Loading...My dear sisters and brothers in Christ, it is my great joy to welcome you to the 182nd Annual Council of the Diocese of Mississippi. For this Council we have come to the Hub City of Hattiesburg; the home of the University of Southern Mississippi and, of special interest to me, a destination site for golfers from throughout the Southern United States.
I deeply appreciate the hard work and hospitality of our two Hattiesburg churches — Trinity Church and Church of the Ascension — in making this gathering possible. Special thanks to our Council Chairs, Mr. Tom Price and Dr. Ben Carmichael; thanks to the rectors of the two parishes, whose best work is simply getting out of the way of these fine committees, Susan Bear and Bill Stroop, thank you and thank you; and the dozens of those of you from the two congregations who have put so much of your time and energy in preparing for this occasion.
Of course our diocesan office liaison to the local committee continues to be Canon Kathryn McCormick who has served in that role for approximately 123 of the 182 councils in Mississippi. Thanks to our liturgical coordinator, the Very Rev. Tom Slawson and our new Music and Liturgy Chair, Mr. David O’Steen who have given hours in liturgical planning and our vergers, chaired by Mike Flannes, verger and floor manager, Margaret McLarty and all the rest, have made our worship and in Mike’s case, our election logistics significantly easier and, thus have deepened our experience during our time here.
Thank you, thank you one and all!
It was told to me but I forgot until I was dousing you with water a moment ago that we do have . . . well this is a council of many bishops. First of all, I want to welcome back a native son, Rt. Rev. Joe Burnett, Bishop of the diocese of Nebraska. Where are you, Joe? Where art thou? . . . There you are. Welcome back! Now, I knew Joe was coming, but I had forgotten that the Rt. Rev. Charles Obaikol (I think is how we pronounce it) from Uganda is here with the African Team Ministries. Bishop, you are back in that corner. Would you stand up? There he is. Thank you.
I also want to recognize a very special guest at this Council. To my left here is the Right Reverend Ezekiel Diing Malang, assistant bishop of the Diocese of Bor in Southern Sudan and a diocesan planter, so designated by his arch bishop in Southern Sudan. Bishop Ezekiel, please stand up. Bishop Ezekiel and I ate breakfast together most mornings at this summer’s Lambeth Conference as I learned about the Sudan and he learned about Mississippi. Bishop Ezekiel is accompanied by his wife, Rebecca, and their five month old son, Telaar. There they are – Rebecca, can you stand with Telaar? I will be talking more in a moment about the deepening of this relationship between the Sudan and Mississippi and Bishop Ezekiel will be addressing Council on Saturday afternoon. But let me encourage you, that as we go through this weekend, I hope that you will seek out Bishop Ezekiel to talk to him about the challenges and the faithful witness of the Church in Southern Sudan. Now, this is not Darfur. Darfur is in Sudan, but this is in a different region, in fact, a region whose attention has been taken by Darfur. I want you to talk to Bishop Ezekiel about their challenges – their needs and how even in this very moment, when the Lords’ Resistance Army is creating havoc in Southern Sudan, we might stand in solidarity with these most heroic of Christians.
Another guest who is not with us, but who has been with us for a significant portion of this past month was our Presiding Bishop, the Most Reverend Katharine Jefferts Schori. Her recent visit, as many of you know, was marked by large crowds and good conversation wherever she went. Bishop Katharine was clearly captivated by the spirit of this diocese and has asked me to thank all of you who welcomed her warmly and provided her a glimpse of this special place we call home. You may have noticed, those of you that take Episcopal Life, that she devoted her entire column in this month’s Episcopal Life to her trip to Mississippi. She was duly impressed.
Now my friends, we have gathered together, as a church, in the midst of what appears to be an economy in severe crisis. The challenges facing us are unprecedented at least in the memories of most of us and no part of this country, indeed, no country in this world, seems to be immune from the devastation of the economic retraction. All of us have been impacted, but increasing members of us are facing grave personal crises and family disruptions as we lose our jobs, often in what seems to be the blink of an eye.
We have considerably fewer registrations at this Council, owing in large part, to the economic uncertainty in the cost of a weekend.
