Inside The Harvest ECW annual gathering Episcopal Church Women from across the diocese will gather in Parsons on Oct. 2 for the annual gathering of the ECW, with the Rev. Gail Greenwell of St. Michael’s, Mission as speaker. Page 4
Two mighty winds High winds toppled trees at two Northwest Convocation churches this summer, causing minor damage and creating lots of debris. Page 4
Habit at w ork w eek end Habitat work week eekend
New campus missioner announced By Melodie Woerman Editor, The Harvest
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ishop Dean Wolfe has announced that the Reverend Michael S. Bell has been called as a new Campus Missioner for the Episcopal Diocese of Kansas, to begin work Sept. 8. He will be based in Manhattan and will have responsibility for ministry with college and university campuses primarily in the western portion of the diocese. He joins Campus Missioner the Rev. Susan Terry, who is based in Lawrence with primary ministry in the eastern half of the diocese.
The Rev. Michael Bell is a new Campus Missioner for the diocese and will be based in Manhattan.
Bishop Wolfe said, “We are so thrilled to welcome Michael Bell to Kansas and to our diocesan staff. I believe his substantial experience in diverse fields will be an excellent addition to our program and will allow us to continue to build on the strengths of our campus ministries.” Bell said he sees his work as Campus Missioner as helping to “cultivate ministerial leadership in communities around every college and university campus in the diocese to better welcome and nourish those who seek a loving relationship with God and compassionate fellowship with others.”
The Habitat for Humanity house being built by the diocese in Coffeyville is seeking extra volunteers for a Sept. 18-19 work weekend. Page 4
KSM classes seek tto o enric h enrich a vvarie arie ty of ariety ministries
Fighting hunger Lots of Episcopalians are engaged in efforts to fight hunger, and that’s a good thing. The need for food aid isn’t getting any smaller. Page 5
By Melodie Woerman Editor, The Harvest
Ken ya eny
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ome changes are in the air for the Kansas School for Ministry, including ing opening its classes this fall to anyone in the diocese who wants to take its intensive coursework in a variety of faith-based topics. The Harvest recently sat down with the Rev. Andrew Grosso, KSM’s coordinator, for a question-and-answer session to learn more about what the school offers, what prospective students would want to know, and how KSM fits into the life and ministry of the Episcopal Diocese of Kansas.
Teams of Kansas Episcopalians worked in Kenya this summer, providing aid to people in need, and finding they’d received as much as they’d given. Pages 6-7
Around the diocese Members from Wichita churches pitched in to help are college students move into their dorms, and the newest installment of a popular guide for lectors now is available. Page 8
Walk this w ay wa With the encouragement of parishioner Peggy Cook, members of St. Luke’s, Shawnee laced up their shoes and got walking this summer, logging more than 2,600 miles in the process. Page 9
Bishop in W es tern K ansas Wes estern Kansas The Rev. Michael Milliken, rector of Grace, Hutchinson, was elected as the next bishop of Western Kansas. His consecration is set for Feb. 19, 2011. Page 10
Io wa pries ver seas Iow priestt heads o ov erseas The Rev. Martha Kester is the first female chaplain in the history of the Iowa National Guard, and she’s being deployed this fall to Afghanistan. That also is a first. Page 10
Fiv e yyear ear s af ter K atrina Five ears after Katrina It’s been five years since Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast. Many churches have rebounded and rebuilt, but emotional scars still remain. Page 11
Please see Missioner, page 2
Photo by Melodie Woerman
The fight against hunger starts early A young volunteer at the food pantry at St. Paul’s, Kansas City, scoops flour from a bag into small containers to distribute to those coming to the pantry. The number of people seeking help there and at other food ministries in the diocese has grown in recent months. September is Hunger Action Month. See page 5 for more information about how churches and volunteers are helping to fight hunger. Y
Convention will chart the course for the diocese’s next year
What is the purpose of the Kansas School for Ministry? Who takes your classes?
The mission of the School is to provide high-quality theological education and formation for all members of the diocese who are preparing to take up a particular ministry (ordained or otherwise) or who would simply like the opportunity to learn more about the faith and practice of the church. Many of those who enroll at the School are preparing for ordination to the diaconate or the presbyterate, but we invite those called to other forms of ministry to participate in our programs as well. What kinds of classes does KSM offer? How often do they meet, and where?
By Melodie Woerman Editor, The Harvest
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ay and clergy delegates from across the Episcopal Diocese of Kansas will meet for the 151st time in annual convention on Oct. 22-23 in Topeka to help set the diocese’s course for the next year. They also twice will hear one of the most dynamic speakers in the Episcopal Church, Bishop Michael Curry of the Diocese of North Carolina. He will preach at the Eucharist that will begin the convention this year, taking place at 9 a.m. on Friday, Oct. 22 at Grace Cathedral near downtown Topeka. Bishop Curry also will address the convention on Saturday morning at 9:10 a.m. Please see Convention, page 2
The School offers courses in biblical theology, historical theology, dogmatic or systematic theology, and practical theology. We follow an academic calendar and offer courses every month from August through May. Classes consist of a two-day intensive, during which instructors and students meet to discuss course readings and explore the subject of the course in other ways. Classes meet at the Bethany Place Conference Center in Topeka. Please see KSM, page 3
2 • The Harvest • July/August 2010
Con Convvention: N.C. bishop to speak Continued from page 1
Publisher: The Right Reverend Dean E. Wolfe, Bishop Editor: Melodie Woerman A member of Episcopal News Service and Episcopal Communicators, The Harvest is published six times a year by the Office of Communications of the Episcopal Diocese of Kansas: February, April, June, August, October and December. Stories, letters and photos are welcome. They will be used on a space-available basis and are subject to editing. Send all material (preferably in electronic format or by e-mail) to: Melodie Woerman, editor The Harvest 835 SW Polk St. Topeka, KS 66612-1688 phone: (800) 473-3563 fax: (785) 235-2449 mwoerman@episcopal-ks.org Send address changes to: Receptionist 835 SW Polk St., Topeka, KS 66612-1688 receptionist@episcopal-ks.org Upcoming deadlines: September/October issue: Sept. 15 November/December issue: Nov. 15 Subscription rate: $1.50 annually Third class mailing Permit No. 601, Topeka, Kansas POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Episcopal Diocese of Kansas 835 SW Polk St. Topeka, KS 66612-1688
The Anglican Communion A global community of 70 million Anglicans in 38 member churches/provinces in more than 160 countries. Archbishop of Canterbury The Most Reverend and Right Honorable Rowan Williams Lambeth Palace, London WE1 7JU, United Kingdom www.anglicancommunion.org Episcopal seat: Canterbury Cathedral, Canterbury, England
The Episcopal Church A community of more than 2.1 million members in 110 dioceses in 16 countries in the Americas and abroad. Presiding Bishop The Most Reverend Katharine Jefferts Schori 815 Second Avenue, New York, NY 10017 (800) 334-7626 www.episcopalchurch.org Episcopal seat: Washington National Cathedral, Washington, D.C.
