General Convention - Day 2

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.

“Doing the business of getting ready to do business” pretty much sums up the opening legislative session. Appointments, the certification of a quorum, election of Secretary and Treasurer, adoption of a proposed schedule– the stuff that has to be in place so the House of Deputies can do the work of this convention, including but not limited to the consideration of literally hundreds of resolutions.

At the opening Eucharist the Presiding Bishop preached about heart transplants based on the text of Ezekiel 36: “A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh”. The primate of the Episcopal Church in the Philippines , once a constituent part of the Episcopal Church which became an autonomous member of the Anglican Communion in 1990, presented gifts to the TEC in thanksgiving for its support and in recognition of friendship and solidarity in the face of shared global economic challenges. There was, of course, wonderful music and a deep sense of the presence of the Spirit. This reporter’s high point: at the exchange of the Peace, turning from a warm greeting from a woman from the Diocese of Minnesota’s youth contingent to the outstretched hand of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Late in the day, the PB Katherine Jefferts-Schori, ABC Rowan Williams, and three young leaders in ministry comprised a panel to addressing the impacts of our global economic crisis. William’s remarks centered around his conviction that it is first and foremost a crisis of truthfulness. On the most prosaic level, the business world no longer operates with any expectation of truth-telling between entities. With respect to our relationship with the world in which we live, we have not been truthful with ourselves and one another about the fact that it is limited; we spin the fantasy that endless expansion, production and profit are possible without cost. And finally, as we relate to one another, we have not been truthful about our interdependence and need for one another. More on his comments are available on Episcopal Life Online (ecusa.anglican.org/episcopal_life.htm).

Bearing witness to his remarks were Sarah Eagle Heart, the Episcopal Church's program officer for Native American/Indigenous Ministries, who spoke about the rising suicide rate among Native American youth; Michael Schut, economic and environmental affairs officer for the Episcopal Church who described the impact of the ecological crisis on those living at subsistence level on the edge of toxic waterways; and Dr. Stephen Dzisi, a physician and technical director for NetsforLife®, an Episcopal Relief and Development partnership program that fights malaria in sub-Saharan Africa.

Report on the Public Narrative Project from Stephen Casey:
In response to GC 2006 Resolution D043: Dialogue on Mission of the Church, participants in this 2009 Convention will engage in Public Narrative to enable articulation of and commitment to a greater vision for mission. Public narrative is a method by which individuals communicate values, appreciate the values of others, and draw on those values to act. The process begins with sharing our life stories with one another. Our stories are broken into three parts: the story of self; the story of us; and the story of now.

By telling the “story of self” we communicate why and how we were called to care. By telling the “story of us” we describe what in our community calls us to act; and our “story of now” communicates the urgent challenge we are called to confront as a community – right now. We all possess a story of self, of us, and of now.

The Province meetings which preceded this Convention began this process of Public Narrative, and some Bishops and Deputies volunteered to be trained as coaches to help facilitate this church wide conversation. From the Diocese of Central Pennsylvania, Gina Barrett, David Lovelace and Stephen Casey have been trained as coaches. Over the course of this General Convention the bishops and deputies will meet three times to share their individual stories of self, us, and now.

These conversations are not ends in themselves, but rather the beginning of a wider conversation engaging the whole church in a process of Public Narrative. From this convention, Deputies and Bishops and members of the ECW will carry on these conversations in the parishes and deaneries and convocations of their own dioceses. Our hope is that more leaders will be raised up who, through telling their story of self, us, and now in community, will enable the Episcopal Church at all levels to turn our outward to mission in the local community and the world.