WNC Bishop's Blog General Convention 2009

2009-07-17T07:37:00.000-07:00

7/17/09
+Porter Taylor

And then there were none.

Today we finish at 6:00 pm whether we are finished or not. The last day is always a blur for the House of Deputies as they move through their legislation at a sprint. The House of Bishops has been ahead of them, and so we will have to switch gears from our leisurely pace to something much faster.

This is my third General Convention, and I can say I enjoyed it most. At least in the House of Bishops, there was much more concern for one another and for the wideness of The Episcopal Church. There were fewer maneuvers to subvert a full dialog on the hard questions. Most of all, there was an effort to tell the truth about our finances as a Church and our wide diversity as a Church. We did all we could to avoid “winners and losers.”

I think we are becoming more Anglican, which may sound ironic to some people given what others say about our future in the Anglican Communion. We are coming to hold on to a common core of essentials and allow a latitude in local expression. This is going back to our roots. When the Church of England was formed, everyone had to use the Book of Common Prayer, but they could vary the way they worshipped with it. Some had candles; some didn’t.

One more thought. It is very clear that the economic downturn has pushed us to remodel the way we operate. We will have fewer people working at The Church Center in New York, but we will have a greater emphasis on mission on the ground. We are going through a birth process for a different Church for the 21st Century.
This Convention has been long and tiring, but essential for grasping the wideness of The Episcopal Church. I am happy that the next Convention will be two days shorter and I am very happy that it’s three years away, but I am glad to have been here. We did many good things; we made many wonderful connections; and we also caught a glimpse of the wideness of the Body of Christ.

2009-07-16T07:03:00.000-07:00

7/16/09

I have been searching for the proper way to describe yesterday’s events and experiences, espcially the ones about the budget.

"Intense," "painful," "real," "transparent," "hopeful," "Anglican" —all these words come to mind. However, what strikes me is that yesterday was an experience of the Pascal Mystery in a nutshell. It was about crucifixion and resurrection, all at once.

In the afternoon, the bishops came into the House of Deputies to receive the budget. It’s the only time we enter that space. The Presiding Bishop spoke of the drastic cuts that had to be made given the financial shortfall. The pain is that many people lost their jobs at the Church Center in New York. I know some of them and they are fine effective professionals who are victims of an economy that is not their fault or in their control. In addition, many wonderful programs were cut. She said we were moving mission down out of the Church Center and into the dioceses.

However, our Church also made some courageous and bold steps. The Millennium Development Goals were restored to their asking of .07%. We allocated a seminarian fund to aid those studying for holy orders. We reduced General Convention by two days and made it paperless (both are moves I applaud). Given the economy in many dioceses, in 2010 diocesan giving is reduced to 20% and in 2011 to 19%.
I am in awe of the work of the Program, Budget and Finance Committee. They managed to present a balanced budget to Convention which was very hard but also necessary.

We walked out of this meeting sort of shell shocked.

The afternoon was spent on a resolution about dealing with the future of same sex blessings. I urge you to read the actual text of Resolution C056. Our effort here was to be transparent about our Church and the context of our dioceses as well as to hold up that Anglican quality of comprehensiveness. The bishops wanted to write a resolution with room for as many bishops and deputies as possible. Therefore, all sides gave something to try to include everyone.

The resolution says we are going to be intentional about looking at blessings over the next three years. This does not authorize rites, but agrees to look at the whole issue. We also acknowledged that some bishops may exercise their pastoral prerogative to respond to the situation of being in states where marriage or civil union for gay and lesbian persons is legal. The vote was 104 yes; 30 no; 2 abstain. This now goes to the House of Deputies.

We were not only trying to be transparent about the mind of the Church; we were trying to be transparent about the deep desire to represent the Body of Christ. There are many members, and those members are different, but we all are connected in our common love of the Lord Jesus and our common desire to follow him as his disciples. Some said we should just not act at all, but I don’t think so. I think we are called to show the world a different way, and that is the way of seeking the oneness to which Jesus calls us. We will only find that by travelling on this road of being disciples in confusing times together.

