The landscape of religious life in America has changed forever. At our General Convention we no longer argued about whether we still have an issue of racism in America . All of us, North, South, East and West seemed to understand that power connected to prejudice produces a reality that we must continue to work to overthrow for our own soul's health. Most recently seven other religious leaders and I joined together to say enough to verbiage that divides community, which attacks character with innuendo. When you elected me you asked for one who would engage the world from a theological perspective -- one who would help us all carry a faith commitment into the larger community. My goal is to do that responsibly and carefully, because we are a church that cares...

Read the entire Bishop's address

Bishop Bruce's Sermon

Rochester , New York October 11, 2003
The Rt Rev George Bruce, Bishop of the Diocese of Ontario

I speak to you this morning in the name of God, who in love has created us, the Son, who by sacrificial love has redeemed us and the Holy Spirit, who through continual love nurtures and sustains us. Amen.

I bring to you this morning the greetings, prayers and affection of the people of the Diocese of Ontario. I celebrate the companion relationship which we share and believe that we each have so much in common and yet also so much to learn from each other. Your Bishop and I also share many things in common one of them being a love of sports; in particular soccer and baseball. I regret very much that this summer I was not able to accept his invitation to watch the Red Wings play the Ottawa Lynx, but with the season that the Red Wings had it is probably just as well!

I also want to tell you what an incredible joy and pleasure it is for me to be herewith you this morning and to have the privilege of being able to share both in the deliberations of your convention as well as to participate in your worship. Our methods of governance are very similar indeed and I note that many of the issues which concern you are mirrored in our own diocese and national church. It does seem to me, though, that on occasions such as this there is the temptation to view the business of the church as something separate from worship. Nothing, I believe could be further from the truth. In all that we say and do in the life of the church, we are engaged in the praise and worship of a loving and gracious God and a desire to seek God's will for creation, and not ours. In the cut and thrust of argument, discussion and debate it is so easy to forget that all that we do is for the greater glory of God and to advance God's kingdom here on earth. It is God to whom we turn for guidance and it is to God that we offer our praises, our prayers and our labours and not the other way round. God is unchanging; we are transitory and often uncertain. That point is illustrated for me by the apocryphal story of one of Her Majesty's Canadian warships on exercise off the coast of Newfoundland . It was a very foggy night and the officer of the watch reported to the captain in some consternation that despite the dense fog, there was an extremely bright light dead ahead at a distance of two miles. "Make a signal to the unknown vessel," the captain said, "and advise it to turn 20degrees to starboard." The officer of the watch duly did so and reported back to the captain, " she says she can not comply." infuriated the captain said, "signal to her that we are one of her majesty's warships and we direct her to turn 20degrees to starboard". Back came the reply immediately. "We are a lighthouse, you turn 20 degrees to port." We need to remember who is created in who's image and who gives guidance and direction...

Read Bishop Bruce's entire Sermon