Connections PAGE 2 News • Ideas • Events Historic Actions, Structural Changes August-September 2015 Issue 4 Vol
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Bishop: Make room for new friendships Connections PAGE 2 news • ideas • events Historic actions, structural changes August-September 2015 Issue 4 Vol. 2 PAGE 21 Forgiveness: New plans for Living the Safe Church 141ST DIOCESAN training greatest CONVENTION teachings PAGE 18 PAGE 12-13 of Jesus PAGE 4 From Irish pub to sacred worship space PAGE 14 Art contest connects diocese with clean water initiative Congregations connected Homeless Jesus calls us PAGE 10 PAGE 15 to love PAGE 15 Mass INSIDE September Relationships .........................................................Pages 2-8 incarceration is Disaster Congregations .....................................................Pages10-11, 14 and the Mission ....................................................................Pages 15-17 Preparedness Formation ..............................................................Pages 18-20 Constitution Month Resources.................................................................Pages 23-24 PAGE 24 PAGE 5 Find this and more online at www.dsoConnections.org THE DIOCESE OF SOUTHERN OHIO www.EpiscopaliansInConnection.org 2 RELATIONSHIPS Be relational in Christ: Make room for new friendships Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, – although that is an important spiritual practice. It’s about getting to know the neighborhood we are in, and introducing ourselves to it. We do this not in order I write, first and foremost, to thank you for your prayers to get more people into the pews, but simply to become good neighbors, and to and support as Margaret and I moved through the long pro- learn how, as followers of Jesus, we can serve the world that is adjacent to us. cess for the election of a Presiding Bishop. It was a privilege All talk of our survival as a church is moot unless we are focusing first of all on to be a finalist, and I learned and grew much along the way. I serving our neighbors, whoever they may be: households, neighborhood associa- hope that my involvement in the search amped up our inter- tions, schools, businesses, agencies, other churches and communities of faith. est as a diocese in the life and mission of the larger church. Few non-Episcopalians are interested in the local Episcopal Church as a group THE RT. REV. Please keep Michael Curry, our Presiding Bishop-elect, in to be joined, but many will come to know and value us if they see us as propo- THOMAS E. BREIDENTHAL your prayers. He is one of our own, having served as rector of nents and examples of connection. The Gospel starts there. St. Simon of Cyrene in Lincoln Heights (Cincinnati), and as At our diocesan convention last November I invited all of us to identify the chaplain to Bethany School, the K-8 school operated by the Community of the ministry partnerships our congregations were involved in. I could have put it Transfiguration (our local nuns). this way: How are we being relational? How are we connecting with our real I emerge from this adventure with gratitude for this diocese and for the neighbors? Even to ask who our neighbors are can be exciting and revitalizing. ministry we share together. There is much work to be done, as we continue Let’s keep working on this. If we identify the neighbors we’re working with seeking and learning how to be the Episcopal Church in a rapidly changing already, we will all be able to celebrate the relational work we are already religious and cultural environment. Our main work right now is relational. As doing and help each other build on that. we all know, there is very little social status or reward these days for being That’s what gives me new energy as we move forward together. a person of faith, let alone an Episcopalian. The one thing we have to offer Just before General Convention I convened my executive staff, together with (at our best) is a profound our Fresh Expressions mis- commitment to common sioners, to help me think life in Christ. That is why about next steps. We ended we adhere to a Book of up brainstorming a map of Common Prayer, and dis- all the relational, connective cipline ourselves to the ministries we were immedi- constant challenge of dioc- ately aware of in Southern esan connectedness. This Ohio. The map covered a commitment arises from huge expanse of butcher our tradition’s assurance paper, residing now on a that the church truly is the wall of David Dreisbach’s Body of Christ, and that the office – you are welcome Christian journey is ground- to come to Diocesan House ed in our participation in and see it. Since then Karl that body. Stevens, our missioner for How do we live that campus ministry, has creat- assurance