TWELFTH
ANNUAL ADDRESS OF THE BISHOP
The Right Reverend Gordon P. Scruton at the
ONE-HUNDRED SIXTH ANNUAL MEETING
of the Convention of
THE DIOCESE OF WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS
held at
THE SHERATON HOTEL
SPRINGFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS
October 26-27, 2007
Part 1 was presented at Friday Evening Prayer at the Sheraton Hotel on October 26, and Part 2 was presented as the sermon at the Eucharist at Christ Church Cathedral in Springfield, Massachusetts Saturday morning, October 27.
The full text is available on line at here in PDF format.
“Whereas it is of great consequence that the Annual Address of the Bishop of the Diocese be presented formally to the congregations of the Diocese, Be it resolved: that the clergy of the Diocese be advised if it be agreeable and convenient to them, to read to the respective congregations, on the Sunday following the Convention, every year, the Address of the Bishop.”
NOTE FROM THE BISHOP
Clergy may feel free to use excerpts from this address as they
deem most helpful. I encourage making copies to be distributed in the parish and
discussed in vestries and small groups.
Part 1
There are ups and downs in each of our spiritual journeys and in each of our congregations. This past year some of our congregations have seen healthy growth in many areas while others have struggled with increasing declines. In every season and every generation, Christ keeps asking us with urgency: are you growing in love for God and all your neighbors and are you making disciples for God’s kingdom? These questions from Christ are at the heart of the Baptismal Covenant which unites us all.
One way we can measure our love for God is by asking, what is the quality of our daily prayer and listening to Scripture? Is seeking God’s will and God’s kingdom the central priority which shapes our decision making in our daily lives and in our congregations?
One way we can measure our love for our neighbors is by asking the people we live and work with how they feel when they are around us. We can also ask ourselves if we have any personal contact with people on the margins of our communities, people who come from different cultures, speak different languages and people who live below the poverty level. Jesus had regular personal contact with the marginal people of his society. What is the quality of our relationship with our neighbors whose class, politics and theology are different from ours? How are we impacting our children and neighbors in future generations through our environmental choices? How are our choices impacting our neighbors who live in the third world?
The truth is, we are living at a time when third world poverty also exists in our first world cities. The infant mortality rates of Worcester and Springfield are the highest in our state, higher than in Singapore and Cuba. Half the children of Worcester and Springfield live below the poverty level. Hurricane Katrina revealed the overwhelming poverty and racism hidden behind the wonderful jazz and Cajun food of New Orleans. Episcopalians in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are now addressing those underlying injustices as they seek to rebuild the area. And Christians in this diocese and all across this country need to be more aware and committed to addressing the very real needs of our neighbors on the margins of American society.
At the meeting of our House of Bishops in New Orleans last month, each diocese was asked to bring a check for $10,000 to be shared between the dioceses of Louisiana and New Orleans as they seek to rebuild churches and ministries which were destroyed by Katrina. I brought a check from Bishop’s Funds for $5,000 and I put an IOU in the offering plate, promising that the people of Western Massachusetts would contribute at least another $5,000 to the church rebuilding efforts of our neighbors in the Gulf Coast. Before the end of this year, I ask that each congregation make a contribution to Church rebuilding in the Gulf Coast so that we can fulfill and even exceed the promise I made on our behalf. (Make checks out to Diocese of Western Mass; in memo section, to Katrina Church Rebuild) I also hope that there will be groups from our diocese who continue to return to the Gulf Coast to help in their rebuilding efforts and to bring them hope and encouragement by our presence with them. It will probably require at least another decade to rebuild a healthy Gulf Coast. We need to continue to support our neighbors there.
Another practical way we can help our neighbors in need is by working to stop the development of casino gambling in Massachusetts. You have heard Jack Johnson from the Massachusetts Council of Churches present some of the reasons casino gambling would be destructive to the people and economy of our Commonwealth. The stories from churches in the areas where casino gambling has been initiated in Connecticut, New Jersey, Mississippi and Detroit demonstrate clearly that the most significant victims are the poor. Local businesses and local communities suffer from the hidden dark side of casino gambling. For the sake of our poor neighbors and for the sake of our social and financial wellbeing in Massachusetts we need to speak up and take action to stop the approval of casino gambling.
Our diocese has been on record for many years in opposition to casino gambling. We join with other members of the Mass Council of Churches and with our Covenant Partners in the Roman Catholic Dioceses of Worcester and Springfield and the New England Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in working to oppose casino gambling. We have learned that a Convention Resolution has little effect on either parishes or the state. The most significant impact on the votes of our legislators comes from the letters and phone calls made by our members. I hope that at least ten people from every congregation in this diocese will write letters or make phone calls to our legislators and write letters to the editor expressing our opposition. We must express our concerns at this time because this is one strategic way we can live out Jesus’ call to care for the well being of our neighbors in this state.
As we look to the needs of the world, it is becoming clear that the greatest disaster in the world is not hurricanes or tsunamis or even an HIV/AIDS crisis. The greatest disaster comes from the underlying structures of the global economy. The world is driven by a global economy without global ethics and values. Providing relief in disaster situations is important but it does not begin to address the deeper disaster caused by unjust economic structures. As I met with African and American bishops this summer, our African neighbors spoke passionately about the need for changes in the global economic structures. They were not asking for more money, but for opportunities to sell their goods and resources at a fair price around the world so they can support themselves. As Christians, we will need to partner with our neighbors in the Third World by working to change legislation and thinking around the world so that there is more justice and opportunity for all to live healthy and fruitful lives.
Because of our commitment to follow Christ’s Great Commandment, we seek to act with care for the needs of our poor neighbors, both locally and globally. Our Church has adopted the Millennium Development Goals as a way of partnering with people around the world to accomplish more than we can accomplish on our own for our neighbors in need. Our diocesan, parish and personal commitments to support Five Talents and Episcopal Relief and Development are ways in which we are pursuing these goals. Several parishes have offered training to help parishioners understand and work for the Millennium Development Goals on both local and international levels. I hope that all members of this diocese will find concrete ways of learning and contributing to this crucial ministry of caring for our neighbors in need around the world.
In this spirit, we are continuing our partnership with the Diocese of Liberia. On November 17th, that diocese will elect a new bishop. (Because of the time difference, we will need to focus our prayers on November 16th.) God willing, Rebecca and I, along with Deborah Harmon Hines from our Diocese, will be attending the Consecration of the new Bishop of Liberia on January 6th.
