Engaging the Call of Lent
God’s providence is total, unconditional, absolute and forever. We might speak of such providence as love or blessings or grace. What is clear throughout our faith history is that we understand that God’s attitude towards us is eternal. Richard Rohr, the Roman Catholic priest and theologian, reminds us of this fact in his book The Great Themes of Scripture. He also reminds us that we are the ones who change and who have the potential to change.[i]
We do pretty well when we are able to remember God’s constant gift to us and creation. When we forget, we tend to move into darkness and sin. The Bible tells us that, as humans, we will constantly go wrong when we forget this providence. We will stray; we will wander. We will be like sheep without a shepherd. When we forget God’s providence, we lie to ourselves and believe we in charge. When we forget, we consume rather than provide. When we forget, we become selfish and egocentric rather than caring, giving and “other”-centered. Truth is we forget a lot.
We forget that we have a vocation of tending and cultivating the garden within us and around us. We tend to overindulge ourselves either tending the inner garden of the soul to the detriment of the created world around us, or we do the opposite. The vocation of human beings is to do both equally well. We are to journey with God toward the fuller participation in God’s life inwardly. And we are to engage the world around us in restorative works that sustain and build community and creation itself.
The sin we talk about, the ego driven and narcissistic life of human beings, obscures and hides the true purpose of our created nature. We disregard one another for the very real needs of life (food, water, shelter and health) or for the ideal of wealth and prestige. We become “estranged” from one another and creation. Our communion (koinonia), provided by God, is broken as we focus on our own needs rather than the needs of others.[ii]
It is important as a spiritual discipline not only to acknowledge our brokenness but to amend and change our life. We must constantly make mid-course corrections both in our spiritual life and in our life of service. This corrective formation begins with acknowledging the person and purpose of Jesus Christ.
Historically we, as Christians, have believed that the correcting action in the world was the incarnation of God in the person of Jesus Christ; that is specifically the unique “self-emptying (kenosis) of the Person of the Word of God. It is a fundamental point of patristic anthropology that the eternal Word of God of His own free will dwelt among us in order to realize in His incarnate person the restoration of humanity.”[iii]
We believe as Christians that we have the opportunity to change and be transformed by the incarnation of God and the coming of the Holy Spirit. We believe that in and through community life we may be reformed by the Holy Spirit and can “live a life of love and obedience to God, and bear the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23).”[iv] By recognizing our vocation given to us by the Father, claiming the new creation provided by Jesus Christ and living in communion and community through the power of the Holy Spirit, we are each able to clarify our mission and our ministry. When we set our lives to the work of unity with God, our unity with the community and creation around us is reborn. We are freed from the bondage of sin to a restored life free from nurturing our own desires.
Lent is a season to focus intentionally upon this re-forming, re-creating work.
We are reminded of this work in our liturgy for Ash Wednesday. We remember that Christians have observed with great devotion the days of our Lord’s passion and resurrection. We remember that this is a season of penitence and fasting. We remember that Lent is a time to prepare new converts and to be transformed by their faith and the work of formation one to another. It is a time when those who have been far away from the church because of sin are returned, through their repentance, to the body of Christ. People in Lent are restored and renewed, reformed and recreated. This Lenten season is a season which makes the whole of the Church (Christ’s Body) refreshed.
“I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.”[v]
I invite you to re-engage with God in all your believing and even in your unbelieving. I invite you to re-engage in your community and church; make amends and rebuild your relationships. Be accountable for your actions more than holding others accountable for theirs. Come to terms with God’s vision for your life, how you believe you have failed, and then receive the healing gifts of Christ. Make this a holy Lent for you, for your friends, for your family and for your church. Let us together, bound by the Holy Spirit, be transformed as we make our pilgrim way of Lent. Help us to see that God provides, God loves and God recreates us for divine work.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Friday, March 4, 2011
Presentation to Wardens/Vestry 2011
I travel. I do about 30,000 miles a year in my car, more or less, as I make my way around. And one of the things I enjoy doing is to listen to books on tape. And so my wife suggested that I listen to a book called Lonesome Dove that some of you know. Evidently it’s going to take about 30,000 miles to get through that book.
As you know, in 1985 it was the Pulitzer Prize-winning western novel written by Larry McMurtry. It’s an earthy book, and I’m sometimes shocked by what happens in it, but I am enjoying it. In the very beginning of the book, a key character named Gus, Captain Augustus McCrae, an ex-Texas Ranger and cattleman and wrangler, Gus decides that the Hat Creek Cattle Company needs a sign out front. And so he begins this process of negotiation.
Now, those of you on a vestry who have ever decided you needed a new sign know exactly the kind of negotiations that Gus had to go through. They argue and argue about all the different things that can go on the sign, what the sign should say, and even where the sign is to hang.
When it’s all said and done, the politics are over, Gus proudly goes out and he hangs the sign up. It says, “The Hat Creek Cattle Company, a Livery Emporium. Captain Augustus McCrae and Captain Woodrow F. Call, Proprietors. P. Parker, a Wrangler. Deets, Joshua”— They didn’t know what Deets did so they didn’t give him a description. “For Rent: Horses and Rigs. For Sale: Cattle and Horses. Goats and Donkeys Neither Bought Nor Sold.” And this very controversial piece: “We Do Not Rent Pigs.”
We do not rent pigs. There was a lot of discussion about this addition to the sign, and Gus said, “Look, pigs are good for lots of things. They’re good if you want something to come over and wallow and soak up a mud puddle. They’re good for keeping snakes out of your cellar.” But he said, “I don’t want to have anything to do with any man who thinks renting a pig is a good idea. And so by putting that up there, ‘We Do Not Rent Pigs,’ we will avoid all kinds of business that is not our own. We do not rent pigs.”
Now, the sign hung there for quite a while but something, according to Gus, was missing—a little bit of Latin, he thought. So he dug through his belongings and found an old Latin book that his daddy had given him, and he found a phrase, “Uva Uvam Videndo Varia Fit.” It added something that was needed, a proverb, a tribute to an ancient Greek philosopher. It literally means “a grape or other grapes see changes.”
Changed by the world around us
Now, what’s interesting if you know Latin, which I don’t, but according to Wikipedia, if you know Latin, Gus has misspelled one of the words. And so there is a great literary debate. Did McMurtry make a mistake or is it intentional? I believe McMurtry was being intentional, for the mistake he makes changes the phrase to mean, “a grape is changed by living with other grapes.” A grape is changed by living with other grapes. You and I are changed by living with one another. You and I are changed by the world around us, and we have the opportunity to be about the work of transformational change in other people’s lives.
Now, what’s interesting if you know Latin, which I don’t, but according to Wikipedia, if you know Latin, Gus has misspelled one of the words. And so there is a great literary debate. Did McMurtry make a mistake or is it intentional? I believe McMurtry was being intentional, for the mistake he makes changes the phrase to mean, “a grape is changed by living with other grapes.” A grape is changed by living with other grapes. You and I are changed by living with one another. You and I are changed by the world around us, and we have the opportunity to be about the work of transformational change in other people’s lives.
The Church Economy
As vestries, it is important to understand there are some things we do not do. We do not rent pigs, but we do change the lives of those with whom we serve, and we have the opportunity to change the world around us. But right now the world around us is having more influence on us than we are on it. We must be clear that the world and church that we thought would carry us forward is no longer systemically viable.
As a church, we have an economy. It’s like any other, at its very basic, one that is dependent upon income and expenditures. Our current economy, our way of doing things, though, no longer works. It has been forever changed. When it happened, I don’t really know. It is probably an event that has occurred over many, many years and only when we look back will we be able to say, “It happened then.” But we as leaders of our church have been treating this event, this change, this change in our economy, how things work in our churches, we have been treating this by dealing with the symptoms instead of realizing that the system itself is crumbling around us.
We have consistently believed some very basic things about life in the Episcopal Church. The first one is that those who are called by God to be Episcopalians will find us and come to our doors. It’s funny and then it’s not. Once they come inside our doors, we believe this: that once they come inside our doors that they will stay because we have the most awesome liturgy. We do have an awesome liturgy. And someday, we say to ourselves, we will grow again. And when we grow again, that is the day we’ll take care of all of that deferred maintenance, that all we need is the right clergyperson.
