Jan 2016 Connections

Connections news • ideas • events January 2016

Issue 1 Vol. 3

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THE DIOCESE OF SOUTHERN OHIO

www.EpiscopaliansInConnection.org

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Welcome to Connections 2.0

As most of you know, The Interchange became Connections in February 2014. Now in 2016, we welcome you to Connections 2.0. Each issue of Connections will now be dedicated to a theme. There will be book reviews, theological reflections, commentary and other features devoted to that month’s theme. We have chosen topics that we feel have impact on the church, the neighborhood, the diocese and the world. The theme for this month is innovation.

Don’t panic, though. The new Connections will still contain much of what you are used to seeing. The biggest change is the fact that the first half of the publication will be dedicated to the specific topic. The second half is dedicated to many of the things you normally see in Connections.

Our goal is to create a publication containing useful information that you can refer to all year long. We want Connections to be a vibrant and useful tool that can help you with your ministries. We welcome your suggestions for future issues at communication@diosohio.org.

Even better news is that we’ve also completely rebuilt dsoConnections.org. It has everything the print issue has plus more because we are able to use multimedia. For example, if you read the bishop’s convention address/sermon on dsoConnections.org, you’ll also find the video of the sermon embedded within the article so you can watch it as well.

We chose innovation as our first issue for two dsoConnections.org is fully optimized to work across all reasons. First of all, it was the basis of our computers, all smart phones and all tablets. diocesan convention, Behold the New. More The goal of dsoConnections.org is to bring everything together than that, innovation is on everyone’s mind in one place. So now, you can also find everything in our weekly these days. Innovation is hard to define and even harder to achieve. It’s not easy for anyemail, e-Connections available on dsoConnections.org. You will one to be innovative with a simple snap of the find that your weekly e-Connections will look different to you fingers. It takes a lot of work, a lot of attempts as well, because it has been redesigned to complement the new and a lot of failures to come up with something site. So now, if you’d like to get more information on something truly innovative. in e-Connections, then just click on it and you’ll automatically be sent to its own page on dsoConnections.org, where you’ll find So, if innovation is so difficult, is it hopeless for more information. No more scrolling down LONG emails. You’ll the Church to succeed in finding innovative be able to navigate through every e-Connections directly from ways to reach out and minister to our neighdsoConnections.org. borhoods? I don’t think so. There are stories, You might be asking why all of this information isn’t just on articles and book reviews in the following our main (diosohio.org) site. We felt that adding this amount pages to help you on your journey to innovaof content each and every week would make the main site tion. And if you read something you like, make unmanageable. So, diosohio.org will still have everything you sure to go to the online version so you can need related to the diocese, but you’ll go to dsoConnections.org share it with others. for news, ideas and events. Of course, both sites are linked to each other so you can easily get from one site to the other.

We hope this new approach will help you in your ministry by providing an easier place to get all of the day-to-day information you need as well as useful articles, book reviews and theological reflections on a variety of topics important to the church.

Why Innovation?

David Dreisbach serves as Director of Communications for the Diocese of Southern Ohio.

Contact him at ddreisbach@diosohio.org.

TRADITIONED

INNOVATION

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The church is stuck in a war between “We’ve always done it that way” and “The future is about leading change.”

Consider worship. In response to those ritual fundamentalists who insisted that nothing (especially music) change, innovators created “contemporary” worship services. But those services became so unfamiliar that people now long for opportunities to sing the “old familiar” contemporary songs, such as “Lord, I Lift your Name on High.”

In businesses and other organizations, including Christian ones, the traditionalists are so stuck in their ways that they drive reasonable people toward change for its own sake. People obsessed with change create such chaos that reasonable people long for some form of stability. And so the pendulum swings between traditionalist strategies and innovative ones, causing organizations and leaders, people and cultures, to suffer.

It is a return to Christian thinking that offers the best way forward.

A colleague and friend who studies social entrepreneurship helped me come to this conclusion. He wondered why, over the course of the last couple of centuries in America, the best socially entrepreneurial organizations had consistently been faith-based, especially if they developed significant scale and scope. He had in mind organizations such as Goodwill, Salvation Army and Habitat for Humanity. He was thinking of faith-based hospitals, schools and, more recently, hospice organizations. Only in the last 25 years, he noted, had social entrepreneurship become relatively secular. What has happened in the church?

His question got me reading about social entrepreneurship, a relatively new area of scholarship and study in business schools. Amid a lot of ideas that had Christian resonance, I was struck by an emerging debate about “newness.” Can an existing organization do social entrepreneurship, or does it always require a new structure? It seemed to be a misplaced debate to me – after all, Christian organizations and churches have long engaged in innovation within our existing structures. We have typically called it bearing witness to the Holy Spirit, the One who is “making all things new.”

Christian leaders are called to a particular type of social entrepreneurship – one that does not force us to choose preserving tradition or leading change, but thinking about them together. We are called to “traditioned innovation” as a pattern of thinking, bearing witness to the Holy Spirit who is conforming us to Christ. I asked a New Testament scholar what came to mind when he heard that phrase. He said, “The New Testament.

Indeed, the whole of Scripture.” The best way to interpret the book of Acts, or Paul’s account of Sarah and Hagar in Galatians, is a process of discernment rooted in traditioned innovation. How do we integrate the transformative work of Christ into our ongoing identity as the people of God rooted in biblical Israel’s calling?

In our thinking as well as our living, we are oriented toward our end, our telos: bearing witness to the reign of God. That is what compels inno-

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vation. But our end is also our beginning, because we are called to bear witness to the redemptive work of Christ who is the Word that created the world. We are the carriers of that which has gone before us so we can bear witness faithfully to the future.

Tradition is fundamentally different from traditionalism. Jaroslav Pelikan, in The Vindication of Tradition, characterized the difference when he wrote, “Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living.” People who bear a tradition are called to be relentlessly innovative in ways that preserve the life-giving character of the tradition.

We need not rely only on patterns within Scripture, or even the practices of the church, however, to appreciate the significance of traditioned innovation as a way of thinking. Biologists such as Marc Kirschner and John Gerhart, in their The Plausibility of Life, have compellingly argued that organisms must preserve significant features of their processes while changing others. A great surprise of modern biology, they suggest, has been how important conservation is to the process of adaptive change.

So also with institutions. We do not need radical change. The task of transformative leadership is not simply to “lead change.”

Transformative leaders know what to preserve as well as what to change. We need to conserve wisdom even as we explore risktaking mission and service. Too much change creates chaos. Transformative change, rooted in tradition and the preservation of wisdom, cultivates the adaptive work that is crucial to the ongoing vitality and growth of any organism, Christian institutions included.

Sometimes that will mean we innovate within existing institutions; at other times we will allow some forms to die so that other ones can rise up in their place. And at still other times we will give birth to new forms to address challenges and opportunities. But even our most dramatic transformations ought to be tethered to our most life-giving past.

There are few things we have “always” done in any particular way, and there are even fewer things that we want “always” to change. Perhaps we can do better than a cease-fire in these culture wars. Instead, transformative leaders should adopt traditioned innovation as a pattern of thinking that will help cultivate thriving communities. It would be a welcome change.

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People who bear a tradition are called to be relentlessly innovative in ways that preserve the life-giving character of the tradition.

L. Gregory Jones is senior strategist for Leadership Education at Duke Divinity and a professor of theology in the Divinity School of Duke University. This article first appeared in Faith & Leadership www.faithandleadership.com and is reprinted with permission from the author.

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Christian leaders need not choose between tradition and innovation. A way of thinking that holds the two in tension is crucial to the ongoing vitality and growth of our institutions.

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The Rev. Jason Leo blesses a parrot at Calvary, Clifton's annual animal blessing. Photo by Sharon Grayton.

Take a NEW look at an OLD tradition Innovation is often confused with invention. And that is a good thing for a faith community that has been around for a few thousand plus years. Whatever we try has probably been tried before so we can surely let ourselves off the hook for having to come up with something completely new.

Innovation is synonymous with change, alteration, revolution, upheaval, transformation, metamorphosis, breakthrough …

I have learned that a new look at an old tradition can sometimes hit a nerve and get some attention.

At my previous congregation, Calvary, Clifton, one change/ alteration that I found effective in terms of generating enthusiasm and participation took place on St. Francis Day. For years I would bless the animals at 5 p.m. and oh, maybe 10 or 12 people would show up. Now I’m not the sharpest pencil in the engine but I came up with the idea that we would bring the animals inside the building on Sunday morning during regular worship times. And I’m sure that this is done in other parishes, but it was a new approach for our parish, and the upheaval was immediate. Remember innovation and upheaval often go hand in hand.

The Altar Guild pitched a fit, the modified Morning Prayer service sent the ‘Eucharist or nothing’ people into a frenzy and the cleaning crew threatened to quit. Oh the pain! But press on we did, and the morning of the big day the strangest thing happened. Crowds. Big crowds. With animals everywhere – dogs, cats, parrots, snakes, ferrets, fish, gerbils, hamsters, lizards, and even a spider. And the pride on the people’s faces was as clear as the morning sun. The dull roar of the wildlife blended with the organ and choir singing “All

creatures of our God and King,” and one by one the people and their pets came forward for a blessing. Yes there were frenzied cleanups in the middle of the liturgy, and the lay readers and intercessors had to be extra loud. But you could feel the joy in the room and the number of animals blessed was close to triple digits – a huge leap from the annual Sunday afternoon dozen.

Attendance on St. Francis Day grew and grew and in a few years was right up there with Christmas and Easter, and the addition of a canned food drive for a food pantry at a neighboring parish furthered our purpose and sense of mission for the Lord and the kingdom.

Invention? Nope. St. Francis Day celebrations go way, way back. But a little change, a subtle alteration and some upheaval resulted in a downright religious experience – and a whole lot of fun.

So if you don’t mind a little chaos … and remember that God is usually found on the edge of chaos … take a look at the traditions in your community that have maybe grown stale or could use a fresh expression. A little innovation and some persistence, and before you know it, the kingdom will be so close that you’ll be able to reach out and touch it.

The Rev. Jason Leo begins his ministry as the Missioner for Congregational Vitality for the Diocese of Southern Ohio on Jan. 1. Contact him at jleo@diosohio.org.