This past summer, as I spent a week in Spain with 23 American bishops and 32 African bishops, I developed a close relationship with several bishops of Ghana. Ghana is a neighbor to Liberia in the Province of West Africa. The Ghanaian bishops were seeking a companion relationship with American partners but had not yet found any American diocese to partner with them. I remembered that there are 10,000 Ghanaians who live in Worcester. Some of them are Anglicans who worship in a weekly Ghanaian service at St. Michael’s. I began to wonder, is God calling our diocese to join with both Liberia and a diocese in Ghana in a three way partnership? The Ghanaian bishops were very open to exploring that kind of partnership. In fact, two bishops asked me to come to Ghana as part of my visit to Liberia. I discussed the possibility of this three way partnership with our Liberian Task Force, and they were very positive about exploring this three way relationship. We have no idea how this process will unfold. We ask for your prayers as we continue to pursue this possibility in the coming year. As we develop relationships with our partners in the Anglican Communion, God can help us learn from each other how to live as more faithful followers of Christ at this time in history.
Our partners around the world will both encourage us and challenge us. For example, in the gathering of American and African bishops, some of our African friends spoke of their concerns about continuing American involvement in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Our global partners often help us see how we are perceived by others around the world. At our House of Bishops meeting in New Orleans, a resolution on Iraq was presented by George Packard, Bishop Suffragan for Chaplaincies. It renewed the church's call for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops, care and support for those troops, and for the people who have become refugees because of the war.
In addition to the devastations which war always inflicts, the enormous amount of money spent on these wars and the debt our nation is incurring will impact the resources available to serve our neighbors in need, not only in this generation but for generations to come. African Bishops told stories of how, in the midst of generations of war in their countries, their dioceses are working to be peace makers in their societies, following the call of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. God is calling us in this diocese to discover how we can live and work as peacemakers amid the violence of our nation and world.
We are also called to fulfill Christ’s Great Commission of making disciples for God’s Kingdom. Christian Formation is at the heart of our vocation to awaken, guide and empower Christians to live the mission for which God placed each of us on this planet at this time. Our examples are often more powerful teachers than our words. We also need to be intentional about the way we deepen the discipleship of our young people and adults.
Research has shown that camps are one of the most significant ways our young people are formed as followers of Jesus. Living and learning in a 24 hour a day Christian community has a powerful life-long impact on our young people. This past year we have re-committed ourselves as a diocese to support the summer camp ministry of Bement. Aging facilities will require major financial investments to upgrade the infrastructure of Bement. We will need the help of parishes across the diocese to increase the number of summer campers at Bement. We are in the process of hiring a new site-manager to oversee the new configuration of operations at Bement. For financial reasons, we will not be operating Bement as a year round camp and conference center. However, from mid-April to mid-June and from mid-August to mid-October there will be opportunities for parish groups to use the facilities. We give thanks for the good leadership at Bement and on the Bement Board and New Future Task Force and we rejoice in the year round programs for young people which are already in place for the coming year.
Last year, as a result of our Diocesan Re-visioning Process, it became clear that God was inviting us to develop a more regional focus for mission strategy. The needs of our society and our churches are changing and increasing. No one congregation alone can adapt to these changing needs. We are discovering that when congregations work and pray together with each other, significant new mission initiatives can be developed which help us be more effective in living God’s mission. This past year, some of the most creative and effective new mission initiatives have come from regional partnerships.
With the support of Regional Mission Initiative Grants from our Diocese, almost all of the churches of the Berkshires are cooperating in a new Servant Leadership School which trains and supports people for significant ministry in their communities. In Springfield, a new Church Without Walls has been developed by a partnership between St. Andrew’s Longmeadow and the Cathedral. One fruit of this partnership is the weekly worship services for street people on the Springfield Common. St. Andrew’s, Longmeadow is also partnering with clergy from around the diocese to initiate a Formation Center to provide theological education and formation for those wishing to engage in lay pastoral ministry in the diocese. Out of a gathering of clergy and wardens in Worcester County, a traveling Vacation Bible School was birthed, emerging out of St. Francis, Holden and serving five congregations in Worcester County and one in Springfield. The college age leaders of this traveling VBS, the various parishes and the children of the local communities served were blessed by this creative mission initiative.
Another creative mission initiative emerged from the Southern Berkshires. Through an EFM course, a member of a Lutheran congregation in Great Barrington got to know Annie Ryder, the rector of Christ Church in Sheffield. The pastor of the Lutheran Church was leaving and the congregation was uncertain about their future. By the grace of God, the two congregations began to talk with each other and explore the possibility of joining together as one congregation, with Annie as their Pastor. Bishop Payne and I had the joy of sharing worship together with these two congregations as they develop their relationship together. This is a local demonstration of the fruit of our relationship of Full Communion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. We rejoice to see this new model of shared ministry emerging in our diocese.
This past year, Trinity, Ware and St. Mary’s, Thorndike chose to share one priest to help them develop more effective ministries together. St. John’s, Athol and St. Paul’s, Gardner are also beginning to share one priest for the benefit of ministry in both congregations.
I hope that every congregation in this diocese will prayerfully explore the possibility of networking with other congregations to fulfill your God given ministry. A solitary congregation may not have the resources to take significant new initiatives in Christian Formation and mission. But God is calling us to work together with other congregations, both within our Diocese and ecumenically, so that the mission of Christ can be extended in this generation.
Amid the challenges of living Christ’s Great Commandment and Great Commission in this generation, I find great hope in the words of Bishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador. The day before he was assassinated at his altar by a death squad in 1980 he said: “This is what we are about: We plant seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities. We cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for God's grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.”
The following are excerpts from the second part of the bishop’s address, delivered at the Convention Eucharist on Saturday morning at Christ Church Cathedral in Springfield. The full text is available on line at www.diocesewma.org.
There are ups and downs in each of our spiritual journeys and in each of our congregations. This past year some of our congregations have seen healthy growth in many areas while others have struggled with increasing declines. In every season and every generation, Christ keeps asking us with urgency: are you growing in love for God and all your neighbors and are you making disciples for God’s kingdom? These questions from Christ are at the heart of the Baptismal Covenant which unites us all.
One way we can measure our love for God is by asking, what is the quality of our daily prayer and listening to Scripture? Is seeking God’s will and God’s kingdom the central priority which shapes our decision making in our daily lives and in our congregations?
One way we can measure our love for our neighbors is by asking the people we live and work with how they feel when they are around us. We can also ask ourselves if we have any personal contact with people on the margins of our communities, people who come from different cultures, speak different languages and people who live below the poverty level. Jesus had regular personal contact with the marginal people of his society. What is the quality of our relationship with our neighbors whose class, politics and theology are different from ours? How are we impacting our children and neighbors in future generations through our environmental choices? How are our choices impacting our neighbors who live in the third world?
The truth is, we are living at a time when third world poverty also exists in our first world cities. The infant mortality rates of Worcester and Springfield are the highest in our state, higher than in Singapore and Cuba. Half the children of Worcester and Springfield live below the poverty level. Hurricane Katrina revealed the overwhelming poverty and racism hidden behind the wonderful jazz and Cajun food of New Orleans. Episcopalians in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are now addressing those underlying injustices as they seek to rebuild the area. And Christians in this diocese and all across this country need to be more aware and committed to addressing the very real needs of our neighbors on the margins of American society.