It was a very hard and tiring day, but a wonder-filled day. I was very proud of our Church and I hope you are as well.
+Porter

Hope in Harmony

2009-07-15T18:49:00.000-07:00

By The Rev. Karla Woggon, Clergy Alternate Deputy

The Lord bless you and keep you;
The Lord make his face shine upon
you and be gracious to you;
The Lord turn his face toward you
and give you peace. Numbers 6:24-26

Yesterday in the House of Deputies an Episcopal priest, a Jewish cantor, and a Muslim prayer leader called us to pray by chanting in English, Hebrew, and Arabic. They each prayed in their own language and with prayers from their own tradition, and then ended by chanting together the blessing of Abraham from the Book of Numbers. The blessing ended as the three languages and three voices came together and ended on a single note.

Holy silence filled the cavernous House of Deputies as the blessing came to an end. In that moment I felt truly blessed and also filled with hope. Filled with hope for the world, for people of faith around the world, and for the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion----hopeful that we can find a way to sing out of the truth of who we are while accepting and embracing the truth of our neighbor --- hopeful that we can find a way to sing in harmony the mission that we are all called to. A mission that is shaped by what I perceive to be a common desire to find ways to be God’s salt and love and light to a world in desperate need of God’s loving embrace.

2009-07-15T13:59:00.000-07:00

This is from our dinner last night for the Diocese of WNC's deputation for General Convention and the ECW.

2009-07-14T06:19:00.000-07:00

7/14/09
+Porter Taylor
Bishop, Diocese of WNC

Sometimes when I am in grocery stores or airports with my collar on, people will come up to me and ask questions about The Episcopal Church, as if I were Lucy (the cartoon one, not the saint) sitting at an advice booth. “What does the Church have to say about…?” they ask. Most of the time, my answer is “A lot.”

One of the reasons I love The Episcopal Church is our comprehensiveness. We are always on a journey to discover where God is leading us and God’s Church, and we believe that at our best, as in Pentecost, God speaks through many voices yet with the same refrain of our core doctrines and our common love of Jesus Christ.

Yesterday D025 was presented to the House of Bishops. I read it as a descriptive document. It states, “God has called and may call such individuals [gay and lesbian persons] to the ordained ministry in The Episcopal Church.” It is true. God has called, and at some point God may call again. No doubt people have different interpretations as to the time. We are in discernment about that, and we are in conversation about that with ourselves as well as the wider Communion. D025 contains no language about moratoria or B033 or same sex blessings or unions. It simply tells the truth about who we are as The Episcopal Church.

Growing up in the South, sometimes in an argument some of my elders would say, “Let’s don’t have a fight. We are all saying the same thing.” I would think to myself, “No, we having a fight because we are saying two different things.” There are many things we could fight about concerning human sexuality and past General Conventions, but D025 ought not to be one of them. It has enough Anglican ambiguity for most of us to live with it. No doubt people will read into it what they will, but in my view it is a snapshot of who we are.

In other news--yesterday we passed a Charter for Lifelong Christian Formation--which I am very excited about. The bishops passed mandatory enrollment of Episcopal dioceses in Medical Trust which will lower our health insurance costs as well as passing a resolution for pensions for lay employees (20 hours or more). We passed legislation about an Evangelism program for Spanish Speaking persons. We are getting into the home stretch---which is a very good thing.

Keep us in your prayers.
+Porter

2009-07-13T06:23:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a wonderful day, perhaps because we had a few hours off for the first time. The Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, was joined in the procession by the two previous Presiding Bishops, Edmund Browning and Frank Griswold. Seeing the three of them was very moving. In some ways it was a snapshot of the Church since the 1970's. The Eucharist was splended; there were thousands of people.

In the House of Bishops yesterday we passed a plan for all the dioceses in The Episcopal Church to come under the health insurance provided by Medical Trust. This would lower costs for most dioceses and in the future enable us to join with other denominations to achieve even lower costs.

One of the primary concerns is about the budget. We came in with a sigificant project budget shortfall for the next three years, and while the budget committee has worked hard, a shortfall still exists. I have heard that one result could be a different way of hosting the next General Convention and perhaps a different formula for diocesan giving (now at 21%).

