Social Media Panel Today

Today I have been invited to serve on a social media panel discussion at the Blandy 2012 Lectures.

If you are on Twitter you can follow the discussion by creating a column with the hashtag #blandy2012. I will also be using the larger church and social media group hashtag #chsocm.

Questions can be sent via the #Blandy2012 hashtag. People are already signing on from around the world.

I am also posting my portion of the conversation on Facebook and followers can join in an off stream conversation there.

I will be taping the conversation and posting it via my podcast site this week. You can find my sermons and follow the weekly posts here: http://www.adoyle.libsyn.com



Rt. Rev. C. Andrew Doyle, D.D.
IX Bishop of Texas
Sent while out of office.

September Dates and Places

Things are beginning to ramp up again in terms of events, preaching engagements and Sunday visitations.  Here is my September calendar.

5          12:30 p.m.       Galveston Convocation Clericus, Holy Trinity, Dickinson

            7:00 p.m.         Reid Morgan Celebration of New Ministry, St. John’s, La Porte

7          11:30 a.m.       Southeast Convocation Clericus, St. Stephen’s, Liberty

8          6:30 p.m.         Iona School, Camp Allen

9          9:00 a.m.         15^th Anniversary Celebration, Santa Maria Virgen, Houston

            4:00 p.m.         St. Aidan’s, Cypress, CF & 10^th Anniversary Celebration

11-12                           Executive Board, Camp Allen

13        11:30 a.m.       Central Convocation Clericus, Camp Allen

16        5:00 p.m.         St. Barnabas & San Bernabé, Houston, CF

18        6:00 p.m.         50^th Anniversary Celebration, Texas Heart Institute, Houston

19        6:00 p.m.         Holy Comforter, Angleton, CF

23        6:00 p.m.         Grace, Houston, CF

25        3:00 p.m.         Blandy Lecture Series, Seminary of the Southwest, Austin

26-27                           College for Bishops Board meeting, Virginia Theological Seminary

28        9:00 a.m.         Bishop’s Health and Outreach Conference, Camp Allen

30        9:15 a.m.         St. Mary’s, Cypress, CF

Inquiring Minds...

Recently I was asked to post my reading list.  So, I thought I would offer here in a blog post. Then we will switch over to a regular part of the blog so those of you who love books and sharing titles can keep up.  More importantly you might even make a suggestion to me!

Books I am reading currently:

Fiction:

The Yard by Alex Grecian
The Widower's Two Step by Rick Riordan

Non Fiction:

The Story of My Boyhood and Youth by John Muir
The M Factor by Lynne C. Lancaster and David Stillman
Cognitive Surplus by Clay Shirky

Books I recently finished:

Big Red Tequila by Rick Riordan

A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore

Unholy Night and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith

Start with Why by Simon Sinek

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

 

Books for consideration from my bookshelf:

Leading God’s People by Christopher Beeley

World Shaped Mission by Janice Price

Climb Higher by Scott McKenzie and Kristine Miller

For Church Leaders:

I think there are some foundational texts that every church leader should be familiar with as they enter ministry.  Therefore I am recommending the following for clergy to have on their bookshelf when they graduate from seminary and to have read in their first three years of ministry.  These are in no particular order.

The shape of liturgy by Dix
 

Orthodoxy by Chesterton

Missionary Methods by Roland Allen

History of Global Anglicanism by Wingate etc

The Cross of Christ by John Stott

The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard

A Failure of Nerve by Edwin Friedman

After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre

Jesus the Christ and Harvesting the Fruit by Walter Kaspar

Fling Out the Banner by Ian Douglas

Primal Leadership by Daniel Coleman

Leadership Without Easy Answers by Ronald Hiefetz

Leading Change by John P. Kotter

The Word Made Strange and Theology and Social Theory by John Milbank

A Generous Orthodoxy by Brian McClaren

Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky

They Like Jesus But Not The Church by Dan Kimball

Why Study the Past and Ray of Darkness by Rowan Williams

Christianity Rediscovered by Vincent J Donovan

Congregational Leadership in Anxious Times by Peter Steinke

Turn Around Strategies for the Small Church by Herb Miller

Hearing God’s all-Ways of Discernment for Laity and Clergy by Ben Campbell Johnson

The Leader’s Journey-Accepting the Call to Personal and Congregational Transformation by Herrington; Creech; Taylor

Here are a few pieces that are my recommended reading for guidance, comfort, assurance.  These are the books I turn to over and over again and are well dog-eared:

My Oxford Annotated Bible

Surprised by Hope by N. T. Wright
Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The Cruelty of Heresy by C. FitzSimons Allison
Grace In Practice by Paul Zahl
Theological Turning Points by Donald McKim