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presence

Sharon Sheridan [Episcopal News Service] The Rev. Tom Brackett has a word for the Diocese of Western Massachusetts’ urban missioner in the South Main section of Worcester: “numble.”

The Rev. Meredyth Wessman Ward exhibits the shared qualities of being nimble and humble, said Brackett, the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society’s missioner for church planting and ministry redevelopment.

“She listens really well, so she will do something as long as it needs to be done, and then she will move to something else that needs to be done.”

(The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society is the legal and canonical name under which The Episcopal Church is incorporated, conducts business and carries out mission.)

Western Massachusetts received a $100,000 “new church start” matching grant for the Worcester Urban Mission Strategy program in the summer of 2014.

Mission Enterprise Zones and their companion new church starts are Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society initiatives funded through the 2013-2015 Five Marks of Mission triennial budget, approved by General Convention in July 2012. The budget included $2 million to establish the zones and support new church starts for the first of the Anglican Communion’s Five Marks of Mission: to proclaim the good news of the

The Rev. Meredyth Wessman Ward entertains a young boy in a waiting room while his mother and her baby visit a doctor in Worcester, Massachusetts. As urban missioner in the South Main area of the city, Ward practices a ministry of presence, spending time in the neighborhood and meeting people’s needs as they arise. Photo/Jane Griesbach kingdom.

Matching grants were available for up to $20,000 for a Mission Enterprise Zone and up to $100,000 for a new church start. Executive Council’s Joint Standing Committee on Local Mission and Ministry Committee considered applications for the grants and recommended to the council

which ones it should approve.

General Convention 2015 Resolution A012 proposed a continuation of that funding. And the budget the church’s Executive Council proposed to the convention’s budget committee increases the triennial seed money available to $3 million.

From the first, things didn’t go quite as planned in Worcester.

“My husband, who had cancer, went into hospice at about the same time I got the grant,” Ward told Episcopal News Service.

“So I requested that we put the grant on hold for awhile. He died in October, and I actually began in January.”

“It’s actually been a really healing thing to be doing something new in the midst of this,” she said. “That’s been an unexpected joy.”

The intent was to create an Episcopal presence in the “challenged neighborhood” of South Main, site of gang activity and home to many recent immigrants and lots of single parents. The expectation was to base that presence in a local church that had dwindled to a few members.

Then they discovered using the church building was impractical because of the cost of fixing problems with mold and significant deferred maintenance.

“I said, ‘Okay, it’s meant to be a ministry

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Practicing a mission strategy of

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When plans to use a local church as a base of operations fell through, the Rev. Meredyth Wessman Ward turned her car into her roving office as she practices a ministry of presence and making connections as urban missioner in the South Main neighborhood of Worcester in the Diocese of Western Massachusetts. The Worcester Urban Mission Strategy is funded in part by a New Church Start grant. Photo/Jane Griesbach

of presence. Maybe I’m not supposed to have an office that I can hide in,’” Ward said.

Her car became her office.

“Not having a physical space took on a whole new challenge, but also a whole new possibility,” said Holly Dolan, a teacher who serves on the board that oversees the program’s grant.

Ward set out, by car and foot, to meet her neighbors and pray with them.

“I’ve seen my work as primarily making connections,” she said, “making connections with members of the neighborhood, helping people make connections with their higher power.”

In recovery herself, she spends time talking to others in recovery or in “sober houses.”

She attends community meetings and concerts, drinks coffee in local shops. This summer, she’ll volunteer at a summer program at an elementary school. “On any given day, I will have a handful of set meetings – folks I’ve agreed to have coffee with or folks from the local churches who want to get together.

But a lot of it is walking around the neighborhood, talking to people and seeing what grows out of that.”

Ward discovered that some of the people in the neighborhood needed things that the federal government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits won’t cover – “that’s a huge burden for some people” – so she carries a shopping bag with diapers of

various sizes and feminine-hygiene products to distribute.

“She’s hit the streets and said: ‘How can we bless you?’ … and basically formed ministry out of people’s responses after praying with them and listening to them,” Brackett said.

One of those ministries emerged from hanging out with folks at laundromats over the long, snowy winter. “Everybody in the neighborhood wanders through at one point or another,” Ward said. “I would show up with crayons and coloring books and Matchbox cars and play with the kids and talk to the parents.

“I began to realize how often people ran out of quarters before they ran out of laundry. Middle-class folks like me don’t realize how much it costs to do laundry: $6.50 for a double-load in Worcester. You get five minutes in the dryer for a quarter. This is a big hit to people’s budgets when they’re already working poor or trying to get by on aid. These folks are walking to the laundromat with loads of laundry, a kid in a stroller, another kid by the hand, in the snow. This is just really hard work.”

In July, Ward, her board and members of local Episcopal churches will launch Laundry Love, a program that began on the West Coast and is spreading across the country.

Once a month, volunteers will throw a “laundry party” by taking over a local laundromat

for the evening and paying for people’s laundry, helping with folding clothes, reading stories to the children, feeding everyone pizza, and beginning and ending the event with prayer.

The Rev. Jane Griesbach, board member and deacon at St. Luke’s and St. Matthew’s Episcopal churches in Worcester, is recruiting laundry volunteers. “I feel that’s the easiest way for lay people to enter in [to the urban mission] at the moment.”

Participants are welcome to “jump in with two feet, or simply collect quarters or detergent and pray for us,” she said. “People have gotten very excited and want to be involved.”

Other groups are joining in as well.

A local Coptic priest heard about the project and told Ward many Coptic immigrants in the area own pizza shops. “There are Coptic Christians who own pizza shops in Worcester who are donating the pizza to their brothers and sisters as an act of faith,” Ward said. “So here is another community that is participating in the ministry with us in a real and powerful way.”

Students at nearby Clark University also may get involved.

“Many of the students who come here are very committed to issues of social justice and outreach into the community,” said Dolan, associate professor in the Clark education department.

Her parish, St. Andrew’s Episcopal

gram, while another mentors young men, and a third is considering starting parenting classes.

“Because I have the freedom of not being in a particular parish,” Ward said, “I have the time and the energy available to help make some of those connections and make sure that people are connected with each other and the services.”

Among the Episcopal churches, Ward sees a spirit of cooperation. “One of the things that I love about working in Worcester is that the various Episcopal churches in Worcester have declared that they are, along with Worcester Fellowship, the Episcopal Church in Worcester, rather than, ‘I’m this Episcopal church in Worcester.’ We collectively are The Episcopal Church.”

They joined with other church communities for a “wild and wonderful Easter vigil” and with the Worcester Fellowship for a Good Friday Stations of the Cross throughout the city, Ward said.

“She has a beautiful grace about her that is nonthreatening, and everybody so far, the clergy of all the parishes are on board and very excited,” Griesbach said. Ward likewise has met with chaplains and administrators at Clark University and Holy Cross College, “and the students are going to become

The Rev. Meredyth Wessman Ward, left, distributes feminine hygiene supplies as part of her urban ministry in Worcester, Massachusetts. Photo/Jane Griesbach

involved when they come back in the fall.

She’s talented in casting a wide net. … It’s a very exciting model.”

This fits with Bishop Douglas Fisher’s vision for the diocese. He wants congregations to think about themselves in collaboration with other congregations, Episcopal or not, to find the ways in which God is working already in their neighborhoods and/or is calling them to new ministries that serve the residents of those neighborhoods, he said.

Fisher believes that the diocese should look at mission and church planting in a different way, he said, and so began the Fanning the Flame initiative to “go to places where the Holy Spirit is already active and doing good things, and try to give those places resources so that the Holy Spirit might work even more powerfully, but in a way that not only impacts that particular parish, but also the surrounding parishes.”

The program is funded by a 1 percent per year draw on diocesan investments income. It will amount to $1 million in three years.

The diocese says congregations ought to be drawing extra from their endowments to pay “for the sake of mission initiative” rather than for building repairs or to cover staff salaries, and the diocese is following suit with this initiative.

Looking ahead in Worcester, the mission hopes to begin renting a storefront if the owners can secure a grant to renovate it.

“This could become safe space where people from the neighborhood, people from The Episcopal Church in Worcester, people from other faith communities could gather and create a supportive community around some of the young families in the neighborhood,” Ward said. “A place where you can not only pick up diapers, but have a conversation about how your life is going; where we could not only have 12-step meetings with child care but a prayerful space where an 11thstep meeting could take place. The 11th step is when you improve your conscious contact with God.” Another option might be music instruction.

That morning, Ward had walked the neighborhood with a music teacher who belongs to a local Episcopal church. “She started saying, ‘Hmmm, I wonder if we could provide music lessons for some of the kids.’”

“One of the things that I’m really delighted with,” Ward said, “is that people are starting to step up and say, ‘I want to do this with you. I don’t know what this is, but I want to do this with you.’”

Sharon Sheridan is an ENS correspondent. ENS editor and reporter Mary Frances Schjonberg contributed to this article.

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Church, North Grafton, already is on board.

Church members support the Worcester Fellowship Program – an outdoor ministry Griesbach and Ward also are involved with that holds weekly Eucharists on the commons – and youth members have done overnights in connection with the fellowship.

“The kids have met with people who have not-consistent housing and kind of heard their stories and gone on walks in the city of Worcester at night with them,” Dolan said.

When she talks about Laundry Love in her parish, “They get it, because they’re already attuned to some of what the needs are of people who are kind of living on the fringes.”

Ward envisions helping families with more than laundry.

“There is a coalition of pastors in the neighborhood who are starting to work together to strategize,” she said. “What we realized in talking was that in each of the parishes there were a handful of families that you kind of describe as being on the bubble – folks who, with some help, might be able to make it to the next level of stability.”

The pastors – who come from various denominations – have committed to working together to identify families and link them to services in the various churches. One church runs an English as a second language pro-

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Review: Purple Cow

Innovation: It’s all about being

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remarkable

Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable, the 2003 best-selling book by Seth Godin, proclaims that marketing in the 21st century is broken. Expensive television commercials and slick magazine ads are money wasted if you aren’t promoting something that stands out from the crowd.