Many of us have family members and certainly members of our congregations who are going through such turmoil. We cannot underestimate the potentially devastating impact that this season of economic collapse will have on us, both, as individuals and as a church family. But I think it’s also important to remind ourselves that this is not the first time the church has faced such a crisis. Recently, I came across words from two former bishops of this diocese — Bishop Theodore Bratton and Bishop William Mercer Green — bishops for whom our diocesan camp is named. Listen to their words as they spoke to the Diocesan Council in the Diocese of Mississippi in the early 1930’s. You know what was going on.
Bishop Bratton said: “Ordered society, particularly during the past quarter century, has been rapidly painting its own picture in the tragically gruesome outlines of greed, of lust, of contempt of human values, of gloating over money power, of rebellion against God, of exaltation of self.” It goes on to say, “Not to recognize the moral and social chaos of our own making which besets us, is to be incapable of conceiving the state of sin in which we have been living, and of perceiving the call for radical repentance needful of its redemption.”
And shortly thereafter, Bishop Green (at that point Bishop Coadjutor) said: “. . . the epoch of high competitive individualism is closing . . . . the Church cannot be complacent in the face of the social problems that confront us. The Church may not be dogmatic when economic policies are discussed. On the other hand, it cannot observe the rule of discrete silence or of cold indifference . . . . when faced by the fact that millions of people of our country are denied the common necessities of life; that one third of our population is below the poverty level and that there is widespread want in a land that is abundantly productive”. Sisters and brothers, this is not the first time the church has faced these difficulties.
And if the gospel is always preached in a particular context and faith is always lived out in a particular context then you and I, in this challenging time, must find ways to articulate and live out the saving grace of Jesus Christ in these particularly challenging moments.
There may be a certain providential quality to our theme of “Reconciliation” for this year’s Council. As you recall, over the last five years we have sought to highlight one component of our Diocesan Vision – One Church in Mission: Inviting, Transforming, Reconciling.
And it’s quite true, that in the stress of this moment, in times of deepest stress and confusion always, every one of us is tempted to live out of the very real fear that is a natural response to our challenges. Often, in these times of stress, living into and out of our fear requires us to find scapegoats and point fingers of blame. And always, the seeds of division are rooted in the well tended soil of fear.
On the other hand, moments of profound crisis can be an invitation to ask those most basic of questions: Who are we? And what is most important to us? You and I have witnessed in this state and diocese a serious focus on these foundational questions as we have worked our way through hurricane Katrina and our own internal church conflicts: Who are we? (we have asked) What is most valuable and most important? And what ultimately unites us?
And so it is, our theme this year is One Church in Mission: Reconciling. We will be addressing this theme in a variety of ways throughout this weekend, but a couple of points need to be made at this early moment:
1. Reconciliation is God’s primary mission. It is foundational to our life and faith. Christians do not have the option to absent themselves from God’s primary work in the world.
“God . . . reconciled himself through Christ, we just heard, and has given to us the ministry of reconciliation.” (2 Corinthians 5:18) That’s number one.
2. The work of reconciliation is not easy and is often costly. Our Lord discovered that reality on a cross on Calvary’s hill.
Now with these words as a context, let’s take a moment to look back over the past year for something of a report to the church then turn our attention to the year to come, bearing in mind the lens of reconciliation through which we must view our common life.
Certainly our economic condition has affected both our local and diocesan ministries. I do not have to tell you about how it has impacted you locally. I can share with you the very hard work that your Diocesan Finance Committee has done in trying to balance receipts and expenses. Because roughly 30% of our diocesan ministries are funded by endowments, the market downturn has dramatically impacted our revenue projections.
The Finance Committee began its work on the 2009 budget with a deficit of well over $500,000. It then returned virtually all items to 2008 levels and were still almost $250.000 short. That deficit required serious cuts in everything from staff to programs. The retirement (from the diocesan office) of the Rev. Kyle Seage was directly related to our funding challenges. Kyle, who reported to work as the newly hired development officer the day Katrina came ashore, immediately switched roles and began to facilitate much of our financial support that came from outside this diocese. Her presence and spirit are missed.
We now face unprecedented clergy vacancies in congregations throughout this diocese. There are many factors that have contributed to this challenge, but clearly one important factor is economic. Canon David Johnson has worked closely with congregations in search processes and has recently returned from the first of two trips to seminaries looking for quality students willing or available to come to Mississippi. Demographically, we are in the midst of a long foreseen clergy shortage, but our economic challenges in Mississippi have made our job in finding quality clergy far more difficult.
