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INSIDE<br />
JOINING JESUS IN<br />
THE NEW MISSIONAL AGE<br />
SEEKING GOD<br />
IN ALL PEOPLE<br />
LOVING THOSE<br />
ON THE MARGINS<br />
FOLLOWING JESUS<br />
ONTO THE ISLAND<br />
OF HISPANIOLA<br />
PERFIL DE LA<br />
REVERENDA LOYDA<br />
E. MORALES
VOLUME 8, ISSUE 1 I OCTOBER <strong>2019</strong><br />
Episcopal Church in Connecticut<br />
The Commons<br />
290 Pratt Street ı Box 52 ı Meriden, CT 06450<br />
203 - 639 - 3501 ı episcopalct.org<br />
Publisher ı Episcopal Church in Connecticut<br />
Bishop Diocesan ı The Rt. Rev. Ian T. Douglas<br />
Bishop Suffragan ı The Rt. Rev. Laura J. Ahrens<br />
Guest Editor ı Karin Hamilton<br />
Canon for Mission Communications & Media ı<br />
Jasree Peralta<br />
Design ı Elizabeth Parker, EP Graphic Design<br />
info@epgraphicdesign.com<br />
Change of address and other circulation correspondence<br />
should be addressed to jperalta@episcopalct.org.<br />
Episcopal Church in Connecticut<br />
(episcopalct.org) is a community of 60,000 members in<br />
160+ parishes and worshiping communities across the<br />
state. It is a diocese in The Episcopal Church.<br />
The Episcopal Church<br />
(episcopalchurch.org) is a multi-national community of two<br />
million members in 111 dioceses and regional areas across<br />
the United States and in 16 other nations. It is a province of<br />
the Anglican Communion.<br />
The Anglican Communion<br />
(anglicancommunion.org) is a global community of tens of<br />
millions of Anglicans in 40 national or regional provinces and<br />
five extra-provincial areas in more than 165 countries.<br />
Cover Photo: Elizabeth Parker<br />
Photo: Ian T. Douglas
The Rt. Rev. Laura J. Ahrens celebrates the Eucharist at Wadi Qelt in the<br />
Holy Land during the <strong>2019</strong> ECCT Pilgrimage.
from the GUEST EDITOR<br />
Karin Hamilton<br />
Why does our culture/society toss groups of people "into the<br />
margins" and what enables some of us to see and honor God<br />
in them? How can we see people whom our society sees as<br />
“broken”— including ourselves and our own family members<br />
and friends who may have mental illnesses, or are homeless or<br />
in prison, or who are substance abusers and addicts — through<br />
the eyes of God, as beloved, respected with dignity, the equal<br />
of all? Especially when the behaviors often associated with<br />
these challenges breaks hearts, hurts, goes against good<br />
advice, or repeats patterns that continually fail. Behaviors that<br />
get people pushed away into the margins. How can we orient<br />
ourselves to forgive seventy times seven, as the Scriptures<br />
say; to love those in the margins as if our life depends on it?<br />
If we love you, God, we will take care of ourselves and each<br />
other, even when it hurts. “Peter, do you love me? Feed my<br />
sheep,” said Jesus. We are all one in Christ. There is no real<br />
margin, because there is no edge to God’s embrace. How then<br />
can we love as God loves?<br />
In our first feature you can read about two people in Vermont,<br />
friends to many in ECCT, who are living a life devoted to<br />
contemplative practice. They have a mission “to support all<br />
people to know and enter into divine life.” And while many<br />
of us think of the Kingdom of God as something far away, or<br />
even an idealized version of the real world right now, they lay<br />
claim to Luke 17:21 in which Jesus says that God’s kingdom<br />
is “already among you,” alternatively translated as, “already<br />
within you.”<br />
In the second feature, you’ll meet people who are working<br />
with the mentally ill, homeless, imprisoned, and addicted,<br />
grounded in God and making the Kingdom manifest; showing<br />
us a way.<br />
Elsewhere in this issue you’ll learn about others who are also<br />
making manifest the Kingdom, from long-time leaders to<br />
new ones. In addition you’ll be introduced to three teens who<br />
embrace an interfaith future of peace, and a follower of Jesus<br />
who set up summer camps for impoverished children on the<br />
island of Hispaniola. You’ll also hear from your bishops, ECCT<br />
staff, and others who serve God faithfully and do their best to<br />
support you on your own journey of faith.<br />
May the joy of the Lord be your strength. (Neh. 8:10)<br />
Karin Hamilton served as Canon for Mission Communications &<br />
Media for the Episcopal Church in Connecticut for 25 years before<br />
retiring in July <strong>2019</strong>.
IN THIS ISSUE<br />
4<br />
Union with God:<br />
A dream for all,<br />
from a farm in<br />
Vermont<br />
Karin Hamilton<br />
Two friends of ECCT now<br />
in Vermont talk about<br />
the hows and whys of<br />
contemplative living<br />
8<br />
Loving those on<br />
the margins<br />
Karin Hamilton<br />
How can we love when<br />
our loved ones' behavior<br />
challenges us? An<br />
introduction to a series of<br />
interviews<br />
30<br />
Following Jesus<br />
Frankye Regis<br />
Following Jesus onto the<br />
island of Hispaniola to<br />
bring a summer camp for<br />
children to both its nations<br />
2 From the guest editor Karin Hamilton<br />
18 Joining Jesus in a New Missional Age Ian T. Douglas<br />
24 Jesus cleanses ten lepers Laura J. Ahrens<br />
26 Seeking God in all people Barbara Curry<br />
28 A love for ministry on the margins Ranjit Mathews<br />
34 Profile of the Rev. Loyda E. Morales Karin Hamilton<br />
36 Perfil de la Reverenda Loyda E. Morales Karin Hamilton<br />
38 Profile of A. Bates Lyons Karin Hamilton<br />
40 From ECCT<br />
46 Connecticut diocese engages parishes in<br />
collaboration by replacing deaneries with<br />
Region Missionaries (Episcopal News Service)<br />
Egan Millard<br />
48 I am a Christian. I am Muslim. I am a Jew. Karin Hamilton
Our dream is to imagine and incarnate a sustainable way of<br />
living that leads to wholeness of body, soul, and spirit not just<br />
for ourselves, but for all who share this earth – including the<br />
earth herself! We believe the only path forward is through union<br />
with God as healer of our wounds, sustainer of the physical<br />
world, and lover of our souls. Our souls are restless until they<br />
find their rest in God. Without dwelling in the infinite love of<br />
God we will always chase after finite things that will lead to pain<br />
for ourselves, others, and the earth. We must learn to pray.<br />
Union with God:<br />
A path forward for all and a dream from a farm in Vermont<br />
Karin Hamilton<br />
Photo: Mark and Lisa Kutolowski<br />
4
Here’s the dream that Mark and Lisa Kutolowski share, presented on their<br />
website, metanoiavt.com:<br />
Our dream is to imagine and incarnate a sustainable<br />
way of living that leads to wholeness of body, soul, and<br />
spirit not just for ourselves, but for all who share this<br />
earth – including the earth herself! We believe the only<br />
path forward is through union with God as healer of our<br />
wounds, sustainer of the physical world, and lover of our<br />
souls. Our souls are restless until they find their rest in<br />
God. Without dwelling in the infinite love of God we will<br />
always chase after finite things that will lead to pain for<br />
ourselves, others, and the earth. We must learn to pray.<br />
Mark and Lisa are known to many in the Episcopal Church in<br />
Connecticut (ECCT) for leading the Connecticut River Pilgrimage<br />
in 2017. They also led a shorter river pilgrimage in <strong>2019</strong> for two<br />
ECCT Regions. On each, they served as both river guides and spiritual<br />
directors. Bishop Ian Douglas and his wife Kristin Harris were among<br />
those on that 2017 trip and Ian later said that he found it life-changing: as<br />
an extrovert uncomfortable with silences, he grew to love them over the<br />
day and weeks of their time on the river.<br />
The couple met in 2015 and married soon thereafter. Mark is a Benedictine<br />
Oblate, and a wilderness guide and instructor, while Lisa led campus<br />
ministry programs, including outdoor leadership trips, then worked as<br />
an artisanal bread baker. Mark is Roman Catholic; Lisa was raised in the<br />
Mennonite tradition and joined the Roman Catholic Church shortly before<br />
meeting Mark.<br />
While leading pilgrimages is an important and an essential component<br />
of their lives and their livelihoods, they have an even bigger, more<br />
encompassing vision, as expressed in the quote above. They don’t want<br />
to just preach that more people must learn to pray, they live it themselves<br />
and truly want to help others to do that as well. They want to be midwives<br />
of that process.<br />
PREPARING THE LAND<br />
For the past two years, Mark and Lisa have been living, and praying, on a<br />
10-acre farm in northern Vermont named “Table Rock Farm” after a glacial<br />
rock formation on the property. They call it their homestead and it’s where<br />
they hope to have people join them in their ongoing life of prayer.<br />
“Sometimes we take what we are doing out on a pilgrimage and to<br />
retreats,” Lisa said. “But more and more, we’re turning to wanting to<br />
invite people here, where they can be served by the land, and we can be<br />
supporting them as well.”<br />
The view at Table Rock Farm in northern Vermont.<br />
An old farmhouse on the homestead was beyond repair and had to be torn<br />
down, with the help of friends. They saved many barn boards, beams, and<br />
the fieldstones from the foundation for later repurposing. Mark and Lisa<br />
5
personally live in a four-season yurt without<br />
electricity. There is also an old barn, used<br />
to store canoes and other equipment, and<br />
a newer, two-story former basket-making<br />
shop, with electricity and Internet access.<br />
A small room in that building is used as an<br />
office and library and they’re renovating the<br />
shop area on the main floor to provide a<br />
cozy gathering space. They’re also building<br />
a bakery and guest quarters on a single slab<br />
foundation.<br />
“[Lisa and I] have talked a lot about our<br />
experiences on pilgrimage and also on<br />
welcoming people here,” Mark explained.<br />
“In both of those environments it feels very<br />
much like our role is to support the structure<br />
of prayer and the sort of spaciousness<br />
that allows people to enter into this deep<br />
encounter with the Spirit.<br />
“We can’t give people that experience [but]<br />
we can guard the boundaries, so to speak, to<br />
“We’re giving space for people to encounter<br />
this reality.”<br />
Lisa explained it as removing distractions.<br />
“It’s becoming more and more obvious to<br />
me that we need to take things away – we<br />
need to take distraction away, and we need<br />
to take busy-ness away. There’s nothing that<br />
we have to add to our lives to see that the<br />
Kingdom of God is here,” she said.<br />
The wood-fired bakery oven will<br />
have the capacity to bake up to<br />
160 loaves a day, as an income<br />
producer, though they say they’ll<br />
start more modestly.<br />
The vista from the hill near where<br />
these buildings stand is glorious;<br />
the neighbors are sparse yet<br />
welcoming; the guests few now<br />
but anticipated next year; and<br />
the love of contemplative prayer<br />
deep and endless.<br />
There are currently no additional<br />
plans for a traditional Yankee<br />
farm with agricultural production<br />
for sale, though they do plan<br />
to grow more food in coming<br />
years. There’s no plan to turn the<br />
homestead into a retreat center<br />
with programming, either. Table<br />
Rock Farm’s land is for prayer<br />
and relationship. It is a place to<br />
live out the Benedictine values of<br />
prayer, study, and work.<br />
“We’re interested in living a lay<br />
contemplative life, and inviting<br />
others to share in that, much the<br />
way a monastery is not a retreat center,”<br />
said Mark. The basic framework for guests<br />
will be to join Mark and Lisa for prayer,<br />
silences, meals, conversations, and various<br />
types of physical work on the land.<br />
CONTEMPLATIVE LIVING<br />
Finding union with God is hard work, and so<br />
much harder to do when you’re burdened<br />
with the stresses and distractions of life. Yet<br />
that’s the vision.<br />
Personally, they pray five times a day and<br />
include two 20-minute periods of silence,<br />
stretched to 30 minutes in the seasons of<br />
Lent, East, Advent, and Christmas.<br />
The old farm house that was beyond repair and was torn down. Photo: Mark and Lisa<br />
Kutolowski.<br />
allow that experience to take place,” he said.<br />
For example, he said, they asked the river<br />
pilgrims not to speak outside the liturgy from<br />
the time they woke up until an hour or so<br />
into their paddling.<br />
He said that it allowed people to be able<br />
to stay in that space and not to have to<br />
socialize at a superficial level, which allowed<br />
them to be more open and present.<br />