Godin shares this story from a family vacation. While traveling through the French countryside, his family was at first enthralled with the picturesque fields and pastures along the highway – miles and miles of storybook black and white cows munching on beautiful green grass. But he noticed that within about twenty minutes, they were ignoring the cows. What had been amazing just a few minutes before was now boring. Cows, Godin says, after you’ve seen them for a while, are “boring. They may be perfect cows, attractive cows, cows with great personalities, cows lit by beautiful light, but they’re still boring.

A Purple Cow, though. Now that would be interesting.”

Godin observes that we are so inundated by products and media in this “post-consumption” market that the product you produce – even if it is the best and the brightest around – is invisible. You just can’t see it among all the rest of the cows.

So what you need is a Purple Cow, a product with something remarkable, something worth noticing, built right into it. Not added on as an afterthought – but created right from the beginning with being remarkable in mind. Godin goes on to give multiple examples and tips about creating and marketing the Purple Cow in your area of industry.

As a book written for marketing experts, there are many industry concepts in the book that are a given to the target audience, such as the Five P’s of marketing (which are actually more than five, but include product, pricing, promotion, positioning, publicity and packaging). Which got me thinking – in the Church, what is our product? Is it the number of people in our pews on a Sunday morning? Or is it bringing the people in our neighborhoods closer to the love of God? I’d like to share my observation that we have an impressive history of innovation/Purple Cows here in Southern Ohio. Some are recent, like Gabriel’s Place, Praxis Communities such as Confluence and Brendan’s Crossing, the Pray Think Love House in Westerville and Theology on Tap in Portsmouth. Some go far back into history, such as the creation of Forward Movement, The Presiding Bishop’s Fund for World Relief (now Episcopal Relief

& Development) and Bishop Blanchard’s St. Paul’s Curbside Cathedral – an airstream trailer that took the cathedral to the people. There are more examples. And while they may or may not bring more people to our pews, these Purple Cows are definitely bringing people closer to God’s love.

My takeaway from this book is that we may do liturgy better than anyone around. We may have the best music, and we definitely do the best processing. Or as Godin puts it, we may be perfect churches, attractive churches, churches with great personalities, churches lit by beautiful light – but we’re still boring. In a world of all the perfect, attractive and beautiful churches people have to choose from (or no church, which is what more and more people are choosing), to succeed it’s imperative that we spend our time and resources on something else – something that makes us stand out from the crowd.

Julie Murray serves as Associate Director of Communications for the Diocese of Southern Ohio and editor of Connections. Contact her at jmurray@ diosohio.org.

Innovation doesn’t mean changing who you are.

[ ] Innovation doesn’t have to be electronic.

Our roots are in innovation. When Thomas Cranmer originally wrote the Book of Common Prayer, it revolutionized worship for the church. It was an innovative undertaking to merge ancient traditions with the modern world.

A more recent example of non-electronic innovation, taken from industry, is Tide Pods. Tide cleans clothes. In fact, that’s been Tide’s mission from the very beginning. But the makers of Tide realized that it wasn’t meeting the needs of millennials. So they created Tide Pods. They’re convenient, easy to use and are a no-fuss approach to laundry – everything millennials want. They’re innovative, yet Tide hasn’t changed who it is – it still cleans clothes.

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Innovation?

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141ST CONVENTION

BEHOLD THE NEW 141st Convention Address The Rt. Rev. Thomas E. Breidenthal November 14, 2015 Christ Church, Dayton Text: Matthew 9:35-38 As you may have noticed, everything at this convention is about connection. Not because I said it should be – it just seems to be in the air.

But as you know, connection has an upside and a downside. God hard-wired us for connection. We’re not happy unless we’re in relationship with other people. Yet connection can also be dangerous. We’re very vulnerable to one another. We can’t really say that we make connections, since we’re always already connected with one another, whether we like it or not. Sometimes we religious people are tempted to view salvation as an escape from connection. It’s especially easy for Episcopalians to think that, while it would be good for the kingdom of God to be full of people, it might be nice if each of us could still have our own individual and solitary relationship with God. This morning, many of us are grieving and frightened by what is happening in France. It’s a scary thing to think about a country closing its borders. That sounds like wartime. It is certainly yet another reminder that connection can be scary.

France is close to us because the whole world is small now. We can’t pretend that we can hide and run away from things that frighten us. We can’t run away from evil, and we can’t run away from sin. We always knew we couldn’t run away from it in ourselves, but now we know we can’t run away from it in the world as a whole. So we need to cling to the good news of God and Jesus Christ: salvation isn’t escape from connection. It is connection redeemed.

Bishop Breidenthal delivers his convention Eucharist sermon/address at Christ Church, Dayton. Photo by Julie Murray.

141ST CONVENTION

Brendan’s Crossing Program Coordinator Aaron Wright offers Bishop Gnome N. Clature a spot of espresso at the Praxis Communities Pop-Up coffee and conversation spot in the exhibit hall. Photo by Julie Murray.

That is why we gather Sunday by Sunday by Sunday, learning how to get along with each other, learning how to forgive each other, learning how to be patient with one another. Sometimes we get to know each other well enough to challenge one another to stay true to the faith. And when we come to church full of doubt, we know that there are people there full of faith who will hold us up.

That’s what church is all about.

And that’s also what the gospel reading that we just heard is all about. Jesus says, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.” Now, it’s very easy to think about that as church growth. Let’s get that harvest into our pews! We’re all worried about shrinking, so we want to grow. But that’s not what this passage is about. Jesus says that we should pray for the Lord of the harvest to send laborers into the harvest, but that command is preceded by his compassion for the crowds, who he says are “like sheep without a shepherd.” The Greek word we translate as “having compassion” is stronger. Literally the sentence reads: “He looked at the crowds, and his guts were moved.” He was that touched and upset.

Moreover, he was quoting Numbers 27:17, in which Moses has just learned that the people of Israel are about to cross over into the Promised Land without him. God says to Moses (I’m paraphrasing here): ‘You don’t get to go; you’re going to die first. Go up to the top of the mountain range and take a look at where they’re going.’ Then Moses says: ‘Please, raise up a successor to follow me. I don’t want this people to be like sheep without a shepherd.’

During Phase I of the Listening Project, delegates were asked to interview a stranger about ministries that were important to them. Photo by Julie Murray.

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Jesus is quoting Moses. That’s how we know he’s not talking about church growth. He doesn’t care about that. He’s talking about leadership and the people’s need for it. You all know what leadership is about – here is a whole room full of leaders.

Leadership is about connection. We define leaders as those who are able to bring us together.

Leaders don’t suck the air out of the room.

Leaders don’t do things instead of other people.

Leaders bring people together and authorize everybody, giving everybody the confidence and the strength to be ministers of the gospel. We talk a lot about the ministry of the baptized, but that ministry cannot be raised up without leaders who can encourage every member of the church to take the good news of Christ into the world. We are all authorized and empowered to be laborers in the vineyard. That vineyard is not a realm of potential growth for the church. It’s the world itself: the world the way it is – a world full of terrorists, full of homeless people, full of sick people, full of frightened people, full of people who don’t know that God exists, or don’t know that God loves them.

Engaging with that world is something we as Episcopalians do well at our best. It’s in our DNA to embrace connection. Every Christian tradition has its own gift, and that’s our gift. We like to talk to each other; we like to collaborate; we like to partner with all kinds of people – as we saw and heard over and over again yesterday, whether we were talking about Episcopal Retirement Homes or the Episcopal Community Service Foundation or our young adults living in intentional community. The theme of partnership with our neighbors was everywhere.

That’s our gift. But when we flee from exercising it, when we resist partnership, when we resist conversation, when we don’t talk to each other about our faith, when we don’t reach out and connect with the neighborhoods that are around us, we go to seed. Individually or collectively, it’s always bad news for us if we run from the mission God has equipped us to perform. We are being called as the Episcopal Church throughout this nation and seventeen other countries to take up again the gift that God has given us, which is the embrace of connection. We must do this even at the risk of being changed, since, as we all know, engagement with others changes us as much as it changes them.

Now, for my sins, I am preaching today on the festival of Samuel Seabury, the first American bishop. I didn’t choose it, it just turned out that way. Yet his story exemplifies why it is in our DNA

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141ST CONVENTION

Bishop Breidenthal looks out over the settling crowd as he prepares to call convention to order. Photo by David Dreisbach. to embrace connection.

This is an address as well as a sermon. Therefore this is going to be a little longer than usual, so bear with me. You know, or can imagine, that when we won the American Revolution, there were a lot of Anglicans in the former colonies who didn’t know what to do. Many of them fled to what is now Canada, Nova Scotia for the most part. Those who stayed here had to figure out how they were going to be Anglicans in a republic.

This seemed unthinkable, because the Church of England was so deeply tied to monarchy. But when the episcopalians (small “e” so far) pulled back the patina of monarchy from the Book of Common Prayer, they discovered that it was not essentially about monarchy or hierarchy of any kind. It was about the embrace of connection. Thomas Cranmer, who produced the first Book of Common Prayer in 1549, had imagined the whole of England like a monastery turned inside out, so that every aspect of ordinary life could be seen as sacred, holy, and redeemed. Thus there were episcopalians in the fledgling United States (still small “e” – the first General Convention hadn’t happened yet) saying, “Look, we could be a reformed Catholic church in the Republic, and teach this new nation how to embrace connection right along with us.”

Now, of course there were also Anglicans who

Brianna Smith, a member of St. Alban’s, Bexley, received a standing ovation after sharing her witness about youth ministry in the diocese to the convention. Photo by David Driesbach. said, “This is a good opportunity to get rid of bishops, and not to bother with dioceses,” – which, I can tell you, are a lot of work. It’s much easier to remain totally parochial, to stick to our parishes and look no further. But we’re not about that.

We’re about always looking further. We’re about partnership and connection.

In Connecticut there was a critical mass of clergy that believed there should be dioceses and bishops,

and they got together in a private home and elected one of their number to go to England and get himself consecrated as a bishop. Well, he refused – too much trouble. Their second choice was Samuel Seabury, who said, “Yes, I’ll go.” So he sailed, leaving his family behind, leaving his parish behind, leaving everything behind. He made the dangerous voyage to England, and when he reached London he petitioned parliament to allow him to be consecrated as a bishop for America. They refused because he could not make an oath of loyalty to the king.