You see, it’s not our communal responsibility, it’s simply the person with the funny collar’s responsibility, and if we could just get the right clergyperson, everything would be better. And then there is that one that if we just solve the issue of the day, whatever that issue is, we would surge in growth. If we were just true to the past or if we were just true to the future, either way, everything would be taken care of.
No corner on the market
The problem is that fewer and fewer people every year are actually looking for us. And when they come in, they do not necessarily react favorably to what they find. Meanwhile, our congregations are outperformed by the culture around us. We no longer have the sole market cornered on community life, on networking, on social services, on weddings or even funerals. We are outperformed by social media, bars, gyms, sports clubs, funeral homes, JPs, hospitals, and friends.
Think about your budgets for a moment. Our budgets themselves reveal this economic reality and what’s happening in our ministry, that our budgets are no longer sustainable. In 1997, a congregation with 50 people could support itself with a budget of about $100,000. Today it takes a congregation of more than 100 and a budget upwards of $150,000 to $180,000 a year without any debt—without any debt.
This congregation, depending on the health of its buildings and the deferred maintenance I mentioned a minute ago, might be able to afford a full-time minister and the cost of keeping the facilities open. However, this congregation, as you and I both know, has no money to do anything else. By the end of 2011, we expect that inflation itself may indeed grow to 2 percent. Maybe it won’t, but let’s just say that it does, just as an example.
So by the end of 2012, a congregation will see its expenses jump some $3,000 without doing anything. That means that the church will have to add one family who immediately is overcome by our liturgy and welcoming, who has felt called to be an Episcopalian their whole life but didn’t know it, and they are going to write a check for $3,500, the diocesan average, right then and there to take care of that inflation. And you will have to add that same family with that same commitment and understanding every year to break even and never add a dollar to mission, evangelism, or new ministry.
An old model
We are operating out of a model that depends upon assumptions about our culture that date back to the midcentury of the last millennium. I know. I have visited you all. I come and I see you in your congregations struggling with this. This is a painful acknowledgement, but we have got to get real. We must face this reality as a church. You and I did not do a whole lot to create this situation. I recognize that.
Most of us have been bumping along just trying to be good, faithful Episcopalians doing what we thought we were supposed to be doing. But I will tell you, no matter how many times we go back to sleep or close our eyes or hope for something different or try to fix a symptom, this dream is over. Continuing to do church the way we have been doing it leads to only one thing: death.
God has expectations: A missionary economy
And I will tell you that I believe that God expects something different of us and that God will recreate God’s church without us because God’s mission is sure. God’s intention in recreating this world is certain, and God does not depend upon us to see his vision of this creation through. But God has invited us to change who we are and how we are in the world to meet the challenges that are before us, to accept the invitation of his grace and wisdom and to be partners in God’s kingdom.
We must be about changing the world around us. Our new missionary economy must add value to the culture around us. We must be about missionary work of transforming the world around us—the environment, the economy itself—and the societies—our neighborhoods and our cities. People’s lives must be better tomorrow because our Episcopal Church is proclaiming the good news of salvation in work and word today.
Everybody says, “Oh, let’s look at Africa.” Well, let me tell you, in Africa, yes, they are preaching the gospel, but they are changing the world around them. That is why they are growing, because the people in those churches care and are part of the community and help the community be better tomorrow than it is today.
The economies that will flourish globally and in the United States in the 21st century will be ones that give life to people, to their community, to the environment in which we all live. We have to invest in relationship-oriented community and individual and environmental transformation. We must change the world around us.
We have an opportunity in a new missionary age to claim a sustainable mission deeply rooted in our values as Anglicans who are unabashedly Episcopalian. The world around us is actually waiting for us. They are hoping for partners who will join in providing healthy, fulfilling, life-giving, dignity-bound ministry to their communities. The world is looking for partners interested in building a more sustainable creation. The world is looking for partners who will nurture the relationships for better and more wholesome lives.
A moment of transformation
You and I stand at a moment of decision, and I as your bishop stand there with you. I am not going to stand up here and force you to live and do this new model, but I am not going to be quiet about what I see we as the Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Texas must do to inherit the kingdom of God that is being offered us.
Now, lest we think we do this untethered from our scripture and our theology, lest we think that somehow we are just supposed to be a new social network, let us be clear that God calls us to build the kingdom of God together through worship, witness, and ministry. In the Episcopal Diocese of Texas, we are one church who is reconciled by Jesus Christ, and we are empowered by the Holy Spirit through worship, witness, and ministry. That is scriptural.
Our mission is oriented and deeply grounded in our theology. We understand that God provides—God, that united being, that holy community that we call trinity—creates all of creation and provides all things for us, that this community that we have as church is intentionally supposed to reflect all of God’s glory back to God’s self and to be about a sustainable creation that provides for every human creature around us.
You and I are responsible, as the scripture says, for the Lazarus at our gate. The scripture is very clear. We cannot turn our eye or our back on the communities around us, and we are to be about showing God’s glory out in the world. But you and I also both know that grounded deep inside of that scripture that you and I are broken and that we have a hard time doing it because when fear and anxiety and our basic needs are threatened, you and I together only want one thing, and that is what we want, that when we get into conflict and when we get off track, we immediately start becoming the narcissistic human creatures that we are.
There is a little story in the Bible called the fall that has to do with that, you see. And that’s why that reconciliation of Jesus Christ is so important, that Jesus came to help us, provide for us, the freedom through his death on the cross and resurrection and the power of the Holy Spirit to do the work we’ve been given to do, that we are given through Jesus Christ’s sacrifice the opportunity to join as partners with God in changing the world around us, which is what we were created to do originally, to be good stewards of God’s creation.
A vestry’s response
Now, what is your purpose as a vestry? The canons are really clear about your work. You are to take care of the temporal concerns of your parish or mission if you’re a bishop’s committee or vestry. That’s your job.
Property: You are responsible for the construction, care, security, and maintenance of all property, buildings, and furnishings of the parish.
Stewardship: The vestry is responsible for providing the resources necessary for the mission and ministry of the parish. Surely something is missing in that. It doesn’t have the word priest in there at all. The vestry is responsible for providing the resources. Okay, maybe that’s right.
Budget: The vestry adopts and administers the budget and capital campaigns, endowments, etc. And legally, the vestry has legal responsibilities for the parish. In our current system, we think the canons tell us what we’re supposed to be doing. The canons ensure that the mission and ministry of the church are cared for.
This, my friends, is your minimum responsibility, not your maximum. The only reason to have a vestry in a community is so that the community may be intentionally focused on the mission of building God’s kingdom. These are the beginning points for you to lead your congregation out into the world, proclaiming the gospel, the good news, of Jesus Christ. It is your responsibility—your responsibility along with the clergy in your congregation—to realize God’s expectations given your missionary context.
What does success look like?
We know what success is going to look like. We will know that we are accomplishing God’s mission in our congregations when we are involved fully in ministry that transforms and restores, when we are changing the world around us, when your neighbors know you’re there.
Do your neighbors know that your church is there? Or after 20 years, do they pass by the sign and think nothing of it? We will know that we are making strides when we have exceptional stewardship, the stewardship of resources, time, and money that is entrusted to us. Exceptional stewardship, not the diocesan average stewardship. That’s not the goal.
When did the goal become the average? Did God say, “I will give you some of creation, just a little bit?” No. God gave you all of it. God made you and gave you everything that you are and everything that you have. God has given you your friends and your family. God has given and blessed you with everything. The average is not the goal, exceptional stewardship is. And then we will have excellence in mission, excellence in mission.
You and I are responsible for changing the world through our gifts and the resources given to us and by looking outside of ourselves to the world around us. You and I will know that we are making strides towards this not just when we have these big categories, but I actually believe that you and I will know because we will have more people in our churches on Sunday, for instance.
But that’s not the only goal. It’s not just that our average Sunday attendance in this church will grow but our attendance throughout the week will grow, that there will be more people, there will be more people who affiliate with our church every day of the week. That’s how we’ll know.
We will know that we are making progress when evangelism, the proclamation of the good news of salvation, and caring for others is the hallmark that we’re known for. When we talk to people in our communities, they will say, “That congregation knows the good news, and they make a difference in the world around us. They helped us with this.”