“And then the Spirit will speak to them<br />
through something that wells up from<br />
within, or something that they see, and<br />
they’re present enough to see it and let it<br />
touch them in a deeper way,” he said.<br />
They know the contemplative<br />
tradition is challenging.<br />
“I think what is so vibrant<br />
about Christ’s path and the way<br />
of the cross is that once we<br />
remove all the outside stuff then<br />
there’s all this inside stuff that<br />
we have to wrestle with,” Lisa<br />
said. “We have to come face to<br />
face with all the suffering that<br />
we’ve experienced and with the<br />
suffering of the world, and then<br />
take up our cross daily.<br />
“As soon as you turn off<br />
everything else, then it’s the<br />
inside you have to deal with,<br />
which is a lot scarier.”<br />
Yet its promise is the potential<br />
for you to experience an intimate<br />
connection with God.<br />
“We don’t necessarily see that<br />
reality of God’s Kingdom here and<br />
now, so we have to be changed,<br />
to be transformed, to be broken<br />
open,” Mark said. “We need to<br />
consciously share in God’s life, to<br />
open the depths of our being – or we might<br />
say – to open our heart to the presence of<br />
God in and through everything. That is to<br />
enter into the Kingdom of God.”<br />
THE BODY OF CHRIST<br />
At some point in the future they may<br />
partner with the poor, or perhaps stand<br />
with specific “marginalized” groups, but<br />
the contemplative life doesn’t start with<br />
activism. Lisa admits that she still struggles<br />
with a desire to act immediately.<br />
“There are times when I ask myself, what<br />
are we even doing here? There is so much<br />
we need to be doing. We need to be out on<br />
the streets. Jesus said to clothe the naked<br />
and feed the poor.<br />
6
Photo: Karin Hamilton<br />
Lisa and Mark Kutolowski at Table Rock Farm, named after a glacial rock formation on their property.<br />
“What is so interesting is that I almost come<br />
to that place as a comfort to grab onto.<br />
Something painful is dislodging [in prayer]<br />
and it would feel good to my ego, like I<br />
am actually doing something good in the<br />
world. That’s an unhealthy savior complex.<br />
It doesn’t mean we don’t act, but this path<br />
we’re talking about is about seeking God for<br />
God’s own sake. If God is leading you to that<br />
kind of ministry, it’s not going to be about<br />
you, and it’s going to be a lot more sacrificial.<br />
It requires a conversion of the heart.”<br />
She also reminds herself that “we don't<br />
each have to be the whole body of Christ. …<br />
The work that we're doing here on this land,<br />
our prayer, is supportive to the whole body<br />
of Christ,” she said.<br />
Mark also underscored that intensity and<br />
importance for the whole world of the work<br />
of prayer:<br />
“I think it’s a grave mistake to associate<br />
going off to silence and solitude as a retreat<br />
from the problems of the world. It’s precisely<br />
in coming away from the exterior clamor<br />
that you can face the problems of the world<br />
spiritually. Our engagement with the pain of<br />
the world is much more intense in our prayer<br />
than it would be if we were on phones all<br />
the time and if we were distracted and<br />
rushing around and concerned with our<br />
personal survival.<br />
“[These contemplative practices] give you<br />
a space to feel the world suffering. In fact,<br />
to feel that at a much deeper level because<br />
we are not just connected to God, we're<br />
connected to every other human being<br />
on the planet, and to the planet as well.<br />
When you are still enough that you feel that<br />
experientially, your prayer is a sharing both in<br />
the fullness of God but also in the weakness<br />
and brokenness of the human condition,<br />
and in your own heart there's an interplay<br />
between those two.”<br />
When the time is right, they will be open to<br />
more retreatants on the land. It will be open<br />
We need to consciously<br />
share in God’s life, to<br />
open the depths of our<br />
being — or we might say<br />
— to open our heart to<br />
the presence of God in<br />
and through everything.<br />
That is to enter into the<br />
Kingdom of God.<br />
Mark Kutolowski<br />
to all, though they realize the contemplative<br />
path won't be attractive to everyone. Their<br />
dream for you, and all who share the earth,<br />
and for earth herself, will still be the same:<br />
“… union with God as healer of our wounds,<br />
sustainer of the physical world, and lover of<br />
our souls….”<br />
“Wherever you are, if you fall deeply in love<br />
with God, it will change you,” said Mark,<br />
adding that "and it just might change what<br />
you do.” ◊<br />
7
8
Loving those on<br />
the margins<br />
Karin Hamilton<br />
The Rev. Kathryn Greene-McCreight, Episcopal priest in New Haven,<br />
theologian, and author, has written what Archbishop of Canterbury Justin<br />
Welby has called a “brave and compassionate book” about mental<br />
illness, responding to it, and looking for God in all of the suffering. Her book,<br />
Darkness Is My Only Companion; A Christian Response to Mental Illness, is<br />
based on her own experience. She writes in one section:<br />
“My husband, Matthew, just wants to help. He keeps asking me what he can<br />
do. He says that he feels so helpless. He is indeed helpless, and so am I. There<br />
is nothing he can do. Yet maybe there is. I tell him not to treat me as an invalid.<br />
When I can’t get up, when I can’t crack a smile through my plaster mask of a<br />
face, when I can’t do anything but weep, just hold my hand. But please don’t<br />
be in pain for me. Because then I can see that on your face and it makes my<br />
pain worse. Just treat me in a matter-of-fact way: Kathryn is depressed again.<br />
Or when I am hypomanic, don’t get scared of me. Don’t get mad at me just<br />
because I talk too much, have too much energy, burst at the seams with ideas<br />
for the garden, the house, vacations, books. It is not my fault that I swing from<br />
one extreme to the other. I know loving me right now is a big challenge. But<br />
that’s how I can be helped.”<br />
Kathryn’s book next included the full hymn text of “How Firm a Foundation.”<br />
(see sidebar). She continued:<br />
“This hymn would always make me cry when I was depressed. I always<br />
wondered, what did my parish think as I wept during many of the hymns?<br />
But no one ever asked. Maybe they never noticed? Or maybe they were too<br />
embarrassed for my sake to say anything, too polite. “That soul, though all hell<br />
should endeavor to shake, I’ll never, no never, no never forsake.” I felt entirely<br />
forsaken, but God’s promise in Christ to me was overwhelmingly comforting.”<br />
— Excerpt from Darkness Is My Only Companion; A Christian<br />
Response to Mental Illness, by Kathryn Greene-McCreight,<br />
Brazos Press, 2015, pp.68-69.<br />
Many of us (and I include myself) love people who have mental illness, or are<br />
addicted, or homeless, or imprisoned, or all of these — or face other challenges<br />
that can end up with them being shunned and consigned to the margins — or<br />
maybe we’re the ones who are facing those challenges and are marginalized.<br />
Like Kathryn, we need to hang on to God’s promise, too. We need strength to<br />
trust God is with our loved ones, and God is with us, as well, trying to love as<br />
best we can.<br />
How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord<br />
is laid for your faith in God’s excellent Word!<br />
What more can he say than to you he has said,<br />
to you that for refuge to Jesus have fled?<br />
Feat not I am with thee; O be not dismayed!<br />
For I am thy God and will still give thee aid;<br />
I’ll strengthen thee, help thee and cause thee to<br />
stand,<br />
Upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.<br />
When through the deep waters I call thee to go,<br />
the rivers of woe shall not thee overflow;<br />
for I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,<br />
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.<br />
When through fiery trials try pathway shall lie,<br />
My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply;<br />
the flame shall not hurt thee; I only design<br />
thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.<br />
The soul that to Jesus hath fled for repose<br />
I will not, I will not desert to its foes;<br />
that soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,<br />
I'll never, no never, no never forsake.<br />
John Rippon (1751-1836)<br />
There’s hope for us. Archbishop Justin Welby, in his preface to Kathryn’s book,<br />
wrote: “The reconciliation of God, I have learned afresh from this book, is<br />
overwhelmingly more powerful than all the brokenness of my humanity.”<br />
Here are stories from some Episcopalians in ECCT who have chosen to work<br />
with several of the many groups of people who are at, or in, the margins of<br />
our culture and society. They each share how they came to the work they do,<br />
how they pray, and how they work with the people they do in a way that offers<br />
respect and dignity.<br />
9
Loving those on the margins<br />
Mental health should be a communal endeavor<br />
AN INTERVIEW WITH DEACON KYLE PEDERSEN<br />
Karin Hamilton<br />
We must promote —<br />
to the best of our ability<br />
and by all possible and<br />
appropriate means —<br />
the mental and physical<br />
health of all our citizens.<br />
John F. Kennedy, address to Congress, 1963<br />
To think it all started with gardening.<br />
The Rev. Kyle Pedersen, M.A.R.,<br />
an Episcopal deacon, is executive<br />
director for a mental health center<br />
foundation that works with people in New<br />
Haven who are challenged with mental<br />
illnesses. The Community Mental Health<br />
Foundation is a partnership between the<br />
State of Connecticut and Yale University.<br />
Technically, he’s a Yale employee. He also<br />
teaches at Yale Divinity School in their Office<br />
of Supervised Ministries.<br />
Kyle started out as a Yale student but<br />
decided to drop out after his sophomore<br />
year. He ended up working in the flower<br />
business doing design and sales, both retail<br />
and wholesale, throughout New England.<br />
After about 10 years he moved to New<br />
York and reconnected with a woman he’d<br />
met at Yale, Lucile; they later married. She<br />
was working for an agency that did case<br />
management for people who had histories<br />
of mental health challenges, substance<br />
abuse, and homelessness. The agency was<br />
completing a 20-unit HUD-funded garden<br />
apartment complex and Kyle was brought on<br />
board to be the garden director.<br />
“One day, one of the case managers they<br />
had hired quit, and so they asked if I could<br />
just help meet with the clients while they<br />
searched for a new case manager,” he said.<br />
“A few weeks after that they invited me to<br />
be the case manager. And so I said, sure.”<br />
Kyle went back to college to learn about<br />
mental health services, this time at the<br />
New School in New York City, while also<br />
getting on-the-job training. In the meantime,<br />
he had gotten involved at Grace Church in<br />
Brooklyn Heights and soon entered a formal<br />
discernment process in the Diocese of Long<br />
Island.<br />
His next step was theological education, to<br />
support his work.<br />
“A core belief for me theologically is that<br />
we are all created in the image of God. And<br />
part of that means that we have creative<br />
capacity, because God is creative. So, if<br />
we think about all people, including people<br />
who struggle with mental health issues, as<br />
having creative capacity, that changes your<br />
perspective on what you know people are<br />
capable of.<br />
“I started in mental health services by<br />
working in the garden with people, and I<br />
tell that story because it actually was my<br />
entry point, and it’s still like a touchstone<br />
for me, that my work was always about just<br />
connecting with people as people, people<br />
who I have an interest in, and not people as<br />
diagnoses.<br />
“I learned about serious mental health<br />
issues by meeting the various people that I<br />
was supporting as a case manager, and that<br />
continues to be the way I think about mental<br />
health issues — that it is part of your life but<br />
is not your whole life. Even people who are<br />
struggling very profoundly have a life that<br />
they want to live. It may be really impacted<br />
or reduced by the mental health symptoms<br />
that they're experiencing, but never lose<br />
sight of that person who's there.<br />
“I remember someone reframing this and<br />
saying, it’s not ‘what disease does this<br />
person have,’ but ‘what person does this<br />
disease have.’”<br />
Kyle was ordained in 2003 and is now<br />
assigned to be the deacon for Trinity on the<br />