(There’s some an irony here, since Samuel Seabury had been a British loyalist all through the American Revolution. In fact, he was a chaplain to the British army. But when we won the war, he accepted that fact and gave himself wholeheartedly to the challenge of being an Anglican in a republic.)

What did he do next? He said, “I know that there are illegal bishops in Scotland.” The established church in Scotland was Presbyterian, but there were Anglicans there, and there were bishops. Not only were they illegal, because they weren’t supposed to have bishops in a Presbyterian country, but they were also non-jurors. That is, these were bishops who were in a line with bishops in England a century or so earlier who had refused to accept the coronation of King George I of Hanover as a successor to James II. James had been deposed because he was Roman Catholic, and the non-juror bishops, although they were staunch Protestants, did not believe the rules of royal succession should be broken for political reasons. So they refused to swear loyalty to George I. As a result, they were all fired, and many of them fled to Scotland. This was the line of bishops that Samuel Seabury went looking for.

Seabury travelled on horseback from London to Scotland, and found those bishops, who agreed to consecrate him. So he came back to the United States. By that time parliament had changed its mind and made it legal for bishops to be consecrated for America. So the rector of Christ Church, Philadelphia, and the rector of Trinity, Wall Street, both went to England and were consecrated, and then we had three bishops, which was enough for us to start making our own bishops. That’s another ancient rule about connection – it takes three bishops to ensure accountability and catholicity in the sense of the whole church being connected and involved in a consecration – hence apostolic succession: a clear line back to the beginning.

There’s one more piece of the story about Samuel Seabury that often is not told. The Scottish bishops made him promise that when he came back to the United States, if we developed a prayer book of our own, he would make sure that their prayer book

141ST CONVENTION

13

In Phase II of the Listening Project, delegates were asked to gather around areas of ministry that held particular interest to them, to begin a diocesan-wide conversation about connecting congregations with shared ministries.

Photo by Julie Murray. was our model.

Now, these bishops were all scholars, and mostly they were liturgical scholars. They were very interested in Eastern Orthodoxy, and they noticed in the Eastern Orthodox prayer of consecration an element that had fallen out of the tradition of the western church. It’s called the epiclesis, a Greek word that means “invoking over.” It refers to the invocation of the Holy Spirit over the gifts of bread and wine. Pay attention in this service and you’ll hear that part. When I place my hands over the bread and wine and ask the Father to send the Holy Spirit to sanctify the bread and wine, and us, that’s the epiclesis.

For the Scottish bishops, the epiclesis was really important. Why? Because it is a reminder that the consecrated bread and wine is not something we passively receive. We are the bread and wine that is being transformed into the Body of Christ.

In union with him, and because of his death and resurrection for our sake, we can offer ourselves up to the Father in all our sinfulness, all our sadness, all our grief, all our fear, and ask the Holy Spirit to descend on us to make us a redeemed and connected community, so that we can serve the world in Christ’s name.

The Scottish bishops had rediscovered the significance of this invocation of the Holy Spirit, and they wanted it to be part of our prayer book. And so it is that at every Eucharist we pray words to this effect: ‘Father, send your Holy Spirit on these gifts, that they may become for us the body and blood of your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ’ – that we may not merely be passive recipients of his body and blood, but participants in the glory of his death and resurrection, empowered and authorized to bring redeemed community into the world.

As you all know, “Behold the New” is our model for this convention. The Holy Spirit is doing a new thing among us. The Holy Spirit is calling the Episcopal Church and this diocese to listen for the sound of the Holy Spirit in our midst, to look for the signature of the Holy Spirit in everything that links us, to notice where partnerships in ministry are already happening, to see how all these partnerships fit together. What is the new map of the diocese? How can we build on that? Deaneries were supposed to help us precipitate diocesan life locally.

How can we do that organically? When we go back to the convention center we will give ourselves over to conversation about areas of partnership that might bring Marietta and Piqua, Portsmouth and

Delaware, into sync with one another.

We’re a big diocese. It usually seems abstract, but we are made for connection, and the reason why we bother sticking together is because that’s where we find our salvation. That’s where we know Jesus. That’s where we feel the Holy Spirit.

I’m so grateful to be with you, Sunday by Sunday. I want you to experience the same reality of connection that I get to experience, because I’m in a different one of our congregations every Sunday. So this is your homework: when you go back to your congregations, talk to them about this convention. That might be easier than talking to them about your faith! Practice talking about the convention, talk about what we did, what you learned, what you’re excited about. Talk about the partnerships that are already happening where you worship every week. Because that’s the new thing that the Holy Spirit is doing in our midst.

As Isaiah says, “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing. Now it springs forth. Do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert” (Isaiah 43:18-19).

May it be so. Amen.

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141ST CONVENTION

ELECTION & VOTING RESULTS BUDGET COMMITTEE, CLASS OF 2018

The Rev. David Getreu, Patrick Hreachmack and Gary Loveday elected by acclamation

DIOCESAN COUNCIL – CLERGY, CLASS OF 2018 289 votes cast; 16 abstain; Needed to elect = 137 The Rev. Marshall Wiseman The Rev. Paul St. Germain The Rev. David Getreu

188 155 139

Wiseman and St. Germain elected to Class of 2018.

Getreu will fill unexpired term, Class of 2017.

DIOCESAN COUNCIL – LAY, CLASS OF 2018

289 votes cast; 15 abstain; Needed to elect = 138

Elizabeth Barker 216 James Bolden 176 Harold Patrick 155 John Murray 145 Bradley Boehringer 54 Barker, Bolden and Patrick elected to Class of 2018.

EPISCOPAL COMMUNITY SERVICES FOUNDATION, CLASS OF 2018

STANDING COMMITTEE – CLERGY, CLASS OF 2018

289 votes cast, 15 abstain; Needed to elect = 138

R15-01: Directing the Support of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 235 votes cast; 6 abstain

The Rev. Philip College The Rev. Ellen Cook

Yes 219

164 110

College elected to Class of 2018. Cook will fill unexpired term, Class of 2016.

The resolution passed.

STANDING COMMITTEE – LAY, CLASS OF 2018

289 votes cast; 36 abstain; Needed to elect = 127

R15-02: Recognize and Celebrate Indigenous People’s Day 231 votes cast; 15 abstain

John Rucker 203 Bradley Boehringer 50

Yes 143

Rucker elected to Class of 2018.

The resolution passed.

TRUSTEE OF THE DIOCESE, CLASS OF 2020

The Rev. George Glazier was elected by acclamation.

TRUSTEE OF THE CHURCH FOUNDATION, CLASS OF 2020

Oh, Nelson and Huckeby elected to Class of 2018

No 73

R15-04: Metrics for Implementation of Diocesan Resolutions * 221 votes cast; 16 abstain

Jeff McNealy was elected by acclamation.

No 131

PROCTER BOARD OF DIRECTORS, CLASS OF 2018, 2017, 2016 (STAGGERED TERMS)

The resolution failed.

289 votes cast, 9 abstain; Needed to elect = 141 William Ubbes 206 Richard Warren 193 Amy Dohn Baird 189 The Rev. Judi Wiley 164

Ubbes elected Class of 2018. Warren elected Class of 2017.

Baird elected Class of 2016.

Yes 74

*R15-04 was introduced from the floor by the Social Justice and Public Policy Committee in response to issues raised at the Columbus area pre-convention meeting. The full text of the resolution follows:

R15-03: Dissolve the union between St. Stephen’s, Mt. Healthy and the convention of the Diocese of Southern Ohio By canon, the vote must pass by 2/3 voters in each order.

RESOLVED, that all resolutions submitted to diocesan convention must include a means of measuring the efficacy of the resolution; and be it further RESOLVED, that the resolution contain a plan for implementation of resolution, including supporting materials to assist in the implementation of the resolution; and be it further RESOLVED, that submitters of approved resolutions must prepare a report to be presented to the next diocesan convention detailing the implementation/compliance with the resolution.

Clergy Order 84 votes cast; 3 abstain

Yes 81 No 0

Full election and voting results can be found at www.diosohio.simplyvoting.com.

Lay Order 201 votes cast; 5 abstain

Yes 195 No 1

RESOLUTIONS

289 votes cast. 12 abstain; Needed to elect = 139

The Rev. KJ Oh 219 Kimberly Nelson 180 Arnold Huckeby 170 Gary Haslop 169

No 10

The resolution passed.

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CURRY

installed as 27th Presiding Bishop and Episcopal Church primate

Presiding Bishop Michael B. Curry stands on the steps of Washington National Cathedral Nov. 1 just after he was installed as The Episcopal Church’s 27th presiding bishop and its primate. Photo: Mary Frances Schjonberg/Episcopal News Service

[Episcopal News Service] – Washington, D.C.] At the start of his All Saints Sunday installation Eucharist in Washington National Cathedral, Presiding Bishop Michael B. Curry declared his bona fides to the church.

After knocking on the west doors in the traditional manner at noon as the sun broke through the clouds and being admitted to the cathedral by the Very Rev. Gary Hall, the cathedral’s dean, and Diocese of Washington Bishop Mariann Budde, Curry was asked to “tell us who you are.”

“I am Michael Bruce Curry, a child of God, baptized in St. Simon of Cyrene Church, Maywood, Illinois, on May 3, 1953, and since that time I have sought to be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ,” he replied.

“Michael, Bishop in the Church of God, we have anticipated your arrival with great joy,” 26th Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori told him.

“In the Name of Christ, we greet you,” she added, and the greeting was echoed by the more than 2,500 people in attendance.

Curry, the former bishop of North Carolina, promised to be a “faithful shepherd and pastor” and, when asked by Jefferts Schori if they would support Curry in his ministry, those attending roared in reply, “We will.”

With that and all the liturgical celebration that followed, The Episcopal Church made history as it welcomed its first person of color as presiding bishop and primate.

“God has not given up on God’s world,” Curry told the congregation and the thousands of people watching the service’s live webcast. “And God is not finished with The Episcopal Church

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16 relationships yet. God has work for us to do.”

Curry had officially become the 27th presiding bishop and The Episcopal Church’s chief pastor and primate at midnight.

During the three-hour service, he was seated in the cathedral (Washington National Cathedral has been the presiding bishop’s seat since 1941). Jefferts Schori then gave him the primatial staff that she had carried for the past nine years and then warmly embraced him as the congregation loudly applauded and shouted its approval.

