From General Convention

Editor's note: During the General Convention, members of the Central Pennsylvania deputation are providing daily updates to the Diocese. The Rev. Christine Purcell is serving as “recorder and reporter” for these updates. This is the first of those reports.

DAY 1: Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Committee work has begun so that the legislation will reach the floors of the House of Bishops and the House of Deputies early in the Convention. Members of our deputation have been engaged in the various committees they are assigned to or they are following.

We gathered in our table groups to hear opening remarks by Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts-Schori and President of the House of Deputies Bonnie Anderson. Schori spoke about crisis and opportunity. Anderson’s focus was mission. Quotable quotes: “This crisis is a decision point –one which may involve suffering. But it is our opportunity to choose which direction we’ll go and what we will build…there will be cross-shaped decisions in our work , but if we look faithfully, there will be resurrection as well” (Jefferts-Schori); “The church does not have a mission. God’s mission has a church” (Anderson).

Professor Marshall Kanz introduced the Public Narrative project, a story-telling based tool to inform our table conversations about Mission. Public Narrative is a model that seeks to mobilize the moral commitment that leads to social change. Kanz teaches at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. The son of a Jewish rabbi, he left home, Bakersfield, CA in 1960, to enter Harvard as a freshman. He dropped out before his senior year to go to Mississippi and work as a civil rights organizer. From there he went back to California and worked with Cesar Chavez for sixteen years. He returned to Harvard after 25 years to complete senior year, graduate studies, and now teaches there.

Public narrative works at the intersection between our individual stories, the stories of our faith communities, and the story of our national (or global) community. The motivation to work for cultural and social change comes out of the engagement of our emotions in hopeful vision of an alternative reality to the present.

There will be three more table sessions through the course of the convention which will use Public Narrative as a method for visioning mission. Prof. Kanz has trained coaches at the Province level who are at many of the tables to facilitate process. The Rev. Stephen Casey and the Rev. David Lovelace have received this training.

Reports from members of the Deputation at the end of the day:

From the Small Church Committee (Kate Harrigan and Gina Barrett)
There is no “national church” – we (small churches) are the church.
A resolution to watch – B006 – concerning the condition of detention centers for immigrants.

Communications (Brian Amato picked this up in casual conversation)
The idea of Episcopal Life going to a glossy quarterly (vs. continuing monthly publication) is up against serious opposition from those concerned about the cost of this strategy in terms in terms of the sense of immediacy and connection to the life of the church for many Episcopalians; particularly in dioceses where large contingents have left TEC.

Consecration of Bishops (Harry Snell)
They have passed on two elected candidates for bishop, the Rev. Larry Provenzano from the Diocese of Long Island and the Rev. John Tarrant from South Dakota. Some paperwork is still needed for the Rev. Ruiz from the Diocese of Ecuador – that should be completed Wednesday morning. He is expected to pass as well.

Civil Air Patrol (Bill Alford)
The Discernment Committee for the next suffragan bishop for federal chaplaincies is working on a profile. Bishop Baxter is chairing this committee.

The requirements for this position are daunting - the person selected must be in really good health, as his/her ministry field is the whole world, and needs to provide oversight to many constituencies: all chaplains in all armed forces, prison chaplains, VA hospital chaplains, and civil air patrol chaplains. The position is open to all clergy.

Ministry (David Lovelace)
There are questions about how some changes to constitutions and canons around ministry development are going to be funded – particularly with respect to theological education and Fresh Start. People are coming out of seminary with significant debt and no way to pay it back. A number of resolutions are being put forward around the funding questions.

Constitutions and Canons (Stephen Casey)
The Standing Committee on Constitution and Canons reviews proposed amendments to the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church and places them in proper form before passing them on to the General Convention for action. In addition they carry out a continual review of current Canons of the Church. At its first meeting of the Convention the Legislative Committee discussed at length the revision to Title IV, which is a major review of the Disciplinary Canons of the Church. The Disciplinary Canons as they now stand were originally set down in 1994. The prevailing attitude to clergy misconduct in those days was to consider it in the same terms as criminal law, in a punitive way. The current revision to go before the house approaches the Disciplinary Canons in a more pastoral and theological manner, moving them towards a reconciliation model for all appropriate circumstances. Later in the day the Committee discussed amendments to the Constitution and Canons that refer to the keeping of archival materials of the church, specifically how these are now garnered from dioceses and provinces of the church in an increasingly electronic age. They also considered amendments to the Canons which refer to the manner in which Diocesan Standing Committees transmit consents for Episcopal Elections.

Bishop Baxter spoke about work on a charter for Christian formation and lifelong learning for lay and ordained persons.