 

Books from the recent past:

Burning Chrome by William Gibson

A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin

The New World by Winston Churchill

The Willows by Algernon Blackwood

Shakespeare by Bill Bryson

The Birth of Britain by Winston Churchill

At Home  by Bill Bryson

Fever Crumb and Mothstorm series by Philip Reeve

The Hunger Games  series by Suzanne Collins

The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown

Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas

A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Swerve by Stephen Greenblatt
Trumanby David McCullough
Semper Fi by Dan Carrison, Rod Walsh

Gregor the Overlander series by Suzanne Collins

Club Dead series by Charlaine Harris

Uncle Fred in the Springtime by P.G. Wodehouse

Bossypants by Tina Fey

Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia by Michael Korda

True Grit by Charles Portis
Lonesome Dove trilogy  by Larry McMurtry
Autobiography of Mark Twain by Mark Twain
Agenda for a New Economy by David C. Korten

Undaunted Courage by Stephen E. Ambrose

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo  by Stieg Larsson

 

News on Archbishop of Canterbury Search

First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.

The Crown Nominations Committee met last week to consider the appointment of the next Archbishop of Canterbury. Details of the 26-27 July meeting, including its location and whether potential candidates were invited to meet the committee have not been disclosed.

While the committee has maintained its internal discipline and not leaked details of deliberations to the press or favored insiders as in past years, lobbying by pressure groups for favoured candidates continues. A letter seen by the Church of England Newspaper that was written by primates attending the Global South Conference last week in Bangkok has urged the committee to consider archbishop’s pan-Anglican duties when it reviews the candidates.

“At a time when the Christian faith faces challenges from other religions as well as secular worldviews, the new Archbishop of Canterbury must be committed to uphold the orthodoxy of the Christian ‘faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints’,” the primates said.

The next Archbishop of Canterbury will be a “guardian of the faith” charged with uniting the wider Anglican Communion, “especially on issues that have led to the present crisis in the Communion”, they said and must be able to “communicate effectively and gain the respect and confidence” of the wider church the 21 July 2012 letter said.

Chaired by the Lord Luce, the committee consists of six members elected by the Diocese of Canterbury Vacancy in See Committee: The Rev Canon Clare Edwards, Mr. Raymond Harris, Mr. David Kemp, the Rev. Canon Mark Roberts, Mrs. Caroline Spencer and Bishop Trevor Wilmott,
Six further members of the committee were elected by the General Synod: Mr. Aiden Hargreaves-Smith – Diocese of London, Prof. Glynn Harrison – Diocese of Bristol, Mrs Mary Johnston – Diocese of London, The Very Rev Andrew Nunn – Diocese of Southwark, The Rev Canon Peter Spiers – Diocese of Liverpool and the Rev Canon Glyn Webster – Diocese of York.

The Rt Rev James Newcome, Bishop of Carlisle, and the Rt Rev Michael Perham, the Bishop of Gloucester were elected by the House of Bishops of the General Synod, and Archbishop Barry Morgan of Wales was elected by the Anglican Consultative Council to serve on the committee as well.

Three non-voting members also serve on the committee: the Archbishops’ Secretary for Appointments Ms Caroline Boddington, the Prime Minister’s Appointments Secretary Sir Paul Britton and the Secretary General of the Anglican Consultative Council, Canon Kenneth Kearon.

What People Are Saying About Our Structural Reform

Dear All,

As many of you know the committee I served on regarding structure (#6) proposed  CO95 which will create a task force (reporting back to the next General Convention for Action).  This resolution passed in the House of Deputies unanimously (800+ people voting) and in the House of Bishop's unanimously (200+ voting).  Below is an article highlighting the young adult leadership response; they have been very present, very vocal, and very proactive.  I was grateful that they and many others filled the rooms during the structure meetings.

Find this and other articles here: http://centeraisle.net/2012/07/11/beginning-to-turn-dreams-into-reality/

The Rt. Rev. C. Andrew Doyle

Beginning to Turn Dreams into Reality

This entry was posted on July 11, 2012, in News and Information, Web Exclusive and tagged Acts 8. Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment

Center Aisle convened a roundtable discussion Tuesday night as a follow-up to the work begun last week by the Acts 8 Moment. Seventeen people gathered to talk about what they had heard at General Convention; ideas for changing and reinvigorating the Church; and where they thought the discussion they have been having might lead.

"I would never have guessed, coming into this General Convention, that there would be such a widespread desire to rethink our Church," said the Rev. Scott Gunn, one of the three originators of the Acts 8 Moment. "The fact that C095 (the resolution on creating a Task Force to restructure the Church) passed unanimously – when does that ever happen? … Honestly, it was astounding."