Music for the service ranged from Anglican chant to drumming and singing by the Cedarville Band of Piscataway Indians of Maryland, who led the 155 bishops of The Episcopal Church into the service. The Cedarville Band also played before the Gospel was read in Dakota by the Rev. Brandon Mauai, a deacon from North Dakota and member of the Executive Council. Jamey Graves and Sandra Montes soloed on Wade in the Water after participants had renewed their baptismal covenant and Curry, Jefferts Schori and others asperged the congregation. By the time they reached the altar, the congregation was on its feet singing along.

The St. Thomas Gospel Choir from the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas in Philadelphia had the congregation clapping and swaying. And when the Cathedral Choir of Men and Girls sang an arrangement of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” as the offertory anthem, congregation members stood and joined in the final chorus, many of them with tears in their eyes.

Special prayers were said during the service by representatives of the Anglican Communion, ecumenical and interreligious communities, including the Most Rev. Fred Hiltz, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada; Mohamed Elsanousi, Islamic Society of North America; Rabbi Steve Gutow, Jewish Council for Public Affairs; and the Rev. Elizabeth Miller, president of the Provincial Elders’ Conference of the Moravian Church.

After Anita Parrott George, another Executive Council member, read the Old Testament reading (Isaiah 11:1-9) in English, Fernanda Sarahi read the New Testament selection (Revelation 21:1-6a) in Spanish. And at the beginning of the Great Thanksgiving, Curry said the sursum corda (lift up your hearts) in Spanish.

Curry’s approximately 37-minute animated sermon drew applause, laughter and shouts of approval from the congregation. He swept his arms wide over the crowd at times, raised his hands and shouted, lowered his voice and brought his hands close together at other times to make his points.

The presiding bishop continued his call for the church and its members to join the Jesus Movement, tracing the evidence of the movement through biblical and societal history. “What was true in the first century and true in the 19th century is equally and more profound in this new 21st century,” he said.

Jesus himself continued a movement begun by John the Baptist and took it to a new level, Curry said. “John was part of the movement born out of prophets like Amos and Isaiah and Jeremiah. And prophetic movement was rooted in Moses, who

Some of the 155 bishops of The Episcopal Church process into Washington National Cathedral Nov. 1 at the start of the Eucharist that included the installation of Michael B. Curry as The Episcopal Church’s 27th presiding bishop and its primate. Photo: Danielle Thomas (c) 2015 Washington National Cathedral

relationships 17 went up to the mountaintop,” he said. “Jesus crystalized and catalyzed the movement that was serving God’s mission in this world. God has a passionate dream for this world.”

The dream involves change, the presiding bishop said. “The Way of Jesus will always turn our worlds and the world upside down, which is really turning it right side up!”

“At home and in the church, do unto others as you would have them do to you. That will turn things upside down,” Curry said. “In the boardrooms of the corporate world, in the classrooms of the academic world, in the factories, on the streets, in the halls of legislatures and councils of government, in the courts of the land, in the councils of the nations, wherever human beings are, do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Curry returned again and again in his sermon to evangelism and reconciliation, especially racial reconciliation, calling it “some of the most difficult work possible.”

“But don’t worry,” he said. “We can do it. The Holy Spirit has done this work before in The Episcopal Church. And it can be done again for a new day.”

He called for an evangelism that is “genuine and authentic to us as Episcopalians, not a way that imitates or judges anyone else” and that is “about helping others find their way to a relationship with God without our trying to control the outcome.”

Such evangelism, he said, ought to involve both sharing the faith that is in us and listening to and learning from others’ experiences.

Curry said that racial reconciliation is “just the beginning for the hard and holy work of real reconciliation that realizes justice across all the borders and boundaries that divide the human family of God.” The presiding bishop acknowledged that such work is “difficult work, but we can do it. It’s about listening and sharing. It’s about God.” And, Curry said, “in this work of reconciliation we can join hands with others.”

“It is as the Jesus Movement, following Jesus’ way, that we join hands with brothers and sisters of different Christian communities, with brothers and sisters of other faith and religious traditions, and with brothers and sisters who may be atheist or agnostic or just on a journey, but who long for a better world where children do not starve and where there is, as the old spiritual says, ‘plenty good room for all of God’s children,’ ” Curry said.

At the beginning of his sermon, the new presiding bishop took a few moments for “personal privi-

Twenty-sixth Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori hands the primatial staff to Presiding Bishop Michael B. Curry during his installation service Nov. 1 at Washington National Cathedral Photo: Danielle Thomas (c) 2015 Washington National Cathedral lege.” He first told the church that he looks forward to working with the Rev. Gay Clark Jennings in her role as president of the House of Deputies, saying, “We’ve been working with each other a bit over the summer and I look forward to working together with her in the years to come.”

He then thanked Richard Schori, Jefferts Schori’s husband, and then turned to the 26th presiding bishop herself. “In a time when there is often debate and genuine consternation as to whether or not courageous, effective leadership is even possible, we can say to the world that we have had a leader and her name is Katharine Jefferts Schori,” Curry said to applause and a standing ovation from the congregation.

PRESIDING BISHOP MICHAEL CURRY’S PAST MINISTRY

Born in Chicago, Illinois, on March 13, 1953, Curry attended public schools in Buffalo, New York, and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1975 from Hobart and William Smith Colleges, in Geneva, New York, and a Master of Divinity degree in 1978 from the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale. He has also studied at Princeton Theological Seminary, Wake Forest University, the

Ecumenical Institute at St. Mary’s Seminary, and the Institute of Christian Jewish Studies.

He was ordained to the diaconate in June 1978 at St. Paul’s Cathedral, Buffalo, New York, and to the priesthood in December 1978 at St. Stephen’s, Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He began his ministry as deacon-in-charge at St. Stephen’s, and was rector there 1979-1982. He next accepted a call to serve as the rector of St. Simon of Cyrene, Lincoln Heights, Ohio, where he served 1982-1988.

In 1988, he became rector of St. James’, Baltimore, Maryland, where he served until his election as bishop.

In his three parish ministries, Curry was active in the founding of ecumenical summer day camps for children, the creation of networks of family day-care providers and educational centers, and the brokering of millions of dollars of investment in inner city neighborhoods. He also sat on the commission on ministry in each of the three dioceses in which he has served.

During his time as bishop of North Carolina, Curry instituted a network of canons, deacons and youth ministry professionals dedicated to supporting the ministry that already happens in local congregations and refocused the diocese on The Episcopal Church’s dedication to the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals through a $400,000 campaign to buy malaria nets that saved thousands of lives.

Throughout his ministry, Curry has also been active in issues of social justice, speaking out on immigration policy and marriage equality.

He serves on the boards of many organizations and has a national preaching and teaching ministry. He has been featured on The Protestant Hour and North Carolina Public Radio’s The State of Things, as well as on The Huffington Post website.

In addition, Curry is a frequent speaker at conferences around the country. He has received honorary degrees from Sewanee: The University of the South, Virginia Theological Seminary, Yale, and, most recently, Episcopal Divinity School. He served on the Taskforce for Re-imagining the Episcopal Church and recently was named chair of Episcopal Relief & Development’s board of directors.

His most recent book, Songs My Grandma Sang, was published in June 2015. His book of sermons, Crazy Christians, came out in August 2013.

Curry and his wife, Sharon, have two adult daughters, Rachel and Elizabeth.

The Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg is an editor and reporter for the Episcopal News Service.

18 relationships 8 relationships 2016 ABSALOM JONES CELEBRATION Gathering the community for a day of conversation and learning addressing social justice and reconciliation.

Special guest: The Most Rev. Michael B. Curry Presiding Bishop & Primate of the Episcopal Church

Saturday, February 6, 2016 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Registration

9:30 a.m.

Workshops & symposium

10 a.m. to 3

Festive Eucharist commemorating the life and ministry of Absalom Jones, first African American ordained in the Episcopal Church, begins at 3:30 p.m. A reception will follow.

There is no charge for this event but pre-registration is strongly encouraged; seating is limited. Bus transportation from Cincinnati and Dayton available.

Register online at www.diosohio.org.

St. Philip‘s, Columbus 166 Woodland Ave.

The Union of Black The Diocese of Southern Ohio

Episcopalians

Episcopalians in Connection

Presented by: The Bishop Herbert Thompson Jr. Chapter of the Union of Black Episcopalians, The Diocese of Southern Ohio and Christ Church Cathedral.

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Rev/RN: Reflections on Clergy Health Please promise me a holyday!

“Please promise me you will never die on Thanksgiving.” Words spoken to my husband on Thanksgiving evening, 1984.

A physician, he left early in the morning to stay with a family whose father was dying, long before established hospices were in place. I, on the other hand, had hosted dinner for what seemed to be the masses. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I have always had this “Norman Rockwell-esque” perception of Thanksgiving. The holiday represented home, family, tradition, love, mirth, merriment and making memories! Indeed, my husband responded the only way he knew how for the time. “Of course I won’t!” he said to placate a weary wife.

Annually we muttered, “We’re still here!” Until last year, when he broke his promise.

Holiday time, replete with nostalgia, traditions, entrapments, joys … there is little place for sorrow or trouble to hide, nor to manifest. All may be “merry and bright” except for the inner workings of your spirit.

What does a clergy person do with that? For are we not expected to display control, be the non-anxious presence, remain the shepherd in controlled leadership of one’s flock, retain emotional boundaries, keep calm and carry on, be the beacon of how faith informs our lives in times of crisis? Unrealistic expectations at best, soul killers at worst! (We started out human before we ever found a collar around our necks. Let that collar not be our noose!)

Last Advent is a blur for me. I know it happened. I know the church was “greened.” There is evidence that I preached (at least I have homilies that purport that I did.) Christmas Eve happened. (We have service leaflets to show for it.) Nevertheless, my recollection is foggy, other than the singing of “Silent Night” nailing me to a cross. Last year, my congregation carried me through the holidays as their gift to my family and me. Sometimes, as clergy, that is what has to happen. That is holy ministry for them to us!

Unwanted new norms are road hazards in the journey of life.

Varieties are endless, with no respect for time, station or season.

