The 213th Annual Council - Diocese of Virginia

Proceedings
At that 1908 Council, the Bishop expressed his need for help. He asked for an archdeacon
to serve in the Diocese and asked a Council committee to explore the possible election of
a bishop coadjutor. Some things occur again and again in the Diocese of Virginia.
He received his bishop coadjutor the next year, when Arthur Selden Lloyd was consecrated.
Bishop Lloyd served for only a year before he accepted a full-time ministry at the Episcopal
Church headquarters in New York City and it was four years before another coadjutor
was consecrated in Virginia. History records that Bishop Lloyd wanted to remain as
bishop coadjutor of Virginia, working part-time, while he held his New York position in
mission for the general Church but Bishop Gibson, the diocesan bishop, would have none
of that proposal. Family life is often intertwined with church life in Virginia and one can
imagine the conversations between Bishop Lloyd and Bishop Gibson, especially when one
remembers that Bishop Lloyd’s daughter married Bishop Gibson’s son.
Your three bishops have developed an excellent and effective working relationship.
Bishop Jones continues his good work with missions. Bishop Johnston has jurisdiction
over the deployment process and he and Lindsay Ryland are working together in helping
churches navigate the transition between rectors. A transition affecting me comes from
the requirement of the canon law of the Church that bishops and other clergy resign
when they turn 72. The 2003 General Convention enacted a new canon that requires
diocesan bishops to resign three years after the consecration of the bishop coadjutor in
their dioceses. Those dates coincide for me so I will retire no later than May 2010.
Last Sunday, at an evensong at St. James’s Church, Richmond, celebrating the life of
Martin Luther King Jr., the celebrated Norfolk State University Concert Choir sang that
beautiful old spiritual “There is a balm in Gilead.” It speaks of what I have experienced
in this last year.
Sometimes I feel discouraged, and think my work’s in vain,
But then the Holy Spirit revives my soul again.
If you cannot sing like angels, if you cannot preach like Paul,
You can tell the love of Jesus, and say, ‘He died for all.’
It is the abundance of God’s love for all that we proclaim. You and I may not have the
gifts either of the angels or of Paul, but all of us can tell the abundant love of Jesus and
demonstrate by our lives and our words that he died for all.
As I move around the Diocese, I rejoice in the signs of that abundant love. Congregations
are nourishing their young, caring for the disabled, celebrating the sacraments and in
all things, preaching the Gospel, all out of a love for the Lord Jesus Christ and devotion
to his coming kingdom. It is an encouraging time to be serving the Church in Virginia,
especially when we focus on the positive rather than on the shadows that may accompany
us. My prayer for the Diocese in this coming year is that we can navigate our differences
with grace, support those Episcopalians who have been abandoned by the majorities in
their congregations, increase our support for the ministries we share and emphasize the
mission of God’s abundance that unites us more than any effort of darkness that seeks to
overcome us. May God continue to bless and prosper the Diocese of Virginia.
The president then introduced clergy new to the Diocese.
The Diocese of Virginia t Journal of the the 213 th Annual Council 75