I mean, do you even know what your neighborhood is struggling with? Do you have a sense? We will know that we are making progress when we see baptisms and confirmations and receptions increase in the Diocese of Texas. But, more importantly, we’re going to know that we are making progress when more people are participating in evangelism and mission and discipleship in our communities.
We will know that we are making progress when every one of our congregations has the most welcoming, the most hospitable front door in their city.
We will know that we are making progress when the median age of our membership decreases to reflect your mission context in the world around you.
We will know that we’re making progress when our leadership, our clergy and laity, are younger and more diverse ethnically, when they reflect the diocese that is around us.
We will know we are making progress when existing congregations take the initiative for planting new congregations instead of believing somebody else is going to do that job.
We’re going to know that we are making progress when we see flourishing in the Diocese of Texas new fellowships, new missions, new parishes every year we’re able to talk at our gatherings about the new work that is happening, the entrepreneurial work that is happening, when we take more time in our diocesan council celebrating the good work that is happening in our diocese rather than arguing over the issues of the day. That’s when we’re going to know that we are making progress.
We will know that we are making progress when all of our organizations, congregations, institutions, and foundations are working together on healthy stewardship.
We’re going to know when we have an intentional diocesan-wide planned giving program that focuses its attention on providing for the stewardship of God’s gifts in every one of the congregations, that we understand our work isn’t to accomplish the stumbling blocks of today but build for the future of God’s kingdom tomorrow.
Have you in your wills made a planned gift? You’re investing Saturday at least, right? But you’re going to invest three years as leaders of this congregation, or how committed are you to seeing that your congregation lives long into the future, undertaking God’s program in this world? How committed are you?
Have you made a life gift, as I have, to this diocese and to your church? That’s when we’re going to know, when we all can say, “Yes, we have done that.” We will know when our congregations and diocese are willingly funding and supporting new emerging initiatives, crazy ideas and new ideas and dreaming about what we could be doing in our community, when there are more churches and more emerging communities, more schools and more clinics, more outreach ministries, more opportunities that we’re engaged in day in and day out.
We’re going to know when we have funded for the future as a diocese leadership training, when we have funded dollars to go into funding and helping provide partnership for new communities through a Great Commission Fund and when we care for our clergy and lay leaders through a Wellness Fund. That’s when we’re going to know that we’re making progress.
How do we get there?
We have to do some basic things to do that. We’re going to have to be very clear. We must be about formation. We have to form people who know and understand God as trinity. We must be about forming people who know and practice a healthy spiritual life.
We must form people who invite, welcome, and build community. We must form people who care about the world in which they live and are integrated into the life of the community. And we must form people who make a difference. That doesn’t happen naturally. As congregations, we must be forming people, as CS Lewis said, to be little Jesus Christs out in the world around them.
We must lead and be about leadership, not just clergy leadership but all leaders, lay and ordained, so that they are able to see the challenges as opportunities, to see the opportunities through the lens of an entrepreneurial leader who has a sense of how to take our excellence and stewardship and make a difference in the mission and ministry of the church.
We have also to be people who make connections, because we know that’s where the change happens. We must connect people with people, and this is your responsibility: to build healthy networks of mission across your congregational boundaries and out in the world, building healthy networks that support individual vocations, building healthy networks between institutions and congregations, connecting people with resources that change their lives, connecting people with resources that change the communities around them.
The people called to be the Episcopal Diocese of Texas must do this work. It is perhaps our greatest challenge. We have not seen a missionary age of this magnitude since the very earliest days of this diocese when we looked outside our doors and our cabins and saw simply frontier land. That is the world outside of our church doors. We have a mission, and we know what we must do to get there.
In closing
I’m going to close with this. It’s a little piece of scripture. Some of you may remember it. It’s from Joshua, chapter 24. Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel—they make it pretty clear—from everywhere. There’s a long list of from everywhere. And Joshua gets them all together, and he summons the elders and the heads and the judges and the vestries.
He didn’t have vestries and bishop’s committees, but if he had, it’s clear he gathered them too. And he got them there, and he presented all of them and he said, “Here they are, God. Here are your people and the leaders of your people. They’re all right here, and we actually have a list. It’s a registration list, and we know who they are and where they belong.”
And Joshua said to all the people, “Listen to what God said.” We would say, “Look at what the scripture reminds us.” “God, our God, our God is the God of Israel, for long ago, back when our ancestors were wandering around, God took one of them, a man by the name of Abraham, from beyond the river and led him through all which way.
Do you know what Abraham did along the way? Every place he stopped he built an altar and worshiped God as he made his journey. And then he gave him a lot of offspring—lots. And Jacob and his children, they went down to Egypt. And then God sent Moses and Aaron and God brought them out, and then they lived in the wilderness for a long time.”
We won’t get into that journey, but it was a long time. And God provided for the people in their wilderness, just as God has provided for us in ours.
“And then God brought you to this land and God upheld you and God supported you in your mission and in your ministry and God gave you a land,” Joshua says, “that you did not labor for and towns that you did not build. But you live there now. You, leaders, have received the blessing of God, his vestries and bishop’s committees of churches you did not labor for in which you sit and you worship but you did not build. You eat the fruit of vineyards and olive yards that you did not plant. God made way for you.”
And Joshua said to the people, all those leaders, he said, “You know all this. I’m not telling you anything new. And if you believe these things, you have to understand that you must be very fearful of the challenge that is before you. You should be concerned about this kind of God that you choose to worship and work for. In fact,” Joshua says, “you probably should not serve this Lord. You shouldn’t. It’s just too hard.”
Joshua says, “But as for me and my household, I will serve this Lord. I will serve this Lord.”
And the people answered, “No, no, no. No, wait. Joshua, no. We will. We’re going to serve this God. We promise we will.”
And Joshua said, “No, no, no, no. That’s nice of you. No, don’t really. You don’t really mean that, you see. You don’t understand what is at stake in the mission that you are accepting.”
The people said, “No, we’re serious. We will serve this God.”
You and I have a choice to make. We must choose in this moment and in every moment as we go forward to serve this God and this God’s church. We must not fear, we must not be anxious, we must not set our personal agenda above the transformative and creative and re-creative agenda of our God whom we know through the person of Jesus Christ. You and I have a choice. I’ve made mine. I’ve made mine. I will follow Jesus, and I intend to lead us forward.
But it is my dream—it is my dream and it is my daily prayer—that you and I shall be known as a generation who also chose to serve this God in mission, who at a time of great trial and a changing economy and a changing culture chose intentionally to follow God and were freed by God to change the world around us. We have an incredible opportunity as vestries and bishop’s committees of the Diocese of Texas.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Address at the 2011 Episcopal Diocese of Texas 162nd Council
Lemhi (LEMhigh) Pass is at the boarder of Montana and Idaho. There is a wooden fence there, a cattle guard crossing, and a logging road. The exact spot is today as “pristine” as you can get. One arrives there by way of the Missouri River from Fort Benton to Fort Peck Lake along the Lolo trail. And, when you stand there it looks as in many ways it looked when he stood there on the morning of August 12, 1805.
With friends nearby he made his way to the top. He described that moment clearly in his journal. He wrote: “We proceeded on the top of the dividing ridge from which I discovered immense ranges of high mountains still to the West of us with their tops partially covered with snow.”
Meriwether Lewis was the first white American to look on the great northwestern range; the first to take a step out of the Louisiana territory onto the western side of the Continental Divide.
One might wonder what he felt in that moment. We don’t know of course. Lewis was silent about his feelings on this and on most things. However, in that moment one can imagine two great worlds colliding. Two thoughts happening at the same time; neither one fully formed.
The first thought had to be the disheartening sight. Imagine “the shock, the surprise,” John Logan Allen (historiographer and author) muses, “for from the top of that ridge were to be seen neither the great river that had been promised nor the open plains extending to the shores of the South Sea…the geography of hope [gave way] to the geography of reality.” The whole journey to find a western portage that one might travel from East to West across the United States by boat was a failure. Everything he was sure of finding was not only not there it was never to be. The dream that had framed one year of study and preparation then two years of travel across wild country to this moment was over.