Today we re-enter the blur of meetings that run from 7:30 am to 9:00 pm. But the end is in sight. Both Houses will deal with more legislation as the committees are moving resolutions to the Floors.

Keep us in your prayers.

+Porter

2009-07-11T06:34:00.000-07:00

7/11/09

I have found that the General Convention has three stages: the greeting, the great bewilderment, and the convergence. These happen over the ten days, but they also happen within one day or even one meeting. First is about meeting. We see old friends; we meet new friends. It’s like going to college as a freshman. You find your dorm and your classes, and figure out who all these other people are and who you are in relation to them. This part has been wonderful. Being on a Legislative Committee means you work very hard with strangers and you become a community over the Convention.

I want to tell you how touched I am to have the Archbishop of Canterbury come across an ocean and a country to be with us and to express his appreciation and love of The Episcopal Church. The House of Bishops was also graced with having the 24th and 25th Presiding Bishops, Edmund Browning and Frank Tracy Griswold III, be with us. Both of these men have had a profound effect on my ministry.

At some point, however, the fatigue, the complexity, the pace, the sheer number of people affect you, and you enter the Great Bewilderment. It’s where you wonder if anything meaningful can come from this process. It’s where you sit through meetings for hours arguing over the wording of a resolution, about which you actually are not passionate, but you have become passionate about this word being in this sentence. It’s where you hear all the perspectives on an issue and wonder to yourself, “So can our Church stand on any one position?”

If we were by ourselves, this is where we would remain. But we are not. There is grace everywhere, especially here, and God’s grace often comes and brings people together in amazing ways. Yesterday, the House of Bishops passed a full communion agreement with the Moravian Church. We have been working on this at least since 2003 and I was on the dialog committee from 2005-2007. It was an amazing moment, and is a wonderful expansion of our Church, especially for those of us who live in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

Right now, I confess that I am in the Great Bewilderment to see how our Church can take all the resolutions about human sexuality and find the great Convergence. The resolutions around B033 and same sex blessings go everywhere. However, I am hope filled because in the past I have seen deputies and bishops in General Convention let go of their political stances to win a point or a cause and collectively be moved to discern God’s will. In the middle of bewilderment it’s hard to believe it happens, but I know it does. Scripture and tradition and our own history tell us so.

I admit that I am tired and that I am not filled with zeal to return to day long meetings. However, I believe in the One who is the great Convergence, and I believe He will do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.

Keep us in your prayers.

2009-07-09T06:02:00.000-07:00

Wednesday 7/9/09
We spend our days looking through different lenses. Yesterday morning we came together for the Eucharist, and it was, as always, inspiring. These are the lenses of being farsighted. We began and ended with the big picture. The hall is filled with deputies, bishops, and the Episcopal Church Women, who are also having their convention. There were thousands.

The Presiding Bishop called on our Church and our world to have heart transplants. Using the text of Ezekiel, she reminded us Jesus’ mission is to give us a new hearts, his hearts, so that we might follow his heartbeat through the world. That heartbeat is mission.

Likewise at the end of the day, we heard from the Archbishop of Canterbury, ++Rowan Williams. He spoke about the world economic crisis, but did so as a crisis in faith and truthfulness. He said, the "task before us as people of faith is to name this as a crisis of truthfulness and to challenge ourselves about the truth and above all to live in the truth." It reminded me of the short version of our mission statement: “become disciples; engage the world.”

The middle of the day we were nearsighted. We went to our committees to work on individual pieces of legislation. I find this is where I get the wonder of the Episcopal Church because most of the time everyone wants similar ends, but in very different ways. On the Education Committee we talk about what we mean by Lifelong Christian Formation and its interplay with Christian Education but everyone sees that differently. The variety is a testimony to the richness of the Body of Christ.

What makes this process so difficult is that the detailed work is intended to happen in committee, but it’s impossible for anyone to be everywhere. Therefore, a committee will spend hours or days perfecting a legislation, only to have it revised on the floor of the House of Deputies or House of Bishops just because others not at the committee meetings have passions as well.

