Standing Committee

The Standing Committee works closely with the Commission on Ministry and has canonical responsibility for approval of applications for Candidacy and Ordination to both the Sacred Order of Priests and the Sacred Order of Deacons. In exercising that responsibility, the Committee is required to interview all candidates for Ordination and those from other branches of the Body of Christ seeking reception to ordained ministry in the Diocese of Southwest Florida. Since Bishops are elected to serve the entire Church, they are canonically required to receive consents to their election by a majority of the diocesan Standing Committee. The Standing Committee acts on these requests for consent as they are received, deliberating on each with care. The Standing Committee also acts as a cabinet of advice for the Bishop and exercises canonical responsibilities related to property matters involving sacred spaces, clergy disciplinary actions, and matters involving clergy leaving The Episcopal Church. Much of the work of the Standing Committee is confidential.

A major focus of our work has been the oversight for the search process for election of the Bishop Coadjutor. We are grateful for the work of the Co-Chairs the Rev. Jessica Babcock and Mr. Trevor Whitley and members of the Search Committee who coordinated with us in oversight of the search process and to the completion of the election. We thank the Rev. Jessica Babcock for stepping up to be the Chair of the Transition Committee and the many members of that committee. They assisted the Standing Committee with set up and lunches on election day and continue to plan and prepare for the Consecration of our Bishop Coadjutor-elect, the Rev. Dr. Douglas F. Scharf, and for our farewell and thank you to our Bishop Dabney T. Smith and Mary Wallis Smith.

Current members of the Standing Committee are the Rev. Carla B. McCook (President), Mr. Ray U. Stoll (Vice President), the Very Rev. Ryan R. Whitley (Secretary), Ms. Jackie Smith (Liaison to the Commission on Ministry), Mr. James H. Corn, Mr. Duane Hollier, the Rev. Charles A. Cannon III, the Very Rev. Michelle Robertshaw, and the Rev. Jim Teets. All the members of the Committee appreciate your prayers.

The Rev. Carla B. McCook, President

Youth and Family Ministry

The Episcopal Youth Community of Southwest Florida put forth many goals heading into 2022 and 2023, and as our community grows it’s good to reflect on where we’ve been and where we’re going.

The goals for our retreats are clear; continue to make New Beginnings a fun and meaningful experience for our middle schooler youth and restart our Happening program. When it comes to how COVID-19 affected our programs, we found ourselves struggling to bring back our high school-aged youth. For example, in 2019 our High School Camp had 65 campers, while in the past two years we’ve had around 40 campers attending that session. This has presented some struggles with restarting Happening. However, we have made great strides in connecting with more youth in our congregations. We have set a date to resume Happening on the weekend of December 2-4, 2022. Whether we have 5 participants or 50, the priority is getting Happening restarted.

One of our goals for Summer Camp in 2022 was to reach out to churches and communities that might not have been connected with us before. I’m extremely proud to share that we reached this goal. We had 213 campers this year, and of that number 87 were brand new youth to DaySpring. More importantly, 40 of the churches in our diocese sent youth to the DaySpring Summer Camp. An additional 15 churches not affiliated with The Episcopal Church also sent youth, and we had 49 campers indicate that they had no previous church affiliation. Our biggest sessions are our Middle School camps with our regular session hosting 72 campers and our Discovery session hosting 40 campers. These numbers are all up from last year and point to some exciting growth.

There are plenty of goals in 2023 for our youth community. The first one is making sure that our Happening retreat is back up and running, providing the same meaningful and spiritual experiences as it did prior to our reset. Beyond that, we want to start bringing youth gatherings back to the Deanery level where we can partner with churches to host everything from a Youth Eucharist to fun outdoor days. Youth, parents, and youth leaders have all asked for these Deanery meet-ups and we’re finally at a point where we can start hosting them. We look forward to partnering and growing with our congregations this year.

Matthew Bowers, Director of Youth Ministry and Programming

Bishop Transition Committee

Once the Bishop Search Committee completed its work of vetting and selecting our four candidates for Bishop and presenting those names to the Standing Committee for approval, the Transition Committee stepped in to finish the process. With the help of diocesan staff and committee team members, we conducted Meet and Greet opportunities around the diocese for the candidates and guided the candidates through the election process using Shepherds that we recruited and trained for that purpose. Once the election was complete, our primary focus shifted to raising $50,000 for the Bishops’ Transition which included funding for Bishop Coadjutor-elect Scharf’s new vestments, planning and funding the catered events during Consecration Weekend (Sept. 23-24, 2022), planning and funding Bishop Smith’s Farewell Celebration (Nov. 18, 2022), and purchasing Bishop Smith’s farewell gift. The Transition Committee met our fundraising goals and accomplished everything the team set out to do. Many thanks to our committee members: Rev. Joe Hudson, Leila Mizer, Donna Davis, Melissa Rau, Rev. Dn. Lisa Parker, Peg Davant, Joyceanna Rautio, Sharon Teets, Diane Tennant, and Jackie Overton. Additionally, both the Search and Transition Committees are eternally grateful for the help we received from the Diocese during this long process. We are especially grateful for Wendy Martucci, Assistant to the Bishop, and Lindsey Nickel, Director of Communications. We thank them for their superb work!

The Rev. Dr. Jessica Babcock, Rector, St. Mark’s Marco Island Search Co-Chair with Trevor Whitley Transition Chair