The second thought was the sight of the great empire of the Americas. In that look he took in with one measure from the east and all that lay behind him to the west and all that lay ahead a wealth and abundance of a new territory and the even greater spectacle of fertile land and spirit that was becoming the United States. In an age where transportation, energy, and food had not much changed since the Greeks, Meriwether Lewis saw in its rawest form the bounty of a quickly forming nation that we were to become.
Two thoughts not fully formed, which forever changed who we were and were to become and as Americans.
Two thoughts not fully formed. Today we, the Diocese of Texas, are becoming something new but are not sure what yet. We are being transformed and forged in a fiery furnace of sweeping change.
Not unlike Meriwether Lewis that morning, this morning, our geography is giving way beneath our feet. We see clearly the past and the reality of our situation. And, we see the future and all that God intends for us.
The first thought is realizing our feet are firmly planted in a stale geography where the world and church we thought would carry us forward is no longer systemically viable.
As a church we have an economy. It is like any other at its very basic level one that is dependent upon income and expenditures. Our current economy, way of doing things, doesn’t work. It is forever changed. When it happened I do not know exactly. It is probably an event that did not happen all at once but crept in and is even now more fully upon us; though we cannot yet fully comprehend its impact on our mission and ministry. We have been treating the symptoms while the system crumbles.
We have consistently believed…
Our budgets themselves reveal that the economic reality of our ministry is not sustainable. In 1997 a congregation with 50 people could support itself with a budget of $100,000. Today it takes a congregation of more than 100 and a budget upwards of $150,000 to $180,000 a year. Without debt this congregation, depending on the health of its buildings and deferred maintenance, might be able to afford a full-time minister and the cost of keeping the facilities open. However, this congregation has very little extra money for mission or outreach.
By the end of 2011 inflation is estimated to reach 2%. So by 2012 a congregation will see its expenses jump some $3,000 dollars without doing anything. That means this church will have to add a family who begins life as an Episcopalian giving the diocesan average pledge of $3,508 just to cover the cost of keeping the lights on.
We are operating out of a model that depends upon assumptions about our culture that date to the mid-century of the last millennium.
This is a painful acknowledgement because we didn’t ask for the dream to change; didn’t have a whole lot to do with the change; and are powerless to make the change stop.
No matter how many times we blink our eyes or pretend it is not happening it remains true. We stand at the Lemhi pass like Meriwether Lewis. And, we see it clearly. The dream that has framed our very core of being, the one that we prepared our whole lives to undertake, the one we are structured and organized to run, the dream we have been supporting is over.
Continuing this church economy, doing the things we have been doing for the last three decades leads only to greater conflict and loss. Continuing to be church, simply tinkering with efficiency and symptoms leads unequivocally to closure.
However, at this very same moment we stand on the pass with a second thought not yet fully formed but forming. That thought is that you and I stand on the edge of a new missionary age – a new geography of hope. We have not been called to be lords in an age of empire but entrepreneurs in an age of mission.
Our new missionary economy must add value to the culture around us.
We must be about the missionary work of transforming the world around us – our environment, the economy itself, and the societies of our neighborhoods and cities. People’s lives must be better tomorrow because our Episcopal Church is there proclaiming the Good News of Salvation.
We must engage a new design aligning our church economy with the realities of the 21st century mission field.
We have the opportunity to rethink systematically how we will walk into this geography of hope.
The economies that will flourish in the 21st century will be ones that give life to people, their community, and the environment in which they live. We must invest in relationship oriented community and individual and environmental transformation.
We have the opportunity in this new missionary age to claim a sustainable mission deeply rooted in our values as Anglicans who are unabashedly Episcopalian.
The world around is hoping for partners who will join in providing healthy, fulfilling, life giving and dignity bound ministry to the communities in which they live.
The world is looking for partners interested in building a sustainable creation.
The world is looking for partners who will nurture relationships helping one another to have a better wholesome life.
We realize as we stand here on the edge between two different mission mindsets, two different church economic theories that our current system must change if we are to lead across the cultural divide into the new millennium.
A new church economy will serve as a system to take us into the future as a healthy community of Christians who benefit the world around us proclaiming and making real the salvation of Christ.
We must step onto the other side of the divide with all its unknowns. But we do not do that without friends or untethered. As the Episcopal Diocese of Texas we take our steps together tethered to our vision and mission. Who we are and how we understand our ministry helps us by being the bedrock and foundation of hope for every step we take in this new geography.
We are called through Jesus Christ to build the Kingdom of God together through worship, witness, and ministry.
We understand that as individuals and as a sacred community we are one Church reconciled by Jesus Christ.
We are reconciled to God and to one another through the power of Jesus Christ.
We are empowered by the Holy Spirit through worship, witness and ministry.
The Holy Spirit, the empowering agent of Godly life, transforms and binds us, individual sinners, into a divine community of virtuous citizens.
This is the family of God, the community called the Church, working outwardly, on a daily basis, the inner life of the Holy Trinity. The mission of true virtue is to create a worldly but divine community, the kingdom of God, on “earth as it is in heaven.”
We can gauge our steps into the new frontier by the following marks of the new missionary age. In the life of our diocese and in our congregations we will realize: A ministry that transforms and restores – changing the world around us in concert with Christ’s resurrection work.
o
We will know we are making progress when our leadership (clergy and laity) is younger and more diverse ethnically – reflecting our mission context.
We will know we are making progress when existing congregations take the initiative for planting new congregations
We will know when we see our institutions show growth in numbers, finances, and in community impact
We will know we are making progress when we see:
No issue will keep us from our mission.
Now, let me tell you what I think about this…The real test for us though will be if we actually do something about bullying in our communities. Passing a resolution is good, but as Episcopalians our baptismal covenant does not ask to enact the Gospel legislatively, Jesus wants us to change people’s lives. I encourage you to not simply act here on the floor of council as your conscience dictates on these issues, but stand up and act to protect those who are bullied in your schools, workplaces, and within your families.
I have spent another six months editing with the help of individuals across every spectrum on the issue of sexuality. I have been in conversation with bishops in the House about their strategies and have listened carefully to their advice, and we have shared ideas. I have listened carefully. I am writing a text on the sacrament and theology of marriage. And, I am today half way through the very careful and intentional invitations to individuals across our diocese and across every theological spectrum to join me in this work of leadership. It is very clear we are not all of one mind, but we love the our diocese and we love the Episcopal Church and we are committed to one another as family members and are committed to listening and seeking a solution for our diocese.
We will realize the expectations of our missionary contexts through Formation, Leadership, and Connecting People.
We are making headway now in the area of Formation.
We are launching the Communion Covenant Curriculum developed by a task force with a feedback loop to the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church. The task force will report to us at next year’s council.
I have made it clear that I support the proposed Anglican Covenant and that this is a landmark moment for our communion. I believe this an important opportunity and deserves time by every congregation to understand better who we are and the changing communion and world around us.
I have heard people say that the Covenant moves us from a generous flexibility toward a brittle rigidity. The statements of faith presented are those that have for a long time been part of who we are as Episcopalians and Anglicans. There is no prescription in the Covenant that does not embrace the middle way for the sake of comprehension or require less generous flexibility within our missionary contexts.
I encourage you to take seriously this important moment in the life of our church and our communion and to engage the Covenant curriculum materials.
The focus of the curriculum helps members of our diocese better understand who we are as Anglicans and Episcopalians.
Understanding who we are as Episcopalians is the same undergirding principle I had when I put together the search committee led by the Rev. Susan Kennard to discern and find a new Canon for Life Long Formation. After doing a national search they offered to us three candidates. Your diocesan staff interviewed all three, and we together selected Mr. John Newton who until two weeks ago served as the Missioner on the college campus of the University of Texas. We are excited about the vision Canon Newton brings to this ministry and the new ideas and creativity that he will offer to the diocese.
We are making headway today in Leadership.
We are expanding our Iona School ministry and will be partnering with the dioceses of Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Northwest Texas, West Texas, and Nebraska to build communities and share our classes. This work is a leadership partnership between the Seminary of the Southwest and our diocese. We have Bishop Harrison to thank for this incredible work.
I am also very pleased with her clear leadership of the Seminary. Along with Dean Doug Travis and the faculty the Seminary is not only becoming the largest seminary west of the Mississippi but in my estimation will soon be the second largest seminary program in the country next to Virginia Seminary.