out? First and ed a digital representation of foremost we do so by being that map, which is displayed relational. This means here. I have no doubt that in more than rejoicing in the generating this overview we relationships we share in left out many partnerships. our various congregations, Please let David Dreisbach precious as they are. Being ([email protected]) relational in Christ means know what’s missing. Let’s breaking our established see what the Holy Spirit is friendships and histories already doing in our midst, open so that there is room as we live into our vocation for new friendships and new as the Episcopal Church in stories. This is not just about Southern Ohio. paying attention to new- comers at the coffee hour RELATIONSHIPS 3 What keeps us from CONNECTIONS The official publication of the Diocese of Southern Ohio www.diosohio.org heaven? To be honest, I owe most of my is stop controlling him and give him over to God’s love The Rt. Rev. Thomas E. Breidenthal, theological development to two writ- and then she can leave Hell. She is unwilling to do so. In Bishop ers, Madelyn L’Engle and C.S. Lewis. fact, almost everyone chooses to go back to Hell rather If you are within a certain age range, than give up what they are holding on to. David Dreisbach, then L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time and One of the things about Lewis’s theology is that the Director of Communications Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia laid the things people are holding on to aren’t necessarily bad foundation for everything that grow- things. Often, they are good things that people push to Julie Murray, Editor ing up Christian in a Post-Modern such extremes that they become our idols. Lewis doesn’t Amy Svihlik, Designer DAVID Scientific age meant. talk about drugs, adultery, murder or any of the other DREISBACH However, despite my love of these typical offenses that come to mind when we think about Dave Caudill, Copy editor books, it is another book by C.S. sin. It isn’t the heinous things that usually cause us to Lewis that I keep coming back to, stumble but those that are actually good when kept in Connections (USPS 020933) The Great Divorce. I have probably read it once a year proper balance. In The Great Divorce, the people who is published bi-monthly by the for the last several decades. In spite of its title, it has choose to stay in Hell are a preacher who can’t let go Diocese of Southern Ohio, nothing to do with marriage. It is an allegory/fairy tale/ of his intellect; a mother who can’t let go of controlling 412 Sycamore St., Cincinnati, OH fantasy about the need for a clean divorce between good her son with her “love”; a woman who can’t let go of her 45202-4179. and evil. looks; and a man who can’t let go of his sense of justice. Periodical postage paid at It is a brilliant meditation on good and evil; judgment Intellect, mother’s love, beauty and justice are all good and grace; and sin and redemption. The Amazon review things unless we make them into our idols. Cincinnati, OH. of The Great Divorce says, “Lewis’s revolutionary idea is I wonder: what is it that we as a church are unwilling This publication is sent to the discovery that the gates of hell are locked from the to let go of? What are we too tightly holding on to? Is a all members of Episcopal inside.” beautifully laid altar more important than an authentic congregations in the Whether you take Lewis’s use of the word “hell” liter- worship experience? Are perfectly trained vocal scholars Diocese of Southern Ohio ally or figuratively, his point in The Great Divorce is in our choir more important than faithful members who and is funded by mission share that we are all in a hell of our own accord and we’ve per- desperately long to sing out? Are our relationships with payments to the diocesan sonally locked the gates from the inside. friends during coffee hour more important than getting operating budget. Other subscriptions In the book, a busload of people is taken from the to know the visitor standing alone in the back? Is our are $10 annually. Gray City (Hell) to an area that is neither heaven nor sense of decorum more important than telling our story? hell (Lewis is clear that he isn’t giving a theological Is not being mistaken for an evangelic more important Submissions: Connections opinion about purgatory in this non-heaven, non-hell than preaching the Gospel? encourages the submission of space. It is a literary device created in order to have a In these trying times in the Church, it is easy to articles and pictures. We reserve the conversation about sin and redemption.) blame our problems on the multitude of forces at work right to edit material offered for The people from the Gray City (Hell) wait in this outside of the Church.