At the meeting of our House of Bishops in New Orleans last month, each diocese was asked to bring a check for $10,000 to be shared between the dioceses of Louisiana and New Orleans as they seek to rebuild churches and ministries which were destroyed by Katrina. I brought a check from Bishop’s Funds for $5,000 and I put an IOU in the offering plate, promising that the people of Western Massachusetts would contribute at least another $5,000 to the church rebuilding efforts of our neighbors in the Gulf Coast. Before the end of this year, I ask that each congregation make a contribution to Church rebuilding in the Gulf Coast so that we can fulfill and even exceed the promise I made on our behalf. (Make checks out to Diocese of Western Mass; in memo section, to Katrina Church Rebuild) I also hope that there will be groups from our diocese who continue to return to the Gulf Coast to help in their rebuilding efforts and to bring them hope and encouragement by our presence with them. It will probably require at least another decade to rebuild a healthy Gulf Coast. We need to continue to support our neighbors there.
Another practical way we can help our neighbors in need is by working to stop the development of casino gambling in Massachusetts. You have heard Jack Johnson from the Massachusetts Council of Churches present some of the reasons casino gambling would be destructive to the people and economy of our Commonwealth. The stories from churches in the areas where casino gambling has been initiated in Connecticut, New Jersey, Mississippi and Detroit demonstrate clearly that the most significant victims are the poor. Local businesses and local communities suffer from the hidden dark side of casino gambling. For the sake of our poor neighbors and for the sake of our social and financial wellbeing in Massachusetts we need to speak up and take action to stop the approval of casino gambling.
Our diocese has been on record for many years in opposition to casino gambling. We join with other members of the Mass Council of Churches and with our Covenant Partners in the Roman Catholic Dioceses of Worcester and Springfield and the New England Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in working to oppose casino gambling. We have learned that a Convention Resolution has little effect on either parishes or the state. The most significant impact on the votes of our legislators comes from the letters and phone calls made by our members. I hope that at least ten people from every congregation in this diocese will write letters or make phone calls to our legislators and write letters to the editor expressing our opposition. We must express our concerns at this time because this is one strategic way we can live out Jesus’ call to care for the well being of our neighbors in this state.
As we look to the needs of the world, it is becoming clear that the greatest disaster in the world is not hurricanes or tsunamis or even an HIV/AIDS crisis. The greatest disaster comes from the underlying structures of the global economy. The world is driven by a global economy without global ethics and values. Providing relief in disaster situations is important but it does not begin to address the deeper disaster caused by unjust economic structures. As I met with African and American bishops this summer, our African neighbors spoke passionately about the need for changes in the global economic structures. They were not asking for more money, but for opportunities to sell their goods and resources at a fair price around the world so they can support themselves. As Christians, we will need to partner with our neighbors in the Third World by working to change legislation and thinking around the world so that there is more justice and opportunity for all to live healthy and fruitful lives.
Because of our commitment to follow Christ’s Great Commandment, we seek to act with care for the needs of our poor neighbors, both locally and globally. Our Church has adopted the Millennium Development Goals as a way of partnering with people around the world to accomplish more than we can accomplish on our own for our neighbors in need. Our diocesan, parish and personal commitments to support Five Talents and Episcopal Relief and Development are ways in which we are pursuing these goals. Several parishes have offered training to help parishioners understand and work for the Millennium Development Goals on both local and international levels. I hope that all members of this diocese will find concrete ways of learning and contributing to this crucial ministry of caring for our neighbors in need around the world.
In this spirit, we are continuing our partnership with the Diocese of Liberia. On November 17th, that diocese will elect a new bishop. (Because of the time difference, we will need to focus our prayers on November 16th.) God willing, Rebecca and I, along with Deborah Harmon Hines from our Diocese, will be attending the Consecration of the new Bishop of Liberia on January 6th.
This past summer, as I spent a week in Spain with 23 American bishops and 32 African bishops, I developed a close relationship with several bishops of Ghana. Ghana is a neighbor to Liberia in the Province of West Africa. The Ghanaian bishops were seeking a companion relationship with American partners but had not yet found any American diocese to partner with them. I remembered that there are 10,000 Ghanaians who live in Worcester. Some of them are Anglicans who worship in a weekly Ghanaian service at St. Michael’s. I began to wonder, is God calling our diocese to join with both Liberia and a diocese in Ghana in a three way partnership? The Ghanaian bishops were very open to exploring that kind of partnership. In fact, two bishops asked me to come to Ghana as part of my visit to Liberia. I discussed the possibility of this three way partnership with our Liberian Task Force, and they were very positive about exploring this three way relationship. We have no idea how this process will unfold. We ask for your prayers as we continue to pursue this possibility in the coming year. As we develop relationships with our partners in the Anglican Communion, God can help us learn from each other how to live as more faithful followers of Christ at this time in history.
Our partners around the world will both encourage us and challenge us. For example, in the gathering of American and African bishops, some of our African friends spoke of their concerns about continuing American involvement in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Our global partners often help us see how we are perceived by others around the world. At our House of Bishops meeting in New Orleans, a resolution on Iraq was presented by George Packard, Bishop Suffragan for Chaplaincies. It renewed the church's call for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops, care and support for those troops, and for the people who have become refugees because of the war.
In addition to the devastations which war always inflicts, the enormous amount of money spent on these wars and the debt our nation is incurring will impact the resources available to serve our neighbors in need, not only in this generation but for generations to come. African Bishops told stories of how, in the midst of generations of war in their countries, their dioceses are working to be peace makers in their societies, following the call of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. God is calling us in this diocese to discover how we can live and work as peacemakers amid the violence of our nation and world.
We are also called to fulfill Christ’s Great Commission of making disciples for God’s Kingdom. Christian Formation is at the heart of our vocation to awaken, guide and empower Christians to live the mission for which God placed each of us on this planet at this time. Our examples are often more powerful teachers than our words. We also need to be intentional about the way we deepen the discipleship of our young people and adults.
Research has shown that camps are one of the most significant ways our young people are formed as followers of Jesus. Living and learning in a 24 hour a day Christian community has a powerful life-long impact on our young people. This past year we have re-committed ourselves as a diocese to support the summer camp ministry of Bement. Aging facilities will require major financial investments to upgrade the infrastructure of Bement. We will need the help of parishes across the diocese to increase the number of summer campers at Bement. We are in the process of hiring a new site-manager to oversee the new configuration of operations at Bement. For financial reasons, we will not be operating Bement as a year round camp and conference center. However, from mid-April to mid-June and from mid-August to mid-October there will be opportunities for parish groups to use the facilities. We give thanks for the good leadership at Bement and on the Bement Board and New Future Task Force and we rejoice in the year round programs for young people which are already in place for the coming year.