My friends, you will hear me say this much tonight, we are all in this together. No one has a pot of gold that they are hoarding from each other. We will get through this crisis, but we will get through it together.
By the way, have you remembered the church in your will?
In the midst of these most difficult of times, two churches on the Coast, St. Mark’s, Gulfport and St. Peter’s by the Sea have finished rebuilding their facilities, and I have dedicated both churches in wonderfully inspiring celebrations. I am scheduled to make a similar dedication of St. Patrick’s, Long Beach next August. Trinity Church, Pass Christian has begun its reconstruction while plans are still in process for Christ Church, Bay St. Louis, and Redeemer, Biloxi.
The free fall of the housing and banking sectors has enormously complicated our efforts to sell existing beach front properties of some of these churches. We have begun conversations with the affected churches to chart our way forward. At a recent meeting to discuss the financial realities, I offered no magic solutions, but rather a commitment to what I believe is at the heart of our understanding of what it means to be the church: We’re all in this together.
In addition to the coast churches there have been major building projects completed or in process by 12 other congregations throughout this diocese. It is one sign of the vitality of our church, even in these difficult times.
As we have been forced to raise the foundational issues, questions of our common life, I have invited you and the leadership of your congregations into a conversation with me about the role and function of the bishop and the diocesan staff. Many of you, and I thank you for it, responded to a survey on our website last summer. Members of our Executive Committee are now scheduling visits to about a third of our vestries and mission committees to continue this conversation. We will not visit all congregations, but if you would like a visit, let us know. Or, more specifically, let Canon David Johnson, our coordinator of the Conversation.
A major focus of my attention over the past year has been with two significant church institutions, All Saints School and Gray Center, both of which have been on few radar screens, but have consumed considerable physical and emotional energy from me and from the diocesan staff. I am sleeping better these days because significant progress has been made with both of these institutions.
Gray Center, has undergone major changes in the past year as its Board of Managers continues to clarify the vision of this ministry. Much of what is being planned will require a change of focus, especially for the Conference Center. But expenses have been held in check, and for the second year in a row, Gray Center has finished the year in the black. The work has been hard, and not without pain, but I am so very thankful for the work of the Board of Managers and Bill Horne, our executive director and his staff.
But even more removed from many of your minds has been the evolution of All Saints School in Vicksburg. Beset with an enormous debt, the school closed its doors in May 2006. And since that time we have sought to find a use of the facility that would be consistent with Bishop Bratton’s educational vision and allow us to manage our increasing debt. Since its closure, each of the four owning dioceses, Mississippi, Western Louisiana, Louisiana and Arkansas have invested sizable amounts of funds to keep the school from bankruptcy. But in all candor, the most sizeable of all those investments have been the trustees of this Diocese.
A few months back, after months of difficult and often tedious negotiations with the federal government, I, as chairman of the All Saints Board, signed a lease with AmeriCorps. This step has now established the All Saints campus as the sole training center in the south for young AmeriCorps volunteers. These young people, numbering upwards of 200 persons, will be trained in disaster response – hurricanes, forest fires, earthquakes.
As part of the lease arrangement, All Saints will receive major restoration and renovation work that will be paid for by AmeriCorps. The lease will also help us to begin to pay down our substantial debt. Administrators have begun to arrive on campus and we expect the first class of volunteers to arrive at All Saints in July.
So many people have contributed so much to this point, and I’m spending so much time because frankly, so much time has been spent, but special thanks to the Rev. John Jenkins, who has served (for free) as our plant manager and will continue to do so as AmeriCorps moves in; thanks to Lee Davis Thames, who has kept our creditors at bay, at least for a time; Kathryn McCormick, the diocese liaison with multiple tasks in all of this, and our chancellor, Granville Tate, who has spent hundreds (literally) of hours, negotiating with private developers, and most recently, in the most Byzantine of all worlds – the federal government.
There are other serious challenges we face that come into clearer focus over this past year. Some are global, such as our increasing awareness of our environmental crisis. Though there is no easy solution to the ills of our planet, it has become painfully clear to each of us that, again, “we are all in this together.” What affects one affects all.