Bishop Harrison’s leadership with a number of other institutions is revealing itself as a gift not only to me but the vitality of the diocese.
Last night we had a wonderful roast and toast of Bishop High. We are grateful for his friendship and for his ministry. He has been a leader and he has truly given us, the people of the diocese his very best. He has not done that alone, and so it was right that we celebrate Pat and her ministry too. Clergy spouses know of her kindness and her love of them. You don’t get Rayford without Pat smiling next to him. It has been a pleasure.
I am asking that the Diocese of Texas raise a purse for Bishop High in gratitude for his ministry and that it be collected and given to him upon his retirement.
One of the gifts that Bishop High has given us is that he has formed and made clear an understanding of the importance and vocation of a regional bishop.
I had originally been counseled and perhaps out of my own newness as bishop thought that we should have an assisting bishop. However, the suffragan bishops of the diocese have been beloved, bishops Goddard, Cilley, Charlton, Alard, and Sterling to name only a few. I have realized in the last year that I trust the diocese in this work of discernment and that we do need to elect a suffragan.
However, as I have mentioned in the past elections are expensive and we need to save and prepare in order to do this election well. I am proposing therefore the following plan.
I am asking the diocese by way of this council to allow me to call an assisting Bishop. This will give me the canonical permission needed to hire if I indeed find one. The money is in the budget and we are ready to do so. This has already been approved by the Standing Committee.
I am also proposing that in the event I do not find someone that the monies are used to provide Episcopal presence throughout the diocese by inviting visiting bishops who are retired to help with the work load.
I will also propose saving the funds not used and placing them in an account that can grow in 2011 and 2012 into an election fund.
I will also appoint a committee to work under the direction of the Standing Committee and Executive Board for the development of a profile and description of a regional bishop for East Texas and that such a process begin immediately.
As a point of clarification, I will plan to return to the 163rd Diocesan Council in 2012 and call for the election of a Suffragan Bishop for East Texas to be held at Council in 2013.
We are making headway today in the area of building and making Connections locally and globally.
We launched our new website yesterday. The new site moves us from a site devoted to telling people what we want to a site committed to helping people find what they need, connect with others doing great work, and provide an online tool for the sharing of news and information between congregations and institutions.
This launch is part of an overall communication plan which is connected to a new magazine that will share the good news of Christ at work in and through the diocese.
This new look and new presentation of the Diocese is placed firmly within a news strategy of pushing information out through various forms of social networking, creating an ever greater web of communicators throughout the diocese.
We are reaching more and more people across our diocese and across the global church.
Carol Barnwell and LaShane Eaglin do the work of a much larger staff and have risen to the challenge of a new bishop’s ideas about communication. When given the opportunity to hire an employee to replace their secretary they developing a job description and made a strategic hire; bringing on board Luke Blount as a writer, and leader in social networking and media arts.
As your ambassador I am helping us make connections across the Episcopal Church and the global communion. One such connection is with the diocese of Haiti. Through the House of Bishops I met Bishop Zache Duracin, the bishop of the largest Diocese in the Episcopal Church, the Diocese of Haiti. He and I were at table together for my first year and a half in the house. While in England for the Compass Rose meeting I was able to spend some time with him and to hear of the miraculous work they are doing in Haiti. The Diocese has given through the Episcopal Foundation of Texas $10,000. During 2010 alone people and congregations sent more than $44,000. Leaders have over the last two years given dollars, time, and talent. Together I believe we can say that the people of our diocese have given over $100,000 dollars directly and indirectly to the rebuild effort. But we are not done yet.
There is more work. We must help them rebuild the national cathedral there which is of great historic, artistic, cultural, and communal importance. Moreover, we must help them to rebuild their country. This is a ministry we must do in partnership with them. Bishop Duracin has asked for more funding and we will make another gift this year. However, we are going to work with the Episcopal Church’s campaign. You will be hearing more about this as I have appointed my Archdeacon Russ Oechsel to head this up.
Last year the Council asked that the Executive Board look at extending the Council by one day. The Executive Board has reported in volume one of the journal that they did not believe this was a good idea. However, I have worked with Camp Allen and a few leaders in the diocese and it has been decided that JoAnne and I will host the first annual Episcopal Diocese of Texas Family Reunion and Blue Grass Festival at Camp Allen on the weekend of May 11, 2012. We hope this will be an opportunity for us to make connections within the wider family of the diocese; connections and relationships outside the work of mission and ministry and business. Please mark your calendars and plan to join us.
Conclusion
Before I conclude I wish to say that I have been gifted two incredible suffragan bishops, bishop High and Bishop Harrison. I would ask you to please show what I know is your deep and heartfelt gratitude for their service and ministry.
I am not foolish enough to lead this diocese without your wisdom and partnership.
I also am so very grateful for your diocesan staff. Will the staff in the room please rise. They labor vigorously on your behalf. It is upon their shoulders I stand more often than not. It is upon their tireless efforts that I depend. Most of all of course is my assistant Stephanie Taylor. You know, JoAnne knows, we all know I could not do it without her partnership and support.
And, there is JoAnne. I am grateful for being able to walk this ministry with you. I am grateful for your continuous support of the diocese by your support of me. I am grateful for your honesty and your love. As everyone knows who knows you…I married far above my station…thank God.
The truth is that it is us; we the people called the Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Texas do this work.
We have a mission.
We have values that define how we see the world: ministry and mission that is transformational, exceptional stewardship, excellence in mission
Every congregation and every institution is continuously engaging in the work of formation, leadership, and connection for the sole purpose of realizing potential given our missionary context.
We are on the precipice of a new age of mission.
I would not want to take my steps into the wilderness before us without you, the people of the diocese, who I am proud and honored to call friends and humbled to serve as bishop.
My hope is that at the last day we will have dared, with entrepreneurial spirits, to see the glory of God and the challenge before us as an opportunity for service and mission and not a stumbling block to be feared.
And, that as President Thomas Jefferson said of Meriwether Lewis:
Endnote:
The basics of our faith mentioned above are:
•
With friends nearby he made his way to the top. He described that moment clearly in his journal. He wrote: “We proceeded on the top of the dividing ridge from which I discovered immense ranges of high mountains still to the West of us with their tops partially covered with snow.”
Meriwether Lewis was the first white American to look on the great northwestern range; the first to take a step out of the Louisiana territory onto the western side of the Continental Divide.
One might wonder what he felt in that moment. We don’t know of course. Lewis was silent about his feelings on this and on most things. However, in that moment one can imagine two great worlds colliding. Two thoughts happening at the same time; neither one fully formed.
The first thought had to be the disheartening sight. Imagine “the shock, the surprise,” John Logan Allen (historiographer and author) muses, “for from the top of that ridge were to be seen neither the great river that had been promised nor the open plains extending to the shores of the South Sea…the geography of hope [gave way] to the geography of reality.” The whole journey to find a western portage that one might travel from East to West across the United States by boat was a failure. Everything he was sure of finding was not only not there it was never to be. The dream that had framed one year of study and preparation then two years of travel across wild country to this moment was over.
The second thought was the sight of the great empire of the Americas. In that look he took in with one measure from the east and all that lay behind him to the west and all that lay ahead a wealth and abundance of a new territory and the even greater spectacle of fertile land and spirit that was becoming the United States. In an age where transportation, energy, and food had not much changed since the Greeks, Meriwether Lewis saw in its rawest form the bounty of a quickly forming nation that we were to become.
Two thoughts not fully formed, which forever changed who we were and were to become and as Americans.
Two thoughts not fully formed. Today we, the Diocese of Texas, are becoming something new but are not sure what yet. We are being transformed and forged in a fiery furnace of sweeping change.
Not unlike Meriwether Lewis that morning, this morning, our geography is giving way beneath our feet. We see clearly the past and the reality of our situation. And, we see the future and all that God intends for us.
The first thought is realizing our feet are firmly planted in a stale geography where the world and church we thought would carry us forward is no longer systemically viable.
As a church we have an economy. It is like any other at its very basic level one that is dependent upon income and expenditures. Our current economy, way of doing things, doesn’t work. It is forever changed. When it happened I do not know exactly. It is probably an event that did not happen all at once but crept in and is even now more fully upon us; though we cannot yet fully comprehend its impact on our mission and ministry. We have been treating the symptoms while the system crumbles.