Occasionally it is the “onion of death” for clergy. (Death of loved ones – family, friends, colleagues, parishioners. Death of relationships. The slow demise of a congregation – many layers to that one!) Or perhaps it is the loss of health, stamina and enthusiasm/energy – depression is no stranger to us. Family issues … we have marriages like anyone else, kids, grandkids, significant others, aging parents. In the midst of ministry, our personal lives can morph into a ghost of what it was or should be. Life happens. Loss happens. Grief happens. However, there is this horrible myth that we must keep it all together for the greater good. If your priest falls apart, what happens?

This is what can happen. My beloved congregation rallied around

me, gave me space and respect and prayed me into being again. They allowed me to honestly say to them, “I have no resources to deal with your issues right now, but I can tell you who can help while I cannot.” They handed me tissues when my tears could not be contained.

They never once said to me, “Get a grip! What are we paying you for?”

(Sadly not unimaginable for some of us.) When faith and hope were on shaky ground, their prayers and arms had my back and held me up.

Their generous love, grace, mercy, kindness and compassion constitute the balm the soul desires.

What does one do? Love yourself. Own where you are. Accept your being fragile; perhaps out of control. Speak to a counselor or trusted colleague, for we all need a safe place to vent. Owning where you are in-spite of demands of society, or the ‘should’ that life commands, is paramount. If you’re not there, you’re not there! Faking it till you make it does not always work, leading to the stuffing of grief energy that will be expressed in some fashion or another. All I know is last year I was numb; this year I feel, and I am not sure what my response will be. However, I know that despite it all, I am OK just as I am, by God’s love, grace and mercy.

Seek out those things that give you solace, as long as it is healthy.

One of the things that propelled me through this raw time was listening to ‘7/11 songs’. The same seven words sung 11 times. (I apologize if I have offended anyone’s sensibilities, as I did not turn to the 1982 Hymnal for succor.) However, K-love and phrases I could wake up singing was what reminded me of God’s presence. When I couldn’t pray, I could sing.

This also reminds me that offering a “Quiet, Gentle Christmas” service is important. (Please, no Elvis and a “Blue Christmas” service … it is already bleak enough! Someone’s creative intentions gone awry!)

In conclusion, the holidays are not always all they are cracked up to be for many of us, including our congregants. Society places a lot of emphasis on our taking our focus off another story of the One who came down to us, so fragile, so vulnerable. Perhaps it is in our tender, fragile moments that we are most in tune to the holiday/holyday.

Sometimes all we can muster is whispering the prayer for “please promise me a holyday.” Honor that as a sacred request. From me and mine, to you and yours … may your holidays be holydays!

Ruth Paulus is a registered nurse and serves as rector of St. Christopher’s, Fairborn. She welcomes comments and suggestions for other future topics. Contact Ruth at revrn05@gmail. com.

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Have living room, will travel This fall, we at the Edge House attached wheels to the bottom of one of our couches and pushed it onto campus.

And the response has been wonderful!

(By “we” I of course mean our amazing Monday Morning Work Crew.)

We load the couch up with a colorful floor lamp, an outdoor rug, a side chair, a lightweight coffee table, fliers and our A-frame chalkboard to set up an outdoor living room space in the middle of campus. The chalkboard can say different things, from “LOVE: let’s talk about that” to “Rant to us about religion: we’ll listen” to “We’re classy, well-educated Christians who swear a lot: come chat.”

The first day, I was there alone. I took a book, figuring no one would come by because … it’s kind of weird, right?

But I read all of one sentence as person after person sat for a few minutes or half an hour. Folks walking by gave me the “I get it, that’s cool” nod and many took pictures.

The following week, some of our regulars helped get the living room out. We arrived on campus to discover that we had guests; some of the street preachers who regularly come onto campus with megaphones to tell us we’re all going to hell. Unexpected, but we thought, “this could be good, too.”

And indeed it was. What a variety of folks who talked with us – some who’d seen us before on the couch, some who wanted to hear what we were about separate from the preachers, some who wanted to complain about the preachers, some who were traumatized by the preachers, some who were atheists and some who were devout Christians and one who was a devout Muslim. Students, professors, administrators – even one of the preachers themselves!

People thanked us for a calm, open space to reflect, for a non-violent witness, for the silliness of the living room. And two of our new Edge House regulars met us at the couch and haven’t left.

Witnessing to the power and presence of God on campus is difficult – there are many roadblocks both institutional and emotional. Sometimes it takes something silly to break through.

The Rev. Alice Connor serves as a missioner at the Edge House, a campus ministry gathering place on the edge of the University of Cincinnati. Contact her at pastor@edge-uc.org.

Students and tutors at the Learning Club

Price Hill Learning Club gets a new address The Price Hill Learning Club (Cincinnati) recently moved to the wonderful classroom facility of Education Matters, which will enable Transformations CDC to expand programming for Hispanic immigrants and their US-born children.

Volunteers work twice a week with students considered “English Language Learners,” children born in the US but growing up in Spanish-only households. Participants range in age from kindergarten through eighth grade. It often takes eight years to become academically fluent in a second language, so these students really benefit from homework help as well as enrichment activities. They have participated in the annual Free Store Hunger Walk, been to the Zoo and Aquarium, and often walk to the nearby Imago Nature Center.

The Learning Club is a project of Transformations CDC, an independent organization created by the Church of Our Saviour/La Iglesia de Nuestro Salvador. We’ve also recently teamed up with the Cincinnati Interfaith Workers Center to offer Spanish-language OSHA Health and Safety classes.

Because Hispanic immigrants suffer more work-related accidents than any other group, it is critical that workers recognize potential hazards and also know their rights.

Interested in tutoring? The Learning Club meets Monday and Wednesdays from 4:30 to 6:15 p.m. at 3636 Warsaw Avenue in East Price Hill. Contact Nancy Sullivan at badgmur@gmail.com for more information.

Nancy Sullivan is a Transformation CDC organizer and a member of Church of Our Saviour, Cincinnati.

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Are you (and your church) ready for a disaster?

Six members of the Diocese of Southern Ohio recently traveled to Sewanee, TN to attend a two or three day seminar on disaster recovery. There were several important things that we learned that have a direct impact on us, as members of the diocese. There are many areas within the diocese that are potential areas of natural and manmade disasters. It is better to be prepared than to have to scramble in a disaster to collect the needed items and contact the appropriate resources.

Most people don’t realize that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) must have at least 72 hours to respond to a disaster. That means that we all (both individuals and churches) need to be prepared with enough supplies to get through at least those three days.

You cannot take care of your church during a disaster unless YOU are prepared for the disaster!

The Rev. Deniray Mueller serves as the legislative liaison for the Diocese of Southern Ohio and is a trained disaster chaplain. Contact her at deniray@deniray.com.

CONTINGENCY PLANNING FOR YOUR CHURCH

ARE YOU READY?

Just as a disaster preparedness plan is essential for organizations, it is just also crucial for families and individuals. Every member of the family should know what must be done and their individual responsibilities in case of a disaster. Each member of a family unit should know: Telephone numbers (cell and landlines) of someone outside the disaster area Telephone numbers of family members How to text Agreed upon meeting place if separated Telephone numbers of all members of the family unit (laminated card is a good way to keep this information) Local individual in responsibilities as defined in a disaster plan Where the emergency supplies are located and who is responsible for obtaining them FEMA and the Red Cross have identified the following supplies needed for each man, woman and child for the first three days: 1 gallon of water Non-breakable water pouch 9 MRE (meals ready to eat) for each person 9 MRE side dishes 9 MRE heater packets High calorie food bars 9 sets of disposable utensils Hard candy Disposable toothbrush, toothpaste 1 bar soap 1 package of tissue Disposable razor Hairbrush and comb Dry shampoo 1 roll toilet paper Feminine sanitary supplies Body lotion

Alcohol-free hand sanitizer Poncho Hand warmers Mylar emergency blanket Change of clothes Extra pair of sturdy shoes Prescription medicine 1 box waterproof matches Whistle on lanyard 100-hr candle Lightsticks First Aid Kit 1 large backpack Battery-powered radio or NOA weather radio Phone charger Flashlight and extra batteries Duct tape Credit card and cash Glasses and sunglasses List of contact numbers Extra set of house and car keys Special items for infants, elderly, disabled Journal and pencils Family information (birthdate, unique identification marks, serial numbers of medical devices) Additional items for clergy may include: Priest or Deacon Stole Bible/Book of Common Prayer Stocked Communion Kit Holy water Anointing/Chrism oil Book of prayers Dickie collar

(MREs are available at sporting goods store, army/navy surplus and some box stores. If buying dehydrated food include additional water to rehydrate.) Additional information can be found at: www.fema.gov/media-library/assets/documents/90354 and www.redcrossstore.org/item/20-04669A

Several years ago each congregation was requested by the diocese to develop a disaster contingency plan in case of natural or man-made disasters. Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD) and the Volunteer Organizations Active in Disasters (VOAD) offer training in disaster planning and disaster recovery. There are currently four trained disaster chaplains in our diocese.

There are several good sources for information of what should be in the church’s plan, but here are some items to be considered:

•Contact Lists (name, email, home and cell phone) - public services (police, fire, city officials, utilities) - insurance agencies, local emergency services and Red Cross - diocesan Disaster Relief Coordinator (Chris Kelsen) - trained disaster chaplains (the Revs. Leslie Fleming, Eric Miller, Deniray Mueller and Judy Wiley) - key parish personnel (clergy, wardens, sextons) - ecumenical/interreligious partners in area - parish disaster leadership team •Parish Operations •Backup of computer systems •Offsite storage of critical records (property assets, insurance policies, financial records) •Updated list of parish members •Potential temporary site of operations •Alternative worship space •Temporary use of office space •Access to banking services •Relocation of nursery, pre-school facilities

OUTREACH

•If operating a feeding program, where will people receive food?

•Substitute facility for regular worship services (another church, school, store front) •Contact lists for prayer circles/chains •Contact list of community volunteer organizations (Habitat for Humanity, service corps)

LONG-TERM NEEDS

•Oversight of reclamation of building •Payment of salaries, insurance (if not able to continue services) •Recovering structural facilities •Certification of occupancy after recovery Episcopal Relief & Development has a program that assists congregations in developing a disaster contingency plans as well as seminars on disaster preparedness and recovery.