This sense of inter connectedness was brought home to me in a dramatic way during the summer when I participated in the Lambeth Conference in Canterbury, England, following a visit to the diocese of South Rwenzori in western Uganda.
Clearly, there are serious divisions across our communion, although, I am greatly encouraged by the recent Primates statements, coming just yesterday from Alexandria, Egypt. Aand at Lambeth, despite the absence of some primates and their bishops, Lambeth was the occasion for good and spirited conversations about those things that divide us and those matters which profoundly and foundationally unite us. I have reported on this conference in a variety of ways and venues over the last 6 months, and there will be a presentation later at Council about the Ugandan initiatives, so I will not speak in great detail at this point.
But I do want to reiterate three key insights that grew out of my time in Lambeth and in Uganda:
1. There was a universal longing for us to find a way to deepen our life and relationships within the communion
2. It is those relationships, not our theology or even our English heritage, God bless us, that are ultimately the glue that holds the communion together.
3. If the Anglican Communion fractures, it will be the poorest and the most vulnerable churches within the communion that will suffer the most.
Over the past year, we have seen, clearly the divisions within our own Episcopal Church as well. Bishops from five dioceses and a majority of delegates from their diocesan conventions have sought to revoke their relationship with the Episcopal Church and move in various directions to either realign with an existing Anglican Province or to seek to create a new Province “ex nilho” in North America. Believe it or not, both the constitution of our Episcopal Church and the tradition of the Anglican Communion does have procedures by which such actions may take place. However, those procedures within our tradition have been totally rejected or ignored by those who desire such unprecedented division.
Our Presiding Bishop has ruled that these dioceses are without Episcopal leadership and has appointed interim Bishops to work with those who wish to stay in the Episcopal Church. The fruits of those labors have been encouraging.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has refused to recognize these actions as appropriate or within the general framework of the tradition of Anglicanism. Increasingly, the secular courts have ruled in favor of the Episcopal Church in property issues surrounding these disputes.
Our General Convention will be addressing some of these issues this summer. I anticipate that the experience of the Lambeth Conference will significantly impact our deliberations there as we become increasingly aware of the interrelatedness of all of our lives. Whether we like it or not, we are all in this together.
But our wounds are real, and healing and reconciliation will take a long time and very intentional actions.
We are, quite frankly, a church and a culture in need of reconciliation. We are a communion in need of reconciliation and we live in a broken and divided world for which Christ died to heal and reconcile. As I turn toward the coming year, I want to pay particular attention to those initiatives and programs that are at their heart ministries of healing and reconciliation and that remind us that we are all in this together. That doesn’t mean that they will be easy, or even popular. Many of them will come with a cost, but such is the work of reconciliation.
This is no economic stimulus plan, one that will fill our collection plates and balance our budgets; but it is, in some sense, I hope, a spiritual stimulus plan that asks us, even in the midst of these very real economic challenges to look beyond ourselves, beyond ourselves, beyond our fear to see God at work, weaving together the hopes and dreams, the tragedies and sorrows of all God’s people. It is a spiritual stimulus that even in very difficult times calls us back into those foundational truths articulated by St. Francis: “. . . that it is is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”
And so, to begin the year to come, I, like many of you, am a multi-generational Mississippian. I, like many of you, have witnessed the enormous progress in race relations in my lifetime. And I, like you, know that our past is both a burden and a blessing. It is a burden because there are still parts of our common life that are open wounds that infect every issue and challenge we face. It is a burden, but our past is also a blessing for in our brokenness, you and I have been given a capacity to talk, and struggle and argue and be remarkably honest with one another in conversations about race. After her recent visit, the Presiding Bishop told me that nowhere had she seen the capacity for serious, non-politically correct, candid conversation on race and its implications for our society than she encountered in, of all places, Mississippi. She then said to me, the Episcopal Church in Mississippi has much to offer the broader Church and the entire nation.
Last Saturday, after conversations sponsored by the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation, conversations that lasted for over two years, I joined with Governor Winter and other ecumenical leaders in signing a commitment to work for the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission for our state. Patterned on a similar project in North Carolina and, of course, South Africa, this would be another occasion for the people of Mississippi to tell the personal stories of our past, and in so doing, find the healing grace that comes when we give dignity to the experiences of all.