Last year, as a result of our Diocesan Re-visioning Process, it became clear that God was inviting us to develop a more regional focus for mission strategy. The needs of our society and our churches are changing and increasing. No one congregation alone can adapt to these changing needs. We are discovering that when congregations work and pray together with each other, significant new mission initiatives can be developed which help us be more effective in living God’s mission. This past year, some of the most creative and effective new mission initiatives have come from regional partnerships.
With the support of Regional Mission Initiative Grants from our Diocese, almost all of the churches of the Berkshires are cooperating in a new Servant Leadership School which trains and supports people for significant ministry in their communities. In Springfield, a new Church Without Walls has been developed by a partnership between St. Andrew’s Longmeadow and the Cathedral. One fruit of this partnership is the weekly worship services for street people on the Springfield Common. St. Andrew’s, Longmeadow is also partnering with clergy from around the diocese to initiate a Formation Center to provide theological education and formation for those wishing to engage in lay pastoral ministry in the diocese. Out of a gathering of clergy and wardens in Worcester County, a traveling Vacation Bible School was birthed, emerging out of St. Francis, Holden and serving five congregations in Worcester County and one in Springfield. The college age leaders of this traveling VBS, the various parishes and the children of the local communities served were blessed by this creative mission initiative.
Another creative mission initiative emerged from the Southern Berkshires. Through an EFM course, a member of a Lutheran congregation in Great Barrington got to know Annie Ryder, the rector of Christ Church in Sheffield. The pastor of the Lutheran Church was leaving and the congregation was uncertain about their future. By the grace of God, the two congregations began to talk with each other and explore the possibility of joining together as one congregation, with Annie as their Pastor. Bishop Payne and I had the joy of sharing worship together with these two congregations as they develop their relationship together. This is a local demonstration of the fruit of our relationship of Full Communion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. We rejoice to see this new model of shared ministry emerging in our diocese.
This past year, Trinity, Ware and St. Mary’s, Thorndike chose to share one priest to help them develop more effective ministries together. St. John’s, Athol and St. Paul’s, Gardner are also beginning to share one priest for the benefit of ministry in both congregations.
I hope that every congregation in this diocese will prayerfully explore the possibility of networking with other congregations to fulfill your God given ministry. A solitary congregation may not have the resources to take significant new initiatives in Christian Formation and mission. But God is calling us to work together with other congregations, both within our Diocese and ecumenically, so that the mission of Christ can be extended in this generation.
Amid the challenges of living Christ’s Great Commandment and Great Commission in this generation, I find great hope in the words of Bishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador. The day before he was assassinated at his altar by a death squad in 1980 he said: “This is what we are about: We plant seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities. We cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for God's grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.”
Bishop’s Address: Part 1 (October 26, 2007)
All of us are here because we have been called to follow Jesus Christ in company with the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion. Our primary commitment is to Jesus Christ. We also treasure this Episcopal/Anglican tradition because it both nourishes and challenges us to keep growing as faithful followers of Jesus Christ. Most of the time we live our faith locally, in our congregations and daily lives.
Over the past few years, we’ve heard much more about The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion because our church has been in the news often. The media stories have not been about the spiritual growth of our members, or about the answers to prayer we have seen or about the people in need who have been helped by our congregations. I hear stories about those good things happening in our congregations every week. But the media stories have focused on our divisions in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. While every denomination has similar struggles and divisions, the Episcopal Church, for better and for worse, seems to have gotten more publicity about our tensions than many other denominations. Our neighbors ask us about how our church is doing. We need to tell our good news stories of how God is at work for good in and through our church, including many of the congregations of this diocese.
When our neighbors ask about our church, we can tell the story of how God is at work in our congregations. We can also tell the story of our Anglican Tradition. We can begin at the beginning, at our roots. The Anglican expression of Christianity began among the first and second century followers of Jesus in what we now call the British Isles. At times in our 2,000 year history, Anglican Christians have, to our shame, persecuted, exiled and killed each other over principles each group felt were essential to being Christian. Divisions and exclusions have never served Christ or our people well.
At our best we have tried to live in prayerful communion with Christ and with all other Christians. At our best we have included Christians who are conservative, moderate and liberal in their theology and politics; we have included Christians whose worship and music reflect various combinations of high and low, traditional and contemporary expressions; we have included Christians who seek to live God’s mission of evangelism and social justice both locally and globally. We have trusted that, with all our differences, as we continue to pray, talk, study Scripture and live together, worship and receive Christ in the Eucharist together and serve Christ in mission together, God will guide us all to deeper unity and faithfulness.
We find this vision in St. Paul’s picture of the Church as the body of Christ, with many members, all working together under Christ the head. No one can say to any other part of the body, I have no need of you. Christ created us to use our diversity of gifts and perspectives to work together in unity under the guidance of God’s Spirit. As the Archbishop of Canterbury said recently, our distinctive Anglican heritage has three strands: First, “a reformed commitment to the absolute priority of the Bible for deciding doctrine,” Second, “a catholic loyalty to the sacraments and the threefold ministry of bishops, priest and deacons,” and Third, “a habit of cultural sensitivity and intellectual flexibility that does not seek to close down unexpected questions too quickly.”
In our recent history, we have experienced difficulties finding resolution to our very public conflicts and divisions in both the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. Archbishop Ndungane of South Africa said that “one of the greatest sadnesses of current disagreements within the Communion is the way the debate, instead of focusing on possibilities of reconciliation, has become so polarized into extreme ‘either/or’ positions. To follow either extreme is to put at risk the great riches of our Anglican heritage, through which the Lord has blessed us so greatly over the centuries.”
For better and for worse, our Anglican Tradition has no hierarchical governing structure which can easily resolve our differences. So in faithfulness to our consultative tradition, we have had continuing conversations in our church and among the different Anglican Provinces and Instruments of Communion to seek God’s guidance through this time of divisions. Proposals have been developed, like the Windsor Report, and the Primates of the Communion have made requests as part of their attempts to bring resolution to our painful differences. This consultative process has been messy at times, but it is how our Anglican Tradition works. Our conversations are very public.
This process of conversation and discernment came to a focus at our September meeting of the House of Bishops in New Orleans. Last March our House of Bishops was asked by the Anglican Primates to make responses to some specific requests by September 30th. Since the Episcopal Church is not governed by bishops alone, but by our General Convention which includes laity, clergy and bishops, our response to the Primates was based on the principles expressed by our General Convention and Executive Council.