Green and the Episcopal Church at Yale,<br />
both in New Haven. In his role as a deacon,<br />
as well as foundation administration staff,<br />
he considers the systems and structures<br />
10
I started in mental health services by<br />
working in the garden with people...my<br />
work was always about just connecting<br />
with people as people...<br />
Kyle Pedersen<br />
that need attention. He thinks about how the church can be more<br />
responsive and supportive and suggests that offering “Mental<br />
Health First Aid” courses might be one example; increasing basic<br />
awareness is another, as might be changing the prayers of the<br />
people. He also considers the intersection of race and poverty and<br />
how it affects health outcomes. He’s trained in Undoing Racism/<br />
Community Organizing with the People’s Institute, and passionate<br />
about the impact of racism on health.<br />
“We know that proportionately, you see much poorer health<br />
outcomes in people of color, especially African Americans,” he said.<br />
“Health exists within this much larger constellation of relationships<br />
and access to resources.”<br />
BE THE “WE”<br />
His work for the foundation includes raising money and also<br />
awareness. His approach to it is reflected in his business card, which<br />
has “be the WE” on one side. A companion infocard, with additional<br />
contact information and some statistics, has the full quote from<br />
President John F. Kennedy to Congress, made in 1963, urging the<br />
establishment of community mental health centers, which inspired<br />
Kyle’s “be the WE” slogan.<br />
The quote reads, “We must promote — to the best of our ability and<br />
by all possible and appropriate means — the mental and physical<br />
health of all our citizens.”<br />
“I was really captured by that,” Kyle said. He recalled listening to<br />
a Jewish medical school resident talking on an NPR story, relating<br />
Kennedy’s line to the line from the Seder, “We were slaves to the<br />
Pharaoh in Egypt.”<br />
“[The student] said, imagine if we brought that perspective to health<br />
care -- that it's not about an individual problem or failing or diagnosis,<br />
but if someone is struggling with mental health issues it's about us<br />
and it's about our community,” Kyle recalled.<br />
He continued: “And that's maybe what enables me to take a different<br />
sort of view. It doesn't mean that you ignore the person in their<br />
immediate need and struggle. But for me, as a deacon – interpreting<br />
to the church the hopes, needs, and concerns of the world, it’s a<br />
bigger kind of endeavor.<br />
Photo: Karin Hamilton<br />
Kyle Pedersen, executive director at the Community Mental Health Foundation.<br />
“Thinking about being the ‘we’ is the perspective that I want to adopt<br />
at all times, that it’s a communal endeavor.”<br />
He also embraces the concept from mental health and recovery<br />
called the “dignity to fail.”<br />
“Dignity means you are able to accompany someone through a<br />
process where they might fail” and you don’t protect them from that<br />
experience, he said. “If we look at our own lives, I know it’s taught<br />
me a lot, and if that had been taken away from me, that would have<br />
robbed me from some of my dignity. It’s always balancing that risk.”<br />
When asked how his personal prayer life supports his work with<br />
people who live with mental health challenges, he said: “I’m a very<br />
kinesthetic person, so to me that means to live in a prayerful way all<br />
the time, to live consciously.”<br />
Kyle has continued his gardening, tending to lots of flowers, a<br />
“profusion of cherries,” pole beans, eggplant, herbs, and blueberries<br />
for the birds. One could argue that gardening is also a significant<br />
spiritual practice. It requires attention to the present, planning for<br />
the long-term, being patient, giving, and dealing with the realities of<br />
weather, bugs, and more.<br />
It certainly proved sufficient preparation for a life serving others. ◊<br />
11
Loving those on the margins<br />
Respecting other's free will<br />
AN INTERVIEW WITH ROXANA ROSARIO<br />
Pam Dawkins<br />
Photo: Elizabeth Parker<br />
Addicts, and their addictions, come<br />
in all shapes and sizes. A common<br />
denominator for many, said Roxana<br />
Rosario, is that a family history of addiction,<br />
domestic violence or other trauma tilted the<br />
scales from the start.<br />
Roxana is a licensed clinical social worker<br />
and a program director with the Connecticut<br />
Department of Mental Health and Addiction<br />
Services, in the Southeastern Mental Health<br />
Authority. She spent the first part of her<br />
career with the Connecticut Department<br />
of Children and Families working for Child<br />
Protective Services in the trauma field.<br />
The addict is no different<br />
from anyone else; the<br />
disease cuts across<br />
race, age, gender, and<br />
economic class.<br />
She attends the Church of the Good<br />
Shepherd in Hartford now but traces the<br />
beginnings of her Episcopal faith to St. Ann’s<br />
Episcopal Church in the south Bronx. Roxana<br />
was six or seven when she moved from<br />
Puerto Rico to The Bronx, and four years<br />
older when she began attending St. Ann’s.<br />
She moved to Connecticut soon after and<br />
attended a number of Hartford churches<br />
— St. Monica’s, St. James, Christ Church<br />
Cathedral — before finding Good Shepherd.<br />
Her belief in God and that she has a purpose<br />
helps her to work with her patients. “This is<br />
a calling … to want to be with human beings<br />
at their lowest of low …”<br />
12
She sees that some very educated people<br />
— she has a bachelor’s from the University<br />
of Hartford, an MSW from UCONN and is a<br />
Ph.D. candidate at The Institute for Clinical<br />
Social Work — can sometimes fail to see the<br />
humanity in addicts.<br />
Roxana’s faith allows her to bring hope and<br />
acceptance to the table. “I accept people for<br />
where they’re at and who they are.”<br />
Her religious upbringing did not give her the<br />
tools to work with addicts, but a connection<br />
to God and to others helps with their<br />
recovery, whether it’s with organized religion<br />
or a twelve-step program.<br />
Roxana credits her own participation in a<br />
twelve-step program for families affected<br />
by alcoholism with strengthening her<br />
relationship with God. Not surprising, she<br />
said, considering that many of the 12 steps<br />
came from the Bible — taking inventory,<br />
making amends, being witnesses to<br />
one another. And recovery meetings are<br />
organized like a Mass, with a reading from a<br />
book and sharing testimony.<br />
“It brings you right back to God… the<br />
unconscious collective, the consciousness of<br />
the group. Miracles happen. It’s fascinating.”<br />
The Episcopal Church even has a more direct<br />
connection to twelve-step programs.<br />
Dr. Samuel Moor Shoemaker, rector at<br />
Calvary Church in New York from the 1920s<br />
to the 1950s, was a member of the Oxford<br />
Group, a Christian fellowship organization<br />
founded in the 1920s. The Oxford Group<br />
helped Bill Wilson (Bill W.) get sober and<br />
connected him with Dr. Bob Smith (Dr.<br />
Bob S.); the two later founded Alcoholics<br />
Anonymous, adopting variants of some of<br />
the Oxford Group’s practices.<br />
According to a biography of Dr. Shoemaker<br />
on AA’s website:<br />
“Bill W. made it clear that Sam<br />
Shoemaker ‘passed on the spiritual<br />
keys by which we were liberated’.<br />
The first three Steps of Alcoholics<br />
Anonymous, the starting point for<br />
sobriety in the A.A. program, were<br />
inspired in part by Shoemaker. Bill<br />
further explained that “the early A.A.<br />
got its ideas of self-examination,<br />
acknowledgement of character<br />
defects, restitution for harm done,<br />
and working with others straight from<br />
the Oxford Groups and directly from<br />
Sam Shoemaker, their former leader<br />
in America, and from nowhere else.<br />
“Dr. Shoemaker helped A.A. in<br />
fundamental ways. Physically, he<br />
provided refuge for alcoholics in<br />
New York though Calvary Church. Of<br />
greater importance was his spiritual<br />
aid, which directly influenced the<br />
Twelve Steps and the nature of A.A.’s<br />
program of recovery. His long and<br />
close friendship with Bill W. provided<br />
support to the co-founder, and helped<br />
the Fellowship weather its fledgling<br />
years.”<br />
Nearly 85 years have passed since A.A. got<br />
its start, and dozens of similar programs now<br />
exist. Addiction, which often goes handin-hand<br />
with mental illness, is treated as a<br />
disease instead of a character flaw and, as<br />
Roxana has learned, the addict is no different<br />
from anyone else; the disease cuts across<br />
race, age, gender, and economic class.<br />
There are more downs than ups in the work,<br />
Roxana said, and nothing happens quickly.<br />
But, “I love my job, I love what I do,” even<br />
though it is frustrating to be powerless.<br />
“I still do not have power over their free<br />
will,” she said. “We have to respect the free<br />
will of another human being.”<br />
She has learned a lot from her clients,<br />
including resiliency, growth and survival.<br />
“When they heal, I heal.”<br />
What do we know<br />
about the opioid<br />
crisis?<br />
Roughly 21 to 29 % of patients prescribed<br />
opioids for chronic pain misuse them<br />
Between 8 & 12 % develop an opioid use<br />
disorder<br />
An estimated 4 to 6 % who misuse<br />
prescription opioids transition to heroin<br />
About 80 % of people who use heroin first<br />
misused prescription opioids<br />
Opioid overdoses increased 30 % from July<br />
2016 through September 2017 in 52 areas<br />
in 45 states<br />
The Midwestern region saw opioid<br />
overdoses increase 70 % from July 2016<br />
through September 2017<br />
Opioid overdoses in large cities increase by<br />
54 % in 16 states<br />
Source: National Institute on Drug Abuse; National Institutes<br />
of Health; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services<br />
Resources & Services<br />
In Connecticut<br />
• Department of Mental Health & Addiction<br />
Services (DMHAS) offer a full range of<br />
services and resources — ct.gov/dhmas<br />
• Connecticut affiliate of NAMI (National<br />
Alliance on Mental Illness) see description<br />
below — namict.org (check website for<br />
local resources and groups)<br />
Nationally<br />
• The HEAL (Helping to End Addiction<br />
Long-term) SM Initiative of the National<br />
Institutes of Health, offers hope for<br />
people, families, and communities<br />
affected by this crisis — heal.nih.gov/<br />
• Mental Health First Aid (courses to teach<br />
people "how to identify, understand, and<br />
respond to signs of mental health<br />
illnesses and substance use disorders")<br />
— mentalhealthfirstaid.org<br />
Pam Dawkins is a Middletown, CT based freelance writer. She is the former business<br />
section editor of The Middletown Press and the Connecticut Post.<br />
• NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness)<br />
offers educational programs, advocacy, a<br />
help line, and public awareness events<br />
and activities — nami.org<br />
13
Loving those on the margins<br />
Worthy by nature<br />
INTERVIEWS WITH THE REV. ANN PERROTT & DEACON ELLEN ADAMS<br />
Pam Dawkins<br />
Men and women aren’t their crime, aren’t<br />
their prison time. “It’s not the whole book.<br />
That is a chapter in the book.”<br />
The Rev. Ann Perrott<br />
Faith informs and transforms lives — those of the faithful and<br />
those whose situations can make personal faith a challenge.<br />
But how do the faithful harness their personal beliefs into strengths<br />
they can share with others, particularly when those others have run<br />
afoul of the law?<br />
“As Episcopalians, we are lucky to have the Baptismal Covenant,”<br />
which specifically calls for respect for the dignity of every human<br />
being, said Deacon Ellen Adams.<br />
Deacon Adams, 71, is president of the board of the nondenominational<br />
New Life Ministry of Southeastern Connecticut,<br />
which helps women who are newly released from York Correctional<br />
Institute in Niantic.<br />
“They come out with absolutely nothing. They have to start all over<br />
again,” said the Rev. Ann Perrott, 68, of the women.<br />
Ann is executive director of New Life Ministry, which provides these<br />
women with one-on-one mentors who help them find employment<br />
and social services like Alcoholics Anonymous. The ministry —<br />
founded 20 years ago by Father St. Onge, a pastor of the Roman<br />
Catholic Church of Christ the King in Old Lyme — also runs two<br />
apartments able to house four women at a time, who pay a nominal<br />
rent after they find a job.<br />
Ann, who serves at Christ Church in Middle Haddam, also works<br />
