The Vancouver School of Theology proudly presents the 2026 Somerville Lecture | Living in a Sacramental Spirituality: Seeking Sacred Resonance in a Burnout Society

Thursday, October 15 at 7pm | Epiphany Chapel and online

Join the Rt. Rev. Todd Townshend as he explores how rediscovering Christian spiritual practices and sacramental ways of seeing might offer connection, perspective, and life-giving alternatives in a time of stress, exhaustion, and disconnection.

Please note:

This public lecture will be available to watch online via livestream. Please select "General Admission (online)" and you will be emailed a Zoom link in the days leading to the event.

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Abstract:

Free and open to the public, this lecture explores how Christian spiritual practices might offer life-giving alternatives in a time of stress, exhaustion, disconnection, and overwhelm.

Some symptoms of our current pathologies are becoming clear: accelerating stress and exhaustion, loss of healthy community life, a lack of mutual trust, and a diminished sense for the divine. In an environment of constant crisis and oppressive overwhelm, the re-discovery of core Christian spiritual practices may provide perspective, liberation, connection, energy, and joyful hope.

Bringing together several of the themes highlighted in the work of recent VST continuing education events and examining some key concepts and their practical and pastoral implications—while carefully avoiding nostalgia for the past—this lecture will consider how re-discovering sacramental/symbolic ways of thinking and seeing Christian faith may provide life-giving structure and generate meaningful alternatives.

About:

The Rt. Rev. Todd Townshend, ThD, is a bishop and contextual theologian who seeks to continually (re)discover a radically fresh sense of who Jesus is and what he means for human communities and God’s whole creation. Recently this work has had a focus on Christian practices in diverse contexts. Todd has served as pastor/rector of several congregations, has taught preaching, liturgy, and pastoral theology in seminaries for over twenty years, and now serves as Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Huron, centred in London, Ontario.

Supported through the generosity of Archbishop David Somerville, a former VST faculty member, the Somerville Lecture Series has become one of VST’s most prominent offerings for the life of the church in the world. The series was launched in the early 1990s by a group of students who were eager for VST to be a place for students to learn about the spiritual side of life and pass on to others the insights and methods of seeking God’s presence.

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