Most bishops across the theological spectrum said that it was the best House of Bishops meeting they had ever experienced. Our Presiding Bishop did an extraordinary job of leading us. Conservative, moderate and progressive bishops worked together with mutual respect, honoring their differences and seeking common ground together. The deepest desires of the community were to stay faithful to Christ and the Scripture, stay focused on the mission to which Christ calls us and stay in communion with all who are part of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. Christ’s reconciling Spirit was very evident in our relationships and decisions.
How has the statement made by our House of Bishops been received in the Anglican Communion? An international group of bishops, priests and laity who make up the Joint Standing Committee of the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates were present with us at our meeting, along with the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Standing Committee made a formal report to the Archbishop of Canterbury which expresses their evaluation of our response to the Primates. Let me quote from the last paragraph of their report.
“The life of the Anglican Communion has been much damaged in recent years following the tensions raised by the consecration in The Episcopal Church of a bishop living in a committed same-sex relationship and the authorization in some dioceses of Rites of Blessing for same-sex unions. With the response of the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church in September 2007, the Communion should move towards closure on these matters, at least for the time being. The Communion seems to be converging around a position which says that while it is inappropriate to proceed to public Rites of Blessing of same-sex unions and to the consecration of bishops who are living in sexual relationships outside of Christian marriage, we need to take seriously our ministry to gay and lesbian people inside the Church and the ending of discrimination, persecution and violence against them. Here, The Episcopal Church and the Instruments of Communion speak with one voice. The process of mutual listening and conversation needs to be intensified. It is only by living in communion that we can live out our vocation to be Communion.”
This Report is very good news for our church and for the whole Communion. Of course our differences continue and will continue for decades. There are conservative, moderate and progressive Christians on every continent of the Anglican Communion. No one is completely satisfied with either the House of Bishop’s statement or the report of the Joint Standing Committee. But there is a new season opening up of living in our differences with mutual respect and moving forward together in mission. This new season is a gift of God given to us as this whole church has prayerfully sought God’s guidance in the midst of our struggles.
There are some conservatives and progressives who find it difficult to embrace this new season of broad respect and mutual acceptance of each other, with all our differences. The Presiding Bishop and the House of Bishops will continue to offer alternate pathways for them to continue to be part of The Episcopal Church, within our Constitution and Canons. Some conservative separatists are talking about cutting ties with The Episcopal Church. At the same, there are many conservatives who continue to be committed to this church. Around a quarter of the dioceses of The Episcopal Church have elected conservative bishops, and as bishops and dioceses they want to remain in the Episcopal Church. They hold their theological positions and also respect and value their colleagues who seek to follow Christ in more moderate and progressive ways. Progressive Bishops are not belittling their conservative colleagues, but thanking God for them and continually including them in friendships and in the leadership of our church. Some progressive separatists have stated that they cannot remain in a church that is so slow to fully include gay and lesbian members. A few of the progressive bishops expressed reluctance to be bound by the House of Bishops and General Convention statements. So there will be exceptions to this new season of reconciliation. The on-going conversations and differences will continue. Hopefully the rhetoric will be toned down and we can witness to the world that, in Christ, people with deep and passionate differences can love and respect each other in our differences and work together to live and proclaim the good news of Christ in this country and around the world. I hope you will go home and share this good news with your friends and neighbors as a sign of God’s presence and work among us.
Around the edges of this Convention I hope you will get to know people from other congregations in this diocese. Ask them to tell you stories of how God is a work for good in their congregations. Tell them stories of how God is at work for good in your congregation. We have good news to share about God’s work among us. These signs of God’s work can give us hope and encouragement amid the challenges we all face as we seek to be faithful followers of Jesus in this society at this time in history.
On my retreat this past summer a passage of Scripture spoke to me deeply. It came as a gift of God to anchor and guide me for the coming year, as I seek to follow Christ as your bishop. I believe it can be a powerful anchor for all of us in these demanding times. Hear again the word of God from the fourth chapter of Philippians.
“Celebrate God all day, everyday. I mean revel in God! Make it as clear as you can to all you meet that you’re on their side, working with them and not against them. Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.” (Phil 4:4-7, MESSAGE) Let me repeat that last phrase: “It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.”
As you leave this service you will receive these verses printed on a book mark. I hope you refer to these verses often in the coming year and allow them to shape your thinking and living. Perhaps the most powerful witness we can make for Christ amid the anxiety and fatigue of our times is to let the joy and peace of Christ’s presence shine through us in all our relationships, in our homes and parishes and in our daily lives. “Glory to God whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine: Glory to God from generation to generation in the Church and in Christ Jesus for ever and ever.” Amen. (Ephesians 3:20, 21)
Bishop’s Address: Part 2 (October 27, 2007)
We New Englanders have been privileged in recent years to watch the Red Sox and the Patriots begin each new season with the goal of winning championships. We have also seen decades in which neither team was able to realistically look forward to winning a championship. There are ups and downs in the history of all sports teams. And there are ups and downs in each of our spiritual journeys and in each of our congregations.
This past year some of our congregations have seen healthy growth in many areas while others have struggled with increasing declines. No matter what season your congregation is experiencing, our call as followers of Christ is to keep returning to our basic vocation of living Christ’s Great Commandment (to love God with our whole being and to love our neighbors as ourselves.) and Christ’s Great Commission (to go make disciples and to teach all nations, baptizing in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit.) In every season and every generation Christ keeps asking us with urgency: are you growing in love for God and all your neighbors and are you making disciples for God’s kingdom? These questions from Christ are at the heart of the Baptismal Covenant which unites us all.
One way we can measure our love for God is by asking, what is the quality of our daily prayer and listening to Scripture? Is seeking God’s will and God’s kingdom the central priority which shapes our decision making in our daily lives and in our congregations?
One way we can measure our love for our neighbors is by asking the people we live and work with how they feel when they are around us. We can also ask ourselves if we have any personal contact with people on the margins of our communities, people who come from different cultures, speak different languages and people who live below the poverty level. Jesus had regular personal contact with the marginal people of his society. What is the quality of our relationship with our neighbors whose class, politics and theology are different from ours? How are we impacting our children and neighbors in future generations through our environmental choices? How are our choices impacting our neighbors who live in the third world?
The truth is, we are living at a time when third world poverty also exists in our first world cities. The infant mortality rates of Worcester and Springfield are the highest in our state, higher than in Singapore and Cuba. Half the children of Worcester and Springfield live below the poverty level. Hurricane Katrina revealed the overwhelming poverty and racism hidden behind the wonderful jazz and Cajun food of New Orleans. Episcopalians in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are now addressing those underlying injustices as they seek to rebuild the area. And Christians in this diocese and all across this country need to be more aware and committed to addressing the very real needs of our neighbors on the margins of American society.