Resources can be found at www.episcopalrelief. org/resourcelibrary. Ohio VOAD resources can be found at www.ohvoad.communityos.org.

During these times of increased climate fluctuation and world unrest, we, as individuals and congregations would be wise to be prepared. We cannot serve our world in chaos without first planning, preparing and praying.

22 congregations CHURCH BECOMES SMALL BUSINESS INCUBATOR Three years ago, the Mission Council at Christ Church, Ironton, set a goal. Members hoped the parish hall, which years before had been a hub of community activity, would once again be used on at least a weekly basis by outside groups.

The first person to ask to use the building was a young man trying to start his own karate school.

As an instructor at the YMCA in Ashland, KY, he knew that lots of kids couldn’t pay Y prices for karate lessons, so he decided to start a small business with family-friendly prices. Rent was negotiated based on class attendance, and the class met one night a week. Three years later, the Wilds School for Martial Arts is thriving and meets twice a week.

Not long after, a member who started her own baked goods business as a cottage industry moved and needed more kitchen space. Soon, Davina Wise was making use of the Christ Church kitchen for her growing business, Kismet Sweets. Having two stoves, two refrigerators and extra counter space seemed like a luxury to a woman making and decorating wedding cakes in her own kitchen. Now she’s a kitchen regular.

Christ Church parishioner Davina Wise owns Kizmet Sweets and is using the church’s kitchen to expand her business.

Next, an aroma therapist asked if she might use the kitchen to blend her oils, which she sells at the local farmer’s market. Of course the answer was yes, and the kitchen space at Christ Church will

soon welcome Oily Moily. Another baker also has now indicated her interest. The Mission Council has approved upgrading the kitchen to meet the Health Department codes as an official site for community use.

Additional plans call for inviting participants in Ironton’s Farmer’s Market to use the Christ Church kitchen for canning and preserving their summer produce.

“We achieved our goal of having the building used,” said the Rev. Sallie Schisler, Priest-incharge, “but we had no idea that we would be something of a small business incubator when we unlocked the doors and turned on the lights. It feels so good to have people coming and going on a daily basis, and nothing beats the smell of cookies baking when you come through the door.

“Most churches, like Christ Church, have underused real estate. Our goal wasn’t to make money or get new members – it was to see our centrally located property used to its full advantage. God revised our goal for the better and we’re enjoying the unintended benefits of being open to God’s call.” ~contributed by the Rev. Sallie Schisler

PRESCHOOL PROMISE: WORKING TOGETHER FOR EVERY CHILD The Preschool Promise is a Cincinnati-based initiative to provide every child with high quality preschool opportunities. Why? Children who are ready for school are twice as likely to be reading successfully by the end of third grade. However, children who do not meet that milestone are at least four times more likely to drop out of high school. Poverty only compounds the problem.

Many civic and religious organizations are actively involved in this effort, which will include public funding to provide tuition credits so all children can benefit. Parents could choose public or private, full or part-day programs; the only requirement is that participating preschools demonstrate quality.

As part of the Taft Lecture Series, Christ Church Cathedral recently sponsored an excellent panel discussion to enable people in the community to learn more about the Preschool Promise. Shown at left are some of the Episcopalians who attended the event at the Cathedral, including Dean Gail Greenwell, Canon Missioner Rob Rhodes, Debbi Geller Rhodes, John Harris, Anthony SimmsHowell, Dianne Ebbs, Noel Julnes-Dehner, Nancy Sullivan and Deborah Allsop. ~ contributed by Nancy Sullivan, Church of Our Saviour/La Iglesia de Nuestro Salvador

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Save the date, prepare to thrive!

2016 BEST PRACTICES CONFERENCE APRIL 30, 2016 | PROCTER CENTER Who are you? Who are you called to be? What does it take to become a connected, thriving congregation serving your community?

In addition to distributing grants to parishes, missions, and ministries throughout the Diocese of Southern Ohio, the Commission on Congregational Life (CoCL) is charged with “encouraging, supporting, evaluating and seeking opportunities for development and growth of all fellowships, missions and parishes of the Diocese”. Each year as CoCL considers topics and seeks presenters for the Best Practices Conference we have that responsibility in mind. With the 2016 conference, we believe we can provide congregational leaders and members with specific tools to evaluate their ministries in their own unique contexts.

Investigating partnerships to serve the needs in our communities; evaluating current facilities as they relate to mission and ministry; facing financial realities: These are just some of the issues our congregations need to consider and the Best Practices Conference can give us all the opportunity to explore answers and discover new avenues of growth as consultants from the Episcopal Church Building Fund (ECBF) present their highly regarded JumpStart program. Join us as we “dig deep” to foster change, reimagine congregational futures and celebrate our mission of communicating the Good News of Jesus Christ to all.

2015 CORPORATE VOLUNTEER OF THE YEAR AWARD St. Andrew’s, Evanston, was awarded the 2015 Corporate Volunteer of the Year Award from the Cincinnati Association of Volunteer Coordinators for its work at St. Paul Village, an Episcopal Retirement Homes affordable living community for seniors in Madisonville. For 5 ½ years, St. Andrew’s volunteers have assisted with projects ranging from birthday parties for residents to a weekly service and Bible study. Most years this award goes to a major corporation. It is a tribute to all the volunteers, ERH and our diocese that the award went to St. Andrew’s this year.

Front row (L to R) Chris Lemmon, Activities Director and Volunteer Coordinator for Affordable Living, ERH; Mary Williams, St. Andrew’s; Eleanor Bonner, St. Andrew’s Back row (L to R) Jo Anne Lacey, Activities Assistant, ERH; The Rev. John Agbaje, Rector, St. Andrew’s; Bunmi Agbaje, St. Andrew’s; the Rev. Fred McGavran, Assistant Chaplain, ERH; Katrina Mundy, St. Andrew’s; Linda Meador, St. Andrew’s; Mary Herring, St. Andrew’s

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Episcopal Retirement Homes’ Parish Health Ministry will host its annual inspirational and educational Refresh Your Soul Conference and Fundraiser on Friday, March 4, 2016. The theme this year will focus on Alzheimer ’s disease and related dementia, providing an understanding about the disease as well as highly effective, practical and hands-on approaches to caregiving. The conference will be held at Tri County Assembly Church in Fairfield (Northern Cincinnati) from 9 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. The Title Sponsor for the event is Christ Church Cathedral.

The keynote speaker is Lisa Genova, PhD, Harvard trained neuroscientist and bestselling author of Still Alice. Still Alice is the story of an accomplished Harvard professor who is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, and it changes her life and her relationship with her family and the world forever.

Speaking about the neurological diseases and disorders she writes about, Genova has appeared on the Today Show, Dr. Oz, the Diane Rehm Show, CNN, Chronicle, Fox News, and Canada AM and was featured in the Emmy award-winning documentary film, To Not Fade Away. The National Alzheimer’s Association awarded her with the Sargent and Eunice Shriver Profiles in Dignity Award in March 2015.

Refresh Your Soul will also feature Teepa Snow, MS, OTR/L, FAOTA, one of America’s leading educators on dementia. Working as a Registered Occupational Therapist for over 30 years, her wealth of experience has led her to develop Positive Approach™ to Care techniques and training models that now are used by families and professionals working or living with dementia or other brain changes throughout the world. Snow is an advocate for those living with dementia and has made it her personal mission to help families and professionals better understand how it feels to be living with the challenges and changes that accompany various forms of the condition so that life can be lived fully and well. Currently, she has an independent practice as well as clinical appointments with Duke University’s School of Nursing and University of North Carolina Chapel Hill School of Medicine.

Registration, exhibitors and a continental breakfast will open at 8 a.m. The conference starts promptly at 9 a.m. A limited number of seats are available through online registration for a luncheon with Teepa Snow for an additional cost of $25. The conference registration costs are $59 without contact/clock hours and $85 with contact/clock hours for the early bird discount. On February 8 the registration costs will increase so you will want to register soon.

For more information or to register, visit www.parishhealthministry.com/rys. If you have any questions, please contact Rebecca Schroer at 513.979.2246.

Since 1951, Episcopal Retirement Homes (ERH) has dedicated itself to improving the lives of older adults from all faiths through innovative, quality living environments and in-home and community-based services delivered by experienced and compassionate professionals. ERH owns or manages twentysix senior living communities: two premier communities, Deupree House and Marjorie P. Lee, both in Hyde Park; and twenty-four affordable living communities for limitedincome seniors that are either in operation or development.

ERH also operates in-home and communitybased services including Living Well Senior Solutions, which provides guidance and support to elders and their families on issues related to aging; delivers 75,000 Meals On Wheels annually; and provides counsel and support to 77 churches as they renew their role in healthcare through advocacy, education and wellness programs through Parish Health Ministry.

To help meet the long-term goal of ERH’s Parish Health Ministry becoming self-supporting, this event is the primary fundraiser for the ministry. All of the proceeds from this conference will benefit Parish Health Ministry. Arrangements for the appearance of Lisa Genova made through Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau, New York, NY. Rhonda Johnson, BSN, RN, serves as a Parish Health Ministry coordinator for Episcopal Retirement Homes. Contact her at rjohnson@ erhinc.com.

Lisa Genova, PhD

Teepa Snow

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Listen for a Change: Sacred Conversations for Racial Justice CHRIST CHURCH CATHEDRAL PARTNER SITE FOR TRINITY INSTITUTE’S 45TH NATIONAL THEOLOGICAL CONFERENCE With this summer’s fatal shooting of Samuel DeBose by University of Cincinnati campus police officer Raymond Tensing during a routine traffic stop, along with the shootings in Ferguson, Missouri, Staten Island, New York, and Charleston, South Carolina, many across the United States have come to question whether our nation can ever achieve racial equality within our institutions and social interactions.

Christ Church Cathedral will be a partner site when a leading group of activists, scholars, authors, artists and experts on racial inequality come together January 21-23 to hold life-giving conversations on the racial issues of our time, including structural racism, mass incarceration, and policy change at Trinity Institute’s 45th National Theological Conference, “Listen for a Change: Sacred Conversations for Racial Justice.”

Conference participation is open to anyone interested in a practical, theological perspective on racial equality and is ideal for seminarians, students, and church leaders looking for thought-leadership from experts and activists.