The Episcopal Diocese of Kansas A community of 12,000 members in 46 congregations, two diocesan institutions and one school in eastern Kansas. Bishop The Right Reverend Dean E. Wolfe 835 SW Polk Street, Topeka, KS 66612-1688 (785) 235-9255 (800) 473-3563 www.episcopal-ks.org Episcopal seat: Grace Episcopal Cathedral, Topeka
factored into that. Rather than placing the Eucharist near the end of the annual Bishop Dean Wolfe, who will gathering, this year it will be the be the celebrant at the opening first official event on Friday mornEucharist, will deliver his annual ing. That puts all of convention convention address at 1 p.m. on under a worshipful umbrella, they Friday. said, and the sense of community The convention theme is that flows from shared worship “Where the good way lies: Standshould carry over into the business ing at the crossroads,” taken from sessions. Jeremiah 6:16. It reflects not only On a more practical level, this the work of convention, which schedule allows delegates and will elect leaders to a variety of offices and adopt a financial mis- Bishop Michael Curry of the visitors to hear Bishop Curry on sion plan for the coming year, but Diocese of North Carolina will be each of the days of convention, also echoes the theme of the di- the featured preacher and and it also should provide adocesan fundraising campaign, speaker at this year’s Diocesan equate time for the election of deputies to General Convention. Convention, set for Oct. 22-23. Crossroads. That every-three-year process can Convention activities will take place again this year at Topeka’s Capitol Plaza Ho- take multiple ballots to select four deputies and altel and the adjacent Maner Conference Center, both ternates for both lay and clergy, since church canons part of the Kansas Expocentre complex located at require that the election of deputies occur by a majority (more than half of those voting), not just the 17th Street and Topeka Boulevards. Information about the convention is available on plurality (most votes cast) that decides many other the diocesan website, www.episcopal-ks.org/con- elections. In addition to General Convention deputies and vention2010. alternates, convention has other elections on tap: One clergy and one lay at-large member of the Fundraiser or kshops also planned undraiser,, w wor orkshops Council of Trustees; and Among the other things available to convention goers is the annual pre-convention fundraiser, which One clergy person to fill an unexpired term on the Ecclesiastical Trial Court. this year will feature a pep rally, “homecoming” In addition, convention will ratify four lay memtheme. Director of Development and Stewardship Char DeWitt said those attending are urged to wear bers of the Council of Trustees picked by the convotheir school colors — either of the school they at- cations. tended or their favorite current team — or even a er re turns tto oK ansas Notted speak speaker returns Kansas cheerleader, band or football uniform from days No Bishop Dean Wolfe said he is thrilled that his gone by. The event will take place from 7 to 9 p.m. on colleague will address the Kansas convention this Thursday, Oct. 21, the night before convention starts, year. He said, “I consider Bishop Curry to be one of in the Emerald Ballroom of the hotel. There is no the finest preachers in the Episcopal Church, and I cost to attend, no advance reservations are required, am honored to have him join us for our convention. and you don’t have to be a convention delegate to People still talk about his speech to our convention back in 1994, so he made an impression on a lot of participate. DeWitt said a variety of “white elephant” grab people in Kansas!” Bishop Curry, 57, became bishop of the Diocese bags will be auctioned, with all proceeds benefitting the campus ministry parish partnership program. of North Carolina in June 2000. He is the first AfriThis provides grants from the diocese to parishes to can-American bishop to lead a southern diocese in the Episcopal Church. A native of Chicago, Bishop begin or enhance outreach to college students. More information on this fundraising opportu- Curry graduated from Hobart College and received nity is being sent to each delegate in their pre- his Master of Divinity degree from Yale Divinity School. He has been awarded honorary doctorates convention packet. Four hourlong workshops for delegates or inter- from the University of the South in Sewanee, Tenn., ested visitors will be offered on Friday afternoon at and from Yale. 4:15 p.m., all focusing on church growth. tings sc heduled Convvocation mee meetings scheduled The topics will include youth ministries, young Con Pre-convention convocation meetings have been adult ministries, church growth strategies and parset to give delegates a chance to discuss matters to ish outreach. come before convention: Southeast: Sept. 11, 10 a.m., St. John’s, Parsons Sc hedule is theological and practical Schedule The schedule for this year’s convention is a bit Southwest: Sept. 11, 2 p.m., Trinity, El Dorado different from that of recent years, and organizers Northeast: Sept. 25, 9 a.m., Trinity, Lawrence say both theological and practical considerations Northwest: Sept. 25, 1 p.m., St. David’s, Topeka Y
Missioner: Texas native has Kansas ties Continued from page 1 Bell is a transitional deacon who was ordained in June in the Diocese of Los Angeles. He most recently worked as a parish administrator at St. John’s Pro-Cathedral in Los Angeles, assisting the congregation in adapting parish operations for growth and development. He also co-chaired the committee that planned and oversaw the recent ordination and consecration of two suffragan bishops for the diocese. A fifth-generation Texan, Bell received his undergraduate degree from Texas A&M University– Commerce and has a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard
Divinity School. He completed coursework in Anglican Studies at the Episcopal Theological School at Claremont (Calif.) and has taken classes at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific. He also has a Master of Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Before moving to Los Angeles four years ago, Bell lived and worked in New York City, where he was active at St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church in Manhattan. Before pursuing a call to ordained ministry, he was a management consultant, held senior positions with a health care system and a global pharmaceutical company, and has been an avid hos-
pice volunteer and advocate. Of his impending move to Kansas, Bell said, “Yes, it’s bittersweet to leave my friends and colleagues in southern California, but I know there are welcoming hands and warm hearts of new colleagues and friends awaiting me in the Diocese of Kansas. Once the word was out that I was headed to Kansas, I was delighted by the number of Kansas connections that suddenly emerged from my network of friends and colleagues, and many folk have had wonderful things to say about the diocese.” Among those connections, Bell’s late grandparents lived in Wichita, and a cousin still resides there. Y
July/August 2010 • The Harvest • 3
KSM: School opens classes to everyone in the diocese Continued from page 1 Who teaches the courses?
All our courses are facilitated by people who have completed some form of advanced studies in one of the various theological disciplines being taught. Many, but not all, of our instructors are clergy. You’ve recently opened KSM classes to people who aren’t in the ordination process. What prompted that move?
Historically, the School primarily has served people preparing for ordained ministry. However, one of the more pressing needs in the church today is for more people to be equipped to take part in the work and mission of the church. The church needs more than just deacons and priests; it needs evangelists, catechists, intercessors, administrators, youth ministers and a range of other ministers as well. Additionally, there are many people who appreciate the opportunity to grow in their faith through continued study and reflection. KSM courses are designed for all these folks: those preparing for ordained ministry, those preparing for some other form of ministry, and those interested in growing in their faith by continuing their education. Who do you think would most benefit from this change?
Both those preparing for ordained ministry and those preparing for other forms of ministry will benefit from studying alongside one another, learning not only about the particular ministries they are preparing to take up but how their ministries relate to the other ministries of the church. Instructors, too, will benefit from having to develop curricula that are suitable for people preparing for a variety of ministries. Parishes will benefit from having more members who have completed some
Photos by Melodie Woerman
The Rev. Andrew Grosso, coordinator of the Kansas School for Ministry, reacts while answering questions about the school.
form of advanced theological education. The diocese will benefit from having more members actively participating in a wider range of ministries and initiatives. It’s been years since some people have been in a classroom. Will they be able to handle KSM classes and assignments?
Our instructors are sensitive to the challenges that advanced theological education can present for some people and are more than happy to help students in whatever way they can. Likewise, students are able to provide support and guidance to one another. I think the most important skill a person needs to participate successfully in KSM courses is time management. There is a sizable amount of work that needs to be done for every course, but if one is able to establish a disciplined way for engaging the work on a regular basis, it’s very manageable. Often the hardest part for students as they begin their studies at the School is that
they haven’t really thought through how the rest of their lives and their daily schedules are going to have to change so they have the time and energy needed to do this kind of work. KSM just graduated its first group of students since it reopened in 2008. What does this milestone mean?
We conducted a series of exit interviews with the people who completed their diaconal studies this year, and they were able to provide us with some very helpful feedback regarding their experience at the School. We definitely have some ground to cover before we’ve achieved all the goals we’ve set for ourselves, but it’s also clear that we’re on the right path and have made considerable progress. It’s also very encouraging to see people moving on to the next stage of the formation process and getting that much closer to taking up their ministries. It’s very satisfying for our faculty when they’re able to see people they’ve helped prepare for ministry living out the vocations to which they are called. What role do you see KSM playing in the future?
KSM unveils new seal The Kansas School for Ministry has created a new seal that will provide a visual identity for the school as it broadens its work throughout the diocese. The graphic is the work of Ann Boughton, a graphic artist who is a member of St. John’s, Abilene, and KSM’s coordinator, the Rev. Andrew Grosso. Grosso offered this description of the symbols on the seal: The shield shape is reminiscent of the shield of the Episcopal Church. The cross in the center suggests the centrality of the atoning work of Christ, as well as the path of discipleship that is marked by taking up our cross to follow Jesus (Matthew 16:24-26). The wheat in the upper left section suggests several things: the word of the Lord that goes forth and does not return empty (Isaiah 55:10-11), the “plentiful harvest” of the kingdom awaiting laborers (Luke 10:2) and the history and culture of the state of Kansas. The open book in the upper right section symbolizes both the scriptures and the tradition of learning and scholarship. The “alpha” and “omega” in the two lower sections recall the words of Revelation 21:6 and invites reflection on the way Christ serves as the “beginning” and the “end” of all learning and formation, and of all ministry and proclamation. The letters also are part of the seal of the diocese. Y
I believe that formation and discipleship are going to be the most important dimensions of the mission and work of the church in the years ahead. We need to do a much better job than we have been doing of articulating the faith we hold and demonstrating the difference that faith makes in our lives. We also need to give serious thought to the way that a variety of cultural changes currently underway are going to affect the place of the church in society. Every member of the church should be encouraged to consider how they have been equipped to take part in the mission and work of the church. I see KSM as a place where all these things can happen, where we can work toward a clear understanding of the faith and practice of the church, where we can come together to think creatively about the way we are called to proclaim the gospel in word and deed in today’s world, and where every member of the church can come for the education and formation they need to take up the ministries to which they are called. KSM needs new facilities, and that’s a big part of the diocesan Crossroads capital campaign. What would new classrooms space in a Leadership Center provide KSM?
We don’t really have proper classrooms right now, which at times makes teaching a challenge. Proper classrooms would include things like white boards, technology for PowerPoint and multimedia presentations, and more flexible space for different classroom configurations. We also could
Enrollment in KSM fall classes is now open People wanting to enroll in any of the classes offered this fall through the Kansas School for Ministry should make their plans soon. Enrollment ends four weeks before the start of each class. Fall classes are: Sept. 10-11: Anglican Identity, Pastoral Theology Oct. 8-9: Christian Ethics Survey, Contemporary Ethics Nov. 12-13: Church History Survey, British Christianity, Educational Ministry Dec. 10-11: Spirituality, Diakonia, Liturgics Classes begin at 5:30 p.m. on Friday and end about 6:30 p.m. on Saturday. They take place at the Bethany Place Conference Center at 835 SW Polk in Topeka. Non-ordination students will be enrolled as special students and will not receive credit toward either the deacon or priest studies program. The cost for each course is $150 for ordination-track students and $75 for special students. To enroll, contact KSM Coordinator the Rev. Andrew Grosso at rector @trinityks.org or (913) 367-3171. Y
use the technology to connect to remote resources, such as streaming video presentations from educational institutions and parishes like Trinity Church, Wall Street. And this may be surprising, but we also don’t really have proper overnight accommodations right now, which makes staying at Bethany Place a challenge. The building is not accessible at all to people with disabilities. There aren’t enough beds for as many students as we would like to have. There aren’t enough outlets in most rooms to accommodate things like laptops and video projectors. The kitchen facilities are not really adequate for groups, so all our meals have to be catered. The Crossroads campaign also will provide a significant endowment for KSM. How will that help the School?