At the meeting of our House of Bishops in New Orleans last month, each diocese was asked to bring a check for $10,000 to be shared between the dioceses of Louisiana and New Orleans as they seek to rebuild churches and ministries which were destroyed by Katrina. I brought a check from Bishop’s Funds for $5,000 and I put an IOU in the offering plate, promising that the people of Western Massachusetts would contribute at least another $5,000 to the church rebuilding efforts of our neighbors in the Gulf Coast. Before the end of this year, I ask that each congregation make a contribution to Church rebuilding in the Gulf Coast so that we can fulfill and even exceed the promise I made on our behalf. (Make checks out to Diocese of Western Mass; in memo section, to Katrina Church Rebuild) I also hope that there will be groups from our diocese who continue to return to the Gulf Coast to help in their rebuilding efforts and to bring them hope and encouragement by our presence with them. It will probably require at least another decade to rebuild a healthy Gulf Coast. We need to continue to support our neighbors there.
Another practical way we can help our neighbors in need is by working to stop the development of casino gambling in Massachusetts. You have heard Jack Johnson from the Massachusetts Council of Churches present some of the reasons casino gambling would be destructive to the people and economy of our Commonwealth. The stories from churches in the areas where casino gambling has been initiated in Connecticut, New Jersey, Mississippi and Detroit demonstrate clearly that the most significant victims are the poor. Local businesses and local communities suffer from the hidden dark side of casino gambling. For the sake of our poor neighbors and for the sake of our social and financial wellbeing in Massachusetts we need to speak up and take action to stop the approval of casino gambling.
Our diocese has been on record for many years in opposition to casino gambling. We join with other members of the Mass Council of Churches and with our Covenant Partners in the Roman Catholic Dioceses of Worcester and Springfield and the New England Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in working to oppose casino gambling. We have learned that a Convention Resolution has little effect on either parishes or the state. The most significant impact on the votes of our legislators comes from the letters and phone calls made by our members. I hope that at least ten people from every congregation in this diocese will write letters or make phone calls to our legislators and write letters to the editor expressing our opposition. We must express our concerns at this time because this is one strategic way we can live out Jesus’ call to care for the well being of our neighbors in this state.
As we look to the needs of the world, it is becoming clear that the greatest disaster in the world is not hurricanes or tsunamis or even an HIV/AIDS crisis. The greatest disaster comes from the underlying structures of the global economy. The world is driven by a global economy without global ethics and values. Providing relief in disaster situations is important but it does not begin to address the deeper disaster caused by unjust economic structures. As I met with African and American bishops this summer, our African neighbors spoke passionately about the need for changes in the global economic structures. They were not asking for more money, but for opportunities to sell their goods and resources at a fair price around the world so they can support themselves. As Christians, we will need to partner with our neighbors in the Third World by working to change legislation and thinking around the world so that there is more justice and opportunity for all to live healthy and fruitful lives.
Because of our commitment to follow Christ’s Great Commandment, we seek to act with care for the needs of our poor neighbors, both locally and globally. Our Church has adopted the Millennium Development Goals as a way of partnering with people around the world to accomplish more than we can accomplish on our own for our neighbors in need. Our diocesan, parish and personal commitments to support Five Talents and Episcopal Relief and Development are ways in which we are pursuing these goals. Several parishes have offered training to help parishioners understand and work for the Millennium Development Goals on both local and international levels. I hope that all members of this diocese will find concrete ways of learning and contributing to this crucial ministry of caring for our neighbors in need around the world.
In this spirit, we are continuing our partnership with the Diocese of Liberia. On November 17th, that diocese will elect a new bishop. (Because of the time difference, we will need to focus our prayers on November 16th.) God willing, Rebecca and I, along with Deborah Harmon Hines from our Diocese, will be attending the Consecration of the new Bishop of Liberia on January 6th.
This past summer, as I spent a week in Spain with 23 American bishops and 32 African bishops, I developed a close relationship with several bishops of Ghana. Ghana is a neighbor to Liberia in the Province of West Africa. The Ghanaian bishops were seeking a companion relationship with American partners but had not yet found any American diocese to partner with them. I remembered that there are 10,000 Ghanaians who live in Worcester. Some of them are Anglicans who worship in a weekly Ghanaian service at St. Michael’s. I began to wonder, is God calling our diocese to join with both Liberia and a diocese in Ghana in a three way partnership? The Ghanaian bishops were very open to exploring that kind of partnership. In fact, two bishops asked me to come to Ghana as part of my visit to Liberia. I discussed the possibility of this three way partnership with our Liberian Task Force, and they were very positive about exploring this three way relationship. We have no idea how this process will unfold. We ask for your prayers as we continue to pursue this possibility in the coming year. As we develop relationships with our partners in the Anglican Communion, God can help us learn from each other how to live as more faithful followers of Christ at this time in history.
Our partners around the world will both encourage us and challenge us. For example, in the gathering of American and African bishops, some of our African friends spoke of their concerns about continuing American involvement in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Our global partners often help us see how we are perceived by others around the world. At our House of Bishops meeting in New Orleans, a resolution on Iraq was presented by George Packard, Bishop Suffragan for Chaplaincies. It renewed the church's call for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops, care and support for those troops, and for the people who have become refugees because of the war.
In addition to the devastations which war always inflicts, the enormous amount of money spent on these wars and the debt our nation is incurring will impact the resources available to serve our neighbors in need, not only in this generation but for generations to come. African Bishops told stories of how, in the midst of generations of war in their countries, their dioceses are working to be peace makers in their societies, following the call of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. God is calling us in this diocese to discover how we can live and work as peacemakers amid the violence of our nation and world.
We are also called to fulfill Christ’s Great Commission of making disciples for God’s Kingdom. Christian Formation is at the heart of our vocation to awaken, guide and empower Christians to live the mission for which God placed each of us on this planet at this time. Our examples are often more powerful teachers than our words. We also need to be intentional about the way we deepen the discipleship of our young people and adults.
Research has shown that camps are one of the most significant ways our young people are formed as followers of Jesus. Living and learning in a 24 hour a day Christian community has a powerful life-long impact on our young people. This past year we have re-committed ourselves as a diocese to support the summer camp ministry of Bement. Aging facilities will require major financial investments to upgrade the infrastructure of Bement. We will need the help of parishes across the diocese to increase the number of summer campers at Bement. We are in the process of hiring a new site-manager to oversee the new configuration of operations at Bement. For financial reasons, we will not be operating Bement as a year round camp and conference center. However, from mid-April to mid-June and from mid-August to mid-October there will be opportunities for parish groups to use the facilities. We give thanks for the good leadership at Bement and on the Bement Board and New Future Task Force and we rejoice in the year round programs for young people which are already in place for the coming year.
Last year, as a result of our Diocesan Re-visioning Process, it became clear that God was inviting us to develop a more regional focus for mission strategy. The needs of our society and our churches are changing and increasing. No one congregation alone can adapt to these changing needs. We are discovering that when congregations work and pray together with each other, significant new mission initiatives can be developed which help us be more effective in living God’s mission. This past year, some of the most creative and effective new mission initiatives have come from regional partnerships.
