Dinner Church on May 20, 2026 with guest speaker Anke Föller-Carroll
RECAP: It was great to gather again at the Dinner Church table on May 20, 2026, with familiar faces and new ones. Thank you to our guest speaker Anke Föller-Carroll. We enjoyed delicious food, had great conversations, sang and prayed together. We learned a lot and shared a land acknowledgement unique to our congregation:
We acknowledge the land we are meeting on is the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples and is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples. This land is covered by Treaty 13. Tkaronto is also part of the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, which calls all who live here to share the land and protect it in the spirit of peace, friendship, and mutual care.
Dinner Church May 20, 2026
As a bilingual German‑English Lutheran congregation founded 70 years ago, our community has long been shaped by migration, resettlement, and the search for belonging. Many who first gathered here were newcomers seeking stability and spiritual grounding; today, our congregation includes people of many backgrounds, ages, and life stories, united by faith and by the lake that has always been our neighbour.
Rooted in this place, we have built a sanctuary of welcome – a space where worship, language, culture, and community care meet. Through ministries such as Bowls & Blessings, where we share food outdoors with neighbours in need, and through gatherings like our Dinner Church, where people from the wider community join us for conversation and nourishment, we strive to embody hospitality and compassion.
We recognize that our ability to gather, worship, and serve is made possible by the stewardship of Indigenous peoples who have cared for this land since time immemorial. In response, we commit ourselves to reciprocity – to learning about Indigenous histories and present realities, to supporting Truth and Reconciliation, and to caring for the land and waters that sustain us. We seek to walk gently here, honouring the responsibilities that come with living in this treaty territory. May our presence on this land reflect gratitude, humility, and a shared commitment to justice and healing.
Our next Dinner Church will be on Wednesday June 17, 2026 at 7 pm with Guest Speaker Iris Schweiger as we continue on the Red Dress Journey.
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ORIGINAL POST May 6, 2026: You are invited for conversation, music, prayer, and a potluck meal with guest speaker Anke Föller-Carroll. Learn about Indigenous-settler relationships and local tourism opportunities to journey towards Truth and Reconciliation as good allies with integrity and a good mind.
Dinner Church on Wednesday May 20, 2026 at 7:00 pm
Anke is a settler-immigrant from Germany, mom of two adult kids, and a lifelong traveller who made tourism her career for over 20 years before becoming a tourism educator. Her career focused in large part on managing foreign visitors’ vacations throughout Canada, and this is how she began to understand the potential of tourism as an educational tool to bring people together in peace, friendship and respect. But she also began to understand the immense barriers between Indigenous peoples and Canadian settlers, rooted in colonial history and ongoing oppressive systems. To explore how tourism can be a vehicle for decolonization and Truth and Reconciliation, Anke began her doctoral work in 2021. Her talk will examine Indigenous-settler relationships and offer ideas on how we, as settlers, can seize the opportunities of local tourism to learn and transform our minds, journeying towards Truth and Reconciliation as good allies with integrity and a good mind.
For more information about our Dinner Churches see webpage: Dinner Church