The pace is exhausting, but it also pushes you to become more aware of the Body. The Convention does not exist to make my schedule work or my wants met. At the end of the day, it’s not about me or any other individual. It’s about the catholicity of the Church gathering to discern God’s will in this moment. It reminds me Christianity is always about community and we don’t get to call people; Jesus does. If we called them, they’d all look just like us.
Finally, what we are here for, what we are all here for is heart transplants. I wonder if we keep of this pace to get tired enough to surrender to the will of Christ and get new hearts. Even if that’s not the intention, I hope it’s the result.

Keep us in your prayers.
+Porter

2009-07-08T07:08:00.000-07:00

+Porter Taylor
7/8/09

Yesterday Marshall Ganz from Harvard University’s Kennedy School spoke of the importance of story as we began the Public Narrative Project. I have been thinking about what an odd event General Convention is. It’s too long; it’s too big; it’s too confusing. However, I began to think, maybe we need this much time and this many interactions to tell our stories to one another and find our place in the eternal story of Christ dying and rising over and over again.

One of our society’s primary ills is that people’s individual stories are not located in anything bigger than themselves. It’s the world of me. Our opportunity as The Episcopal Church is to spread the Good News that all people can connect to the mystery of faith: “Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again.” But we have know that ourselves which means connecting with one another and to do that which takes time. I wonder if the important part of Convention is during the breaks or the meals. That’s when those of us from the South say, “Where you from? Tell me about your people.” In other words, “What’s your story?”

I am on the Education Committee. Our hearings begin early in the morning and continue into what feels for me to be late in the night. However, it’s a wonder to hear of people’s passions as they tell their story. They come and tell why it’s important to have a curriculum for Province IX or funding for our camps or a Charter for Christian Formation. They tell their story, and then we aren’t talking about causes but about faces and histories and real lives. We connect.

So I am slowly being converted to this long and confusing process. When I became a bishop, I argued for a two day General Convention. I may not be up for ten days, but I can see we time to talk. John Shea says, “We turn our pain into narrative so we can bear it; we turn our ecstasy into narrative so we can prolong it; we tell our stories to live.”

We tell our stories so that we catch a glimpse of the Body of Christ and that’s always worth the time.

July 7, 2009

2009-07-07T05:32:00.000-07:00

Remember when you used to take standardized tests? You'd come to these questions that you couldn't understand and look at the answers, but they all looked right. So with a naive hopefulness, you'd answer "D" all of the above. General Convention is always "D."

Because it's a legistlative process, the hall and hotels are filled with people lobbying for their cause or their candidacy. Some candidates give out pencils or pens with their names on them; some have position papers to demonstrate their wisdom.

But it's not just legislative, it's also sacramental. The best part for me is always the Eucharist. The Church is fully present when 110 dioceses representing many countries, three languages, and every theological view gather to say the prayers and eat the bread. It is the peace that passes all understanding.

It's also about friends and family. I saw a priest last night crossing the street that I have known since 1996 and the only time we see each other is General Convention. But we connect and stay connected. I learn so much from seeing the wideness of the Church and from relationships with those who love the Church as much or more than I do but are in many different places theologically. It's important to see them face to face. Our sense of them expands. No one is a position on an issue, but a person with a history just like me.

I do not know all that will come out of this convention. I know we have many difficult decisions about the finances of The Episocpal Church. I think the legislation about having everyone participate in the Medical Trust Insurance is very important. We are revising Lesser Feasts and Fasts which is huge. Of course, we will talk about human sexuality. I am on the Education Committee which will be considering a Charter for Lifelong Chrisitan Formation. It's one way of holding up the importance of being intentional about our growth in Christ all our lives.

On a personal level, it's beautiful here, but why can't they get on Eastern time? I am an early riser, but this morning I was up too early for even me. My room overlooks Disneyland. I know there's more than one joke in that, but I am too jet lagged to be safe making one.

Today is legislative meetings and orientation. We begin tomorrow with Eucharist and a Bible study from the Archbishop of Canterbury. Keep us in your prayers.

+Porter