Having an endowment would allow for a part-time or full-time position for someone dedicated to overseeing and developing the program. It would enable us to offer better compensation to our faculty, which would enhance our ability to recruit highly trained specialists and skilled teachers. And it would provide for additional financial aid for students. Y
4 • The Harvest • July/August 2010
Mission rector will highlight ECW annual gathering By Mary Roberts
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ll Episcopal women in the Diocese of Kansas are invited to this year’s Annual Gathering of the Episcopal Church Women, set for Oct. 2 at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Parsons. The Annual Gathering is a meeting of Episcopal women from across the Diocese of Kansas to pray together, grow spiritually, meet new friends and connect with old, all in the light of Christ’s love as shared in ECW. Every woman who attends an Episcopal Church or is curious about the Episcopal Church is welcome to attend.
The Episcopal Church Women of the Diocese of Kansas are proud to welcome the Rev. Gail Greenwell as this year’s presenter. Greenwell has served as the rector of St. Michael and All Angels in Mission since 2008. She and her husband, Jim, have two grown daughters. She is a writer, teacher and a patron of spirituality and the arts. Before coming to the Diocese of Kan-
The Rev. Gail Greenwell is the speaker for the ECW Annual Gathering Oct. 2.
sas, she developed an arts outreach to low income children in the Dioceses of Oregon and California. Greenwell’s presentation, “Pathways to Spiritual Growth,” invites ECW members to explore the spiritual discipline of listening prayer. Using lecture and small group format, she will encourage church women to discern what God is calling them to do with their limited time and resources in
the midst of busy lives and an even needier world. “Calls for help come in constantly,” Greenwell said, “and how is a woman of faith to respond? Where are we to give our time, energy and commitment?” Participants will explore these and other questions throughout the day. Forms to sign up for this year’s Annual Gathering will be available at your local parish. Registration for the event begins at 9 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 2. Mary Roberts is publicity chair for the Kansas ECW. She is a member of St. John’s, Parsons. Y
Summer wind storms topple trees at two churches By Melodie Woerman Editor, The Harvest
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wo storms that swept across portions of the Northwest Convocation this summer caused damage at two parishes, felling trees and, for one, damaging its building. St. Mark’s in Blue Rapids was one of many buildings in town damaged by 80 m.p.h. winds that hit that town and nearby Waterville on June 17. The parish’s vicar, the Rev. Art Rathbun, reported that several large trees toppled in the church’s front yard. They also hit the building resulting in damage. The roof sustained “lots of damage,” Rathbun said, along with the building’s siding. Two of the church’s colored-glass windows were broken, also. It took several weeks for all the debris to be removed, he said, and the church was working with the Church Insurance Company to cover damages. With the storm hitting on a Thursday, no church services were
80 m.p.h. winds through Blue Rapids on June 17 caused damage to trees and the church building at St. Mark’s (left). Winds clocked at 90 m.p.h. felled trees in the yard at St. Paul’s, Manhattan (right) on Aug. 13.
interrupted by the storm, he noted. Almost two months later, 90 m.p.h. winds that whipped through Manhattan the evening of Aug. 13 felled large trees at St. Paul’s Church downtown. The Rev. Tom Miles, the parish’s rector, said that men arriving the next morning for the usual Saturday morning men’s breakfast had to
pick their way through fallen tree limbs to get into the church. Afterward, several men went home to grab power tools and returned for an impromptu clean-up session to clear the sidewalks of debris for Sunday worshippers. Miles said there was no damage to the church building from the storm.
A few blocks away, on the Kansas State University campus, damage from falling trees amounted to nearly a quarter of a million dollars, according to a news release issued by university officials. St. Francis Canterbury, the Episcopal Diocese of Kansas’s presence on campus, lost power
during the storm and had small tree branches “everywhere,” according to campus intern Nic Mather. He, volunteer Carol Connizzo and the Rev. Michael Bell, the newly hired campus missioner who was in town to look for a house, all rode out the storm safely there. Y
Volunteers needed for special Habitat work weekend
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Photo by the Very Rev. Jerry Adinolfi
The Habitat for Humanity house being built in Coffeyville by the Episcopal Diocese of Kansas continues to take shape, thanks to the building skills of volunteers from the Coffeyville community and from around the diocese. A diocesanwide work weekend is scheduled for Sept. 18-19.
ept. 18-19 has been set as a special work weekend on the Habitat for Humanity house being built by the Episcopal Diocese of Kansas in Coffeyville to bring together volunteers from across the diocese. Work will start about 8:30 a.m. on Sept. 18 and continue until 4 p.m., with a barbecue supper planned at nearby St. Paul’s Church. Work will continue on Sunday afternoon, after church services, ending late afternoon. Volunteers are welcome to spend the entire weekend or for whatever portion of either day that they can participate. Overnight accommodations are available for those from outof-town. Diocesan Habitat liaison Joe Miller is handling reservations for workers and lodging. He can be contacted at his home (620) 251-8219 or office (620) 2516967. Leave a message if he’s not available when you call. He also can be reached by
e-mail at joemmiller@ coffeyvilleks.net.
Wor k pr ogressing nicely ork progressing Thanks to the help of volunteers this summer from the Coffeyville community, a great deal of work has taken place on the house, according to Miller. Siding now covers most of the structure, which is being purchased with a no-interest loan by Sherry Freeman, who is assisting with the construction. Earlier this summer local volunteers put a roof on the house and installed all the windows. Episcopal college students provided a week of labor in May. The diocese is sponsoring construction of the house, thanks to generous contributions of $37,000 from across the diocese and a $25,000 grant from Episcopal Relief and Development. Coffeyville lost many affordable housing units in a massive flood in June 2007. Y
Fighting hunger
July/August 2010 • The Harvest • 5
September is Hunger Action Month. Episcopalians are responding, because the need for food isn’t going away. Text and photos by Melodie Woerman Editor, The Harvest
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ome people gauge the state of the economy by watching indicators like the stock market or housing numbers. In Kansas, other numbers tell the tale. The poverty rate stands at 12.4 percent; for children, it’s 17.1 percent. Unemployment stands at 6.5 percent. Last year almost 200,000 Kansans sought emergency food assistance through a pantry, kitchen or shelter. For those running food ministries in the Episcopal Diocese of Kansas, they don’t have to look any farther than the people coming through their doors to know that times remain tough, and it’s not getting any better. While efforts to fight hunger stretch across the Episcopal Diocese of Kansas, one of the largest takes place at St. Paul’s, Kansas City. Its food pantry now provides food for more than 14,000 people a year, and the Saturday morning breakfast program provides a hot meal to upwards of 10,000 people annually.
St. Paul’s food pantry
Hunger Action Month Do you want to help fight hunger in your community? Here are things you can do: Learn about hunger in your community and help your church start a program to serve the hungry. Volunteer at a local food pantry or meal program. Donate food or money. Boy Scouts will be collecting food on Sept. 11; give generously. Does your local school district participate in BackSnacks, weekend food for hungry children? If not, find out how to help them start a program.
of food items: government-provided commodities, which are available once a month to those meeting federal income guidelines; nonperishable food the pantry refers to as groceries, which can be obtained every other month by people who live in their service area; and donated fresh items, including produce and baked goods, which they distribute to anyone in need. They also give away households items such as soap, toothpaste, toilet paper, shampoo and diapers. Staples like flour and cooking oil are bought in bulk and divided into smaller containers to make them go farther. Before expansion, there wasn’t room to allow for personal choice, said volunteer Donna Fye of St. Thomas, Overland Park. “Now they can shop, they can pick out the vegetables they want, or the soup they like.”
Deacon Gail Reynolds coordinates the food pantry, and that effort now is serving 40 to 60 households twice a week. That’s more than double what it was just two years ago when growing numbers prompted the pantry to open on Saturday as well as Wednesday. The numbers at each session have grown, too, with new people stopping by every day. They see about 10 newcomers a week, according to statistics Reynolds St. P aul’s Saturda Paul’s Saturdayy breakfast sends out to volunteers, but the first week Every Saturday for the past 12-and-ain August saw 24 new households come in half years, the smell of a hot cooked breakfor help. “Some are coming in for the first fast has filled St. Paul’s parish hall. Voluntime, and some are back after not being here teers now prepare food for 150 to 250 for a year,” Reynolds people each week, said. “They say, ‘I although they have just couldn’t make it served as many as this month.’” 300, according to The pantry only program founder provides emergency Julie Marcus, a food assistance and member of St. can’t replace all the Michael’s, Mission. food a family needs. She sees a lot of Reynolds said the regulars, calling area they serve — a many by name. Most portion of Wyandotte are single, mainly County — includes men, although famisome of the poorest lies come, too. zip codes in the state On a recent Saturof Kansas. The overday, Anthony was all poverty rate for there with his 5-yearthe county is 19.2 old son, KahliqAnthony (left), single father to percent, 104th out of Kahliqanthony, is a regular visitor to the anthony. He’s been 105 counties. breakfast program and the food pantry coming regularly for The pantry dis- at St. Paul’s. Both help him stretch his a few years, he said tributes three kinds budget, he says. in part because “it’s
Volunteer Mike Barnes (right) helps a neighbor select groceries at the food pantry at St. Paul’s, Kansas City, Kan. Barnes is a member of St. Peter’s in Kansas City, Mo.
enjoyable.” But he also noted that the meal and the food he’s been picking up recently from the pantry downstairs “help stretch the budget.” As a single father, he said, “that really helps.” Juanita brought her niece, Jaelynn, for breakfast. Juanita said she comes nearly every week, in part because she likes “the fellowship, the atmosphere.” She said she hopes her own church, Celebration of Praise Ministries, can start something similar. But she’s also been unemployed since last year, and she said without St. Paul’s and places like it, “I’d really be struggling.” She also is a monthly regular at the food pantry. “They have really been a blessing,” she said. “It has helped a lot of people.” Marcus noted with pride that the breakfast program hasn’t missed a single Saturday since it opened in March of 1998. “Even if Christmas is on a Saturday, we’re here!” she said, noting that when that has happened, they’ve had more volunteers than ever. Here is what’s happening at other food ministries across the diocese:
Trinity Interfaith Food Pantry Trinity, Lawrence, operates a food bank that receives food from a number of interfaith partners in town. Barry Molineux, the pantry’s coordinator of servers, said they served just under 3,000 people during the first half of this year, and that’s about a 15 percent increase in recent months. They’re also seeing new people stopping by, and many are part of larger families, or groupings of individuals joining together in one household. Molineux said many are unemployed or working reduced hours, and the number of senior citizens remains high. Some patrons, he said, stop by every month but also visit two or three other food pantries in town for help, a move he finds understandable. “Everyone would like to have three basic meals a day, just like everyone else,” he said.
