Of Bishops, DUCs and a table . . .

Last weekend, a group of eleven postulants for the diaconate gathered together to officially begin their formation program. The story of this wonderful weekend and how it came to be is rather interesting, and it seems to me, a wonderful testament to what God is up to in New England. So now to explain the title of this post . . .

Bishops 
None of this program or the weekend would have happened with out the incredible support and leadership of our bishops. We are blessed in Province 1 to have bishops who gather regularly and are committed to thinking about how we can do things more collaboratively. We are fortunate to be such a geographically small Province that we can actually gather together in person! As you can see above, we were blessed to have a bishop from each of the dioceses engaged in this collaborative formation effort with us last weekend! On Saturday morning, we had a wonderful presentation and conversation with the bishops on the vision of the diaconate in each diocese and some dreams for the future. Bishop Ahrens was able to stay with us for additional time and conversation over the weeked, as well as leading an engaging discussion of Parker Palmer's Let Your Life Speak and celebrating Eucharist on Sunday. 

Four of the seven dioceses in Province 1 are participating in this program. At present the other three are offering their own local formation programs. The weekend was led by the Archdeacon from Rhode Island, the director of Diaconal Formation from Western Mass and me (Dean of Formation in CT). At present CT, NH and WMA all have postulants in the process. Rhode Island hopes to have more postulants next year. We are particularly grateful to the diocese of Rhode Island for its ongoing support of the program (more on that when we get to the table). 

DUCs 
One of our postulants here in Connecticut once referred to himself as a "Deacon Under Construction," hence the term "DUC," and it seems to have caught on. I must say, this group of DUCs is quite an inspiring bunch! They are enthusiastic, committed, wise and tremendously gifted. I was particularly reminded this weekend, as we were 4 bishops, 2 priests, 2 deacons and 11 deacon postulants, what a joy it is to be gathered as a diverse group of ordained leaders. Each order is so distinct, and we are each so enriched by being in conversation with each other! I have been blessed, from my sponsoring parish in Maine to my various calls as a priest, to serve frequently with deacons. I am so grateful for their particular gifts and perspective, for the questions they ask all of us as followers of Jesus and for the myriad of ways they help and inspire the Church (and me!) out of our comfort zones. 

So the very exciting thing is that together we have 11 deacons under construction. I hope in future years this number will be much higher! It will be a wonderful day when all our worshiping communities are blessed by the particular ministry of a deacon!

A Table 
So this collaborative effort started with a conversation among our bishops and those involved in the formation of clergy in Province 1. It has come to fruition through commitment and hard work of many individuals. AND it is possible because of a particular resource of the Diocese of Rhode Island. 

A few years ago, folks were cleaning out some things from the Cathedral in Providence. They found an old table that was not needed, and so they were going to just toss it. Thankfully, someone spoke up and said it might be worth getting it appraised first, just in case. So they did. Phew! Turns out that table was worth some money. Actually, a lot of money. Thousands and thousands of dollars! That money was put into a fund that throws of income every year. That income is helping to underwrite this collaborative effort of deacon formation. It is enabling us to be responsive to the Holy Spirit and to try on a new way of doing formation - together! 

It seems particularly fitting that the funds to help underwrite this effort are from the sale of a table. A table is helping to fund the formation of deacons, those who serve at the Table and who call us from the Table to go out and be God's people in the world. 

So thanks to our bishops, DUCs and a table, we had a remarkable weekend of getting to know each other, sharing our stories, imagining the future and continuing to be formed into who God is calling us to be. Thanks be to God!


 

Poverty and Hunger

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Poverty and Hunger in CT and Beyond

This spring the Deacon's Council did a book study of Hand to Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America. This is book is a remarkable window into the issues of domestic poverty and hunger in America. The conversation at the Council meeting resulted in some excellent work by our deacon postulants about how we as the Episcopal Church in CT can more faithfully live into God's Mission and do something to address the issue of poverty on a local level. At our 2014 Annual Convention a resolution was passed to promote the practice of paying a living wage in our parishes. The deacon postulants have done some excellent work developing resources to help our parishes do just that. 

