Partnership as Mission: Essays in Memory of Ellie Johnson

This uniquely Canadian volume tells stories of Ellie Johnson, missiologist and director of Partnerships at the Anglican Church of Canada from 1994 to 2008. More than that, this book tells of God’s mission, and how the Anglican Church of Canada participated in that mission with our ecumenical partners. Since the Anglican Congress of 1963, through the years of the ecumenical justice coalitions of the 1970s and 1980s, through the drastic organizational restructuring of General Synod in the first decade of the 2000s, change in the church has been continuous and relentless. Ellie’s skill in managing this change remains inspirational today. In standing with residential school survivors, identifying systemic racism, seeking peace and ecojustice, and contributing to global conversations about mission priorities and practices, Ellie shared her experience and insight widely and effectively. Through personal memories and tributes, through detailed historical storytelling, friends, family, and colleagues describe their own rich experience working with Ellie. Others raise questions about the face and context of mission today, recalling Ellie’s favorite dictum: all mission is local. The collection concludes with some of Ellie’s own unpublished words. There is so much to appreciate about this deeply spiritual person, whose legacy lives on, as we draw on her legacy to find resilience and strength for today’s demanding ecojustice journey.

Kenneth Gray recently retired as dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in Kamloops, BC, Canada. A trained musician and keen amateur photographer, he was the first secretary of the Anglican Communion Environmental Network. Gray was also a member of the Canadian General Synod Ecojustice Committee from 2001 to 2007. He blogs regularly on retirement, music, dogs, photography, and the arts.

Maylanne Maybee, deacon, recently retired from ministry as a community developer, social justice advocate, and theological educator. For fourteen years she worked as coordinator of justice education and networks for the Anglican Church of Canada, and for a further ten years as principal of the Centre for Christian Studies, Winnipeg, and interim principal of the United Theological College, Montreal.