Episcopal Social Services ESS in Wichita has provided a hot lunch every weekday for 27 years. Since the economic downturn began in the fall of 2008, the number of people they serve has risen dramatically. In 2009 they served just over 20,000 hot lunches; the year before it was just over 15,000, a 33 percent increase. ESS also stocks an emergency food pan-
Volunteers dry dishes at the Saturday morning breakfast program at St. Paul’s, under the direction of Julie Marcus (front), the program’s founder.
try that provides small sacks of food to clients. In 2009, 248 sacks were handed out, which fed 425 people.
K.C. Community Kitchen Episcopal Community Services, the Episcopal agency that serves the metropolitan Kansas City area, soon will open a new community kitchen poised to provide even more help to people in Kansas City, Mo. During the week of Aug. 16-20, the kitchen served 2,700 hot meals. The move from the current kitchen at Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral at 13th and Broadway to the new facility at Paseo and Adams will expand the lunch seating capacity by 20 percent, according to Jami Byer, director of food operations, and a larger food production area means the number of daily meals could double. Its bistroinspired design also will provide a less institutional setting. It also will locate the kitchen in the neighborhood where many of its existing clients live, rather than blocks away, as it is now. The existing kitchen at the cathedral will become the hub of ECS’s hunger relief ministries, including an expansion of its Culinary Cornerstones chef-training program for disadvantaged students. It also will be the home of its food rescue program, where donated food can be processed and stored until needed by other food ministries in the area. Y
Seeing
6 • The Harvest • July/August 2010
Kenya
the heart of
Episcopalians from the Diocese of Kansas made trips this summer to work with the people of Kenya through the diocesan ‘Kansas to Kenya’ ministry. Here are two of their stories. By Ray Segebrecht
I
suppose my attachment emotionally to the country, and my time there, began pretty quickly. In my first day in Nairobi, I went with the community team to Kibera, one of the world’s largest slums.
We spent less than three hours there, but the visit left me with a lifetime of images to process — trash and feces lining the dirt road we drove to enter the shanty town, children without shoes walking through it, and hundreds of blocks of meager huts where the thousands of poor try their best to live and work, despite the odds that they’ll fail. Mostly, I remember the smell. As children would run alongside our bus, yelling mzungu in glee at the sight of our white faces through the open windows, a distinct odor of old excrement and rubbish filled the cabin along with their voices. I will never forget that stench — one so terrible, it didn’t even evoke disgust, only sadness. And that, I quickly discovered, was only the tip of the eventual pull of the land on my heart.
A highway of prostitution
One of Mary Warimu’s granddaughters waits to greet visitors to their home this summer. Photo by Ray Segebrecht
Soon, we saw equally disheartening destitution when we visited Maai Mahiu — a more rural version of Kibera. The town sustains a line of truckers that pull trailers of goods from Mombasa to Uganda and Tanzania and leave AIDS by night as they pass. Along the roadside of the Maai Mahiu to Nairobi highway that divides the town, dozens of prostitutes emerge every night for these clients to select. Most of them are women, but a growing number are also children. They are orphans, because their fathers were only business deals for their mothers, who have died of AIDS. They are prostitutes because even selling their bodies in the back of a semi cab is better than starving on the street. The community team worked hard to uplift the disadvantaged youth of the town. They more than doubled the number of outhouses at the largest primary school there, finally allowing the more than 1,500 students to share more than just six stalls. They also investigated how
to best spend other support funds to help the hundreds of other kids in town who can’t pay the minimal school fees.
People helped, but needs remain Ultimately, I left feeling the difference they made — along with the medical team — became one of the biggest gifts of the year for the town. For the first time in months, the principal of Ngeya School had an answer for the extreme shortage of toilets — an essential piece for any hope of sanitation. And hundreds of patients per day benefited from a whole week of health expertise they before would have needed to travel more than three miles and pay to receive. But the joy of that success was subdued by the immense need that still remained, both in Maai Mahiu and less than five miles away in the camps for internally displaced persons, where the plight worsens. There, I met a number of families with single mothers, whose husbands had died due to election violence in 2007. For a number of them, the misfortune came along with other blows — a rape by a man with HIV, a child burned amid all the arson. For all of the women, the fields of the Rift Valley surrounding Maai Mahiu are their only hope for a safe place to live now, even though that often means living in three-year-old tents with leaking tarps. But while there, I watched the community team give about 20 HIV-positive mothers food for their families that will last up to a month. I saw a community team mental health counselor offer advice and compassion to a number of these women, too. I also witnessed the gift of a roof of iron sheets to a grandmother in that group and the utter elation in her eyes as she received it — the last material she needed for a home.
July/August 2010 • The Harvest • 7
Mary Warimu of rural Maai Mahiu, Kenya, with five of the nine grandchildren who live with her, all left orphaned when their mothers died
Schoolgirls show off their first pair of eyeglasses, provided by the vision clinic staffed by the Kansas to Kenya medical team. Photo by Karin Feltman
of AIDS. Photo by Ray Segebrecht
By Kelley Lackey
M Perhaps I could dwell on the fact that 167 of the roughly 340 families at the Eldoret camp of internal refugees still suffer the plight she has known for three years. Just thinking of how some families in that group still sleep on wet mattresses of bean pods on a dirt floor makes me weak sometimes.
A visit to remember It’s another, less fortunate world, but it’s still close enough to help, and living here while knowing what needs to happen to change their circumstances wears on me. That thought, I suppose, could easily weigh too heavily on my heart. At times, I feel overwhelmed by the need. But that’s also when I force myself to remember a visit I made with Fathers Andrew O’Connor of Wichita, Bob Terrill of Overland Park, and Antony Ngugi of Maai Mahiu to a rural family 30 minutes outside Maai Mahiu. The grandmother we visited was Mary Warimu. She was 70, and her small hut, old and wooden with a rusted roof, looked abandoned. But soon small children ran out as we exited the car and walked nearer. They smiled innocent, toothy grins as they reached up for our white, mzungu hands. Their clothes were dusty and their feet bare. Together, they led us to the rest of the family inside. All of us, including Father Antony, had to duck to enter. The dirt-floored room held, apart from a bench Mary shared with her nine grandchildren, only three old lawn chairs and a wooden one without a back. Together, we filled every inch of her furniture in the hot, dusty space. The first thing I noticed after we settled was Mary’s face. In the dark, windowless hut, her features were dimly lit, but looking closely, I thought I could still discern her emotions. She was trying hard to smile for her guests, to show them cheer. But for her tired head, leaned back against the wallboard, that expression never came. She simply locked her gaze ahead and waited, leaning forward slightly every few seconds to clear a deep chest cough she and all her grandchildren had caught. As Father Andrew prepared to lead us in prayer, Mary shut her eyes tightly.
Father Andrew moved close and stooped toward her. Gently, he held her head in his hands and bowed his own face close to hers before shutting his eyes, too, in petition. As he spoke, the hornets flew low and around our faces, and the heat of the small quarters caused sweat to run down my face and neck, even as I sat still. But all I had to do was glance once at Father Andrew to block out all these distractions. This man, who had just seen Mary cough, fearlessly had his lips close to her forehead and his own health blocked far from his mind. His requests to God couldn’t have sounded more earnest. There, between us, was a great chasm of fortune, one we had limited worldly means to bridge. But as we bowed our heads to the heartfelt words Father Andrew lifted to our common Lord, together we suddenly seemed to have found peace. We were with a grandmother, the sole caretaker of nine young children who had lost her only three daughters, the mothers of her grandchildren, to AIDS from prostitution. The grandmother was just one of many examples of a world we will never fully transform. Jesus knew this. Before he died, he even said, “The poor you will have with you always.” The world is simply too big, and the need we created — as a collective people of this planet — is just too pervasive. But Jesus still spent his whole life on earth helping the poor, the lame, the sick and the blind. And we, too, can mitigate the misfortune of others by trying to improve and touch lives where possible. As we do, we also can take comfort in returning to the truth that two Kansas priests, and one from Kenya, taught me this summer: even in our frustrating futility at times to fix a person’s plight, we can love generously and completely as we are fully loved — the most important gift of all. Ray Segebrecht is a journalist who accompanied the community team to Kenya. He is a member of Trinity, Lawrence, and is the son of Deacon Steve Segebrecht, the director of Kansas to Kenya. Y
ost of you know that Carolyn and I went on a medical mission trip to Kenya sponsored by the Diocese of Kansas. Carolyn worked as a nurse and participated with the team of doctors, nurses, pharmacists and pre-med students who saw more than 1,100 patients in the course of 4 1/2 days. I worked with the local Anglican priest, Father Antony Ngugi, as we prayed with people who came through the clinic. As I reflect on our trip, it is difficult to try to sum up the experience. It is difficult to try to convey the multitude of feelings that come from such a trip. However, I continue to think about the level of faithfulness to Jesus Christ and his church that the people we met have. Sunday mornings at the local Anglican church there find their buildings packed. Even in the face of economic poverty, the two churches that we met are working on building new fellowship halls and other spaces for outreach. A majority of the people that Father Antony and I prayed with wanted to include in their prayers thanks to God for his protection and gifts in their lives. It made me feel more than a little awkward about my spiritual poverty in the face of their deep commitment to God and the Christian community. I was reminded of Jesus’ state-
ment to Judas, “The poor will always be among you, I will only be with you for a little while.” It became apparent that while even the most economically disadvantaged in the United States have more resources than a majority of people living in the rest of the world, we are people who are somewhat spiritually impoverished. We are indeed poor because of our inability to see Christ in our midst. How often do I really put my whole trust in God’s grace and generosity? How often do I bother to give thanks to God for all he has done for me, especially when I am anxious about whether I have enough? How often do I see God working in the pain and the loss in my life? How easily I drop God as the first priority in my life for other desires and distractions. I learned a lot about poverty in my time away. I have learned that we may be, in some ways, the poorest of all people. The Good News is that God never gives up on us as long as we don’t give up on God. I learned from our Kenyan hosts that we should at all times give thanks to and trust in God. That, by far, was a greater gift than any of us from the U.S. could have given to them. The Rev. Kelley Lackey and his wife, Carolyn, were part of the medical team that went to Kenya this summer. He is the rector of St. Andrew’s, Emporia. Y
What was accomplished this year?
