishing of youth and young adults in the Anglican Church of Canada.
In Epiphany hope,
Finn Keesmaat-Walsh, Youth Leader and Young Adult, Diocese of Toronto
Cameron Gutjahr, Priest, Diocese of New Westminster
Laura K Bird, Ministry with Children aged 8 to 14, Diocese of Huron
Allie Colp, Youth and Family Ministry Coordinator and member of Youth Secretariat, Diocese of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island
Jason Wood, Youth and Families Minister and member of Youth Secretariat, Diocese of New Westminster
Madison MacGregor, Youth Leader and Young Adult, Diocese of Toronto
Brittany Perkins, Young Adult, Past CLAY participant, Former Youth Delegate to Diocesan, Provincial, and General Synods, Diocese of Rupert’s Land
Sydney Brouillard-Coyle, Young Adult, Diocese of Huron
Brian J. Walsh, Retired Campus Minister, Author, and Parent, Diocese of Toronto
Will Ferrey, Priest and Youth Leader, Diocese of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island
Philip Cochrane, Priest, Diocese of New Westminster
Judith Alltree, Priest, Diocese of Toronto
Jane Cornett, Children and Youth Ministry Coordinator, Diocese of Huron
Sylvia C. Keesmaat, Youth Retreat Leader and Speaker, Diocese of Toronto
Reverend Theo Robinson, Priest, Diocese of Islands and Inlets (British Columbia)
Karen Turner, Diocese of Toronto
Chukwuka Nwokeoma, Youth, Diocese of Rupert’s Land
The Reverend Leslie Flynn, Priest, Diocese of British Columbia
Madeleine Keesmaat-Walsh, Young Adult, Diocese of Toronto
Lauren Odile Pinkney, Young Adult Ministry Leader and Mission for Youth, Diocese of New Westminster
Laura Mulhern, Young Adult, Diocese of New Westminster
Susan Mulhern, Young Adult, Diocese of New Westminster
Cymric Leask, Young Adult, Youth and Young Adult Ministry Leader, Saskatchewan Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada
Anna Tavakoli, Youth and Young Adult Ministry Leader, Diocese of Niagara
Jenny Formanek, Diocese of Toronto
Lisa Chisolm-Smith, Youth Leader, Young Adult Ministry Leader, Deacon, and Co-Chair oof the Faith, Worship & Ministry Coordinating Committee, Diocese of Ontario
Reverend Sarah Grondin, Priest, Diocese of Niagara
Patti Brace, Priest, Diocese of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island
Cydney Proctor, Young Adult, Former PWRDF Youth Council Member, 50 Leaders participant, Justice Camp 2009 Youth Co-ordinator, ACCToo Executive member, and beneficiary of powerful ministry when I was a youth, Diocese of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island
Dawn Purcell, Youth Leader, Diocese of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island
Ryan Turnbull, Young Adult Ministry Leader, Diocesan Discipleship Developer, Diocese of Rupert’s Land
Callum O’Riley, Young Adult, Diocese of New Westminster
Dawn Dickieson Leger, Priest, Diocese of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island
Joan Alexander, Spiritual Direction, Supervision & Education, Diocese of Ottawa
Helen Dunn, Youth Leader and Priest, Diocese of New Westminster
Eden Mancor, Young Adult, Diocese of Montreal
Pamela Thomson, Senior Lay Member, Diocese of Toronto
Donna Ronan, Youth Leader, Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador
Marnie Peterson, Priest, Diocese of New Westminster
Jessica Schaap, Missioner of Christian Formation and Priest, Diocese of New Westminster
To add your name to this letter, fill out this form.
Concluding Notes:
1. Treating Youth Ministry and Ministers with Respect
The Pathways document asks how the staff and volunteers supporting the work of General Synod can be treated with dignity and respect. Yet we note that the process for terminating the position of Animator for Youth Ministries, held by Sheilagh McGlynn, was deeply disrespectful of Sheilagh and her work. On Monday, December 8th, she was instructed to meet with Human Resources the following day, even though she had scheduled time off for that day. At that meeting, she was told her employment was terminated, and within an hour her email address was shut down. After 8 years of fruitful ministry and relationship-building with youth, young adults, and youth ministry leaders across the country, her ministry was abruptly terminated, with no time or space for healthy transition, transfer of responsibilities, or a graceful departure. Instead she and her work were treated almost punitively, with the abruptness of a disciplinary procedure.
We would hope that the process for implementing the Pathways would embody the very values of dignity and respect it seeks to move the national church toward. Instead, we see in this instance institutional behaviour that dehumanizes and disregards present ministry staff and their contributions, in the rush to implement a new vision. This does nothing to instill confidence that the national church deems work with youth and young people as integral to our common life, or that the Pathways process will result in the transformative changes direly needed by our church: structures that see, respect, and affirm people in their vocation and ministry.
2. A Word About CLAY
Planning and organizing CLAY is a multi-year process. CLAY 2027 was already announced at CLAY 2025 Rooted and Rising in Saskatoon to hundreds of excited youth, to many more on social media, and through subsequent youth events. The wheels were already in motion to prepare for its next location in Nanaimo, prior to both the termination of the position of Animator for Youth Ministries and the letter indicating the ACC could not commit to this event at this time. However, the national Anglican Church’s refusal to move ahead with the ELCIC for CLAY 2027, or provide staffing support for CLAY planning, places an unfair burden on our Lutheran colleagues, compromises its function as a shared ministry, reneges on commitments already made with local bishops and other potential partners, deepens the inequity for those who are able to participate, and communicates disregard for the numerous youth who experience and anticipate CLAY as a place in the Anglican Church for them to gather and belong. We do not believe that cultivates the sort of relationship or legacy our church wants.
We certainly welcome a meaningful governance level review of CLAY, which would complement the work of reflection and re-imagining that the CLAY National Planning Committee and national youth leadership bodies of the ELCIC and ACC already do. But for the sake of the relationships and commitments we already hold for CLAY 2027, we see no reason why this wider review could not work in tandem with the necessary organization and planning already begun.
3. Youth Council
We are also aware of and celebrate the creation of a youth council at our most recent General Synod, and what that reveals about the presence of young people who desire to be engaged in the broader life of the church. This is exciting! But we know that it didn’t emerge from a void. That motion resulted from good, sustained, and supported youth ministry taking place across the country and at the national level. It especially relied on the staff support that the Animator for Youth Ministries provided leading up to and during Synod 2025. If we pause our investment in and commitment to this work, we shouldn’t be surprised if we find it harder to fill the shoes of the early members of youth council when they move on. We reap what we sow.
-end-
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