with male prisoners through the Houses of Healing program.<br />
“We peel back the onion of a person’s life,” to discover how they got<br />
to their current situation, she said of the 12-week Houses of Healing<br />
program. “There’s no copping out of their crime,” she said, but she<br />
realizes they usually didn’t get to this place in a vacuum.<br />
“It’s the closest thing to God that I have felt in my calling,” Ann,<br />
who spent most of her life working in social services, said. These<br />
men and women have experienced much trauma but if she can help<br />
one person, it may mean generations to come might not end up in<br />
prison. “It’s all [about] God … I need you to help me.”<br />
The Rev. Ann Perrott at her church office in Middle Haddam.<br />
Ellen, who also works at St. Francis House, an intentional Christian<br />
community in New London, and serves at St. James' Episcopal<br />
Church in New London, taught school in Norwich for 35 years. She<br />
believes she was called to be a deacon because of her involvement<br />
with the Learn and Serve Movement, teaching curriculum through<br />
community service. Teachers at her school asked her to consider<br />
becoming a minister but being a deacon was the only job that<br />
allowed her to continue teaching.<br />
A friend brought Ellen to a Faith Behind Bars and Beyond (a ministry<br />
of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut) meeting, which led her to<br />
the New Life Ministry.<br />
“We only take people that we think are ready to have a new life,”<br />
she said. Some women turn out not to be ready; they work with<br />
parole officers to get those women into half-way houses. Overall,<br />
New Life Ministry has had an 88 percent success rate in 20 years.<br />
As a mentor, Ellen said she teaches the women how to make<br />
choices — what to eat and wear, where to work, whether to reconnect<br />
with family. She aligns this with the Episcopal Church’s<br />
14
They need to hear that they are worthy to<br />
stand before you. There’s dignity, welcoming,<br />
love and forgiveness in that.<br />
Deacon Ellen Adams<br />
“I try to be real and then the trust starts to seep in. It takes time<br />
... it’s a beautiful, hard thing.” She tries to not learn what crime the<br />
inmates are in prison for, because it’s not productive. Instead, “I<br />
see Jesus Christ. Jesus is sitting there, angry, he has been sexually<br />
abused, physically abused … he’s turned to drugs to medicate<br />
himself…”<br />
Ellen has not experienced these traumas herself but had what she<br />
called a “transforming experience,” which she wants to offer to<br />
others. To get to that place, she said, it’s about respecting her clients<br />
as human beings and listening to their stories, to earn their trust.<br />
She offers intercessory prayers for her clients and practices<br />
centering prayer for 20 minutes each day, which “resets that<br />
perspective that God has on people, somehow… I don’t know how<br />
it works but it does.”<br />
Deacon Ellen Adams in the room used for mentoring at St. James', New London.<br />
Catechism, which says the freedom to make choices is what it<br />
means to be created in the image of God.<br />
“I look at everyone as a child of God and, therefore, good,” Ellen<br />
said, even if that goodness is not always visible at first glance. “I<br />
have never met anyone that was a completely bad apple.”<br />
God, she said, knows us better than we know ourselves, and loves<br />
us in spite of it. “I figure if God can do that, I will trust God to lead<br />
me to what I need to know to support someone.”<br />
Ann likens the men and women’s feelings of unworthiness -<br />
about 90 percent of them were sexually abused, and both groups<br />
were looking for parental figures – with the Episcopal prayer that<br />
proclaims God made us worthy to stand before him.<br />
She was a single mother on welfare, raising her daughter and<br />
waiting tables after her husband left, and saw what happened to<br />
family members who were abused, so identifies a lot with their<br />
insecurities, and not having a lot of expectations for their lives. She<br />
listens, encourages, is kind and prays with them.<br />
It’s more about building relationships with people than it is about<br />
ministering to them, Ellen said. “Your perspective changes and so<br />
does theirs.” She has become more patient and more willing to<br />
invest time in people and relationships.<br />
Ann believes — teaches — that the men and women aren’t their<br />
crime, aren’t their prison time. “It’s not the whole book. That is a<br />
chapter in the book.”<br />
What’s important, Ann said, is the trying. “That’s God, in the trying<br />
to get to.”<br />
“Men and women need to hear that they are worthy to stand before<br />
you,” Ann said. “There’s dignity, welcoming, love and forgiveness in<br />
that.”<br />
Pam Dawkins is a Middletown, CT based freelance writer.<br />
She is the former business section editor of The Middletown<br />
Press and the Connecticut Post.<br />
15
Loving those on the margins<br />
Starting with the heart<br />
AN INTERVIEW WITH DEACON RON STEED<br />
Karin Hamilton<br />
Deacon Ron Steed works from an attic<br />
office in New London’s Homeless<br />
Hospitality Center. He began his<br />
passion for this work around 2006 while<br />
attending St. James’ Episcopal Church, and<br />
now serves as the Center’s Deputy Director<br />
for Housing.<br />
The Center, less than a mile from St. James’,<br />
opened in 2013. Its origin is tied to St.<br />
James’ and its story began about the time<br />
that Ron arrived at the parish.<br />
A CITY SHELTER<br />
In 2006 after the New London city council<br />
made funding cuts to its social services, a<br />
homeless man died outside in the woods<br />
a week after the winter shelter closed. A<br />
group of faith leaders in the community<br />
insisted that this wasn’t acceptable and<br />
vowed to work together to find ways to help<br />
the homeless in their city. Those leaders<br />
included the late Rev. Emmett Jarrett,<br />
TSSF, of St. Francis House, an intentional<br />
community; the Rev. Michel Belt, rector<br />
of St. James’ Episcopal Church; the Rev.<br />
Catherine Zall, pastor of First Congregational<br />
Church; and the Rev. Carolyn Paterno,<br />
minister at All Souls Unitarian Universalist<br />
congregation.<br />
The group determined that St. James’ would<br />
open its parish hall as an overnight shelter<br />
and All Soul’s Unitarian Universalist’s building<br />
would serve as a drop-in center for the<br />
homeless during the day. They also vowed<br />
to continue to push for restored funding and<br />
permanent facilities.<br />
Not everyone at St. James’ was happy with<br />
the decision to locate the shelter on their<br />
premises. Some saw it as their Gospel<br />
responsibility; others just didn’t like the<br />
ministry, especially on Sundays when they<br />
had to navigate through a valley of cots in<br />
the parish hall after worship, on the way to<br />
their coffee and fellowship time.<br />
Deacon Ron Steed outside the New London Homeless<br />
Hospitality Center.<br />
The causes of<br />
homelessness are very<br />
complex, and there's<br />
no substitute for faceto-face<br />
interaction with<br />
each person. There's a<br />
complexity that argues<br />
against tough love.<br />
Ron Steed<br />
At about this time, Ron Steed was newly<br />
retired from the Navy, where he had served<br />
as Commodore of eight nuclear submarines.<br />
He had recently returned to attending church<br />
services and decided to join St. James’.<br />
“I was encountering scriptures as an adult<br />
really for the first time,” he said. He was<br />
profoundly moved by the Gospel readings<br />
and saw the ministry to the homeless as<br />
exactly what they called for.<br />
The parish hired diocesan consultant<br />
Barbara Casey to help them navigate their<br />
conflict and find a unified way forward. The<br />
rector appointed a committee with people<br />
on both sides of the debate. Following<br />
the guidelines Barbara set up, committee<br />
members listened deeply and respectfully to<br />
each other and to others in the community.<br />
After eight months, they all agreed that the<br />
ministry could continue at St. James’. It<br />
turned out the primary concerns had been<br />
about establishing reasonable, safe, and<br />
written guidelines. The cots moved down to<br />
the basement level of the parish hall, while<br />
the search continued for a permanent site.<br />
Barbara Casey was impressed by the<br />
committee’s work. “I have had experience<br />
in conflict situations in lots of churches, and<br />
this one was exceptional,” she said “It was<br />
knotty and challenging, but we set up good<br />
ground rules. And it was a good outcome,”<br />
she added.<br />
Ron had served as a leader in the parish<br />
discernment process and said he learned a<br />
lot through it.<br />
“The causes of homelessness are very<br />
complex, and there’s no substitute for faceto-face<br />
interaction with each person. There’s<br />
a complexity that argues against tough love,”<br />
he said. “I witnessed the transformation of<br />
people’s hearts.”<br />
16
The shelter at the parish was part of a citywide<br />
response to homelessness. The initial<br />
faith leaders addressing the crisis had helped<br />
to form a non-profit organization headed by<br />
a board of directors, which continued the<br />
search for a permanent location and secure<br />
funding. In 2008 Ron was asked to serve<br />
on the board, which was headed by Pastor<br />
Cathy Zall.<br />
The board oversaw the purchase<br />
of the former Sts. Peter and<br />
Paul Polish National Catholic<br />
Church and its successful<br />
renovations that established the<br />
current New London Homeless<br />
Hospitality Center there in<br />
2013. It includes an overnight<br />
shelter for men and for women,<br />
daytime hospitality center,<br />
respite center, help center with<br />
computers and mailboxes,<br />
and offices for staff and social<br />
service providers.<br />
After a decade of serving on the<br />
board, Ron began volunteering<br />
regularly at the shelter and in<br />
December 2018, Pastor Zall<br />
asked Ron to serve on the staff.<br />
He said yes, and serves as<br />
Deputy Director for Housing.<br />
Ron was ordained a vocational<br />
deacon in 2017. He serves at<br />
the altar at both St. James’,<br />
Poquetanuck and Grace, Yantic<br />
as a deacon. His daily prayer<br />
life includes the daily offices,<br />
and up to an hour of centering prayer and<br />
meditation each morning, which he says<br />
helps him let go of self-criticism and other<br />
unhelpful thoughts. His practices help him<br />
let go of his own emotional baggage, focus<br />
on the present, and bring the Holy Spirit into<br />
his interactions with others.<br />
“The Spirit of God literally dwells within us<br />
…and people can experience God every<br />
day,” he said. “We can sink into that heart<br />
space anytime.”<br />
He is passionate about his work.<br />
“People come in with all kinds of problems,<br />
and housing is the first piece of it,” he said.<br />
“They might have mental health issues,<br />
might not have a job yet, or they might have<br />
an active substance use challenge. That’s<br />
okay. The housing is the first piece of it.<br />
And the reason that works is that from the<br />
stability of a house, all these other problems<br />
are more manageable. It doesn’t mean<br />
they’re easy, and sometimes you have new<br />
problems you hadn’t anticipated, but now<br />
they’re in a position to be able to work on<br />
4<br />
10<br />
in<br />
Southeastern Connecticut<br />
FAMILIES<br />
struggle to meet basic needs<br />
@ the New London Homeless Hospitality Center<br />
40<br />
BEDS<br />
and seven respite beds<br />
for those facing health issues.<br />
58%<br />
served were at the shelter<br />
less than 30 days.<br />
67%<br />
REPORT<br />
2017 -<br />
2018<br />
MENTAL HEALTH<br />
ISSUES<br />
PERSONALIZED<br />
SUPPORT<br />
740<br />
40%<br />
WOMEN<br />
54%<br />
REPORT<br />
SUBSTANCE<br />
USE<br />
people came for help<br />
including 540 who were<br />
admitted to the shelter.<br />
source: New London Homeless Hospitality Center<br />
the other things they want to change.”<br />
ASSISTANCE IN<br />
FINDING AFFORDABLE<br />
PERMANENT HOUSING<br />
7 %<br />
are under<br />
25<br />
years old<br />
47%<br />
REPORT CHRONIC<br />
HEALTH<br />
PROBLEMS<br />
Ron describes the technique of “motivational<br />
interviewing” that they use to work with<br />
people who some might say are “making<br />
bad decisions.” It’s about respecting their<br />
dignity.<br />
“The core principle is seeing the person<br />
you’re interviewing as the agent of their own<br />
lives. They’re the ones who have to decide<br />
if they’re going to change. Our experience is<br />
telling us that by and large, people who end<br />
up homeless kind of know what they need<br />