T
wo groups went to Kenya this summer under the auspices of the diocesan Kansas to Kenya program. The Community Team had 11 members, and the Medical Team took 19, each there team in the country about a week. Both worked primarily in the area around Maai Mahiu, a town of more than 30,000 in the Rift Valley that stands on the Trans-African Highway. Here’s a recap of some of the ministry they accomplished while they were there:
Community Team Created a demonstration community garden, complete with drip irrigation; Built 20 toilets to improve sanitation at Ngeya Primary School; Worked with area women on nutrition and human rights issues; Encouraged youth leadership and HIV awareness through a soccer tournament; and Strengthened relationships with the Anglican Church of Kenya and the local Diocese of Nakuru.
Medical Team Saw 1,154 patients in 4 1/2 days; Offered medical care in adult internal medicine and pediatrics; Provided dental care and a vision clinic, the team’s busiest work; Provided medications as needed; Staffed an HIV testing and counseling clinic; and Offered prayers for medical patients through a spiritual clinic. Y
8 • The Harvest • July/August 2010
Around the diocese Trinity, Arkansas City hosted a Christmas in July sale at its Trinity Treasures gift shop, featuring Christmas items in addition to regular merchandise. A 20 percent discount was offered to entice shoppers to browse during the month. Trinity, Atchison announced an all-parish meeting for Sept. 12 to discuss initiatives the vestry has been developing in recent months, including development of a strategic vision for the parish, liturgical practice, the rectory and the parish investment portfolio. St. Mark’s, Blue Rapids wasn’t able to help with the town’s ecumenical Bible School on June 7 after roads through Blue Rapids were blocked off while a suspect in a Topeka murder held a local woman hostage. VBS was halted just for the day the parish was scheduled to assist. St. Paul’s, Clay Center hosted a backto-school “bands blow-out concert” Aug. 13 in a local park. The event was designed for young people 18 and younger and was provided as a gift to the community by the parish. Volunteers provided snacks. St. Paul’s, Coffeyville sought volunteers to be Church school teachers as the parish revitalizes its education program. The Very Rev. Jerry Adinolfi will teach children instead of adults this fall to assist with the effort. St. Andrew’s, Derby has a new “green team,” St. Andrew’s Values the Earth, or SAVE. It is working with Kansas Interfaith Power and Light and has conducted a church building energy audit.
parent-child retreat to help children age 5 to 8 prepare for their first communion. Trinity, El Dorado has two newly refurbished church signs, including the recognizable “The Episcopal Church Welcomes You.” St. Andrew’s, Emporia enjoyed a variety of summertime music during worship, including a group from St. Mark’s Lutheran Church and the newly formed St. Andrew’s Men Singers. St. Thomas, Holton welcomed Ken Waterman from the local food pantry for an update on the expanding needs of the pantry. The parish collects food to support the need. Epiphany, Independence Guild members this summer heard presentations by Emporian Gary Mason on his work photographing Mother Teresa in India, and on quilt patterns that were used in the Underground Railroad. Covenant, Junction City collected school supplies to assist students in need at Westwood School. St. Paul’s, Kansas City said thank-you to YouthWorks and the youth and adult leaders of America Lutheran and Augustana Lutheran Churches of Minnesota for painting the food pantry area, and cleaning the building exterior and parish office. St. Margaret’s, Lawrence offered caramel apples and warm chocolate chip cookies to those touring newly renovated classrooms during a children’s ministry open house.
St. Martin’s, Edwardsville planned a Trinity, Lawrence members of the Trinity Environmental Stewardship Team hosted a trip to the Tallgrass National Prairie Preserve June 26. The day included a guided tour of the prairie and displays in the old stone house and barn on the site. St. Paul’s, Manhattan is starting a chapter of Roots and Shoots, an organization started by Jane Goodall in 1991 to encourage children to become involved in science projects related to the human community, the environment and animals. It will be open to children of all ages and will meet once a month. St. Paul’s, Marysville joined in the Pentecost service at Evangelical United Church of Christ. Member Ben Malotte was part of the band that played for the service.
Year A soon available in popular lector’s guide The next installment of the popular Lector’s Guide and Commentary on the Revised Common Lectionary will be available in October, just in time for the start of lectionary Year A on Nov. 28. The book is published by St. Mark’s Press, a ministry of Good Shepherd, Wichita. The guide recently underwent extensive revision by the press’s director, Ted Blakley, a New Testament scholar, to make the lessons more understandable for those who read them in church services. The price is $20, and it can be ordered from the St. Mark’s Press website, www.stmarkspress.net, or by calling (800) 365-0439. Y
St. Michael’s, Mission has a new men’s fellowship, called Holy Stir-it, that offers monthly cooking lessons for men that results in a meal to take home that evening. The first installment on Aug. 31 featured appetizers and beverages. St. Matthew’s, Newton celebrated the longtime service to the parish by five people and the 70th wedding anniversary of James and Grace Combs when Bishop Dean Wolfe visited in July. One person also was confirmed. St. Aidan’s, Olathe will begin a new hospitality ministry, with two members near the front door each week to welcome new people. They will offer directions, help visitors during the service, invite them to coffee hour, drop off a loaf of bread that afternoon and write them during the week.
Submitted photo
Episcopalians help with WSU move-in Randy Harrison of St. James, Wichita, offers directions to a student during move-in day at Wichita State University Aug. 15. Members of the Episcopal Campus Ministry of Wichita were on hand to assist students by hauling luggage from the parking lot into dorms. They also became the unofficial “water brigade,” supplying bottles of cold water not only to students and families but also to other volunteers assisting with the efforts. Volunteers also handed out ECM survival kits, including an Episcopal water bottle, coupons to local restaurants and information on the group’s Sunday evening Taize service at the WSU chapel. Episcopalians from Good Shepherd, St. James, St. John’s and St. Stephen’s participated in the student outreach effort, headed by Jeff Roper of St. James. Y
Grace, Ottawa has a new Sanctus bell, given by Martha Berton and family in memory of her late husband, John, who was senior warden from 2004 to 2006.
tered bus, the 15 young people visited exhibits, watched an IMAX movie and at lunch at the zoo. They stopped for pizza in Nebraska City on the way home.
St. Thomas, Overland Park offered a blessing of backpacks and car keys on Aug. 22, as students were heading back to school. A gift also was given to every participant.
St. Luke’s, Wamego is undergoing a building inspection to see what changes might be needed to implement Safeguarding God’s Children recommendations.
St. John’s, Parsons hosted a table at the Labette Community College enrollment student fair in August. Members handed out goody bags and information about the church. St. Luke’s, Shawnee has begun a Saturday evening contemplative service, featuring an abbreviated form of Evening Prayer with time for quiet and meditation. It also includes a form of the Holy Eucharist that allows all present to participate. St. Clare’s, Spring Hill celebrated St. Clare’s Day Aug. 14 with a festive Italian dinner at the Spring Hill Community Center. Members prepared the food for the event that drew 90 people. Grace Cathedral, Topeka had 14 members of the cathedral choirs attend the weeklong Royal School of Church Music academy in Wilkes-Barre, Penn. Dr. Barry Rose, retired organist and choirmaster of St. Alban’s Cathedral in England, was this year’s music director. St. David’s, Topeka youth visited the Omaha Zoo in July. After riding a char-
St. Jude’s, Wellington handed out free lemonade during the town’s Wheat Festival Arts and Crafts’ Show in July. They also gathered the names of 75 people seeking prayers. Good Shepherd, Wichita raised more than $2,000 from its annual garage sale, with proceeds split between Episcopal Social Services and Our Little Roses Orphanage in Honduras. St. Bartholomew’s, Wichita encouraged members to remember victims of the Haiti earthquake through contributions to Episcopal Relief and Development. St. James’, Wichita offered the acclaimed musical “Man of La Mancha,” presented by its Guild Hall Players. St. Stephen’s, Wichita provides meeting space to a variety of self-help groups, including AA, Al-Anon, Debtors’ Anonymous and Overeaters Anonymous. Grace, Winfield collected items for welcome bags to hand out to incoming freshmen at Southwestern College, including lip balm, tissues packages, ramen noodles and Life Savers. Y
July/August 2010 • The Harvest • 9
People
Shawnee members take ‘step in the right direction’ By Melodie Woerman Editor, The Harvest
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eggy Cook challenged her parish, St. Luke’s in Shawnee, to spend the sum mer engaged in healthy habits, and they have responded. Cook, whose husband, Jim, is the parish’s rector, suggested parishioners sign up to walk a total of 1,000 miles during July and August. She was motivated, in part, by helping her mother recover after knee replacement surgery. She also knew several parishioners who were suffering health issues, and she concluded everyone could benefit from some extra exercise. As the parish’s small group ministry coordinator, she thought it might even develop into a small group. But first she offered the opportunity to the entire congregation, and within days she knew her thousand-mile goal needed revising — her group of walkers logged 400 miles in the first week, marking their joint progress on a chart with mile markers designated along a winding path. Eventually 70 people signed up for the “A Step in the Right Direction” effort.