“Racism remains a wound at the heart of our nation – which means it is at the heart of our churches as well. Sacred conversations about race must be sustained, open, and honest. The January Trinity Institute offers us one such occasion for this important truth-telling dialogue,” says the Very Rev. Gail Greenwell, dean of Christ Church Cathedral. “As the prophet Jeremiah said, ‘They have treated the wound of my people carelessly, saying, ‘peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.’

Sound bites and simplistic answers can no longer be the order of the day. Our conversations will be sacred if we trust the Spirit of the living God to do a new thing in our midst.”

The live conference will be held at Trinity Church (Broadway at Wall Street, New York City).

As a partner site, Christ Church Cathedral will offer all aspects of the conference either in real

time, via webcast – where participants can submit questions for speakers via email during the live Q&A – or via video at a later time. There will also be time for reflection among fellow participants.

Speakers for this year’s conference include: Keynote speaker Nicholas Kristof, columnist for The New York Times since 2001 and current blogger at On the Ground. Kristof has won two Pulitzer Prizes for his coverage of Tiananmen Square and the genocide in Darfur, along with many humanitarian awards such as the Anne Frank Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize.

Anna Deavere Smith (The West Wing & Nurse Jackie), professor at New York University and founding director of the Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue.

The Rt. Rev. Michael Curry, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, the first African-American so elected.

Emilie Townes, Ph.D., distinguished scholar and leader in theological education, and dean of Vanderbilt Divinity School. She is also the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of Womanist Ethics and Society.

Michele Norris, a journalist and former host of NPR’s flagship afternoon broadcast, “All Things Considered.” Her memoir, The Grace of Silence (2010), explores her own racial legacy as well as the racial conversations in America follow-

ing Barack Obama’s election as president.

Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Ph.D., professor and chair of the sociology department at Duke University. He has been recognized for his outstanding scholarship in the area of racial issues, especially those affecting African-Americans or similarly disadvantaged racial/ethnic populations.

Victor Rios, Ph.D., author, speaker, and associate professor in the sociology department at the University of California-Santa Barbara. His book Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys (NYU Press, 2011) analyzes how juvenile crime policies and criminalization affect the everyday lives of urban youth.

Kelly Brown Douglas, M.Div., Ph.D., professor and director of the religion department at Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland. She is a leading voice in womanist theology and has served as an Episcopal priest for over 20 years.

Gary Dorrien, Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Social Ethics at Union Theological Seminary and professor of religion at Columbia University.

Other featured guests include Netsayi, a Zimbabwean singer-songwriter who has made numerous live appearances on BBC Radio and has performed at the London Jazz Festival, the Institute of Contemporary Art, the Royal Festival Hall, and the Barbican Centre, among other places.

“TI2016 is for anyone who is interested in a theological perspective on racial justice and a fuller understanding of present realities and ways to transform them. It’s not just for clergy – anyone interested is invited to attend,” said Bob Scott, director of Trinity Institute.

Trinity Institute offers two (2) Continuing Education Units (CEUs) for all persons who complete each year’s National Theological Conference.

For more information about attending the conference at Christ Church Cathedral, please contact Kathy Noe at 513.842.2051 or knoe@cccath.org or visit cincinnaticathedral.com/2016trinity.

For more information about Trinity Institute, visit TI2016.org.

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formation When we consider the lilies, it’s not a small or insignificant act. It’s a moment of preparation for the coming Kingdom of God.

CONSIDERING THE LILIES The students from the Edge House were singing as we hiked into Conkle’s Hollow. Sandstone cliffs rose up on either side, striated by the lapping waves of an ocean that disappeared millennia ago. Thin trees clung to them and when the wind blew, yellow leaves shook loose and scattered like the rain that was occasionally falling. A thin waterfall trickled down at the trail’s edge, and small fish darted in the shallow pool at its base. And the song reverberated through all of this, as other members of our group arrived at the big rock where the Edge House students were perching, and joined them in singing.

We sang pieces from the paperless music tradition that Alice Connor teaches at the Edge House, and then Amazing Grace at the request of a student from OSU, and then songs by the group Psalters that Alice lined out for us, giving us each verse in turn and waiting until we’d repeated it before weaving the whole song together. A few years previously, my friend Jared Talbot, who is a post-doc in biology at OSU, had proposed to his wife in the Hocking Hills, and after she’d said yes they’d hiked to the Rock House, where a Mennonite group had sung song after song together, a gift to any stranger walking through the rock formations. Our singing in Conkle’s Hollow that day allowed

Jared to pass that gift on to all the other hikers who had braved the rain and came down the trail behind us.

We were on retreat as a community of campus ministries in the diocese. There were students from the University of Cincinnati, Ohio State University, Mount Carmel College of Nursing, Xavier University and Ohio University. We had conceived of the retreat as a response to the pressures and anxieties that afflict everyone in higher education these days.

The anxieties that plague campuses aren’t unreasonable. Students worry about the future, about the amount of debt that they’re taking on, about the availability of jobs in their field when they graduate. They worry about who they are and who they’re becoming, who they’ll love and how they’ll manage to love themselves. When planning the retreat, the campus ministers talked about this anxiety and turned, as we always do, to scripture to help us make sense of the present mood and frame a response to it.

We looked at Jesus’s words in Matthew 6 – “can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? Why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.” We

talked about how Jesus’s words might have multiple meanings. Yes, they’re a call to rest faithfully in God’s grace, but they’re also direct advice – go and look at some flowers. It will make you feel better. And, we added, extending the thought, consider who you really are responsible for. There are so many voices demanding our attention that we can’t possibly respond gracefully to all of them. If we can become clear about our true responsibility, we can choose not to answer the demands of those whom we really aren’t responsible for, and give ourselves more fully to the things that truly call us.

So we gathered at a rented house in the Hocking Hills on a weekend in late October.

When we gathered on Saturday morning, we introduced ourselves by naming things we were grateful for. Then Alice led us in a meditation on Ruth, who is responsible both to Naomi, her bereaved mother-in-law, but also to herself, going to Boaz in the night and requiring that he pledge his protection to her before she lays with him on the threshing floor. Out of the grace of this meditation, we went to Conkle’s Hollow, where we sang together at the base of the sandstone cliffs.

Granted, it was October, and the only lilies in evidence were in a vase back at the house.

But when the singing ended we all felt the profound stillness of the light rain of an

formation

ity that encompasses the whole world. It’s a lesson we learn bit by bit – by learning responsibility to ourselves, how to rest and how to discern our heart’s true call, and by learning responsibility to our loved ones by taking on their burdens in moments of crisis. We learn through listening carefully to each other, as singers do when matching their voices, and by looking carefully at the world, at the shape of cliffs and the fall of leaves.

When we consider the lilies, it’s not a small or insignificant act. It’s a moment of preparation for the coming Kingdom of God, a way of glimpsing that Kingdom, resting in it, and confirming that we’re willing to do whatever is required to help bring that Kingdom about and have it reverberate through other people, as if it were a song.

Singing together at Conkle's Hollow at the base of the sandstone cliffs in the Hocking Hills.

October day. Later that afternoon, some of us hiked again, to the Rock House, and sat in the ancient hollowed out cliffs that had once served as a tribal fort, watching the play of color on rock and drift of leaves as they fell.

That evening we gathered for public story-telling, asking first who had taught us responsibility in our lives, and then telling stories about the time when we came into our own sense of deep responsibility.

These stories proved to be intense and powerful and often very sad. A box of tissues was passed along from person to person. And it occurred to me, listening to the stories, that there is often something lost in the moment when we come into our responsibility. They are so often moments of crisis, when the old dispensation, under which we’re free from the responsibility that someone else bears for us disappears, and we find the weight of that responsibility shift onto our shoulders. And yet every one of these stories was a story of gain as well, since receiving and accepting responsibility is an act of love. By accepting responsibility, we grow in our ability to love.

George, one of the Downtowners Campus Ministry group, pushed us to think beyond the responsibility we bear toward ourselves and those we love, and consider the responsibility we have for the world at large. The next morning, Dr. Ellen O’Shaunessy brought the point home in her homily as she talked about a trip that she and her husband had taken to Mother Emmanuel in Charleston after the murders this summer. How do we move beyond the confines of our own narrow world and realize that we are responsible for strangers, some of whom act and look in ways that are very different from us? And how, and most

27

challenging, do we learn to feel responsibility for those who have done us grievous harm – the killers who pick up guns and take innocent lives?

After she was done speaking, we found an answer to her question in shared Eucharist and shared singing, which teaches us that greater responsibil-

Karl Stevens serves as Campus Missioner for the Diocese of Southern Ohio. Contact him at kstevens@diosohio.org.

CONNECTIONS

The official publication of the Diocese of Southern Ohio www.diosohio.org

The Rt. Rev. Thomas E. Breidenthal, Bishop David Dreisbach, Director of Communications Julie Murray, Editor Amy Svihlik, Designer Dave Caudill, Copy editor Submissions: Connections encourages the submission of articles and pictures. We reserve the right to edit material offered for publication. All submissions must include name, phone and email address for verification. Send submissions to communication@diosohio.org.

Next deadline: Feb. 1

Connections (USPS 020933) is published bimonthly by the Diocese of Southern Ohio, 412 Sycamore St., Cincinnati, OH 45202-4179.

Periodical postage paid at Cincinnati, OH. This publication is sent to all members of Episcopal congregations in the Diocese of Southern Ohio and is funded by mission share payments to the diocesan operating budget.

Other subscriptions are $10 annually.

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All communication, all in one space. Connected.

Now all of the news, features, announcements and event promotions found in Connections and e-Connections can be found with the click of a mouse at the new dsoConnections.org.

Staff announcement Welcome to Ann Sabo, who has joined the diocesan staff as executive assistant to Bishop Thomas E. Breidenthal. Ann will also provide administrative assistance to the Canons. Ann has enjoyed a long career in the administrative field supporting presidents and CEOs for over 20 years in the computer software, paper and home building industries. Ann is married, a mother of four and soon to be grandmother. She lives in Loveland and enjoys travel, cooking, gardening and spending time with her family.

Ann can be reached at 800.582.1712 ext. 103, or asabo@diosohio.org.