The Very Rev. Tom Ferguson, dean of Bexley Hall and another co-founder of the Acts 8 Moment, agreed.

"When I was coming to this General Convention," he said, "I confess to having some anxiety. On the one hand, I am pleased, thrilled, astounded. But I'm also realizing there's still a lot left to do" concerning changing the Church. "The proof will be in the implementation."

The Rev. Susan Snook, the third co-founder of the movement, warned that "change hasn't happened yet.  It is a hopeful moment. We set up the process for change. But we will see whether the system can sustain the change that we all hope will happen and what happens at the next convention. Right now, it was such a high today in the House of Deputies."

Those gathered at the roundtable agreed that this convention was filled with energy, and talked about what to do with that energy.

"It's like, 'Yeah, let's do it!'" said the Rev. Martin Yabroff, with the Episcopal Evangelism Network. "There is much less partisanship than I expected to find … there is fertile ground here. I'm not sure what the Lord will plant in it."

The Rev. Jim Papile, a deputy from Virginia, wondered how those interested in changing and reforming the Church would help the leadership of the Church "understand that this is something that will not threaten them but empower them too."

There also was discussion about how those who are what the Rev. Stephanie Spellers calls "margin riders" will deal with the "sea change" of having "bishops approaching them saying, 'Tell me what you people are doing.'"

"The Church that did not know what to do with these prophetic voices, rather than shutting them out, is now listening," said Spellers, a priest at the Crossing in Boston and co-chair of the Standing Commission on Mission and Evangelism. "And we're saying, 'All right, you really want this? Here we come!'"

The Rev. Terri Bays, from Northern Indiana, who is also at convention with the Episcopal Evangelism Network, agreed with Spellers. "It hit me," she said. "What I have been witnessing – that there's this willingness to roll up our sleeves, and I think, 'Oh, we're not on the margins anymore,' and we have to make it work. We've got to build this new thing.

"We love this Church," she said, "and we're going to do what we need to do; do what it takes to make it work. I think there's a willingness to listen, to say, 'Oh, wait a minute …' It's really a beautiful thing."

Papile told a cautionary tale of having been "around in the late '60s and '70s … [after a while] we flinched. Somewhere along the line, we thought [everything] was done, or we got distracted or something. The people making change got to a certain point in the institutional Church" and all forward progress stopped.

"How do you maintain the flexibility and that optimism?" Papile asked.

Gunn said that before the Acts 8 Moment held its first open meeting at convention last week, "I had a number of conversations with people asking, 'What's the agenda? What's the plan?' The plan is to get together and pray and see what happens."

He said that what happens next is "maybe occasionally just gathering with complete openness and trusting that something will happen."

Snook said that at that first gathering last week she experienced "a real deep longing for a different kind of church. I experienced a deep inner longing for something new to come. … It seems to be the right time for that to happen. Apparently, the same thing is happening in other mainline churches. It's like the Holy Spirit is doing something."

Spellers pointed out that the conversations begun at this General Convention mirror what is happening in many emergent communities. "Over there, it just popped," she said. "There were people who had some skin in the game and were in a position to make a shift, and [there were] those margins riders. Those groups have merged and clearly something is emerging. What do you do? You link and watch it grow even further and the Holy Spirit does what she does. … Who knows what else is out there? It's exponential what the Holy Spirit is doing right now. It goes way beyond" convention.

Discussing what to do next, Joey Rick, canon for congregational vitality in the Diocese of Washington, wondered: "In all of these conversations, has anybody talked about what they are willing to give up? We have to say goodbye to something …"

The Rev. Canon Paul Lebens-Englund, who serves on the Structure Committee, said that convention would be faced with that very question when B027 – "a gift from Bishop Doyle of Texas" – comes to the floor. "Essentially it suggests that we cut all of the standing commissions except two, Canons and Constitution, and Structure," Lebens-Englund said. "We are well aware as a committee that this is a litmus test. It is intentionally provocative. … These are things we are suggesting are not helpful anymore. … There are a lot of sacred cows."

The Rt. Rev. Greg Rickel of Olympia warned of how easy it is to "be drawn back into the institution." Groups, he said, "become institutional after a while."

The Rt. Rev. Eugene Sutton of Maryland agreed. He spoke of growing up in Washington, D.C., as a Baptist, where "everything was kingdom of God. It was Jesus. But then we would get out of church and be on the streets. And so what I'm about to say comes from living in the Kingdom but also living in the streets. Sometimes, to get things done, it's the rule of the streets. … Sometimes, you have to do what you have to do. What I wonder about is that sometimes I think the Holy Spirit, in order to make it so that we are not too elated … forces us into the streets and to things as they are."