Some people, she said, walked outside and some on a treadmill, some alone and some in groups. Some even headed to a park near St. Luke’s to log some miles before the start of Sunday church services. One parishioner, recovering from extensive cancer surgery, did his distance with laps around the hospital nurses’ station. Another, who needs to lose weight before he can undergo a lung transplant, opted for miles on a stationary bike. The emphasis on being healthy extended beyond just walking. A nurse offered to do blood pressure checks on Sundays, and only healthy snacks were served at coffee hour. Materials on healthy habits were made available on Sundays and in the parish newsletter. While walking herself, Cook said she was aware of all those who can’t walk, and she encouraged her walking team to say a prayer for them. By the time the initial eight weeks was up on Aug. 29, Cook said the parish had recorded a total of 2, 660 miles, setting the stage, she hoped, for healthier habits and healthier parishioners. Y
Photo by Peggy Cook
Parishioners at St. Luke’s, Shawnee, surpassed their goal of walking 2,000 miles this summer. (From left) Cheryl Ball, Gloria Kelley, Kevin Kelley and Steve Mann take a twomile walk in a nearby park before the start of church services.
Campus interns ready for new school year at K-State and K.U. By Melodie Woerman Editor, The Harvest
T Nic Mather, K-State campus intern
Joel McAlister, K.U. campus intern
here will be one new and one familiar face among the campus interns that already are hard at work for the 2010-2011 school year. New to the Episcopal Diocese of Kansas is Nic Mather, who is living at St. Francis Canterbury House at Kansas State University in Manhattan. Returning for a second year is Joel McAlister, who is in residence at St. Anselm Canterbury House at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. Mather is a native of Washington state and a 2008 graduate of Gonzaga University in Spokane. Most recently he spent two years in the legal offices of the Internal Revenue Service in Seattle. He is a lifelong Episcopalian. He was elected to the Standing Committee in the Diocese of Spokane and worked with the youth group at St. John’s Cathedral
there. In his home parish he served as a delegate to Diocesan Convention and a youth member of the vestry. McAlister is a 2009 graduate of the University of Arizona. He has done extensive mission work in Arequipa, Peru, and in Queretaro, Mexico. He is fluent in Spanish. Both interns will serve as mentors to the undergraduate peer ministers living in each Canterbury house and will help oversee their work. They also will work with peer ministers working on other campuses across the diocese. They will help organize events specifically for students on the campuses where they will work and will help create service projects for peer ministers and other students on campus. This is the fourth year the Diocese of Kansas has hired graduate campus interns. They are paid a modest stipend for the year and are provided housing at one of the Canterbury houses. Y
People of Note Cathedral organist set to head prestigious Kings College music course
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teve Burk, organist and choirmaster at Grace Cathedral, has been named the manager of the Kings College Summer Choir Singing Course sponsored by the Royal School of Church Music America, beginning in 2011. The course takes place in Wilkes-Barre, Penn. This is the largest course of its kind in North America, attracting more than 150 singers of all ages from 10 years and up, with participants coming from across the country. RSCMA is the American branch of the Royal School of Church Music, founded in England in 1927 to promote high quality choral music. It now has more than 700 affiliates in the United States.
Kansas priest to receive award for servant leadership from Austin seminary
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he Rev. Zane Wilemon of Austin, Texas, who is canonically resident in the Diocese of Kansas, will receive the 2010 Charles J. Cook Award in Servant Leadership from the Episcopal Seminary of the Southwest in Austin on Sept. 9. Wilemon is the founder of Comfort the Children International, an organization that works in Kenya, and is an alumnus of the seminary. The Cook Award is given annually to a person whose life and work exemplify the essence of servant leadership. It honors the 25-year career of Charles Cook at the seminary. Y
Liturgy and ecumenical leader Winnie Crapson dies at 85
Clergy news
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The Rev. Rob Baldwin has accepted the call to become the next rector of Trinity, Lawrence. He began his ministry there on Aug. 29. Most recently he has served as rector of St. James’ in Piqua, Ohio. He and his wife, Valerie, have two children, Alex and Abby.
innie Crapson, a noted lay leader on a number of area ecumenical associations. in the Episcopal Church and the She received the Bishop’s Vision Award in Diocese of Kansas, died Aug. 11 1997 for outstanding service to the church. in Topeka. She was 85. Nationally, most recently she was a memShe had been chair of the diber of the board of the Archives of ocesan liturgy committee as well the Episcopal Church in Austin, as diocesan ecumenical officer, Texas. and in each of those roles held naShe also had been a board memtional office, including president ber for the national deacons’ assoof the national liturgy and music ciation, a board member for the officers association and board Episcopal Theological Seminary member of the Episcopal Diocof the Southwest in Austin, secreesan Ecumenical and Interrelitary of Province 7, secretary of the gious Officers. Anglican Theological Review CorCrapson was a deputy to Genporation and a reader of General Winnie Crapson eral Convention, a member of the Ordination Exams. She also was Council of Trustees for the Episcopal Diocese involved in liturgical reform and revision of of Kansas and president of the Northwest the Book of Common Prayer in the 1970s Convocation. She also represented the diocese through Associated Parishes.
At St. David’s, Topeka, where she had been a member for 50 years, she had served on the vestry and numerous boards and organizations. She also was a member and vice chair of the Topeka-Shawnee County Metropolitan Planning Commission and president of the Community Resource Council. She worked in the legal department of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad for 46 years, investigating employment discrimination complaints and planning for companywide computerization. Her husband, James Crapson, died in 1982. She is survived by a nephew, the Rev. Jim Crapson. A memorial service celebrating her life is set for Sept. 14 at 2 p.m. at St. David’s. Memorial contributions may be made to St. David’s Endowment Fund, 3916 SW 17th St., Topeka, KS 66604. Y
The Ron Pogue, who for the past year has been interim at Trinity, Lawrence, has accepted a call as interim at Church of the Good Shepherd in Lexington, Ky., beginning Oct. 3. Y
10 • The Harvest • July/August 2010
National and international news Anglican news briefs Episcopal News Service Former K.U. chaplain among West Missouri nominees – One of three priests nominated to become the 8th bishop of West Missouri served as Episcopal chaplain at the University of Kansas in the 1970s and 1980s. The Rev. Peter Casparian now is rector of Christ Church in Oyster Bay, in the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island, New York. Other nominees are the Very Rev. Martin Scott Field, 53, rector of St. Paul’s Church in Flint and assistant to the bishop for congregational life and dean of the Flint River Valley Convocation in the Episcopal Diocese of Eastern Michigan; and the Rev. Canon Edward Daniel Smith, 54, canon to the ordinary, Episcopal Diocese of Missouri. The election is set for Nov. 6 during the diocese’s convention in Kansas City. Bishop calls for ‘civil, respectful discussion’ concerning lower Manhattan Islamic center — The dispute over the planned Islamic community center and mosque in lower Manhattan should be seen as “an opportunity for a civil, rational, loving, respectful discussion,” Diocese of New York Bishop Mark S. Sisk has said in a letter to the diocese. “The plan to build this center is, without doubt, an emotionally highly charged issue. But as a nation with tolerance and religious freedom at its very foundation, we must not let our emotions lead us into the error of persecuting or condemning an entire religion for the sins of its most misguided adherents.” Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, one of the leaders of Park 51 initiative, worked with Trinity Television at Trinity Church, Wall Street, after 9/11 to produce a video to promote dialogue and mutual understanding in the wake of the terrorist attacks.
Ugandan president tells African bishops: ‘There should be no room for intolerance’ — Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni said Aug. 25 that tolerance is a biblical imperative and that Christians should not “have one minute of time wasted” by those promoting prejudice, according to an article from the Anglican Communion News Service. Museveni was speaking to almost 400 bishops and other guests at the All Africa Bishops Conference in Entebbe when he used the biblical parable of the Good Samaritan to highlight the need to overcome difference and pursue peace and healing, the article said. He said that prejudice should not get in the way of peace and helping other human beings.
Pope to meet archbishop of Canterbury in ecumenical service at Westminster Abbey — When Pope Benedict XVI visits the United Kingdom in mid-September, his itinerary will include a meeting with Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and an ecumenical service at Westminster Abbey according to the official schedule published by the Vatican. The four-day visit will begin in Scotland on Sept. 16 when the pope will meet Queen Elizabeth II at Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh and celebrate Mass at Bellahouston Park in Glasgow. On Sept. 17, the pope will visit Williams at Lambeth Palace, the archbishop’s London residence and office, before attending a service of Evening Prayer at Westminster Abbey. Other engagements will include a Sept. 18 meeting with U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron and opposition leader Harriet Harman, and a prayer vigil in London’s Hyde Park.
