OTTAWA, ONT — (CANADIAN CHRISTIAN NEWS SERVICE)– Russ Parker, a world renowned healing and reconciliation expert and author, will visit Ottawa in early July for a three day conference hosted by St. Peter & St. Paul’s Anglican Church.
Parker has ministered in some of the world’s toughest spots, leading listening and forgiveness work. He is Director of 2Restore:Healing Church Wounds, helping churches resolve and heal legacies of unhealed stories and move forward in a renewed ability to flourish as God intends. The “Making All Things New” conference is open to the public and will be of special interest to people of faith interested in topics of healing, forgiveness, blessing and reconciliation.
“We are honoured to have a speaker of this calibre, with this level of global experience, come share with Ottawa churches what he has seen and learned,” says Canon Brent Stiller, rector of downtown host church St. Peter & St. Paul’s. “Everyone is welcome. The theme of the conference is that ‘everyone needs healing.’ We will experience that in different ways throughout the weekend.”
Russ was awarded a Doctor of Divinity from Columbia Evangelical Seminary in the US in recognition of his outstanding contribution to Christian ministry and for his many writings and teaching abilities. In particular, this honour was given for the standard of scholarship in his book Healing Wounded History, which is about reconciling peoples and healing places.
Parker is the author of many other books, including Healing Dreams, Healing Death’s Wounds, Free to Fail, Healing and Evangelism, Forgiveness is Healing, Visions in the Night and In Search of Wholeness. His most recent book (2014) is Rediscovering the Ministry of Blessing. Parker was Director of the Acorn Christian Healing Foundation, where he developed training materials and led a dedicated staff of over 20 people. He became Acorn’s International Ambassador, responsible for developing partnerships on listening and reconciliation in 12 nations ranging from Rwanda, Burundi, Hong Kong and the United States. The Acorn programs were adopted as part of the resourcing of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, and its Director, Archbishop Desmond Tutu became the president of Acorn’s work in that country.
The weekend schedule includes several talks: Fri. July 6 (aft) A Long Obedience in the same Direction: Renewing self-care as a leader (evening) Making All Things New: Finding the Forgiveness I need; Sat. July 7 (am):Making All Things New: Why Jesus Speaks to Churches(pm): Making All Things New: Healing for Your church; and Sun. July 8 (am): Blessing the church to be the church.
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For more information and to register visit peterpaulottawa.com
Media contact: Brent Stiller, Rector. brent.stiller@sympatico.ca, 289-354-0722.