to do to get out of homelessness, so our job<br />
is to be midwives in a really interesting way,<br />
to give birth to that change that is already<br />
within them.<br />
“They are the ones with agency, with their<br />
own autonomy, and if there’s going to be<br />
change, they have to be the authors of it.<br />
Our job is to use this technique to help<br />
them discover the words that can describe<br />
the change that they want. And then once<br />
they’re signed up for that, to help them get<br />
the resources they need to do it.”<br />
The other principle he and other staff<br />
at the Center use is that of “harm<br />
reduction.”<br />
“This is the idea that for different<br />
kinds of behaviors that seem selfdestructive<br />
or harmful, abstinence<br />
is probably not a realistic goal. But<br />
I might be able to help a person<br />
implement some harm reduction<br />
strategies that would at least make<br />
their practice less harmful.”<br />
For example, he said, he might ask<br />
someone with an alcohol problem<br />
what it would be like to not have a<br />
drink until noon. Or, someone who<br />
uses opioids whether they could do<br />
that in their room so they won’t fall<br />
over in a busy street and possibly<br />
get hit by a car. It’s not an approach<br />
that is universally accepted.<br />
“A lot of folks would say you’ve got<br />
to have discipline for these people<br />
and tell them what to do,” said Ron.<br />
“But we’ll get nowhere if that’s our<br />
strategy because change comes from the<br />
heart. Our job is to help them give birth to<br />
that.”<br />
It requires setting aside his own expertise.<br />
“I know a lot about many things, and I might<br />
do things differently, and my opinion about<br />
their behaviors might be a negative one, but<br />
I have to set all those things aside, because<br />
they’re the are agents of their own lives.<br />
Change comes from their heart, and not<br />
from mine. And that’s the place we have to<br />
start.” ◊<br />
17
follow me.<br />
– Jesus<br />
18
from the BISHOP DIOCESAN<br />
Joining Jesus in a New Missional Age<br />
Developing Spiritual and Financial resources<br />
to participate in God's Mission<br />
Ian T. Douglas — with Timothy Hodapp and Tiffany Reed<br />
As they were going along the road, someone said to him,<br />
“I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to<br />
him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests;<br />
but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” To<br />
another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, first<br />
let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him,<br />
“Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go<br />
and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Another said, “I will<br />
follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at<br />
my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to<br />
the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”<br />
Luke 9: 57-60<br />
In the sixth chapter of the Gospel of Luke, Jesus offers an uncompromising invitation<br />
to those who wish to follow him. When some declare that they need to return home<br />
and put their affairs in order first before coming along with Jesus, he challenges them<br />
to join him without delay: “No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit<br />
for the kingdom of God.” These are not easy words to hear; they challenge us to move<br />
beyond all that is known, all that is secure. Only by going forward with Jesus can we find<br />
new life, new possibility, new hope in the mission of God.<br />
Over the years, I have not shied away from pointing out that we in the church of the<br />
West, particularly in New England, are living on the cusp of the end of Christendom. The<br />
social, political, and economic privileges that came to the church as an institution when<br />
we identified so closely with the established cultural powers and principalities over the<br />
19
Developing Spiritual<br />
Resources<br />
LEARNING HOW TO<br />
FOLLOW JESUS INTO THE<br />
NEIGHBORHOOD<br />
• Christ Church — Easton<br />
• Christ Church Cathedral — Hartford<br />
• Grace Church — Hartford<br />
• L’Eglise de l’Epiphanie — Stamford<br />
• St. John’s — Essex<br />
• St. John’s — Vernon<br />
• St. Monica’s — Hartford<br />
• St. Mark’s — New Britain<br />
• St. Peter’s — Cheshire<br />
• Trinity — Brooklyn<br />
• Trinity — Torrington<br />
Developing Financial<br />
Resources<br />
ADDRESSING LOCAL NEEDS WITH<br />
PARISH-BASED FUND RAISING<br />
• Christ Church Cathedral<br />
congregations — Hartford<br />
• Christ Church — Bethany<br />
• Emmanuel — Weston<br />
• St. James' — Glastonbury<br />
• St. Monica’s — Hartford<br />
• Trinity — Brooklyn<br />
last centuries are ebbing away. Today, we<br />
Christians are moving from the center to the<br />
margin of society, from places of privileges<br />
to the periphery, from majority to minority<br />
status.<br />
I have been at pains, however, to emphasize<br />
that the end of Christendom is not the end<br />
of the Church as the body of Christ. Just<br />
the opposite! As we Christians become<br />
less identified with the social, political, and<br />
economic elite, we are called to enter even<br />
more deeply into the way of Jesus; or as our<br />
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry says: “The<br />
Way of Love.” Today, more than ever, the<br />
Church, the body of Christ, is seeing itself as<br />
a band of disciples, followers of Jesus, sent<br />
into the world as apostles to be about the<br />
“loving, liberating, life-giving way of Jesus”<br />
(in the words of Presiding Bishop Curry).<br />
At our 2018 Annual Convention of the<br />
Episcopal Church in Connecticut (ECCT),<br />
I invited us to move forward and claim<br />
our baptismal vocation as disciples and<br />
apostles in these changing times through<br />
a renewed commitment to God’s mission<br />
of restoration and reconciliation in Christ<br />
Jesus. I emphasized that we are living in<br />
a “new missional age” and in my address<br />
described what this new age looks like. “In<br />
this new missional age the focus for our<br />
lives as Christians is shifting from a primary<br />
preoccupation of church as an institution to<br />
a new engagement of what the living God in<br />
Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit<br />
is up to in our daily lives and in the wider<br />
world. We are being called to move from<br />
an ecclesiocentric preoccupation with the<br />
church as an institution to a missiocentric<br />
focus on God’s action, God’s mission, in our<br />
neighborhoods.” Indeed we are called to put<br />
our hands to the plough, to not look back,<br />
but rather to move forward and join Jesus in<br />
a new missional age.<br />
Of course the key question is: how exactly<br />
do we in the parishes and neighborhoods<br />
across ECCT join Jesus in this new missional<br />
age? Thanks be to God, literally, we have<br />
been faithfully pursuing initiatives across<br />
ECCT in recent years that point to God’s<br />
future for us. In 2017 and 2018, seven<br />
parishes participated in an experiment<br />
called Living Local: Joining God. Along<br />
with four other dioceses in The Episcopal<br />
Church (East Tennessee, Maine, Newark,<br />
and Southwestern Virginia, and with<br />
Today, more than ever, the Church,<br />
the body of Christ, is seeing itself<br />
as a band of disciples, followers<br />
of Jesus, sent into the world as<br />
apostles to be about the “loving,<br />
liberating, life-giving way of Jesus.”<br />
coaching by Alan Roxburgh of The Missional<br />
Network, our seven parishes discerned<br />
anew — through the six spiritual practices<br />
of listening, discerning, trying on, reflecting,<br />
and deciding — just what God is calling<br />
them to be about in their neighborhoods.<br />
Alongside the Living Local: Joining God<br />
experiment, we undertook research in 2018<br />
into what we in ECCT needed to go forward<br />
as we live into the vision of the Taskforce<br />
for Reimaging the Episcopal Church in<br />
Connecticut (TREC-CT). More specifically,<br />
with the assistance provided by Tiffany<br />
Reed of CCS Consulting, we undertook a<br />
Region Needs Assessment. More than 350<br />
Episcopalians across Connecticut were<br />
interviewed in person and over 500 online<br />
responses were received. The conclusion of<br />
the needs assessment was that we in ECCT<br />
are looking for greater:<br />
1. Connection: To facilitate greater<br />
communication among Episcopalians<br />
in Connecticut.<br />
2. Collaboration: To nurture cooperation<br />
among people, parishes, and initiatives<br />
within and across Regions.<br />
3. Formation: To provide training and<br />
experiential opportunities to form<br />
disciples and apostles in this new<br />
missional age, and<br />
4. Transformation: To support parishes<br />
that are becoming more engaged in<br />
God’s mission.<br />
Building on the lessons learned in both<br />
the Living Local: Joining God experiment<br />
and the Region Needs Assessment, ECCT<br />
launched a pilot project: Joining Jesus In a<br />
New Missional Age. The goal of this project<br />
is to develop both spiritual and financial<br />
resources in our parishes and across ECCT<br />
that we may more faithfully participate in<br />
God’s mission. Initially proposed at our<br />
20
Photo: Allison Gannett<br />
Young Adult Episcopalians from the South Central Region participating in the Yale-New Haven Sacred Harp community on Easter Sunday <strong>2019</strong>.<br />
In this new missional age the<br />
focus for our lives as Christians<br />
is shifting from a primary<br />
preoccupation of church as an<br />
institution to a new engagement<br />
of what the living God in Jesus<br />
through the power of the Holy<br />
Spirit is up to in our daily lives<br />
and in the wider world.<br />
Annual Convention in October 2018, our<br />
Mission Council voted to move forward<br />
with the project in December and covered<br />
the costs for the pilot with income from<br />
endowments of The Missionary Society of<br />
the Episcopal Church in Connecticut. This<br />
past winter, parishes had the opportunity to<br />
hear more about Joining Jesus and how they<br />
might participate in parish-based initiatives to<br />
develop either new spiritual resources or new<br />
financial resources or both.<br />
To develop spiritual resources, the services<br />
of Alan Roxburgh of The Missional Network<br />
were once again engaged, and the initiative<br />
was facilitated by Tim Hodapp, ECCT’s Canon<br />
for Mission Collaboration. In February, an atcapacity<br />
crowd of laity and clergy met with Al<br />
Roxburgh for an information session to learn<br />
about the five spiritual practices (listening,<br />
discerning, trying on, reflecting, deciding)<br />
that individuals, teams, and parishes as a<br />
whole might pursue in the initiative. A second<br />
information session was scheduled, and all<br />
told, 130 people from 29 parishes met at The<br />
Commons of ECCT for a meal, conversation,<br />
and practice sessions to learn more.<br />
ECCT then offered to provide structured,<br />
facilitated guidance to up to one dozen<br />
parishes for an intensive, four-module,<br />
12-month program, to introduce and<br />
incarnate the five spiritual practices. Eleven<br />
parishes and the congregations of our<br />
Cathedral signed on to participate. Based on<br />
the learnings from Living Local: Joining God,<br />
The Missional Network developed a more<br />
flexible and efficient model for developing<br />
spiritual resources in parishes based on<br />
the newly refined framework. The focus of<br />
the first module has been on “becoming a<br />
people of relationship rather than outcomes,”<br />
helping team members practice small steps<br />
to cultivate a new awareness of what God<br />
is up to in their neighborhoods and how the<br />
parish is connected in their communities.<br />
Module 2 explores how to engage in simple<br />
listening conversations with people in their<br />
neighborhoods as an exercise in “listening<br />
without an agenda.” The third and fourth<br />
21
Joining Jesus<br />
by the NUMBERS<br />
130<br />
INDIVIDUALS<br />
attended information sessions hosted<br />
by Alan Roxburgh and Tim Hodapp to<br />
explore Joining Jesus Raising Spiritual<br />
Resources<br />
74<br />
PARISHES<br />
met with Tiffany Reed from CCS<br />
Fundraising to learn more about Joining<br />
Jesus Raising Financial Resources and<br />
15 parishes conducted rapid studies to<br />
consider participating in a collaborative<br />
fundraising initiative. 248 individuals<br />
and families were interviewed as part<br />
of these studies to gather thoughts<br />
about their parish’s visions, plans, and<br />
participation in a fundraising initiative<br />
IN TOTAL<br />
from<br />
5<br />
29<br />
PARISHES<br />
10<br />
PARISHES +<br />
the congregations of Christ Church<br />