Their paper and other resources around Domestic Poverty can be found on the ECCT website: https://www.episcopalct.org/resources/Concerns/Domestic-Poverty/

If you are interested in learning more about what you can do to help address issues of hunger and poverty here in CT, there are also some great resources through Feeding America.
 
http://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-America/our-research/map-the-meal-gap/2013/CT_AllCounties_CDs_MMG_2013.pdf
 
This is a link to a report on Hunger in Connecticut based on data from the Connecticut Food Bank.
 
http://help.feedingamerica.org/HungerInAmerica/FB56_CT_EastHaven_report.pdf?s_src=W149REFER&s_referrer=donated_media&s_subsrc=http%3A%2F%2Fhelp.feedingamerica.org%2Fsite%2FPageServer%2F%3Fpagename%3DHIA_hunger_in_america&_ga=1.263919375.2091024846.1437347282 

South Carolina - Resources on Challenging Violence and Racism

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As with many of you, my heart is breaking this morning at the news out of Charleston. Nine people dead in what seems to be a racially motivated killing in a church. How do we feel safe if our houses of worship are under attack?

In the midst of this, I am grateful for the variety of resources we have at our fingertips to find comfort and to do the important, holy work of Challenging Violence and Racism in our country. 

Here are links to some of those resources:

Inspiring words from our bishops this morning, posted here.

Resource pages on the ECCT website: 

https://www.episcopalct.org/Beliefs-and-Practices/Challenging-Violence/

https://www.episcopalct.org/Find-Resources/Concerns/Racism/

http://bishopsagainstgunviolence.org/

Episcopal Peace Fellowship

May we be inspired to join with our brothers and sisters in faith to carry the light of Christ out into the world and to live into our calling to challenge violence and transform unjust structures in our society.

For this week, I refer you to my post on our newly created General Convention Blog for ECCT: http://gc78ecct.blogspot.com/

Please subscribe to follow along on thoughts from the CT Deputation during the 78th General Convention!

Looking Ahead to General Convention

As we approach our 78th General Convention in a few weeks time, I wanted to be sure that you have some resources with which to prepare and follow the action!

Our Canon for Communications and Media, Karin Hamilton, does a fabulous job of keeping the folks in CT informed about the happenings at General Convention. Be sure to sign up for the ECCT General Convention E-News: https://www.episcopalct.org/News-and-Events/Electronic-Newsletters/

Karin also maintains a great page of resources on the ECCT website: https://www.episcopalct.org/GeneralConvention2015/

Some other sites that may be useful:

The central clearing house of all things GC:
http://www.generalconvention.org/

Hashtag to follow on Twitter: #GC78

Episcopal News Service: http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/

Updates from Episcopal Church Public Affairs: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/blog/PublicAffairs 

Some Sites and Blogs to watch: 

Memorial to the Church mentioned in recent E-News:
http://www.episcopalresurrection.org/memorial/

Scott Gunn (Forward Movement) blogs the Blue Book:
http://www.sevenwholedays.org/category/general-convention/

Tom Furgeson on the Memorial:
http://crustyoldean.blogspot.com/

Keith Voets (member of COM) on Marriage:
http://theyoungcurmudgeonpriest.blogspot.com/

On Marriage:
http://fullyalive.squarespace.com/

Blog from Deputy Don Reed:
http://opensourcetheology.blogspot.com/
 

Citizen Science, Citizen Church?

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I spend a lot of time in my time in my car. A number of years ago, Reade and I discovered that we could have satellite radio in our cars for the same amount of money we were paying for three days of the newspaper. Since we spend so much time in the car we made the switch, and we haven't missed the paper. One of the reasons I love satellite radio is how much I learn while driving in my car! 

Last week I heard a program on the Diane Rehm show on Citizen Science. I only caught part of the show. They talked about how smart phone technology and computers were enabling the average person to participate in some of the greatest scientific efforts of our time. I knew there were programs use spare computing power to search for Extra-Terrestrial Life (SETI@home) or to fold proteins for cancer research (folding@home). The interviews that day made me realize how much bigger citizen science could be than just something your computer does in its spare time. This program talked about how children in classrooms and the average person with a smartphone were helping NASA and NOAA or helping biologists track bird migration or any other numbers of scientific projects. 

One of the people interviewed on the program talked about how inspiring and empowering it was for people to be participating in a program that was so much bigger than themselves. How they could spend there few minutes with a smartphone and know that they were making a difference and connecting with others who also cared about the world in which we live. 

And this program got me thinking. What would "Citizen Church" look like? How might we use social media and technology to accomplish something together that we could never do on our own? In many ways this is what we already do as Church - we focus in our little community to do our work of building up God's Kingdom, hoping and trusting that others are doing the same and that each of us is making a difference. But I think too often we are so focused in our own lives and communities that we can forget that we are part of something larger. We belong to the Body of Christ. We are one part of a much larger whole. How might we deepen our awareness and connectedness to God and to each other? How do we shift our mindset to see ourselves in partnership with sisters and brothers across town and around the world? How can we live into the reality that "the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine" (Ephesians 3:20)?

I don't know what the answers might be yet. I just think it is an idea worth considering and a conversation worth starting.