With the support of Regional Mission Initiative Grants from our Diocese, almost all of the churches of the Berkshires are cooperating in a new Servant Leadership School which trains and supports people for significant ministry in their communities. In Springfield, a new Church Without Walls has been developed by a partnership between St. Andrew’s Longmeadow and the Cathedral. One fruit of this partnership is the weekly worship services for street people on the Springfield Common. St. Andrew’s, Longmeadow is also partnering with clergy from around the diocese to initiate a Formation Center to provide theological education and formation for those wishing to engage in lay pastoral ministry in the diocese. Out of a gathering of clergy and wardens in Worcester County, a traveling Vacation Bible School was birthed, emerging out of St. Francis, Holden and serving five congregations in Worcester County and one in Springfield. The college age leaders of this traveling VBS, the various parishes and the children of the local communities served were blessed by this creative mission initiative.
Another creative mission initiative emerged from the Southern Berkshires. Through an EFM course, a member of a Lutheran congregation in Great Barrington got to know Annie Ryder, the rector of Christ Church in Sheffield. The pastor of the Lutheran Church was leaving and the congregation was uncertain about their future. By the grace of God, the two congregations began to talk with each other and explore the possibility of joining together as one congregation, with Annie as their Pastor. Bishop Payne and I had the joy of sharing worship together with these two congregations as they develop their relationship together. This is a local demonstration of the fruit of our relationship of Full Communion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. We rejoice to see this new model of shared ministry emerging in our diocese.
This past year, Trinity, Ware and St. Mary’s, Thorndike chose to share one priest to help them develop more effective ministries together. St. John’s, Athol and St. Paul’s, Gardner are also beginning to share one priest for the benefit of ministry in both congregations.
I hope that every congregation in this diocese will prayerfully explore the possibility of networking with other congregations to fulfill your God given ministry. A solitary congregation may not have the resources to take significant new initiatives in Christian Formation and mission. But God is calling us to work together with other congregations, both within our Diocese and ecumenically, so that the mission of Christ can be extended in this generation.
Amid the challenges of living Christ’s Great Commandment and Great Commission in this generation, I find great hope in the words of Bishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador. The day before he was assassinated at his altar by a death squad in 1980 he said: “This is what we are about: We plant seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities. We cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for God's grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.”
“May the God of hope fill us with all joy and peace in believing so that we may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”(Romans 15:13) AMEN.
Part Two
The following are excerpts from the second part of the bishop’s address, delivered at the Convention Eucharist on Saturday morning at Christ Church Cathedral in Springfield. The full text is available on here.
There are ups and downs in each of our spiritual journeys and in each of our congregations. This past year some of our congregations have seen healthy growth in many areas while others have struggled with increasing declines. In every season and every generation, Christ keeps asking us with urgency: are you growing in love for God and all your neighbors and are you making disciples for God’s kingdom? These questions from Christ are at the heart of the Baptismal Covenant which unites us all.
One way we can measure our love for God is by asking, what is the quality of our daily prayer and listening to Scripture? Is seeking God’s will and God’s kingdom the central priority which shapes our decision making in our daily lives and in our congregations?
One way we can measure our love for our neighbors is by asking the people we live and work with how they feel when they are around us. We can also ask ourselves if we have any personal contact with people on the margins of our communities, people who come from different cultures, speak different languages and people who live below the poverty level. Jesus had regular personal contact with the marginal people of his society. What is the quality of our relationship with our neighbors whose class, politics and theology are different from ours? How are we impacting our children and neighbors in future generations through our environmental choices? How are our choices impacting our neighbors who live in the third world?
The truth is, we are living at a time when third world poverty also exists in our first world cities. The infant mortality rates of Worcester and Springfield are the highest in our state, higher than in Singapore and Cuba. Half the children of Worcester and Springfield live below the poverty level. Hurricane Katrina revealed the overwhelming poverty and racism hidden behind the wonderful jazz and Cajun food of New Orleans. Episcopalians in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are now addressing those underlying injustices as they seek to rebuild the area. And Christians in this diocese and all across this country need to be more aware and committed to addressing the very real needs of our neighbors on the margins of American society.
At the meeting of our House of Bishops in New Orleans last month, each diocese was asked to bring a check for $10,000 to be shared between the dioceses of Louisiana and New Orleans as they seek to rebuild churches and ministries which were destroyed by Katrina. I brought a check from Bishop’s Funds for $5,000 and I put an IOU in the offering plate, promising that the people of Western Massachusetts would contribute at least another $5,000 to the church rebuilding efforts of our neighbors in the Gulf Coast. Before the end of this year, I ask that each congregation make a contribution to Church rebuilding in the Gulf Coast so that we can fulfill and even exceed the promise I made on our behalf. (Make checks out to Diocese of Western Mass; in memo section, to Katrina Church Rebuild) I also hope that there will be groups from our diocese who continue to return to the Gulf Coast to help in their rebuilding efforts and to bring them hope and encouragement by our presence with them. It will probably require at least another decade to rebuild a healthy Gulf Coast. We need to continue to support our neighbors there.
Another practical way we can help our neighbors in need is by working to stop the development of casino gambling in Massachusetts. You have heard Jack Johnson from the Massachusetts Council of Churches present some of the reasons casino gambling would be destructive to the people and economy of our Commonwealth. The stories from churches in the areas where casino gambling has been initiated in Connecticut, New Jersey, Mississippi and Detroit demonstrate clearly that the most significant victims are the poor. Local businesses and local communities suffer from the hidden dark side of casino gambling. For the sake of our poor neighbors and for the sake of our social and financial wellbeing in Massachusetts we need to speak up and take action to stop the approval of casino gambling.
Our diocese has been on record for many years in opposition to casino gambling. We join with other members of the Mass Council of Churches and with our Covenant Partners in the Roman Catholic Dioceses of Worcester and Springfield and the New England Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in working to oppose casino gambling. We have learned that a Convention Resolution has little effect on either parishes or the state. The most significant impact on the votes of our legislators comes from the letters and phone calls made by our members. I hope that at least ten people from every congregation in this diocese will write letters or make phone calls to our legislators and write letters to the editor expressing our opposition. We must express our concerns at this time because this is one strategic way we can live out Jesus’ call to care for the well being of our neighbors in this state.
As we look to the needs of the world, it is becoming clear that the greatest disaster in the world is not hurricanes or tsunamis or even an HIV/AIDS crisis. The greatest disaster comes from the underlying structures of the global economy. The world is driven by a global economy without global ethics and values. Providing relief in disaster situations is important but it does not begin to address the deeper disaster caused by unjust economic structures. As I met with African and American bishops this summer, our African neighbors spoke passionately about the need for changes in the global economic structures. They were not asking for more money, but for opportunities to sell their goods and resources at a fair price around the world so they can support themselves. As Christians, we will need to partner with our neighbors in the Third World by working to change legislation and thinking around the world so that there is more justice and opportunity for all to live healthy and fruitful lives.