Cathedral are engaging the new<br />
practices to develop spiritual resources<br />
PARISHES +<br />
the congregations of Christ Church<br />
Cathedral are engaging parish-based<br />
initiatives to develop new financial<br />
resources<br />
2<br />
PARISHES<br />
and our Cathedral congregations are<br />
engaging both<br />
10<br />
INDIVIDUAL DONORS<br />
have contributed to the ECCT-wide<br />
Collaborative Projects<br />
As of October 15<br />
the Joining Jesus initiative<br />
has received gifts and pledges<br />
totaling more than<br />
$2,986,000<br />
FROM<br />
256<br />
individuals and families<br />
The goal of the Joining Jesus<br />
In a New Missional Age project<br />
is to develop both spiritual and<br />
financial resources in our parishes<br />
and across ECCT that we may<br />
more faithfully participate in God’s<br />
mission.<br />
modules, which will be undertaken in the<br />
months of September <strong>2019</strong> through June<br />
2020, engaging the spiritual exercises<br />
more deeply as the Joining Jesus Team<br />
members learn to “listen to the stories of<br />
the neighborhood” [Module 3] and more<br />
ably “discern God’s activity and movement<br />
toward God’s future for the community”<br />
[Module 4].<br />
Early reports from the participating teams<br />
is that this initiative is already yielding the<br />
development of new spiritual resources<br />
through the practice of encountering<br />
their neighborhoods through God’s eyes.<br />
Recently, the parishes and clergy gathered<br />
at The Commons to share stories about<br />
how this first module has progressed, learn<br />
about the second module, and share their<br />
stories and excitement about joining Jesus<br />
in imaginative and new ways across our<br />
neighborhoods in Connecticut.<br />
Parallel to the development of spiritual<br />
resources is a new initiative to raise financial<br />
resources in parishes across ECCT, led<br />
by Tiffany Reed and her team from CCS<br />
Consulting. To begin with, Tiffany met<br />
with 74 parishes to determine interest in<br />
and potential for conducting a fundraising<br />
initiative. Parish leaders learned about the<br />
opportunity and discerned together how the<br />
funds raised locally might be used locally,<br />
from new ministries and capital projects<br />
to adding personnel and funding parish<br />
endowments. These 74 parishes also learned<br />
how they would be invited to contribute<br />
a portion of money raised in their parishbased<br />
fundraising efforts to diocesan-wide<br />
projects proposed in response to the 2018<br />
Region Needs Assessment. The four projects<br />
include: a venture capital fund to resource<br />
new undertakings in each of ECCT’s six<br />
Regions; support for new intentional<br />
Christian communities, such as college<br />
chaplaincies and/or young adult services<br />
communities in each Region; funding to<br />
assist Camp Washington’s development<br />
as a year-round resource for discipleship<br />
formation; and the redevelopment of the<br />
worship space of Christ Church Cathedral<br />
into a flexible, multi-purpose space to serve<br />
ECCT and the arts communities in Hartford<br />
and across Connecticut. (see sidebar, p. 23)<br />
Each parish participating in the fund-raising<br />
initiative chooses which of the four projects<br />
they would like to contribute 20% of their<br />
new money raised. In addition, I have been<br />
in conversation with nearly a dozen individual<br />
Episcopalians in Connecticut who might<br />
wish to contribute directly to one or more of<br />
the diocesan-wide projects.<br />
Of the 74 parishes initially approached,<br />
15 parishes conducted rapid studies to<br />
explore volunteer capacity, goal setting,<br />
and fundraising plans. An additional 35<br />
parishes indicated an interest in considering<br />
a study at a later date. Five parishes and the<br />
congregations of our Cathedral decided to
The real blessing of Joining Jesus<br />
in a New Missional Age is that<br />
we in the Episcopal Church in<br />
Connecticut are looking forward<br />
to the future with new hope, new<br />
energy, and a new commitment to<br />
God’s mission — and we are doing<br />
this together!<br />
From left, Region Missionaries Erendira Jimenez, George<br />
Black, and Dylan Mello recording a Coffee Hour at The<br />
Commons podcast. Each of ECCT's Regions has a fulltime<br />
Region Missionary to help them “catalyze, convene,<br />
connect, and expand capabilities”.<br />
ECCT-wide<br />
collaborative projects<br />
Support for Regions<br />
with full-time Region<br />
Missionaries and a newly<br />
launched entrepreneurial<br />
fund<br />
Establish new intentional<br />
Christian communities in<br />
each Region<br />
Transform Christ Church<br />
Cathedral’s space as a site<br />
for engaging the world<br />
Photo: Enrendira Jimenez<br />
engage a fundraising effort. Interestingly,<br />
these parishes were all small- to middlesize<br />
and would probably not have been<br />
able to afford and/or lead a parish-based<br />
fundraising initiative without the assistance<br />
of ECCT and CCS Consulting. CCS continues<br />
to provide weekly expertise and coaching<br />
until all stages of the parish fundraising<br />
initiatives are complete. We are moving<br />
forward strongly with both our parish-based<br />
initiatives and individual gift appeals, and we<br />
are on track to be at or near our pilot goal of<br />
$3,000,000, raised in just over six months of<br />
work.<br />
Clearly the Holy Spirit is blessing the efforts<br />
of our pilot Joining Jesus in a New Missional<br />
Age project. There is excitement across<br />
the participating parishes as they develop<br />
spiritual and financial resources never before<br />
imagined. The Mission Council, at their<br />
recent September meeting, heard moving<br />
stories of how parishes across ECCT are<br />
raising spiritual and financial resources<br />
to participate more effectively in God’s<br />
mission. And, the Mission Council agreed to<br />
contribute resources from the endowments<br />
of the Missionary Society of the Episcopal<br />
Church in Connecticut to discern how<br />
many other parishes in ECCT may want<br />
to participate in Joining Jesus in a New<br />
Missional Age in 2020.<br />
Our Joining Jesus in a New Missional Age<br />
pilot project has been a success. As exciting<br />
as it has been to witness a dozen parishes<br />
stepping out into their neighborhoods in new<br />
ways and the raising of close to three million<br />
dollars in small-to medium-sized parishes,<br />
augmented by gifts from individuals, the real<br />
blessing of Joining Jesus in a New Missional<br />
Age is that we in the Episcopal Church in<br />
Connecticut are looking forward to the future<br />
with new hope, new energy, and a new<br />
commitment to God’s mission — and we are<br />
doing this together! Thanks be to God.<br />
Deepen Camp Washington’s<br />
capacity to serve as a<br />
resource for Christian<br />
formation for children,<br />
youth, and adults<br />
The Rt. Rev. Ian T. Douglas is Bishop Diocesan of the Episcopal Church in<br />
Connecticut. The Rev. Timothy Hodapp serves as Canon for Mission Collaboration<br />
for the Episcopal Church in Connecticut. Tiffany Reed is Vice President with CCS<br />
Fundraising, where she has spent the last six years partnering with nonprofits to help<br />
them turn their fundraising goals into mission impact.<br />
23
from the BISHOP SUFFRAGAN<br />
Jesus cleanses ten lepers<br />
Laura J. Ahrens<br />
On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee.<br />
As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out,<br />
saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and<br />
show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them,<br />
when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated<br />
himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, “Were<br />
not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return<br />
and give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your<br />
way; your faith has made you well.”<br />
NRSV, Luke 17:11-19<br />
LESSONS IN GRATITUDE,<br />
GROUNDED IN JESUS<br />
Let me begin by saying Thank you.<br />
Thank you for reading this. And<br />
more importantly, thank you for your<br />
faithfulness. Thank you for the ways you<br />
seek to engage with your faith. Thank you for<br />
being curious about spirituality. Thank you for<br />
naming what you love about Church. Thank<br />
you for daring to wonder what God might be<br />
creating and inviting us to join.<br />
Thank you for the ways you seek to share<br />
God’s caring love. Thank you for the ways<br />
you share kindness — kindness offered,<br />
spoken, shared with others ...with family,<br />
friends, neighbors... shared with those you<br />
encounter along the way. I notice those<br />
moments all the time. Those moments<br />
matter. You matter. Thank you.<br />
My passion for gratitude became even more<br />
alive for me during our ECCT Holy Land<br />
pilgrimage this past spring. It was there<br />
that my awareness of gratitude found its<br />
grounding in the biblical teachings of Jesus.<br />
There were 31 of us that traveled to our<br />
Holy Land, a holy group of pilgrims seeking<br />
to know our holy God and to touch this holy<br />
land... 31 of us prayed, wept, laughed, and<br />
reconnected to our Lord.<br />
There are too many stories and too many<br />
memories to share in this small article,<br />
but I do want to say thank you to those<br />
who traveled with Bishop Ian and myself<br />
and those who made the trip possible. I<br />
am grateful for the privilege of leading this<br />
journey with Bishop Ian, and the gift of<br />
learning from our guide, our fellow pilgrims,<br />
24
and the land itself. I believe all of us feel<br />
closer to Jesus because of this opportunity<br />
to share in his stories and to share in the<br />
stories of those with whom we traveled.<br />
One day we traveled to the traditional site of<br />
the village referenced above in Luke 17:11-<br />
19. The story of the 10 lepers... the story<br />
of the one who returned... the one who<br />
returned to say thank you. Thank you.<br />
The church of this traditional site is filled<br />
with icons. There is one very large icon of<br />
the healing of the 10 lepers. It is not an<br />
icon of the one who returns, it is an icon of<br />
the healing... Jesus offering this holy gift<br />
to the 10. In the icon, you cannot tell who<br />
will be the one who will return. You cannot<br />
tell which of the lepers will be the one who<br />
thought to say “thank you,” the one who will<br />
be the beacon of gratitude for generations<br />
yet to come, the one who will be a beacon<br />
of gratitude for me.<br />
Jesus celebrates the one who returns.<br />
He rejoices in the one who says thank<br />
you, raising him up as an example of faith.<br />
Thanking Jesus, we name our faith. We<br />
recognize the one “from whom all blessings<br />
flow.” In this story, I see Jesus celebrating<br />
our thank-you’s... our thank-you’s to God and<br />
also our thank-you’s to others who see us,<br />
notice us, and are kind to us; our thank-you’s<br />
to those who receive our gifts and those<br />
who delight when we nurture our gifts. I see<br />
Jesus celebrating those who say thank you<br />
in such a way that others are encouraged to<br />
live into the fullness of who God is calling<br />
them to be.<br />
Toward the end of my summer vacation in<br />
Canada, I received a phone call notifying me<br />
that my mother had fallen and broken her<br />
hip. In that moment, I could feel much of<br />
my world reorganizing itself. I felt a shifting<br />
in priorities. I found myself grounded in two<br />
things: Jesus and gratitude.<br />
Grounded in Jesus. Grounded in my prayer<br />
for guidance, for calm, for rest and for<br />
creative energy. Going to church, being in<br />
Christian community, worshiping the Lord,<br />
are all practices that help me be centered in<br />
my relationship with Jesus.<br />
Grounded in gratitude. I am grateful for my<br />
friend who I traveled with who prayed with<br />
me and cared for me as I tried to care for<br />
my mother from afar. I am grateful to the<br />
doctors and nurses and all of those who<br />
tended to my mother as I traveled home.<br />
I share this story with you because I know<br />
many of you have similar stories, caring for<br />
a parent, spouse, or loved one. And, I know<br />
that you are mindful of those who support<br />
you as you support your loved one. I share<br />
with you in your offering of thanksgiving<br />
for those who walk with you. The gift of<br />
kindness through the gifts of time, care,<br />
guidance, wisdom, counsel, and support is<br />
a gift of grace. I thank you for walking with<br />
those you love in their journey and sharing<br />
your kindness with them. One healed leper<br />
returned to say “Thank you.” Thank you.<br />
For the past few months, I have been<br />