We have consistently believed…
…that those who are called by God to be Episcopalians will find us and come through our doors.The problem is that fewer and fewer people every year seek us out and react positively to our attempts to deal with the symptoms. Meanwhile, we are out performed by the culture around us. We no longer have the market cornered on community life, networking, social services, weddings, funerals, and care. We are out performed by others: social media, bars, gyms, sports clubs, funeral homes, JPs, hospitals and friends.
…that once they were inside our doors they would stay because of our awesome liturgy.
…that someday we will grow again -- then we can take care of our deferred maintenance.
…that all we need is the right clergy person. After all, we are not accountable.
…that if we just solved the issue of the day one way or the other we would surge in growth. If we were just true to the past…or if we were just true to the future….
Our budgets themselves reveal that the economic reality of our ministry is not sustainable. In 1997 a congregation with 50 people could support itself with a budget of $100,000. Today it takes a congregation of more than 100 and a budget upwards of $150,000 to $180,000 a year. Without debt this congregation, depending on the health of its buildings and deferred maintenance, might be able to afford a full-time minister and the cost of keeping the facilities open. However, this congregation has very little extra money for mission or outreach.
By the end of 2011 inflation is estimated to reach 2%. So by 2012 a congregation will see its expenses jump some $3,000 dollars without doing anything. That means this church will have to add a family who begins life as an Episcopalian giving the diocesan average pledge of $3,508 just to cover the cost of keeping the lights on.
We are operating out of a model that depends upon assumptions about our culture that date to the mid-century of the last millennium.
This is a painful acknowledgement because we didn’t ask for the dream to change; didn’t have a whole lot to do with the change; and are powerless to make the change stop.
No matter how many times we blink our eyes or pretend it is not happening it remains true. We stand at the Lemhi pass like Meriwether Lewis. And, we see it clearly. The dream that has framed our very core of being, the one that we prepared our whole lives to undertake, the one we are structured and organized to run, the dream we have been supporting is over.
Continuing this church economy, doing the things we have been doing for the last three decades leads only to greater conflict and loss. Continuing to be church, simply tinkering with efficiency and symptoms leads unequivocally to closure.
However, at this very same moment we stand on the pass with a second thought not yet fully formed but forming. That thought is that you and I stand on the edge of a new missionary age – a new geography of hope. We have not been called to be lords in an age of empire but entrepreneurs in an age of mission.
Our new missionary economy must add value to the culture around us.
We must be about the missionary work of transforming the world around us – our environment, the economy itself, and the societies of our neighborhoods and cities. People’s lives must be better tomorrow because our Episcopal Church is there proclaiming the Good News of Salvation.
We must engage a new design aligning our church economy with the realities of the 21st century mission field.
We have the opportunity to rethink systematically how we will walk into this geography of hope.
The economies that will flourish in the 21st century will be ones that give life to people, their community, and the environment in which they live. We must invest in relationship oriented community and individual and environmental transformation.
We have the opportunity in this new missionary age to claim a sustainable mission deeply rooted in our values as Anglicans who are unabashedly Episcopalian.
The world around is hoping for partners who will join in providing healthy, fulfilling, life giving and dignity bound ministry to the communities in which they live.
The world is looking for partners interested in building a sustainable creation.
The world is looking for partners who will nurture relationships helping one another to have a better wholesome life.
We realize as we stand here on the edge between two different mission mindsets, two different church economic theories that our current system must change if we are to lead across the cultural divide into the new millennium.
A new church economy will serve as a system to take us into the future as a healthy community of Christians who benefit the world around us proclaiming and making real the salvation of Christ.
We must step onto the other side of the divide with all its unknowns. But we do not do that without friends or untethered. As the Episcopal Diocese of Texas we take our steps together tethered to our vision and mission. Who we are and how we understand our ministry helps us by being the bedrock and foundation of hope for every step we take in this new geography.
We are called through Jesus Christ to build the Kingdom of God together through worship, witness, and ministry.
We understand that as individuals and as a sacred community we are one Church reconciled by Jesus Christ.
We are reconciled to God and to one another through the power of Jesus Christ.
We are empowered by the Holy Spirit through worship, witness and ministry.
The Holy Spirit, the empowering agent of Godly life, transforms and binds us, individual sinners, into a divine community of virtuous citizens.
This is the family of God, the community called the Church, working outwardly, on a daily basis, the inner life of the Holy Trinity. The mission of true virtue is to create a worldly but divine community, the kingdom of God, on “earth as it is in heaven.”
We can gauge our steps into the new frontier by the following marks of the new missionary age. In the life of our diocese and in our congregations we will realize: A ministry that transforms and restores – changing the world around us in concert with Christ’s resurrection work.
o A great example of this is our renewed and collaborative partnership with Episcopal Relief and Development.
o Beginning with relief efforts focused on the Gulf Coast following Ike, we have put to work nearly a million dollars over a three year period. $400,000 from the foundations of the diocese to aid congregations with expenses and to rebuild. ERD contributed $200,000+ over the same period. And, people across the diocese and country offered another $370,000 in additional dollars. Gutting houses, rebuilding, helping our churches get started again, renewing lives and transforming the lives of the thousands who served as volunteers.Another mark of the missionary age is exceptional stewardship – stewardship of the resources of time, talent, and money entrusted to us.
o Our coordinated restoration and management earned recognition and our leaders including Russ Oechsel and Maggie Immler have been asked to help coach and assist others in responding to emergencies across the country.
o We are also taking steps to lead with a Nets for Life campaign which you will hear about later.
o St. Mary’s West Columbia is a great example of a congregation who recently sold to the Nature Conservancy the last piece of pristine Texas coastal prairie. We were involved in restoring, caring for and ensuring for future generations a piece of Texas history and a section of land with geographical and species diversity. The impact is tremendous as the letter I received from the Houston chapter of the Audubon Society noted. The people of the diocese partnered with others in conserving and safeguarding God’s creation and in so doing makes a permanent place were God in all of God’s glory is revealed in the wonder of creation.
o This year we are partnering with The Episcopal Network for Stewardship in a collaborative leap to build connections across the country and raise our understanding of the meaning and impact exceptional stewardship can have on the church economy. The gathering will be June 3 and 4, 2011 this year at Camp Allen.
o Exceptional stewardship also means that we must rethink Mission Funding and the outreach ministries of the diocese. We can no longer fund the way we have been funding our common work for the past three decades. While the methodology changed slightly with “freedom of choice” and then “mission funding” the truth is that we continue today to fund and structure our common mission and ministry the way we did in the 1980s. No entrepreneurial mission minded organization funds the way they did in the 1980’s.
William Isaac, former chairman of the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, wrote: “A financial system that does not take risks is a financial system that is not supporting entrepreneurship and growth.”
We must employ in entrepreneurial fiscal leadership in this new missionary age.
o I have challenged the Church Corporation to work with David Fisher in our office to provide for the congregations of the diocese a planned giving campaign that helps congregations provide legacy giving for the future mission of the church.
The third mark of the new missionary age is excellence in mission
o
Excellence in mission means that we will embrace a culture of evangelism that is particularly our own.
o To this end we will hold an Evangelism Conference November 11 and 12 of 2011. We will look at emerging and the leading principles of greenfield evangelism, front door evangelism, and evangelism through technology.
o We hope at that time also to roll out a diocesan wide evangelism project.
o Church Planting is another place where we must engage in missionary excellence. We are going to have to become strategic in our funding for new growth. I have outlined and am working with all of the foundations on a clear strategic funding plan for grants that will support new starts, satellites, evangelism and newcomer initiatives.
o Last year I formed a Task Force on church planting that is working on a theology in sync with diocesan vision. They are looking at types of new starts, potential sites and projects that will need new development in the years to come. They are taking the initiative and looking at how to drive excellence in mission throughout our diocesan structure and offerings.
We will know we are making progress towards the vision of the kingdom transforming the world because Average Sunday Attendance will increase in the diocese but more importantly:
• week day attendance on every campus will increase
• Church and community partnership will increase in frequency.