Sermon on TREC-CT

Rev. Molly F. James, PhD

Retired Clergy Gathering

April 16, 2015, Feast Day of Molly Brant

Psalm 111:2–10; Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) 15:1–7,15–19; Colossians 3:12–17; Matthew 19:28–30

May God’s Word be spoken. May God’s Word be heard. May that point us to the Living Word who is Jesus Christ our Lord.

It is 8am on a Wednesday morning. I sit at a table at Effie’s Place in West Hartford, sipping coffee and chatting with friends. We have just come from celebrating the 7:15 Eucharist at Grace Church in Hartford. I was the celebrant on this morning, and am on my way to work, and so I am wearing my clerical collar. There are six others at the table. All men, and most of them have children who are older than I am. Clearly we seem to make an interesting group, because about half way through breakfast an older lady comes up and asks me, “What is this?” I explain that we are sharing breakfast after Church. I come later to learn that a significant portion of the clientele at Effie’s are Roman Catholic, and so I begin to realize why a young, female cleric with a bunch of older men would be such a surprising sight!

In some ways I can understand her surprise. All of the others at the table grew up in a Church that used the 1928 Prayer Book and where only men were priests. Three of the men at the table are retired priests and were all ordained before 1976. In my case, women have been priests longer than I have been alive, and I have only ever known the “new” Prayer Book as our Book of Common Prayer. On the surface it could seem that we have little in common. And yet I cherish these Wednesday morning breakfasts. There is much laughter at that table. The conversations range from the mundane to the sublime. There is talk of church, of politics, of history, of the things of daily life. And I think these Wednesday morning breakfasts have something to offer our gathering and conversation here today.

Today is the feast day of Molly Brant. If you were following Lent Madness then this name will be familiar to you. Molly was a Mohawk woman in pre-Revolutionary America who grew up Anglican and was a remarkable bridge between the Mohawk and British communities. She was a leader in her communities at a time of great political and societal upheaval. As scholars have noted, “Although Molly received an education from Christian missionaries and was a devout Anglican, she retained a respectful devotion to many Mohawk customs, which allowed her to serve as a consensus-builder between two nations.”

This is not unlike where we find ourselves today as the Episcopal Church in CT. We are faced with the challenge of moving forward into a new world, a new century, a new way of being without losing our heritage or our identity. I think the Holy Spirit was up to something that this gathering is held on the feast day of Molly Brant. It has been noted that Molly Brant was “a woman who lived beyond the cultural, political, and religious limitations of her era. She faithfully integrated her Anglican faith with her Mohawk heritage without confusing the two.” She can be a model for us as one who knew how to hold on to one’s heritage, to bring together the best of two seemingly disparate sides to create a more promising future. Re-imagining the Episcopal Church in CT is about thinking outside the box. It is about re-shaping ourselves to best fit the needs of the 21st century, while simultaneously preserving the best of our heritage and traditions.

I am actually very excited about the opportunity that lies before us. One of the things I love about serving as the Dean of Formation is that I have the opportunity to work with folks in discernment, in the ordination process and those who are newly ordained. No matter their chronological age, these folks are full of hope and new ideas. They are passionate about their love for Jesus, for our Church and for God’s people. They are chomping at the bit to get started and to make a difference. They also see things differently. Few of them are anticipating careers in full-time parish ministry. They imagine ministries in prisons, in schools, in hospitals, in coffee shops and art studios. They imagine ministries that take them out into the world to meet people. Their passion is contagious. Their excitement and new ideas have shown me that we need a church structure, locally and across the Episcopal Church that can better serve the leaders of the future.  

How radically different the future structure might be from the current or the past remains to be seen. One of the things I love about my Wednesday morning breakfasts is that they are a mix of the old and the new Church. As I have noted, the collective experience of most of those at the table spans a good portion of the mid and late 20th century Episcopal Church. I, on the other hand, was born at the end of the 20th century. I have only been ordained for 10 years. God willing, I have many more decades of ordained ministry ahead of me. From my friends at the breakfast table, I have gained a greater knowledge of and appreciation for the richness of our Anglican heritage. And I have received a deep appreciation of my ministry, as well as the efforts to imagine and create a more nimble Episcopal Church that is even more deeply engaged in God’s mission in the world.

Our readings remind us of our unity and that there is much to be learned from each other. I hope our time together today, and going forward can be one of rich engagement and sharing. You all bring great wisdom and experience, as well as a lived appreciation for the depths and riches of the Anglican tradition. As together we imagine the future, I hope your collective wisdom can be the foundation on which we build a new structure for our common life as faithful Episcopalians in Connecticut.

AMEN.