keeping a journal of gratitude...a journal<br />
of “thank-you’s” for the people who I see<br />
helping us in ECCT live into God’s mission ...<br />
ministry that I see is grounded in Jesus and<br />
is offering of God’s transformational love.<br />
I witness with an ache in my heart the<br />
divisions in this country and the anxiety<br />
that finds its home in our churches. Our<br />
churches are filled with faithful parishioners<br />
who come to find rest and to make sense<br />
of the tensions and stresses of the world. I<br />
hear anxiety about time and money and the<br />
future of the church when clergy, vestries<br />
and congregations share with me their hope<br />
to grow their churches. They love what they<br />
have found there and they want to share it,<br />
and they are concerned.<br />
I see the anxiety being addressed by faithful<br />
parishioners who are willing to go out into<br />
their communities not only to share God’s<br />
love, but also to collaborate with others. They<br />
often find they receive God’s love as they<br />
listen and learn from those they meet. I see<br />
their lives being transformed in ways they<br />
never imagined because they were willing<br />
to try something new ... to risk an idea<br />
about “going out into the neighborhood”<br />
and find the fruit not of church growth,<br />
but of personal growth in one’s faith and<br />
understanding of the breadth and depth of<br />
Jesus’ love.<br />
Thank you to the leadership of our<br />
congregations, the clergy and laity, who help<br />
to create space of prayer and possibility to<br />
live into God’s future. Thank you for those<br />
who have had the courage to step out into<br />
the future and listen for God with curiosity<br />
and wonder. Thank you to those who have<br />
dared to and helped others to go out of our<br />
buildings, moving to joining God’s mission<br />
and grow the Jesus Movement in the world.<br />
It feels faithful and it reminds me that God’s<br />
future is going to look different from our past<br />
and our present.<br />
I witness our Racial Healing, Justice, and<br />
Reconciliation Ministry Network inviting us<br />
as a diocese to do the holy work of looking<br />
at white supremacy and examining our<br />
own stories and places of prejudice and<br />
blindness. We are also called to look at<br />
the places of power imbalance and biased<br />
judgement within our Church as well as in<br />
our culture and our personal lives. This is holy<br />
and hard work. Thank you to the network for<br />
their leadership in this holy work.<br />
I witness persons around our diocese calling<br />
us to be more attentive to climate change<br />
and the ways we are negatively impacting<br />
“this fragile earth our island home.” Thank<br />
you to those persons who are caring for<br />
God’s creation and for awakening in many<br />
of us an awareness of how we might live<br />
differently as gracious stewards.<br />
I witness how hard we are all working to<br />
further God’s mission. This witness has<br />
called all of us to rethink Church. We have<br />
been asked to examine our biases and<br />
expand our understanding of who is our<br />
neighbor and how we partner with them. We<br />
have been invited to care for our planet in<br />
new ways. Our first steps into this work can<br />
be daunting, confusing, and unfamiliar.<br />
And I know God is alive and present in<br />
this work. I feel God’s joy in my heart<br />
as we reach out to make new friends<br />
and build good bridges to possibility and<br />
hope. God needs us with him now for the<br />
transformational future we are being called<br />
to share with God and with the world.<br />
Thank you to the faithful servants of the Lord<br />
who shepherd this holy work.<br />
The Rt. Rev. Laura J. Ahrens is Bishop Suffragan of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut.<br />
25
Seeking God in<br />
all people<br />
Barbara Curry<br />
As Christians, we are taught to see God in all people and to<br />
love each and every one of them as ourselves.<br />
The Episcopal Church invites all to come in and worship —<br />
regardless of whom they love. That’s a bold statement that says<br />
we as a faith community are not going to judge the stranger in<br />
our midst. We’re not alone: Across the United States, several<br />
other denominations have joyously taken the stance to see God<br />
in all people. They have proclaimed their churches as open and<br />
affirming.<br />
It wasn’t always like that in The Episcopal Church.<br />
In 1974, Dr. Louis Crew (Clay) found himself wanting religion<br />
in his life and not finding it. He and his partner, Ernest Clay,<br />
were living in San Francisco, and they wanted something more<br />
than the bar scene to meet other gay couples. He called Grace<br />
Episcopal Cathedral nearby, because they were known to be<br />
progressive, and asked if they could help him and his partner<br />
meet other gay Episcopalians. The derisive laughter he heard<br />
in response prompted him to start a newsletter to help gay<br />
and lesbian members of the Episcopal Church support one<br />
another in what was then a fairly hostile environment. He was<br />
determined for every Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer<br />
and Questioning (LGBTQ+) person to find the Love of God in our<br />
Episcopal Church.<br />
That effort has grown over the decades to what is now an<br />
essential part of the Episcopal Church, an advocacy organization<br />
called Integrity. Integrity gained strength and visibility and soon<br />
after forming they were a presence at our Episcopal General<br />
Convention, yet their voice was often dismissed.<br />
In 1976 Integrity spearheaded a resolution at General Convention<br />
to prohibit discrimination against gays and lesbians. It passed,<br />
and a year later, the first openly gay priest was ordained in the<br />
Episcopal Church.<br />
In 1985, Integrity urged our General Convention to speak out<br />
against hate crimes based on sexual orientation and to encourage<br />
federal officials to take action against such violence.<br />
In 1988, at General Convention in Detroit, it was the Rev. Dexter<br />
Knight Cheney, now a retired priest in ECCT, as part of his role<br />
at the Diocese of Michigan, who was designated the Home<br />
Secretary for the convention. He was approached by groups from<br />
Detroit and Ann Arbor to help organize the first Integrity Eucharist<br />
at convention.<br />
26
It was a time of AIDS and there<br />
were few if any dioceses that would<br />
consider gay or lesbian individuals<br />
for ordination. Still, it became<br />
important to the members of<br />
Integrity to have their own sacred<br />
moment at Convention. It was a<br />
clandestine affair only publicized<br />
by word of mouth and personal<br />
invitations. It was staged in a hotel<br />
conference room with elements<br />
cobbled together quickly. In the<br />
end about 40 people attended that<br />
evening, about two-thirds identified<br />
as gay or lesbian; a majority were<br />
gay men. Several straight clergy<br />
and lay allies also participated. In<br />
the shadows of the Convention<br />
activities, this group gathered to<br />
make their prayers known.<br />
By 1994, Episcopal Integrity<br />
participation at General Convention<br />
had grown and their efforts helped<br />
pass a resolution explicitly affirming<br />
that gay, lesbian and bisexual people could<br />
not be refused ordination in the Episcopal<br />
Church for that reason alone.<br />
Nine years later, in 2003, our Episcopal<br />
Church elected, confirmed, and consecrated<br />
the first openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson.<br />
At his consecration, he wore a bulletproof<br />
shield under his vestments because of the<br />
overarching violence that was threatened<br />
against him. Through it all, Bishop Robinson<br />
was the embodiment of Integrity.<br />
In 2009, I was proud to be part of the<br />
Integrity media team at the Episcopal<br />
General Convention in Anaheim, California<br />
and to witness the adoption of four<br />
resolutions addressing gender identity<br />
and transgender individuals. The Integrity<br />
Eucharist that year was a major event. It<br />
filled multiple ballrooms at the hotel adjacent<br />
to the convention center, over 1,200 people<br />
attended — it was standing room only. The<br />
Presiding Bishop was seated in the audience,<br />
along with Bishop James E. Curry, suffragan<br />
of ECCT. The sermon that night was delivered<br />
by the Rt. Reverend Barbara Harris. The<br />
Integrity envisions a<br />
church where people of all<br />
sexual orientations, gender<br />
identities, and gender<br />
expressions are welcomed<br />
and affirmed. That sounds so<br />
very righteous, yet in truth, it<br />
is far harder to achieve than<br />
you can imagine.<br />
celebrant was Bishop Gene Robinson. In his<br />
dismissal, he dismissed all present saying,<br />
“May God bless you with foolishness,<br />
enough foolishness to believe that we can<br />
make a difference in this world and in this<br />
church, so that we may do what others<br />
claim cannot be done.”<br />
Also in 2009, a new fledgling<br />
companion group to Integrity —<br />
TransEpiscopal, held their own first<br />
Eucharist at General Convention. It was<br />
in a hotel conference room, and again<br />
about 40 people attended.<br />
By 2012, nearly every resolution that<br />
Integrity endorsed was affirmed by the<br />
both houses of Convention.<br />
All of this from one man’s quest to<br />
meet others in his church that were like<br />
him. Louie Crew Clay started Episcopal<br />
Integrity, a true grass-roots effort<br />
to bring lesbian, gay, bisexual, and<br />
transgender people into communion<br />
with God.<br />
Integrity envisions a church where<br />
people of all sexual orientations,<br />
gender identities, and gender<br />
expressions are welcomed and affirmed. That<br />
sounds so very righteous, yet in truth, it is far<br />
harder to achieve than you can imagine.<br />
Personally, I have an intense sense of pride<br />
in my Episcopal Church. For opening their<br />
doors, and inviting me and so many others<br />
in to share our mutual love of God, and<br />
willingness to serve Christ. At parish after<br />
parish in my spiritual journey, bringing me<br />
into women’s sacred spaces. Teaching me<br />
not only about God in my life, but more<br />
importantly, about my life in God. My heart<br />
is filled with fellowship in prayers and<br />
celebrations. My pride is filled with integrity<br />
— not only in the organization, but also in the<br />
moral fiber in this our Episcopal community.<br />
◊ ◊ ◊<br />
You can hear an interview with Rev.<br />
Dexter Cheney in a video report from<br />
Integrity’s 2009 media coverage of General<br />
Convention in Anaheim at youtube.com/<br />
watch?v=We5fiXPnYII (the interview was<br />
shot by Barbara Curry)<br />
Barbara Curry is an LGBTQ+ Episcopalian who currently serves on ECCT’s Finance Committee and was formerly on its Executive Council.<br />
She is a freelance media producer and television director; provides crews and equipment for broadcast and non-broadcast video and film<br />
productions; and serves as a media consultant. She is a trainer with True Colors, Inc., subject matter expert for the Stonewall Speakers<br />
Bureau, and has served as producer for the annual Fantasia Fair in Provincetown, MA.<br />
27
Encountering<br />
Jesus in a girl<br />
with leprosy<br />
led to love for<br />
a ministry on<br />
the margins<br />
Ranjit K. Mathews<br />
I understand my<br />
call to proclaim<br />
Christ to the people<br />
on the margins of our<br />
city, because that<br />
is where I believe<br />
Christ would be.<br />
The Cathedral Church of St. Philomena ı<br />
Mysore in Karnataka, India.<br />
Photo: mysore_Arshad.ka
I<br />
experienced Jesus through a chance meeting with a young Indian<br />
girl in the summer of 1999.<br />
For my undergraduate degree, I enrolled in George Washington<br />
University in Washington, D.C, and while a seeker within the<br />
Episcopal tradition, I wanted to further explore my life in Christ at a<br />
campus ministry.<br />
On one particular Thursday evening in the student center, I heard<br />
Christian music playing in a dark classroom and decided to venture<br />
inside. I immediately saw music lyrics shown on wall through<br />
a transparency and felt emotionally moved to join in, as it had a<br />
catchy beat. Thus started my time with Hope Bible Study, a more<br />
conservative, student-led group located on the campus of George<br />
Washington University. The group served as my faith community, as<br />
I found friends who were kind and made me feel at home. We went<br />
to church together, hung out, and prayed together.<br />
Throughout my journey with the group, however, I was slowly<br />
being invited to turn away from friends who weren’t<br />
Christian, or who went clubbing or enjoyed having<br />