Because of our commitment to follow Christ’s Great Commandment, we seek to act with care for the needs of our poor neighbors, both locally and globally. Our Church has adopted the Millennium Development Goals as a way of partnering with people around the world to accomplish more than we can accomplish on our own for our neighbors in need. Our diocesan, parish and personal commitments to support Five Talents and Episcopal Relief and Development are ways in which we are pursuing these goals. Several parishes have offered training to help parishioners understand and work for the Millennium Development Goals on both local and international levels. I hope that all members of this diocese will find concrete ways of learning and contributing to this crucial ministry of caring for our neighbors in need around the world.
In this spirit, we are continuing our partnership with the Diocese of Liberia. On November 17th, that diocese will elect a new bishop. (Because of the time difference, we will need to focus our prayers on November 16th.) God willing, Rebecca and I, along with Deborah Harmon Hines from our Diocese, will be attending the Consecration of the new Bishop of Liberia on January 6th.
This past summer, as I spent a week in Spain with 23 American bishops and 32 African bishops, I developed a close relationship with several bishops of Ghana. Ghana is a neighbor to Liberia in the Province of West Africa. The Ghanaian bishops were seeking a companion relationship with American partners but had not yet found any American diocese to partner with them. I remembered that there are 10,000 Ghanaians who live in Worcester. Some of them are Anglicans who worship in a weekly Ghanaian service at St. Michael’s. I began to wonder, is God calling our diocese to join with both Liberia and a diocese in Ghana in a three way partnership? The Ghanaian bishops were very open to exploring that kind of partnership. In fact, two bishops asked me to come to Ghana as part of my visit to Liberia. I discussed the possibility of this three way partnership with our Liberian Task Force, and they were very positive about exploring this three way relationship. We have no idea how this process will unfold. We ask for your prayers as we continue to pursue this possibility in the coming year. As we develop relationships with our partners in the Anglican Communion, God can help us learn from each other how to live as more faithful followers of Christ at this time in history.
Our partners around the world will both encourage us and challenge us. For example, in the gathering of American and African bishops, some of our African friends spoke of their concerns about continuing American involvement in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Our global partners often help us see how we are perceived by others around the world. At our House of Bishops meeting in New Orleans, a resolution on Iraq was presented by George Packard, Bishop Suffragan for Chaplaincies. It renewed the church's call for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops, care and support for those troops, and for the people who have become refugees because of the war.
In addition to the devastations which war always inflicts, the enormous amount of money spent on these wars and the debt our nation is incurring will impact the resources available to serve our neighbors in need, not only in this generation but for generations to come. African Bishops told stories of how, in the midst of generations of war in their countries, their dioceses are working to be peace makers in their societies, following the call of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. God is calling us in this diocese to discover how we can live and work as peacemakers amid the violence of our nation and world.
We are also called to fulfill Christ’s Great Commission of making disciples for God’s Kingdom. Christian Formation is at the heart of our vocation to awaken, guide and empower Christians to live the mission for which God placed each of us on this planet at this time. Our examples are often more powerful teachers than our words. We also need to be intentional about the way we deepen the discipleship of our young people and adults.
Research has shown that camps are one of the most significant ways our young people are formed as followers of Jesus. Living and learning in a 24 hour a day Christian community has a powerful life-long impact on our young people. This past year we have re-committed ourselves as a diocese to support the summer camp ministry of Bement. Aging facilities will require major financial investments to upgrade the infrastructure of Bement. We will need the help of parishes across the diocese to increase the number of summer campers at Bement. We are in the process of hiring a new site-manager to oversee the new configuration of operations at Bement. For financial reasons, we will not be operating Bement as a year round camp and conference center. However, from mid-April to mid-June and from mid-August to mid-October there will be opportunities for parish groups to use the facilities. We give thanks for the good leadership at Bement and on the Bement Board and New Future Task Force and we rejoice in the year round programs for young people which are already in place for the coming year.
Last year, as a result of our Diocesan Re-visioning Process, it became clear that God was inviting us to develop a more regional focus for mission strategy. The needs of our society and our churches are changing and increasing. No one congregation alone can adapt to these changing needs. We are discovering that when congregations work and pray together with each other, significant new mission initiatives can be developed which help us be more effective in living God’s mission. This past year, some of the most creative and effective new mission initiatives have come from regional partnerships.
With the support of Regional Mission Initiative Grants from our Diocese, almost all of the churches of the Berkshires are cooperating in a new Servant Leadership School which trains and supports people for significant ministry in their communities. In Springfield, a new Church Without Walls has been developed by a partnership between St. Andrew’s Longmeadow and the Cathedral. One fruit of this partnership is the weekly worship services for street people on the Springfield Common. St. Andrew’s, Longmeadow is also partnering with clergy from around the diocese to initiate a Formation Center to provide theological education and formation for those wishing to engage in lay pastoral ministry in the diocese. Out of a gathering of clergy and wardens in Worcester County, a traveling Vacation Bible School was birthed, emerging out of St. Francis, Holden and serving five congregations in Worcester County and one in Springfield. The college age leaders of this traveling VBS, the various parishes and the children of the local communities served were blessed by this creative mission initiative.
Another creative mission initiative emerged from the Southern Berkshires. Through an EFM course, a member of a Lutheran congregation in Great Barrington got to know Annie Ryder, the rector of Christ Church in Sheffield. The pastor of the Lutheran Church was leaving and the congregation was uncertain about their future. By the grace of God, the two congregations began to talk with each other and explore the possibility of joining together as one congregation, with Annie as their Pastor. Bishop Payne and I had the joy of sharing worship together with these two congregations as they develop their relationship together. This is a local demonstration of the fruit of our relationship of Full Communion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. We rejoice to see this new model of shared ministry emerging in our diocese.
This past year, Trinity, Ware and St. Mary’s, Thorndike chose to share one priest to help them develop more effective ministries together. St. John’s, Athol and St. Paul’s, Gardner are also beginning to share one priest for the benefit of ministry in both congregations.
I hope that every congregation in this diocese will prayerfully explore the possibility of networking with other congregations to fulfill your God given ministry. A solitary congregation may not have the resources to take significant new initiatives in Christian Formation and mission. But God is calling us to work together with other congregations, both within our Diocese and ecumenically, so that the mission of Christ can be extended in this generation.
Amid the challenges of living Christ’s Great Commandment and Great Commission in this generation, I find great hope in the words of Bishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador. The day before he was assassinated at his altar by a death squad in 1980 he said: “This is what we are about: We plant seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities. We cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for God's grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.”