Greetings everyone, and grace and peace to each of you as we celebrate the Fourth of July this week, and we journey together in this long green season of Pentecost.
As many of you know, our denomination held its 81st General Convention in Louisville over the past two weeks. Here’s a summary from the Episcopal News Service:
Episcopal News Service – The official news service of the Episcopal Church.
As you know, our own Bishop +Rob was among 5 candidates on the slate for Presiding Bishop. Bishop +Sean Rowe was elected on the first ballot. Here are his remarks to the Deputies gathered at the convention:
Bishop Rowe’s Remarks to Deputies – The Living Church
And here is a compelling quote from his speech:
“Our ministry together in the next nine years comes at a critical time for the Episcopal Church. It is not too strong to say that we’re facing an existential crisis. Not because the church is dying, or because we have lost our belief in the salvation of God in Jesus Christ. But because as the world around us changes, and continues to change — it changes all the time — and God is calling us more deeply into the unknown…I sometimes think of this moment in the Episcopal Church’s history in terms of the history of my own region of the United States, where I grew up and where I continue to serve. I am from the Rust Belt, and in the economic unraveling that has befallen our communities in the last 50 years, I have been around to see things I love go away.
My grandfathers were steel workers, and nearly my entire family worked in industry. In the space of a few years in the mid-1980s, when I was in elementary school, I watched everything I had known evaporate. The Westinghouse plant closed in my area, and my fourth-grade friends moved to Indiana when their parents were offered a transfer instead of a layoff. In 1987, Sharon Steel, a major local employer, closed when a corporate raider gained control, and thousands of people lost their jobs.
People in our region are resilient, but we spent years resisting the change that was forced on us, wishing things would go back to being the way they had been. In the partnership between the Diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania and the Diocese of Western New York, we have spent the last five years bucking that trend, that cultural resistance to change in what we call an experiment for the sake of the gospel. It is not always easy, but I believe that the kind of collaboration and experimentation we are up to can help us ensure the strong and effective witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ and to bring the Episcopal Church into the future to which God is calling us…This imperative to change doesn’t just reside in the Rust Belt. If we are honest with each other and ourselves, we know that we cannot continue to be the Episcopal Church in the same way, no matter where we live.”
Here is more from another ECUSA news source: Home – The Living Church
This editorial excerpt is relevant both to the deliberations in Louisville, and to us at Holy Family during our search process:
“The small boat of the Episcopal Church feels exposed on the windswept sea on the eve of our 81st General Convention. We are in a period of profound unsteadiness. Recent moves to consolidate dioceses are resourceful decisions, but they also make the reality of decline more vivid. Despite many creative projects, our numbers continue to fall sharply. We are closing more churches than we can plant. Zoom church was not the cure-all it may have seemed three years ago, and it’s harder to make our message known in a time of such shrill polarization, within and outside the church.”
Of course, we are not alone in this. Our friends in other mainline Protestant denominations are experiencing similar challenges. I taught at Columbia Seminary (a PCUSA free-standing seminary) for many years, and know first-hand how our PCUSA friends are struggling in ways similar to ours. Our United Methodist cousins in the Anglican tradition (John and Charles Wesley were Anglican priests) have experienced a split over LGBTQ+ issues, losing many congregations, and so on. For those of you who are interested, here’s a deeper dive into some of these trends: Reports – Religious Workforce Project
Trends in the First Two Decades of the 21st Century and Implications for the Future Congregational Trends Impacting the Religious Workforce Declining Church Attendance Fewer New Adherents Aging Church Membership Congregational Trends Become Congregational Challenges Increasing Numbers of Smaller Churches among Protestants Church Finances and Personnel Spending Congregational Challenges Lead to Workforce Changes Churches with religiousworkforce.com
We are called to remain hopeful, resilient, and creative. Let’s commit to staying the course, doing all that we can in our beloved corner of Creation, and work together for the common good. I am so proud of you all, and grateful for your ministries among us. Bishop +Rowe quoted Thomas Merton in his address to the Deputies gathered last week:
“In a time of drastic change one can be too preoccupied with what is ending or too obsessed with what seems to be beginning. In either case one loses touch with the present and with its obscure but dynamic possibilities. What really matters is openness, readiness, attention, courage to face risk. You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith, and hope. In such an event, courage is the authentic form taken by love.”
I’ll catch you later on down the trail, and I’ll see you in church!
Blessings, and Happy Fourth of July! Bill+