In reflecting on his own “truth telling” experience in South Africa, Archbishop Desmond Tutu acknowledged that “truth telling,” he said, “truth telling hurts.” But more significantly he said, “silence kills.’’
A similar kind of story telling took place this afternoon when a number of us gathered at the Church of the Ascension to watch an extraordinary documentary called “Traces of the Trade.” It is the story of the efforts of a prominent New England family to come to terms with the fact that much of their inheritance and social standing grew out of their family’s enormous profit from the slave trade of previous centuries. This was a part of our, this conversation, a part of our ongoing effort to look squarely and honestly at our past and pray God’s healing presence in this increasing transparency of our souls.
One legacy of our past and a vivid example of the sins of the fathers being visited upon the children unto the 3rd and 4th (and 5th and 20th) generation is the crisis in our public schools. Our schools, and every one of us know this, are increasingly re-segregated, for multiple and complex reasons. I know that. Nonetheless, the challenges for the most vulnerable in our culture, our children, demand the attention of the people of God. And we Episcopalians, with our heritage of parochial schools cannot ignore the challenges of public education and we must always ask how we are helping or exacerbating the plight of “the least of these.” I am no longer content to let this issue be ignored. Accordingly, I am convening this fall a conversation between Episcopal representatives from parochial schools and Episcopalians who are deeply invested in our public schools. Its purpose will be to listen carefully to one another and search for ways that we can work together to educate the children of Mississippi. Our failure to provide quality education for all of our children, especially our most poor and vulnerable, is the greatest moral scandal of our time.
The maturing of the joint Roman Catholic, Episcopal and United Methodist initiative we call Congregations for Children has increased our capacity to impact public policy on behalf of our most vulnerable of citizens, but it has also encouraged local responses to local needs. At this council, we will recognize five new congregations who will join twelve others who have made a commitment to both local and statewide action on behalf of the children of the state. I am deeply indebted to the Rev. Carol Stewart for her leadership in this important ministry of advocacy.
To shift gears, slightly . . . the brokenness of the Body of Christ has grieved many of us over the years. The Episcopal Church has always been in the forefront of ecumenical relationships. In Mississippi the years of very warm and personal relationships between Roman Catholic, United Methodist and Episcopal bishops have produced numerous projects, including most recently the afore mentioned Congregations for Children. Lutheran Episcopal Services of Mississippi is an outgrowth of our moving into full communion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. After decades of conversation, the United Methodist and Episcopal Church have adopted an Interim Eucharist sharing agreement – not full communion, but a major step toward deepening these relationships between first cousins.
To encourage the strengthening of the relationships between the two churches, Bishop Hope Morgan Ward of the United Methodist Conference of Mississippi and I will soon sign a Covenant of Common Understanding between the two of us. That covenant, initially the brainchild of our ecumenical officer, the Rev. Michael Nation, should be available somewhere to be seen in this Council. It commits us to several actions. Those actions include a request to our respective churches to pray for the bishops from the other denominations, a commitment to seriously engage the study guide prepared by our two churches and to look for increasing ways to share the common mission in Christ.
The signing of this covenant on March 3, the feast day of John and Charles Wesley, will take place in a joint celebration with St. Andrew’s Cathedral and Galloway United Methodist Church. It is my hope that the relationship between these two downtown Jackson Churches can be a model and prototype for other Episcopal and Methodist churches who wish to look for ways to celebrate our common life and heritage with an intentional and public commitment.
Any healing within the broken Body of Christ will surely warm the heart of our Lord.
Though we in this diocese have been spared the trauma of division that exists in some parts of our church, we, nonetheless, have had a taste of the grief when people leave. Three small congregations have been established in the Jackson area over the last five years –one under the authority of the Archbishop of Rwanda and two under the supervision of Bishop Gideon Githega of Kenya. It has been my policy to stay in conversation at various levels with those in these congregations. I recently authorized an overture to invite them to participate in certain diocesan ministries.
One fruit in this conversation has been the expressed desire of the Reverend Arthur Toro, a priest of Kenya, and his congregation of Christ the Savior Anglican Church to affiliate with the Episcopal Church within the Diocese of Mississippi. I have been in email communication with Bishop Gideon Githega who has given his blessing to this action. We recently received formal Letters Dimissory from Bishop Githega paving the way for the next steps. Surely this healing of our division warms our Lord’s heart.