Structures, he said, are necessary. "Unfortunately or fortunately, we only live in structures. We only live in systems. But no structure is going to bring in the Kingdom. We can think of new structures, and I hope we do, and it may be that some new things will emerge. But guess what's going to happen? They are not going to work forever."

What excites him, Sutton said, is that there are "newer voices in the Church saying, 'You know, we want to do a mission enterprise zone kind of thing,' and then us old fogies go, 'You know, give them a million dollars and then we can get some things done.' That's what excites me. In the old structures, I see sprouts of green. We don't have to tear the whole system down. We grow what we can in the cracks of that cement and see what happens."

Bays agreed. "Part of what cracks that cement so those sprouts can grow," she said, "is the insistent return to prayer. Again and again and again. That it's only God in whichever person God shows up in that's going to make that space so the sprouts can grow. That's going to take hard-packed ground and beat it up. Some things are going to have to go away. Some things are going to be broken. And some things are going to grow strong and we're going to have to graft on to it. We have to have willingness and wisdom to figure out which we're being call to do in which place."

The Rev. Otis Gaddis III, with the Episcopal Evangelism Network, wanted to ask, "What do we think the Church actually needs to move forward? What do we need to do to accomplish it? … There's probably some concrete things we want to see, and to say those things and what we can do to make them happen. What are the resources in this room? How can we use the energy in this room?"

The Rt. Rev. Mariann Budde of Washington was clear that "the Episcopal Church is never short of vision and visionaries and really great moments. But," she said, "what we lack are moments that build on each other into something that lasts. This feels to me like my life's work. I don't want to invest in [things] that don't bear fruit somewhere down the line. I want to put my oar in the water with things that build upon each other.

"Yes," she said, "it is messy and imperfect, but in some ways, it is coherent and strategic. … If the Acts 8 Moment is so powerful, how do we keep those things going? We talk and pray together."

Gunn agreed. "We create these moments, ideas, and people," he said. "One of the things that was great about" the Acts 8 Moment meeting last week "was where people described in one sentence their dream. Taken together, this is a vision of the Promised Land – if we were all those things that all those people said.

"Acts 8 showed us the Promised Land; how do we get there?" he asked. "The first thing we have to do is to let things go. … What if we say we are willing to give up everything except Jesus? It can all go. There's the Promised Land, and we're willing to go there. I know this is dreamy metaphorical language. But with that direction we can start to make concrete plans."

The Rev. Canon Preston B. Hannibal, canon for academic and transition ministries in the Diocese of Washington, said that "one of the things that we don't do … [because] we spend so much time on parishes that are hurting … we don't lift up parishes that are doing really good stuff in our dioceses." He spoke of parishes that are lay-led, "but we don't lift those parishes up enough as models for other parishes, for what other churches can do."

Ferguson said that "one of the more specific dreams was that Acts 8 might be that group that continues to call the Church to accountability for what it's trying to do. One thing we learned from Exodus is that the fleshpots of Egypt start to look really good after a while. … There is still a whole lot of follow-up and implementation" that needs to take place.

Gaddis concentrated on the need for creating a plan for action, and spoke of the group with which he has been working that created a design "which is flexible and open." It was a group of people, he said, "who have an interest in actually getting something done."

"It was our sense that what is needed is to gather the missional people in our Church," he said. "The first thing that needs to happen is really gathering and networking organizations … that can create the resources we want. And then there are the people. We are a church filled with community organizers. With evangelists. [we believe] that if they were all directed in the same course of action, there would be no way to stop the missional direction of this church."

Snook agreed. "What I think you're talking about is church planters and new missional communities. How do we turn people in our church from chaplains into missionaries so that we're all missionaries, not focused on just taking care of each other? I would like to see somehow this become a movement that helps reawaken the spirituality of everyone in the Church."

Lebens-Englund added, "I want to reinforce again what Susan is talking about. The reality is that we need to be grounded deeply in the work of the Spirit … if we can be a non-anxious crowd that is going to really trust that there's room [in the Church], that's powerful. There's this notion of this new apostolic age that everyone is talking about. It means that you travel light, because your essentials are really basic. … To be that in the midst of all this would make a difference."

Gaddis concluded that "whatever we decide to do will require organization .. the organization of the people of the Church. There has to be a way for us to basically have the scaffolding; that means structure among people, and among organizations not tied to the official structure of the Church."

–Lauren R. Stanley

• • •

The Acts 8 Moment will hold another gathering Wednesday night in the Indiana Rooms A and B at the Downtown Marriott. The meeting will be held at 8 p.m., unless there is a late legislative session. If there is an additional legislative session, the meeting will begin at 9:30 p.m.