We will know we are making progress when we see Baptisms, confirmations, and receptions increase in the diocese, but more importantly:
• The numbers of people who associate themselves with the Episcopal church will grow
• The numbers of people who participate in common mission with the Episcopal church will grow
• We will be known as a diocese and as a local church that welcomes, cares, and befriends
We will know we are making progress when the median age of the membership of our church decreases to reflect our mission context – the counties in which the diocese is located.
We will know we are making progress when our leadership (clergy and laity) is younger and more diverse ethnically – reflecting our mission context.
We will know we are making progress when existing congregations take the initiative for planting new congregations
We will know when we see our institutions show growth in numbers, finances, and in community impact
We will know we are making progress when we see:
•more churches
• more emerging communities
• more schools
• more clinics
• more outreach ministries and centers
We will know when we have three fully funded endowments:
• Great Commission Fund – which underwrites and supports new congregations
• Leadership Development Fund – which builds leadership formation and capacity
• Clergy Wellness Fund – which supports the health care cost and wellness initiatives for clergy and their families
We will know we are making our way into the new missionary age when no issue that is secondary to the basics of our faith divides us and keeps us from our mission.
No issue will keep us from our mission.
We are making progress today. Last year the resolutions committee worked to bring people together to help present legislation that united the council around a common issue of concern. We should be proud of their work.
This year in September and October our nation’s headlines were filled with stories of people who were bullied. Our resolution committee has risen to the challenge after receiving multiple resolutions and has put together one resolution which in my mind captures our willingness to work together on a common issue of a Gospel importance.
Another example of where I am seeing people come together is in a conversation with me around the unity and mission of the diocese as we move towards General Convention 2012. I have spent the last year preparing to call the Task Force on Unity together. Their task will be to present to Council in 2012 our plan for leading through the unfolding events of General Convention.
I did have to change the plan for the Task Force in mid-stream as it became clear that the Liturgical Commission was going to present their work in an alternative service book for the Episcopal Church. This particular approach meant thinking clearly about how I will personally approach the debate on sexuality in 2012. Instead of the role of mediator I am now in the role of leader and will be making key decisions about our future.
That being said I am working with Secretary James Baker on my leadership. He has been most gracious with his time and attention. I spent six months working on a proposal.
I have spent another six months editing with the help of individuals across every spectrum on the issue of sexuality. I have been in conversation with bishops in the House about their strategies and have listened carefully to their advice, and we have shared ideas. I have listened carefully. I am writing a text on the sacrament and theology of marriage. And, I am today half way through the very careful and intentional invitations to individuals across our diocese and across every theological spectrum to join me in this work of leadership. It is very clear we are not all of one mind, but we love the our diocese and we love the Episcopal Church and we are committed to one another as family members and are committed to listening and seeking a solution for our diocese.
So, we are making progress in our unity and respect for one another.
How do we move from where we are today, at the edge of a new era, capitalizing on our strengths and resources, to become the diocese intended by God?
We will realize the expectations of our missionary contexts through Formation, Leadership, and Connecting People.
We are making headway now in the area of Formation.
We are launching the Communion Covenant Curriculum developed by a task force with a feedback loop to the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church. The task force will report to us at next year’s council.
I have made it clear that I support the proposed Anglican Covenant and that this is a landmark moment for our communion. I believe this an important opportunity and deserves time by every congregation to understand better who we are and the changing communion and world around us.
I have heard people say that the Covenant moves us from a generous flexibility toward a brittle rigidity. The statements of faith presented are those that have for a long time been part of who we are as Episcopalians and Anglicans. There is no prescription in the Covenant that does not embrace the middle way for the sake of comprehension or require less generous flexibility within our missionary contexts.
I encourage you to take seriously this important moment in the life of our church and our communion and to engage the Covenant curriculum materials.
The focus of the curriculum helps members of our diocese better understand who we are as Anglicans and Episcopalians.
Understanding who we are as Episcopalians is the same undergirding principle I had when I put together the search committee led by the Rev. Susan Kennard to discern and find a new Canon for Life Long Formation. After doing a national search they offered to us three candidates. Your diocesan staff interviewed all three, and we together selected Mr. John Newton who until two weeks ago served as the Missioner on the college campus of the University of Texas. We are excited about the vision Canon Newton brings to this ministry and the new ideas and creativity that he will offer to the diocese.
We are making headway today in Leadership.
We are expanding our Iona School ministry and will be partnering with the dioceses of Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Northwest Texas, West Texas, and Nebraska to build communities and share our classes. This work is a leadership partnership between the Seminary of the Southwest and our diocese. We have Bishop Harrison to thank for this incredible work.
I am also very pleased with her clear leadership of the Seminary. Along with Dean Doug Travis and the faculty the Seminary is not only becoming the largest seminary west of the Mississippi but in my estimation will soon be the second largest seminary program in the country next to Virginia Seminary.
Bishop Harrison’s leadership with a number of other institutions is revealing itself as a gift not only to me but the vitality of the diocese.
Last night we had a wonderful roast and toast of Bishop High. We are grateful for his friendship and for his ministry. He has been a leader and he has truly given us, the people of the diocese his very best. He has not done that alone, and so it was right that we celebrate Pat and her ministry too. Clergy spouses know of her kindness and her love of them. You don’t get Rayford without Pat smiling next to him. It has been a pleasure.
I am asking that the Diocese of Texas raise a purse for Bishop High in gratitude for his ministry and that it be collected and given to him upon his retirement.
One of the gifts that Bishop High has given us is that he has formed and made clear an understanding of the importance and vocation of a regional bishop.
I had originally been counseled and perhaps out of my own newness as bishop thought that we should have an assisting bishop. However, the suffragan bishops of the diocese have been beloved, bishops Goddard, Cilley, Charlton, Alard, and Sterling to name only a few. I have realized in the last year that I trust the diocese in this work of discernment and that we do need to elect a suffragan.
However, as I have mentioned in the past elections are expensive and we need to save and prepare in order to do this election well. I am proposing therefore the following plan.
I am asking the diocese by way of this council to allow me to call an assisting Bishop. This will give me the canonical permission needed to hire if I indeed find one. The money is in the budget and we are ready to do so. This has already been approved by the Standing Committee.
I am also proposing that in the event I do not find someone that the monies are used to provide Episcopal presence throughout the diocese by inviting visiting bishops who are retired to help with the work load.
I will also propose saving the funds not used and placing them in an account that can grow in 2011 and 2012 into an election fund.
I will also appoint a committee to work under the direction of the Standing Committee and Executive Board for the development of a profile and description of a regional bishop for East Texas and that such a process begin immediately.
As a point of clarification, I will plan to return to the 163rd Diocesan Council in 2012 and call for the election of a Suffragan Bishop for East Texas to be held at Council in 2013.
We are making headway today in the area of building and making Connections locally and globally.
We launched our new website yesterday. The new site moves us from a site devoted to telling people what we want to a site committed to helping people find what they need, connect with others doing great work, and provide an online tool for the sharing of news and information between congregations and institutions.
This launch is part of an overall communication plan which is connected to a new magazine that will share the good news of Christ at work in and through the diocese.
This new look and new presentation of the Diocese is placed firmly within a news strategy of pushing information out through various forms of social networking, creating an ever greater web of communicators throughout the diocese.
We are reaching more and more people across our diocese and across the global church.
Carol Barnwell and LaShane Eaglin do the work of a much larger staff and have risen to the challenge of a new bishop’s ideas about communication. When given the opportunity to hire an employee to replace their secretary they developing a job description and made a strategic hire; bringing on board Luke Blount as a writer, and leader in social networking and media arts.
As your ambassador I am helping us make connections across the Episcopal Church and the global communion. One such connection is with the diocese of Haiti. Through the House of Bishops I met Bishop Zache Duracin, the bishop of the largest Diocese in the Episcopal Church, the Diocese of Haiti. He and I were at table together for my first year and a half in the house. While in England for the Compass Rose meeting I was able to spend some time with him and to hear of the miraculous work they are doing in Haiti. The Diocese has given through the Episcopal Foundation of Texas $10,000. During 2010 alone people and congregations sent more than $44,000. Leaders have over the last two years given dollars, time, and talent. Together I believe we can say that the people of our diocese have given over $100,000 dollars directly and indirectly to the rebuild effort. But we are not done yet.
