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The Record July 2018

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The Record July 2018 Trinity Church Record July 2018 Volume 7, Issue 7 General Convention July 2018 I will be attending the General Convention of our Church for the first half of July. I thought you might enjoy knowing a bit about it. Here’s information I gleaned from several differ- ent sources to give you some idea of what will happen: The General Convention is the governing body of The Episcopal Church. It is a bicameral legislature that includes the House of Deputies, with more than 800 members (up to four clergy and four lay persons from each diocese), and the House of Bishops, with over 300 active and resigned bishops. General Convention gathers every three years. The 2018 meeting will convene in Austin, Texas for a nine- day legislative session (July 5 -July 13, 2018), and will be the 79th General Convention of the Church. (Most of us will be going early to get ourselves ready. Convention days often go from 6:30am until after dinner at night—as long as 10:00pm. Sometimes delegates and bishops can work even later on specific legislation and/or resolution to an issue of great importance. ~ WRC add) The work of General Convention includes adopting legislation of concern to the Church; amending the Book of Common Prayer, the Constitution, and the Canons of the Church; adopting a triennial budget for The Episcopal Church; and electing candidates to offices, boards and other committees. This work is undertaken in support of the mission and ministry of the Church, and with prayerful gratitude and spiritual discern- ment. (from the Episcopal Church website) While bishops, clergy, and laity in various combinations and configurations participate in church governance around the Anglican Communion, the governance of The Episcopal Church — and particularly the General Convention — is unique in origin. The first General Convention, held in Philadelphia in 1785, was a response to that moment in history. When the 13 American colonies became independent from England, the now former Church of England in those colonies was confronted with a singular challenge of identity: how to be an independent church distinct from the governmentally established church of its roots, and yet carry forward a spiritual heritage that became distinctively known as “Anglican.” As the only model for governance in church or state at the time tended to be monarchical, the infant Episcopal Church turned to the civic order of the new nation to model its gov- ernance. In fact, one-third or more of the men writing the U.S. Constitution helped create the Constitution of The Episcopal Church. That constitution provides for a bi-cameral legis- lature that meets every three years. Each house has a presiding officer: the Presiding Bishop in the House of Bishops, the Presi- dent in the House of Deputies. Both are elected positions, and both officers serve primari- ly to preside over the business of their respective house. The Presiding Bishop later was invested with additional responsibilities, including heading the missionary arm of the church and acting as “Primate” or lead bishop to represent The Episcopal Church in the world-wide Anglican Communion. Today, the presiding bishop, Michael B. Curry, and the president of the House of Deputies, currently The Rev. Gay Clark Jennings, coordinate the leadership of General Convention through their offices. 1 Legislation (resolutions) can come from CCABs (commissions, committees, agencies and boards) within the church, bishops, deputies, or dioceses. (from the Diocese of CA website) The Convention is a delightful mix of family and/or class reunion; end of legislative session; and state fair. People scurry to draft legislation, often with hugs going all around, and food in the other hand. Meanwhile, there are books to behold, Anglicans from around the world to learn from and pray with, and advocates with whom to align. Each year the Convention tackles specific issues. Some are driven from without the Church (this year it’s likely to include responses to immigration), and some are from within the Church (training for, ac- tion around, and worship focused on evangelism and revival; pay for the president of the House of Deputies; and care of creation). And some are central to the life of the Church. This year, the issue of Prayer Book revision, and “open communion” will be hot topics. The status of the Prayer Book is always on our minds, and there have been additional liturgies affirmed over the last 20+ years. (We were using some of the first ones when I was in seminary in the early 1990s—including ones we have been using in our worship here at St. Matthew’s and Trinity.) The question about nine years ago was whether we would ever have a ‘bound’ version of the BCP again, or simply retain a register of electronic resources and pull from that seasonally or for occasions. Yet, the urge to have a “book” is strong. Then we must consider what will be in and what will be out (like a Book of Occasional Services or alternate materials that will always stand outside the official liturgies and resources.) Among the most contentious issues there are the question of “open communion”— intentionally inviting non-baptized to the table; and the issue of inclusion of same-sex marriage rites. The same-sex marriage rites are in wide practice across the Episcopal Church, except in eight dioceses, including the Diocese of Albany immediately to our east. So, this issue seems to be a divide on con- servative-liberal lines. The issue of “open communion” however, seems to be a divide across the whole church. Few if any take the position that if anyone will refuse someone communion if they present themselves “at the rail”. The larger question is whether we should be intentionally and consistently inviting people to communion who we know are not baptized and perhaps have no intention of becoming baptized. As always, there have been numerous position papers written from many perspectives and I can share them with you at your request. A big part of the focus of Presiding Bishop Michael Curry’s tenure will be evangelism. He is clear about our need to tell others about the Episcopal ethos, and our “branch of the Jesus Movement.” Thus, the main worship of the convention will be a revival service on Saturday night of convention, and there will be adjacent times when people can be ‘trained’ in how to be a better evangelist. Sitting alongside all this joy and fanfare is the Episcopal Church response to the me2 movement. Ac- cording to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, one in five women and one in 71 men will be raped at some point in their lives. (https://www.nsvrc.org/statistics.) Combine this with the high rate of sexual violence, and you have a tremendous number of people affected both in the leadership and in the pews of our churches. Our Bishop DeDe is leading a service of reconciliation on July 4th as part of the Convention activities. I ask that you keep her and us all in your prayers. As always, it is an exciting time to be an Episcopalian. I could recount much more, but I invite you to go to the Episcopal Church’s General Convention website, Episcopal Café, and Episcopal News Service websites for the latest news. I’ll see you back on July 15th. Blessings on your holiday and summer Wanda+ 2 Vestry Report-July 2018 The Vestry of Trinity Church met on June 2nd to discuss concerns over our potential merger with St. Matthew’s Church. Having come from a meeting at the end of May with Canon Carrie Schofield-Broadbent, who left us with the words that “the Holy Spirit will work through us and guide us as we go forward in our merging process,” many of us began to take a closer look at the merger and how that might look for the future presence of Trinity Church in Downtown Elmira. Many of us were struck by the stark reality of closing the doors of Trinity Church and the effect this might have on the City of Elmira as well as the people we serve in a downtown community with great needs. We also reflected on the impact on our endowment should we choose to merge or dissolve our parish. If we merged, we would have two campuses to care for, and both parishes would be allowed to keep their financial assets. If we dissolved, our joint parishes would have only one campus to care for, but the parish that dissolved would lose all of their financial assets along with the buildings. Because it was too difficult to imagine a Downtown Elmira with- out Trinity Church, the Vestry concluded that this was not a risk we were ready to take. We felt the Holy Spirit was indeed guiding us as we reflected on the future of our presence in the city and those we currently serve, and all people in need that we hope to serve in the future. It was in that reflection that we felt we needed to put a halt to the merger process. The next half of the con- versation focused on how rejuvenated we were feeling and how we hoped to go forward main- taining the momentum and renewed commitment we were all experiencing. We will be looking at multiple ways to reach out to the city as we go forward and are hoping to strengthen and re- new our parish family as well. Because this meeting took place one week before the Bishop’s visit and the start of our planned joint worship at St.
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