On matters of reconciliation within our wider Anglican Communion, I returned home from Lambeth with a renewed commitment to deepen our existing diocesan international relationships and to expand the ministry of this diocese beyond this continent. In so doing, we can be in an ever widening fellowship with Anglican Christians in profoundly different contexts and cultures. It is one small effort at healing and reconciliation within our Communion. But, most importantly, it is the natural implications of what it means to be an international church.
We have had a companion relationship, as you know, with the Diocese of Panama for thirty years. Our medical missions to Honduras are almost as old. I have taken certain steps with the respective bishops to strengthen these very important relationships. There will be presentations by each of those ministries on Saturday.
In addition to these long standing relationships, we have initiated a new relationship with the Bishop Masereka Christian Foundation in the Diocese of South Renzori and Uganda. It is a multi-dimensional HIV/AIDS ministry in Western Uganda. I have appointed Mr. Chuck Barlow of Chapel of the Cross, Madison, and the Rev. Laura Gettys of St. Peter’s, Oxford to the board of the Bishop Masereka Christian Foundation. The two of them will be coordinating a limited, exploratory trip to Uganda to help me discern the next steps in this relationship. Chuck will be making a power point presentation about this ministry tomorrow. In addition, the Diocese of South Rwenzori is desirous to establish clergy to clergy or congregation to congregation relationships. And so, if clergy or congregations are so interested, please let me know.
Our second new initiative that brings Bishop Ezekiel here with us, grows out of a very personal relationship that I have with a very special young woman. Her name is Tabitha Awur Agany and she is my foster daughter, an orphan and refugee from Sudan who brought remarkable grace and joy into our home when she moved in with Kathy and me almost four years ago.
I have learned much about Sudan since a large number of refugees arrived in Jackson nine years ago and St. Andrew’s Cathedral became a major center of Sudanese ministry. I have learned of the majestic nobility of an ancient people. I have learned of the horrors of a decades-long civil war and the flight of the Lost Boys (and Girls) across three countries to find safety. I have rejoiced with my new friends when the Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed between the north and the south and mourned with my new friends when John Garang, the leader of the Christian south died suspiciously. And I have learned that, just as throughout the church’s history, the more intense the persecution of the Christians in Southern Sudan (and persecution has been real and life threatening) the greater the persecution, the faster the church has grown.
Prior to my trip to Lambeth, I received an overture from the Anglican Archbishop of the Sudan asking me if I would be interested in a relationship with a Sudanese diocese. I felt it was a word from God and so I said “yes.” At the Lambeth Conference, I was introduced to Bishop Ezekiel and told by his Archbishop Daniel, “Go to work, now.”
Bishop Ezekiel will speak to us tomorrow about the joys and sorrows of the work of the Church in Sudan and about his archbishop’s vision for a new diocese in the area where most of our young Sudanese men and women have come from. It is a partnership that I have committed to. The details are still a little sketchy, but I invite you to join me in this new adventure and relationship with our distant sisters and brothers.
We have much to offer as the Diocese of Twic East seeks to establish itself. But, sisters and brothers, we have so much to receive from a people whose faith is, quite literally, a matter of life and death. As you engage in this ministry with the people of Sudan, you will come to know the grace and joy that we have known in Tabitha, and you will be truly blessed.
One last and terribly important thing – in the midst of our current economic troubles, and maybe even because of them, I am going to ask you, in the coming years, to expand your vision of what we will need as a church to be faithful to the mission of the church as it has been given to us. Most of you know that the legal (and, thus, formal) name of our church in this country is the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society. This is good news. Because it suggests that somewhere, hidden in ways that you and I can hardly access, there lies a DNA of missionary zeal, of enormous potential and possibility. The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society. That’s us. We were created, brothers and sisters, to be a missionary community, both at home and abroad, and despite our current amnesia of identity, it is who we are. My granddaddy used to say, “Always remember who you are, and where you came from.” Domestic and Foreign Missions.
And so, the challenge of our current moment is to recover, reclaim and rebuild the vision of our deepest identity. And so, in spite of the prevailing wisdom of our present moment, and in spite of what I said at the beginning of this talk, this night, I am setting in motion a process that will develop resources for the work that God is calling us toward in the very challenging years ahead.