There is more work. We must help them rebuild the national cathedral there which is of great historic, artistic, cultural, and communal importance. Moreover, we must help them to rebuild their country. This is a ministry we must do in partnership with them. Bishop Duracin has asked for more funding and we will make another gift this year. However, we are going to work with the Episcopal Church’s campaign. You will be hearing more about this as I have appointed my Archdeacon Russ Oechsel to head this up.
Last year the Council asked that the Executive Board look at extending the Council by one day. The Executive Board has reported in volume one of the journal that they did not believe this was a good idea. However, I have worked with Camp Allen and a few leaders in the diocese and it has been decided that JoAnne and I will host the first annual Episcopal Diocese of Texas Family Reunion and Blue Grass Festival at Camp Allen on the weekend of May 11, 2012. We hope this will be an opportunity for us to make connections within the wider family of the diocese; connections and relationships outside the work of mission and ministry and business. Please mark your calendars and plan to join us.
Conclusion
Before I conclude I wish to say that I have been gifted two incredible suffragan bishops, bishop High and Bishop Harrison. I would ask you to please show what I know is your deep and heartfelt gratitude for their service and ministry.
I am not foolish enough to lead this diocese without your wisdom and partnership.
I also am so very grateful for your diocesan staff. Will the staff in the room please rise. They labor vigorously on your behalf. It is upon their shoulders I stand more often than not. It is upon their tireless efforts that I depend. Most of all of course is my assistant Stephanie Taylor. You know, JoAnne knows, we all know I could not do it without her partnership and support.
And, there is JoAnne. I am grateful for being able to walk this ministry with you. I am grateful for your continuous support of the diocese by your support of me. I am grateful for your honesty and your love. As everyone knows who knows you…I married far above my station…thank God.
The truth is that it is us; we the people called the Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Texas do this work.
We have a mission.
We have values that define how we see the world: ministry and mission that is transformational, exceptional stewardship, excellence in mission
Every congregation and every institution is continuously engaging in the work of formation, leadership, and connection for the sole purpose of realizing potential given our missionary context.
We are on the precipice of a new age of mission.
I would not want to take my steps into the wilderness before us without you, the people of the diocese, who I am proud and honored to call friends and humbled to serve as bishop.
My hope is that at the last day we will have dared, with entrepreneurial spirits, to see the glory of God and the challenge before us as an opportunity for service and mission and not a stumbling block to be feared.
And, that as President Thomas Jefferson said of Meriwether Lewis:
…That it may be said of us that we were of great courage and undaunted.
…That we were not be diverted from our task nor God’s direction.May we with steadfast faith and fervent prayer ask for God’s grace and power to enliven our wills for the work that is before us. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. [Amen]
…And that there was no hesitation but fidelity in our cause and in our mission.
Endnote:
The basics of our faith mentioned above are:
•
our communion in the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church, worshipping the one true God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit;
• the catholic and apostolic faith uniquely revealed in the Holy Scriptures and set forth in the catholic creeds;
• the belief that the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments contain all things necessary for salvation and as being the rule and ultimate standard of faith;
• that the Apostles’ Creed, as the baptismal symbol; and the Nicene Creed, as the sufficient statement of the Christian faith;
• that the two sacraments ordained by Christ himself – Baptism and the Supper of the Lord – ministered with the unfailing use of Christ’s words of institution, and of the elements ordained by him;
• that the historic episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the unity of his Church;
• that the shared patterns of our common prayer and liturgy form, sustain and nourish our worship of God and our faith and life together…
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Write, Write, Write
I spent most of the last week either in meetings or writing.
I worked on the legislative script for council. That piece has occupied a great deal of my time. I have to rehearse and think about all those rules of order.
Once that was done I turned my attention to the pile of notes I call:" The things I want to say." These are then placed into a long manuscript and I begin working on the Bishop's address. It is an interesting process. I move quickly from the pile of everything I want to say into the editing mode trying to get the document into what I might describe as everything "I have time to say." That is complicated by a third rule of writing for a speach which is writing a manuscript that has everything in it "you all are willing to listen to me say." Ahhhh, there is the rub.
Well we are in the home stretch. A few more edits left and we can put it to bed.
By tomorrow I will have brought the text down to size and be reasonably comfortable with it. Then I can focus my attention on the scriptures for Sunday. The research is done, the rest is sitting there ready to be put together.
I am praying for council and for all those traveling. I hope those of you who do not have the blessed opportunity to be with us will keep us in your prayers.
Blessings,
A
I worked on the legislative script for council. That piece has occupied a great deal of my time. I have to rehearse and think about all those rules of order.
Once that was done I turned my attention to the pile of notes I call:" The things I want to say." These are then placed into a long manuscript and I begin working on the Bishop's address. It is an interesting process. I move quickly from the pile of everything I want to say into the editing mode trying to get the document into what I might describe as everything "I have time to say." That is complicated by a third rule of writing for a speach which is writing a manuscript that has everything in it "you all are willing to listen to me say." Ahhhh, there is the rub.
Well we are in the home stretch. A few more edits left and we can put it to bed.
By tomorrow I will have brought the text down to size and be reasonably comfortable with it. Then I can focus my attention on the scriptures for Sunday. The research is done, the rest is sitting there ready to be put together.
I am praying for council and for all those traveling. I hope those of you who do not have the blessed opportunity to be with us will keep us in your prayers.
Blessings,
A
Friday, January 28, 2011
Episcopal Leaders Statements on death of David Kato
Archbishop condemns murder of Ugandan gay human rights activist
Friday 28 January 2011
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, who is currently in Dublin for the Primates' meeting, has made the following statement regarding the murder of the gay human rights activist David Kato Kisulle in Uganda:
"The brutal murder of David Kato Kisule, a gay human rights activist, is profoundly shocking. Our prayers and deep sympathy go out for his family and friends - and for all who live in fear for their lives. Whatever the precise circumstances of his death, which have yet to be determined, we know that David Kato Kisule lived under the threat of violence and death. No one should have to live in such fear because of the bigotry of others. Such violence has been consistently condemned by the Anglican Communion worldwide. This event also makes it all the more urgent for the British Government to secure the safety of LGBT asylum seekers in the UK. This is a moment to take very serious stock and to address those attitudes of mind which endanger the lives of men and women belonging to sexual minorities."
Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop on the death of Ugandan activist:
[January 28, 2011] “His murder deprives his people of a significant and effective voice,” Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said on the death of gay human rights activist David Kato in Uganda.
The Presiding Bishop presently is in Dublin, Ireland, attending the meeting of the Primates of the Anglican Communion.
Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori’s statement:
At this morning’s Eucharist at the Primates Meeting, I offered prayers for the repose of the soul of David Kato. His murder deprives his people of a significant and effective voice, and we pray that the world may learn from his gentle and quiet witness, and begin to receive a heart of flesh in place of a heart of stone. May he rest in peace, and may his work continue to bring justice and dignity for all God’s children.
Friday 28 January 2011
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, who is currently in Dublin for the Primates' meeting, has made the following statement regarding the murder of the gay human rights activist David Kato Kisulle in Uganda:
"The brutal murder of David Kato Kisule, a gay human rights activist, is profoundly shocking. Our prayers and deep sympathy go out for his family and friends - and for all who live in fear for their lives. Whatever the precise circumstances of his death, which have yet to be determined, we know that David Kato Kisule lived under the threat of violence and death. No one should have to live in such fear because of the bigotry of others. Such violence has been consistently condemned by the Anglican Communion worldwide. This event also makes it all the more urgent for the British Government to secure the safety of LGBT asylum seekers in the UK. This is a moment to take very serious stock and to address those attitudes of mind which endanger the lives of men and women belonging to sexual minorities."
Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop on the death of Ugandan activist:
[January 28, 2011] “His murder deprives his people of a significant and effective voice,” Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said on the death of gay human rights activist David Kato in Uganda.
The Presiding Bishop presently is in Dublin, Ireland, attending the meeting of the Primates of the Anglican Communion.
Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori’s statement:
At this morning’s Eucharist at the Primates Meeting, I offered prayers for the repose of the soul of David Kato. His murder deprives his people of a significant and effective voice, and we pray that the world may learn from his gentle and quiet witness, and begin to receive a heart of flesh in place of a heart of stone. May he rest in peace, and may his work continue to bring justice and dignity for all God’s children.
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