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.

Watch This Space

The General Convention of the Episcopal Church begins in Anaheim later this week. Members of the Diocesan deputation will be providing daily reports of their activities here, via emails to diocesan clergy, and on the diocesan web site.

Stay tuned for more...

Faith in Tough Times

If it did nothing else, last week's Diocesan Convention proved that there's nothing like scarcity to focus congregations' attention on priorities. Much of Friday's session involved grappling, in one context or another, with what it means to carry out mission at a time when no one has all the resources they would like.

Fortunately, the convention agenda had already carved out much of Friday afternoon for extended “table discussions” in which designated leaders, recorders, and time-keepers led participants through a discussion of one of Bishop Baxter's four strategic visions. This provided an important opportunity for delegates to hear what other congregations are doing and how they are managing in trying times. Walking around the room, I heard a lot of variations on, “What if we tried... ?”, and saw sympathetic nods as delegates realized that they're not alone, and other folks have grappled with problems similar to theirs.

While there was palpable fear in the comments of several members of small congregations, there was also a common recognition that the Diocese is ultimately limited by the collective resources available from the parishes. The president of the Standing Committee put it most bluntly when he paraphrased a line he is fond of using during parish stewardship campaigns, “We have all the money we need. It's just that most of it is still in your pockets.”

So, while the mood was hardly upbeat, the quality of the dialogue was some of the best to emerge in recent years, with an honest focus on “how can we do it better” issues. One can only hope that the sharing will continue in the months ahead, and that we all will realize that the problem isn't “them;” it's “us.”

I hope you'll share your thoughts about how we can all do better.

Summer Reading

As usual, Diocesan Convention was a good occasion for compiling a short list of interesting summer reading. First up, an essay by J. Robert Wright, (Professor of Ecclesiastical History at General Theological Seminary) in the June 15 edition of Time entitled “Decoding God's Changing Moods.” You can read it here.

Wright sets out to explain the seemingly contradictory emphases on tolerance and intolerance of one's enemies in both the Bible and the Koran by examining the historical circumstances in which various portions of each were written.

While that's not a new approach, Wright goes on to suggest that during periods in which leaders saw relations with other nations as a “zero-sum” game, tolerance for other religions waned. On the other hand, when leaders saw opportunities for “win-win” scenarios, where each side could gain, in international or inter-tribal relationships, then tolerance increased. It's interesting stuff, and there's more in Wright's new book, The Evolution of God, which has just been published.

Another book that makes the list is Phyllis Tickle's The Great Emergence, The: How Christianity Is Changing and Why. The author makes the case that Christianity undergoes an upheaval every 500 years or so that results in a newer, more vital religion. She postulates that such an upheaval is currently underway, aided in no small part by new communication technologies. Several folks have recommended this one to your editor, and Bishop Baxter quoted from her in his address to the convention. It's available from Amazon here.

We hope you'll find these a starting point for this summer's reading. If you have picks of your own that you'd like to add to our list, please let us know by commenting on this blog.

We'll have more on the recent convention soon.

What is Your Prayer?

One of the Joys of the Book of Common Prayer—especially for lifelong Episcopalians—is the wonderful familiarity of prayers remembered from constant use. Who doesn't get a lump in their throat when hearing some particularly meaningful prayer remembered from another time. For this writer, it's the collect for families that usually does it.

Given the propensity of “contemporary” prayers for falling flat in their impact, it is refreshing to listen to new prayers that really connect. That's what happened when I read a set of Prayers of the People written especially for Lent by church school children at one parish in our Diocese. Here are some of the things they prayed for:

Please keep the world clean and give it lots of good clean water. Please pray for all of our pets and animals in the world, especially cats, horses, donkeys, big pretty lazy dogs, fish, llama, sharks and cockatiel birds.
Jesus, we love you, please hear our prayer.

Please help and take care of our policemen and women, our firefighters, our teachers, our principals, our cafeteria ladies, the crossing guards, and the custodians. Oh, and also take care of our families.
Jesus, we love you, please hear our prayer.

For all people who do not feel good, lets send them cards and flowers. For people who have died we want to give their families love and help them not to cry and let all give them hugs.
Jesus, we love you, please hear our prayer...

Jesus we pray for all your love to be shared among all the living creatures in the world. And peace be with us everywhere.

Cafeteria ladies, eh? How's that for praying in terms that connect to your own world? Perhaps we could take a lesson in connecting from these children. Kudos to them—and to the teachers who encouraged them—for their work.

Pastoring in Tough Economic Times

It’s no news that folks are hurting these days, as are many of their congregations. Clergy suffer doubly, because they need to pastor their parishioners who are unemployed, “de-leveraged” or afraid while simultaneously trying to figure out how to balance the church budget. Income is down; costs continue to rise. It’s not pretty.

The Episcopal Church is offering several resources than may be helpful. Their web site includes a page on Responses to Troubled Times - a collection of examples and resources that clergy may find helpful. You can find it here; if you read nothing else, check out the “Enron example.”

The Stewardship page also contains a well-done print brochure (you can download the PDF and print ‘em off) on stewardship in hard times. It offers a reflective strategy that can be helpful in guiding folks through the inevitable re-prioritizing that a job loss entails. You can find it here.

We will include links to these resources on the parish resources section of the Diocesan web site.

One more note... my apologies for having been very quiet of late. Postings should be more frequent from here on out.

Emmanuel - God With Us

I have been absent from this blog for too long. Along with a promise to be more diligent in the new year, I want to reprise a bit of verse from last year—mostly because what was important last Christmas remains important this Christmas.

Emanuel – God with us
With the children who are anticipating their first Christmas
And the families who will share their joy
And the families who will be apart
And those which are torn apart.
With those who are with friends
And those who are alone
And those who are alone, even with friends
With the parents who are too busy to see the wonder
And the parents who care for children
And the parents who fail to care for children
And the parents who care for parents.
With those whose joys are memories, and whose futures are uncertain
And those who love them and watch them decline
And with those who grieve over their losses
And – especially – with those who do not know that God is with them…

Blessed Christmas to us all