In the coming weeks, I will be gathering together a task force to help me think through a process whose goal will be the most comprehensive capital campaign for the funding of mission initiatives, both at home and abroad, since our own Bishop Allin launched the Venture in Mission Campaign in the 1970’s.
The goal of this campaign will be to provide the necessary and ongoing financial resources for God’s mission of healing and reconciliation in this diocese and abroad. There will be a diocesan-wide process by which our priorities are established, both at home and abroad. We will work intentionally and carefully toward this goal, but it is my hope that we will be able to launch this campaign within the next two years.
Though the specifics of our attention and support, as I said, will be determined in this discernment, it will certainly include our international initiatives and key diocesan ministries such as congregational development, church plants, campus ministry and expanded use of Gray Center.
Our demographics tell us this is an absolute necessity for our future – our Lord commands us to face that future with hope. And, to claim its origins and roots we will call this The Campaign for Domestic and Foreign Mission. Please pray with me over the next two years and beyond as we take our first new steps into this new venture.
I said that was last, but I have one more thing. You may not want to hear it. As more than a few of you have noticed, I am very tired these days. My heart, soul and body need refreshment. The wisdom of this diocese has been shown in its desire to offer sabbatical leave to your last three bishops. And so, I have been making plans in consultation with the Standing Committee, the diocesan staff and other appropriate diocesan bodies to begin my sabbatical leave April 1 of this year. I will return July 31. I will also take a 10-day break from sabbatical, and will attend General Convention with the Mississippi deputation. I’m hoping it will be relaxing.
During the sabbatical leave, certain responsibilities will be handed over to our Standing Committee as per our canons. A few retired bishops and those with Mississippi connections, including the afore mentioned Bishop Burnett will be here for visitations, ordinations, confirmations. The diocesan staff will be picking up many administrative tasks.
I DO look forward to this time of both personal retreat and study as well as some quality time and travel (as economics will allow) with my family. I ask your prayers during this sabbatical. I do want to return to you as the healthy, vibrant and creative bishop that this diocese so deserves.
So I will close now with two images of profound hopefulness and healing and reconciliation that took place only a few short weeks ago.
First, I was in Oxford for the now traditional Martin Luther King, Jr. celebration between St. Peter’s and Second Missionary Baptist Church, an outgrowth of a relationship between the two churches begun 17 years ago. There was a walk around the Square together and a wonderful worship service that affirmed the role of the two congregations in the healing and reconciling work within the Oxford community.
During a break in the proceedings, I was told there is now a combined St. Peter’s/Second Baptist youth basketball team that competes, and in at least one game dominated, in the city league in Oxford. “It’s all very simple,” one woman told me, “We’re learning that despite what we want to believe, we really, (these are her words) we really are all in this together.”
The second image is a far more personal one. I knew that on the day of the inauguration of President Barack Obama, I wanted to be with my father, who had been thru so much and had seen so much. So I made the necessary family and professional arrangements. When I arrived on Tuesday morning, I learned that he and my mother had been to the home of Medgar Evers the night before – a visit that was social, but very personal, as well.
As is his custom, he didn’t say much as we watched the inauguration festivities, and I couldn’t help but wonder at all that was being thought and remembered, if not spoken in those moments. A few questions from me seem to disturb those reflections, so I kept reasonably quiet through it all.
At the end of President Obama’s address, in a most uncharacteristic way, Dad made a simple, modified fist bump and his eyes were a bit moist, and after a moment of purposeful silence, I said to Mom and Dad, “Barak Obama was Harper’s age (my granddaughter) when the two of you were going through all of that pain in Oxford in 1962. Just look at the world you help build.”
I got a hug for that comment. I began to wonder. What kind of world will Harper and her little sister Sadie grow up in and how can I, how can we be instrument of healing and reconciliation in their world?
God so desires the healing and reconciling this world. Because of that deepest desire in God’s heart, a community of faith was called into being. We call it the church. The church exists to be the instrument of God’s healing and reconciling love in this world.
May we never be afraid, sisters and brothers, even in the most challenging of days, to take up that most glorious of our callings. God bless you all. Amen.