Nerva Cot Aguilera, Latin America’s first woman bishop, dies at 71 — Retired Suffragan Bishop of the Episcopal Church of Cuba Nerva Cot Aguilera died suddenly on July 10 after a brief battle with severe anemia. She was 71. Cot became the first female Anglican bishop in Latin America when she was consecrated in Havana’s Holy Trinity Cathedral in June 2007. Her husband is dean of Holy Trinity Cathedral in Havana, and a son and daughter also are priests. Another daughter is a church administrator. Cot’s funeral was held July 11 at the cathedral.
Tribunal rejects Sydney move to allow deacons to preside at Eucharist — The Anglican Church of Australia’s Appellate Tribunal says it disagrees with the Diocese of Sydney’s decision that people other than priests may preside at Eucharist. Sydney’s diocesan synod in 2008 overwhelmingly agreed that lay people and deacons could be permitted to preside at Eucharist and consecrate the communion elements— a role that is normally limited to priests. Lay presidency is widely rejected throughout the Anglican Communion and is seen as a break from tradition and the church’s historic Ordinal. In the Episcopal Church, only priests and bishops can preside at the Eucharist. Y
Hutchinson rector elected bishop of Western Kansas By Pat McCaughan Episcopal News Service
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he Rev. Michael Milliken was elected Aug. 21 as the fifth bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Kansas, pending the required consents from a majority of bishops with jurisdiction and standing committees of the Episcopal Church. Milliken, 63, rector of Grace Episcopal Church in Hutchinson, since 1998, was elected on the second ballot from a field of three nominees during a special electing convention at St. Michael’s Church in Hays. On that ballot, he received 33 votes out of 62 cast in the lay order and 22 out of 27 in the clergy order. A simple majority of votes in each order was needed to elect.
Will be rect or oo rector or,, ttoo Pending a successful consent process, Milliken also will continue as Grace’s rector while serving as diocesan bishop, according to the Rev. Laird MacGregor, vicar of St. Anne’s Church in McPherson and a member of the diocesan Standing Committee. Though the exact details of that arrangement have yet to be worked out, such a division of time, duties and salary between the diocese and a local parish or mission has been seen as a likely outcome since the bishop search process began last spring, MacGregor explained. Following the election, Milliken said juggling the duties of bishop and rector would be a challenge. One of his first priorities as bishop is to build community among congregations of the geographically large diocese. “We don’t have a lot of people. We have to create a community atmosphere among these places, so everyone will know everyone else,” he said.
The Rev. Michael Milliken, bishop-elect of Western Kansas
Milliken would succeed the Rt. Rev. James M. Adams, the fourth bishop of the diocese, who resigned earlier this year to become vicar of Shepherd of the Hills Episcopal Church in Lecanto in the Diocese of Central Florida.
Kansas and K entuc ky Kentuc entucky During more than 35 years of ordained ministry Milliken has served in a variety of local church and community capacities. Well known in the Kansas diocese, his other commitments include serving as the vice chairman of New Beginnings, Inc., a community homeless ministry in Hutchinson. He also is the vice president of the board of directors for St. Francis Community Services, the largest private provider of children’s services in Kansas. His current diocesan responsibilities include serving as acting president of the diocesan council and chair of stewardship. His provincial involvements include serving as a member of the Province VII council and as chair of the Commission on Ministry network. A native of Lexington, Ky., he is a 1970 graduate of the University of Kentucky. He attended seminary at the Episcopal Theological Seminary in Kentucky and holds a Master of Art degree in
theology from Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he was a lecturer in theology from 19921993. From 1973-1977, Milliken served as vicar of St. Matthew’s Church in the Diocese of Lexington (Kentucky). In 1977, he became rector of Grace Church in Florence, Ky., where he served for 21 years before moving to Hutchinson. A lecturer in the Old and New Testaments at Hutchinson Community College, he also has served for many years as a director and chaplain for summer youth camps. He also has been a spiritual director for several Cursillo weekends, as well as retreat leader for several men’s and women’s groups. Milliken previously was a candidate for bishop, in 1994, when the Rt. Rev. Vernon Strickland was elected third bishop of Western Kansas. Milliken and his wife, Kathleen, have one son, who is a National Park Service Ranger in Alaska. The other nominees for bishop were the Rev. Robert Rodgers, 65, deployment officer in the Diocese of Eau Claire; and the Rev. Dennis Zimmerman, 58, rector of St. Cornelius Episcopal Church in Dodge City. The Diocese of Western Kansas encompasses the western twothirds of the state of Kansas and represents about 2,100 parishioners in 28 congregations. The diocese was a missionary district from 1901 until 1973, when it achieved full diocesan status. The consecration has been tentatively set for Saturday, Feb. 19, at Christ Cathedral in Salina, with Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori serving as chief consecrator and celebrant. The Rev. Pat McCaughan is a national correspondent for the Episcopal News Service. Y
Io wa priest is ffir ir st ffemale emale Guard cchaplain haplain Iow irst By Lydia Kelsey Episcopal News Service
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he Rev. Martha Kester, a chaplain and 1st lieutenant in the Iowa National Guard and rector at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Des Moines, Iowa, left Aug. 9 for a 12 month deployment to Afghanistan. She is the first female chaplain in the state of Iowa and the first to be deployed, Kester joined the National Guard in 2006 at age 38 and received her direct commission after graduating from seminary in Pennsylvania. After serving the required two years of parish ministry, Kester became a chaplain in January 2009. St. Luke’s Church called Kester as its rector on July 25, 2009. Kester served the church as assistant prior to the Rev. Robert Elfvin’s retirement and then as priest-in-residence. Kester will assume her duties as rector at St. Luke’s upon her return from her deployment in Afghanistan in the fall of 2011. “St. Luke’s has been amazingly supportive,” said
Kester. “It’s hard to find churches that will support a chaplain in the armed forces, because they know they’ll have to be without a priest if that person is deployed. A lot of chaplains actually lose their job when they’re deployed.” She said she is committed to serving all soldiers, and is especially glad to be available to other females in the military for support. Kester, who as a chaplain is a noncombatant in the military, will rely on her assistant, Specialist Seth Ohloff, who will help her set up chapel and run prayer groups. Ohloff also will provide security for Kester, who cannot carry a weapon. After leaving Des Moines, Kester’s battalion will head to Camp Shelby, near Hattiesburg, Miss., to prepare for mobilization to Afghanistan later this fall. Kester said she’ll know more of what her needs will be once she gets to Afghanistan, and at this point is asking only for prayers. Lydia Kelsey is the editor of Iowa Connections, the Diocese of Iowa’s newspaper. Y
July/August 2010 • The Harvest • 11
After Katrina, parishes report recovery amid scars By Mary Frances Schjonberg Episcopal News Service
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f you live on the Gulf Coast, says the Very Rev. James “Bo” Roberts, it’s not a question of whether a natural disaster will strike, but rather when the next one will come. Roberts knows what he’s taking about. He is the rector of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Gulfport, Miss., one of six churches along the Gulf Coast portion of the Diocese of Mississippi that Hurricane Katrina destroyed on Aug. 29, 2005. He began his ministry at St. Mark’s in April 1969, “right before [Hurricane] Camille came and tore it all up in August of that year, so I have rebuilt completely twice,” along with making lots of repairs after other storms in between. Nell Bolton, executive director of Episcopal Community Services of Louisiana, which grew out of the Diocese of Louisiana’s early post-storm disaster-relief efforts, recites the events of the last five years almost like a litany: “Katrina, Rita, Gustav, Ike, and the economic downturn and now the oil spill.”
Emo tional scar Emotional scarss remain Five years after hurricanes Katrina and Rita raked the gulf, followed two years ago by Gustav and Ike, the states that share its coast are poised and anxious as the worst oil spill in U.S. history threatens their natural resources and their people’s livelihoods. That worry will mute commemorations of the fifth anniversary of Katrina’s wrath. Roberts said, “It’s kind of hard to start commemorating [recovery from the hurricanes] when, not only are large numbers of places not recovered, but with people sitting here waiting for no telling what may happen if we should get a storm that is going to take all the oil that fortunately for right now is still sitting out in the gulf [and] all of a sudden washed it up on the gulf beaches.” Diocese of Louisiana Bishop Mark Thompson agrees. “There’s been very little conversation in [New Orleans] or among other people about remembering [Katrina],” he told ENS. And, as Thompson said, “there’s still anxiety when a storm approaches … A lot of scars of Katrina are emotional.” “You can see how it’s made them a little jittery and of course the oil spill hasn’t helped out either,” he said. On Aug. 29, the fifth anniversary of the storm, Episcopal Community Services of Louisiana sponsored work on wetlands restoration in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward. It was followed by a community health fair at Episcopal Church of All Souls and Community Center, which was started in the Lower Ninth Ward after it was decimated by post-Katrina flooding.
St. Mark’s in Gulfport, Miss., (above) today stands in stark contrast to its wind- and water-stripped foundation (left) following Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Photos by Eley Guild Hardy Architects and Matthew Davies
Patrick’s in Long Beach. “We made very intentional, philosophical decisions [that] it was not appropriate to lay on to these three churches the interest payment on these loans until the property sold,” Gray said in a telephone interview with ENS. The intent was to sell the gulffront land to help cover the cost of the inland purchases, the bishop explained, “assuming within five years we would have had some movement on that property and [then] the recession hits us and … development has basically come to a standstill.” The diocesan budget has been “paying a sizeable chunk of interest on those properties,” Gray said. “Eventually, they’re going to be very good investments, but just in the short term — and that short term maybe up to 10 years — we’ve got a cash flow problem.” Still, Gray said, there has been little protest from the rest of the diocese. “The broader diocese has increasingly understood what it means to be connected one to another,” Gray said. “That was theoretical for several years until we dealt with it in Katrina.”
Rebuilt, but scarred Katrina was one of the most devastating hurricanes in U.S. history, according to the National Hurricane Center, and was responsible for approximately 1,000 deaths in Louisiana and 200 in Mississippi. Producing an estimated $75 billion in damages, Katrina also was the costliest U.S. hurricane on record.
Tourist areas str onger stronger Mississippi Bishop Duncan Gray III said that in his state, redevelopment has followed patterns that were set before Katrina hit. “The communities are in various stages of recovery,” he said in a telephone interview, with those on the eastern part of the coast recovering more quickly than the western side. “It’s just the nature of the land. The eastern part, particularly Biloxi, is full of casinos and has that strong, strong tourist, casino, restaurant [base],” Gray said. “As you go west, you’re into more residential and more small businesses. Then you go further on down the beach down to Waveland [near the Louisiana border where] it was not much more than a line of houses along the beach.”
Thousands responded The swath of destruction wreaked first by Katrina and then Hurricane Rita on Sept. 23, 2005, galvanized Episcopalians to join the thousands of volunteers who traveled to the Gulf Coast to help residents recover and rebuild. Thousands of others donated money to the efforts. “That experience of solidarity and really understanding and living into our interconnectedness with one another is something that
All recovered physically, but there are scars of missing members. — Louisiana Bishop Mark Thompson, on churches in New Orleans damaged by Hurricane Katrina we share not just locally or even regionally, but by virtue of all of the hundreds of thousands of volunteers that have come down here, nationally,” said Bolton. “That’s been an incredible source of support and encouragement to us in Louisiana as we’ve recovered from all these disasters.”
2+ million hour en hourss giv given One focus of those efforts was Camp Coast Care, which later merged with two similar groups to become Mission on the Bay. The Rev. Elizabeth WheatleyJones, MOB’s director and chaplain, recently cited the statistics for the Diocese of Mississippi’s newspaper, calling them a “gracious glimpse” at the work done through the agency: 60,000 volunteers who donated 2,400,000 service hours valued at $45 million, 3,500 homes mucked out and/or gutted, 550 homes rehabbed or built anew, 2,200 individuals or families whose needs were managed, 1,250,000 meals served, and $15 million cash injected into Gulf Coast economies. “That is a creative response and a job well done: participation in the ways of God, the transformation of lives, one family and one home at a time, day in and day out for five years,” she told the Mississippi Episcopalian. By the time the Aug. 29 anniversary arrived, Mission on the
Bay, a stalwart of the post-Katrina recovery effort that began in part at Lutheran Episcopal Services of Mississippi’s Camp Coast Care, had shut down, succumbing to the reality that the economic downturn and other disasters, including the oil spill, have diverted money elsewhere. Roberts said he wanted “everyone to know of the gratitude we have for the outreach that was made after that storm.” “You know, it’s not just the dollars,” he added. “You get a check in a mail — it might be 10 bucks, it might be $10,000, but it’s also the support you have from that and the encouragement.”
Chur Churcches rebuilding There are other examples of post-Katrina progress, among many. Five of the six Mississippi Episcopal Church buildings Katrina destroyed have been rebuilt (including St. Mark’s). Three congregations have completely rebuilt their churches and associated buildings, and three have rebuilt their worship space with future plans for expansion. The sixth, Church of the Redeemer in Biloxi, will probably be dedicated before the end of the year, according to Gray. In doing so, the diocese took a risk with the three churches whose members decided to relocate inland off the gulf: St. Mark’s, Church of the Redeemer and St.
In the Louisiana diocese, Thompson said, the handful of New Orleans churches that incurred major damage have “all recovered physically but there are scars of missing members.” Behind Christ Church Cathedral in New Orleans, Jericho Road Episcopal Housing Initiative has transformed itself from a gutting and repairing operation aimed at bringing affordable housing to the Uptown area of the city into an organization that wants to create community partnerships to rehabilitate neighborhoods, empower families and facilitate home ownership. Recently, Episcopal Community Services of Louisiana raised more than $90,000 in a matter of weeks to complete work on homes it is building, is beginning a service and leadership- and spiritualdevelopment program for young adults, and is partnering with Bayou Grace Community Services. Less than two months after Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, then-Diocese of Louisiana Bishop Charles Jenkins predicted such efforts. Jenkins, who since has retired, said in a homily during a service shortly after the storm, that the “old normal of being the Episcopal Church with our doors locked, being a church that existed for we who were in it, will be no more. That washed away with your refrigerator. Our new normal is a church engaged, a church that is a servant church and a church that lives not for itself alone but for all for whom Christ died.” The Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg is a national correspondent of Episcopal News Service and editor of Episcopal News Monthly. Y
12 • The Harvest • July/August 2010
Reflections on faith and life
Sharing the Good News
Diocesan Calendar September 2010
October 2010
The Episcopal Chur elcomes yyou ou Churcch w welcomes
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Diocesan office closed for Labor Day
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Bishop Wolfe at Trinity, El Dorado
By Michael Munro
community that allows these disputes to continue. For Episcopalians, staying together carries a higher value than being “right.”
10 Kansas School for Ministry classes, Bethany Place Conference Center, Topeka (through Sept. 11)
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Kansas School for Ministry classes, Bethany Place Conference Center, Topeka (through Oct. 9)
Discipline of regularity
11 Southeast Convocation board meeting, 10 a.m., St. John’s, Parsons
10 Bishop Wolfe at Good Shepherd, Wichita
“B
ob was raised an Episcopalian, I a Presbyterian. From the way he talked about it, his God was decidedly more genial than mine. Mine was a distant, faceless entity you had to somehow find on your own. Bob’s was there ready to cheer you up…. Bob didn’t seem to have to look anywhere at all. His God was always checking in with you. So you can just wait. And God‘s there.” (James Carse, Breakfast at the Victory, Harper San Francisco, c. 1994, p.129) As we shake off the dust of summer and resume the activities of fall, building toward Advent, let’s take a look at the Episcopal Church and remind ourselves of our place in society, Christianity and history.
We are Christians First and foremost, we are Christians. Explicit and implicit in our corporate beliefs and actions is the certainty that we practice a valid expression of the Way of Jesus Christ. Our members are baptized with water and in the name of the triune God. We accept as valid all Christian baptism when people from other denominations join us. Our worship expresses a sacramentality that is grounded in the earliest traditions of Christianity. The core of our Eucharistic prayer is found in the gospels. Our creeds trace their lineage to church councils of the 4th and 5th centuries. Our Christian identity is grounded thus in both scripture and history.
Latitude of belief Since the time of the Reformation it has been characteristic of Anglicans to practice a wide latitude in the enforcement of belief. The aim, then and now, has been to provide a Christian framework within which folks of differing viewpoints might share worship and fellowship. Sometimes this works well, and other times it leads to dissension. It worked poorly enough in the early 17th century that the Puritans chose to journey to the New World rather than remain Anglicans. Again, during the Civil War the battle between North and South was mirrored in discord among the congregations of the Episcopal Church. Presently we harbor tension within the Episcopal Church and between the Church and the Anglican Communion over matters of scripture, tradition and reason. It is our generous notion of
We are not without discipline in the face of all this latitude. Our daily and weekly scripture readings come to us for common use through the year. We follow a calendar of the church year that year-by-year reminds us both of Jesus’s story and our own call to mission. We have well-defined orders of ministry. Clergy are raised up and placed in congregations according to prayer, discernment, skill and experience. Congregations exist with a framework of cooperation, responsibility and support. Our way of faith, our worship, study, prayer and fellowship, leads dependably to a richer and deeper experience of the holy. All this serves to give us a sense of God nearby, mediated by a church with many practices that welcome God in our midst. Perhaps it is that the work of seeking God comes to us in such manageable portions that allows us to know that God is near: in the sacrament, in the fellowship, in the word. In the Episcopal version of Christianity we have both the latitude to explore and the discipline not to get lost. The Episcopal Church Welcomes You. The Very Rev. Michael Munro is rector of St. Paul’s, Leavenworth, and dean of the Northwest Convocation. This reflection first appeared in the St. Paul’s newsletter. Y
Southwest Convocation board meeting, 2 p.m., Trinity, El Dorado 12 Bishop Wolfe at St. Stephen’s, Wichita 14 Bishop Wolfe at House of Bishops Meeting, Phoenix (through Sept. 23)
17 Bishop Wolfe at St. Paul’s, Leavenworth 21 Campus Ministry preconvention fundraiser, Capitol Plaza Hotel 22 Diocesan Convention, Capitol Plaza Hotel and Kansas Expocentre, Topeka (through Oct. 23)
25 Northeast Convocation board meeting, 9 a.m., Trinity, Lawrence Northwest Convocation board meeting, 1 p.m., St. David’s, Topeka 26 Bishop Wolfe at St. Francis, Stilwell 28 Council of Trustees meeting, Grace Cathedral, Topeka
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We’re also Anglicans
Episcopalians in the United States are (still) part of a larger worldwide community called the Anglican Communion, after the Church of England. Our self-identification as Episcopalians (our manner of church order) stems from the days of the American Revolution, when it was both unpopular and unpatriotic to refer to ourselves as anything English. In Canada, look for the Anglican Church. In Scotland, we are the Episcopal Church of Scotland (the Church of Scotland is Presbyterian). In Japan we are the Nippon Sei Ko Kai (the Holy Catholic Church of Japan).
The mission of the Episcopal Diocese of Kansas is to gather, equip and send disciples of Jesus Christ to witness to God’s reconciling love.