a more secular time. Some of these were people<br />
that I deeply enjoyed spending time with. Hope<br />
Bible Study also had some harsh things to say about<br />
the body, and a very conservative understanding<br />
of relationships. And so it truly felt as if I was<br />
bifurcating myself; and came to understand which<br />
side was quote unquote “good,” and which side was<br />
quote unquote “bad.”<br />
If time in college is meant to be a space that is<br />
associated with liberty and deepening of identity, or<br />
at least a more open understanding of one's self,<br />
my first two years were filled with deep internal<br />
turmoil.<br />
THE PILGRIMAGE<br />
That summer, in 1999, my family and I traveled to India on our onceevery-four<br />
years trip to my ancestral land. As it happened, my father<br />
was on the ordination track for priesthood, and I was discerning a<br />
path of faithfulness to Christ.<br />
During this vacation I sat down with my father on the veranda of<br />
my grandparent’s house in Kottayam in the state of Kerala. He<br />
looked at me — in only a way that a parent can — and asked me<br />
a very poignant question, “Ranjit, do you believe that of all the<br />
people who live in India who are NOT Christians, do you think God<br />
will send them to hell?” To say that I was caught off guard would<br />
be an understatement; but upon reflection, the question couldn’t<br />
have come at a better time in my spiritual journey. I was ready for it,<br />
because I was questioning what was being told to me at bible study,<br />
as it didn’t sit well with my own experience of God.<br />
I heard Jesus saying<br />
that I... should join<br />
him at the borders<br />
of society and<br />
proclaim the justice<br />
of the<br />
Realm of God.<br />
Later, during that same trip, I had an experience that not only<br />
answered that question for me forever, but transformed my life and<br />
crystallized my vocation. I remember it now like it was yesterday.<br />
My parents, sister, and I were in the bustling city of Mysore in the<br />
southern state of Karnataka. One afternoon we decided to visit the<br />
Cathedral Church of St. Philomena’s. We went downstairs without<br />
shoes on, which is culturally appropriate for India. After exploring the<br />
complicated history of the Cathedral under British rule, we decided<br />
to come upstairs. My parents and sister went up first, and I lagged<br />
behind.<br />
As I made my way back up, at the second step before the top, I<br />
saw a girl who was on a skateboard-like structure. She had leprosy.<br />
I remember this moment vividly. It seems like we looked at each<br />
other for some time; and then she took her hand and she touched<br />
my foot, and then brought her hand to her mouth. In many parts of<br />
Indian culture, when you do this, you are conveying respect. And<br />
yet, for me, I felt like I was seeing Jesus in her saying to me that<br />
I was beloved just who I was, for I didn’t need to<br />
change anything about myself.<br />
This was what it means to be beloved. Utterly<br />
beloved. I heard Jesus saying that I, in my belovedness,<br />
I should join him at the borders of society<br />
and proclaim the justice of the Realm of God. I also<br />
heard that I should join the leper girl in India and be<br />
in solidarity with her.<br />
This unambiguous, unconditional sense of liberation<br />
set me free in wholeness to go and offer this radical<br />
sharing of love to others, no matter where or who<br />
they are in life. This experience of God liberated<br />
me to share this sense of love, to whomever I<br />
came across. In theology, we call it an ontological<br />
change. But whatever it was, it was God and it has<br />
compelled me to proclaim the love of God; and yet<br />
I am drawn to share God’s love with those who find themselves at<br />
the margins of society.<br />
I feel drawn to the margins of our society, because I was met on<br />
the margin of myself by somebody who was herself on the outskirts<br />
of society. As a young girl with leprosy, she would have been<br />
stigmatized within Indian culture; and yet I believe Jesus through<br />
her helped me to see that I was beloved just as I am. Just as I am,<br />
with my love of Hip-Hop music and friends who are not Christian.<br />
With her gentle touch of my foot, she had recognized my inherent<br />
beloved-ness.<br />
As rector of St. James' here in New London, I understand my call<br />
to proclaim Christ to the people on the margins of our city, because<br />
that is where I believe Christ would be; not in any paternalistic<br />
sense; but in solidarity and accompaniment. I pray that the Holy<br />
Spirit, that She will continue to lead and guide me to share the<br />
Realm of God.<br />
The Rev. Ranjit K. Mathews is the rector of St. James', New London. In ECCT he serves on the Mission Council and works with multiple ministry<br />
networks including those working with combating gun violence; climate and the environment; clergy of color; immigration and immigrant children;<br />
and racial healing, justice, and reconciliation. He chairs The Episcopal Church's Task Force on Dialogue with the South Sudanese Anglican Diaspora.<br />
29
Following Jesus<br />
onto the island of Hispaniola<br />
Frankye Regis<br />
I wanted to create a place where children could<br />
go and forget about their misery and develop<br />
spiritually, intellectually, and socially.<br />
Marc-Yves Regis<br />
Photo: Marc-Yves Regis<br />
30
Children in Camp Hispaniola in the Dominican<br />
Republic play a game of tug of war.<br />
31
Photo: Marc-Yves Regis<br />
Campers, and inset, founder Marc-Yves Regis, at this year's summer camp in the Dominican Republic.<br />
When faced with a moral dilemma, many people in the<br />
1990s used a phrase that was in vogue in popular culture<br />
— “What Would Jesus Do?”<br />
In the Gospels, Jesus set many examples for Christians to follow.<br />
He commanded us to love our neighbor, give to the poor, feed<br />
the hungry, and take care of the widows and children, especially<br />
orphans. He also commanded us to follow Him.<br />
Marc-Yves Regis, parishioner at Trinity, Collinsville, decided to follow<br />
Jesus and start a summer camp, first in the Dominican Republican<br />
in 2009, and a year later in his native country of Haiti. While growing<br />
up in the island nation, he saw Haitian farmers leaving in caravans to<br />
go work in bateyes or sugarcane plantations across the border, and<br />
they never returned home. He always wondered what happened<br />
to them, and as an adult, he pursued a lifelong dream to document<br />
their peril.<br />
Beginning in 1994, he began traveling to the Dominican Republic<br />
each year to research, photograph, and gather enough material<br />
to write a book about what he witnessed. He fell in love with the<br />
people, and instead of only documenting what he saw, he spent<br />
more time helping them with their basic needs. He began taking<br />
clothes and money to share among farmers — eventually they<br />
began to feel like family.<br />
“I stopped looking at the people as subjects for a book and began<br />
looking at them as brothers and sisters.” Marc explained.<br />
Eventually, after many years, he finished the book, When Freedom<br />
Comes, about the plight of Haitian braceros (farm workers), and is<br />
looking for a publisher.<br />
Over the years, he noticed that the children in the sugarcane<br />
plantations did not have any toys to play with. Nor were there any<br />
fun activities to occupy their time during the long, hot summer. As<br />
32
a newspaper photographer in America, Marc had taken countless<br />
pictures of children enjoying summer camp while participating in<br />
soccer, baseball, basketball, dance, music, swimming, and arts<br />
and crafts. So he started a summer camp at a batey school in the<br />
Dominican Republic with 100 children that first year. It has steadily<br />
grown.<br />
Campers, ranging in age from three to 12, are from 17 different<br />
sugarcane plantations. Most are children of Haitian sugar-cane<br />
cutters who are paid by the weight of the cane, and their incomes<br />
barely sustain them. In addition to a schedule of outdoor fun and<br />
games, campers are provided transportation to and from camp, two<br />
meals a day, a t-shirt, and a string bag filled with personal hygiene<br />
items.<br />
“I wanted to create a place where children could go and forget<br />
about their misery and develop spiritually, intellectually and socially,’<br />
he said.<br />
Meanwhile in 2010, a massive earthquake struck Haiti and<br />
devastated it. Marc desperately wanted to help and went there<br />
with a medical mission from Connecticut. He saw many children<br />
hanging around outside all day with nothing to do, similar to what he<br />
witnessed in the Dominican Republic. They looked lost and bored; it<br />
brought back memories of his childhood when he experienced the<br />
same thing. It was at that moment he decided to start a summer<br />
camp in Haiti and give the children an opportunity he never had. He<br />
started the camp in an open field in the small town of Pernier, Haiti,<br />
and invited children from the surrounding neighborhoods. Most of<br />
their parents are street vendors who earn less than five dollars a<br />
day.<br />
After expanding the summer camp to both countries on the island<br />
of Hispaniola, Marc named it Camp Hispaniola. He is the volunteer<br />
director of the not-for-profit organization. This year, it served a record<br />
550 children. In the Dominican Republic, 200 campers participated,<br />
and in Haiti, where the need is greater, there were 350. There were<br />
a total of 60 teenage counselors, 30 in each country. About 95<br />
percent of the counselors are camp alumni.<br />
“I want to create future young leaders for the countries,” said Marc,<br />
discussing why he hires local teenagers from each country. “This is<br />
the model for Camp Hispaniola.”<br />
He also hires local cooks who go with him to purchase the food<br />
they serve. The Haitian economy benefits because Marc buys the<br />
majority of food and drink from local vendors, and the camp workers<br />
spur the economy when they spend the money they earn.<br />
“We are grateful to our cooks who prepare meals in a makeshift<br />
kitchen for 550 children,” Marc said. “It’s a labor of love. Most of our<br />
cooks have been working for us for the past 10 years, and some of<br />
their children are campers or counselors. They count on the money<br />
each year to help them buy school supplies for their children.”<br />
Although Marc started the camp on a shoestring budget using his<br />
own money, many people helped make the camp what it is today.<br />
The most ardent supporters of Camp Hispaniola are Saint Ann’s,<br />
Old Lyme; Trinity, Collinsville; Connecticut Walks for Haiti; Windsor<br />
In 2009, 100 campers attended the<br />
inaugural program in the Dominican<br />
Republic. This summer, in both the<br />
Dominican Republic and in Haiti, 550<br />
campers — ranging in age from three to<br />
17— participated.<br />
House of Worship (WHOW), which is comprised of members<br />
from that city’s faith-based institutions and includes Grace Church,<br />
Windsor; and Friends of Camp Hispaniola.<br />
“I wanted to give the children something to occupy themselves, to<br />
play, eat a healthy meal and see what it is like to have fun, despite<br />
living in a country full of misery,” Marc said. “The earthquake<br />
devastated a country that had already been collapsing. When I look<br />
back at my childhood growing up in Haiti, I see myself through<br />
them. I’m not giving back, I’m sharing my blessings from the Good<br />
Lord. Sharing the bread of life. Sharing my love with them. Listening<br />
to their cries. Helping some of them pay for school. Anytime I go to<br />
Haiti or the Dominican Republic, it makes me appreciate everything<br />
I now have. God did me a favor by bringing me to the United States.<br />
It could be me still suffering in Haiti. Despite difficulties or problems,<br />
it’s my duty to go back year after year to share the joy and happiness<br />
with my little brothers and sisters in Christ.”<br />
But following Jesus is not easy.<br />
“Among the fun and joy, there are sad moments too,” said Marc<br />
talking about an incident that occurred at summer camp in Haiti this<br />
year. “I watched a little girl for a couple of days. I saw her take out a<br />
container from her backpack and fill it with the food she was served<br />
at camp and then put it back into her backpack. Then I saw her walk<br />
around the table looking for leftovers and eating them. I asked her<br />
where her food was, and she said, ‘I’m saving it for my mother.’ It<br />
broke my heart to see this child taking on adult responsibility. This<br />
was my saddest moment at camp this year.”<br />
For the remaining days of camp, Marc asked for her bowl each day<br />
and filled it with food to send home to her single mother. But he still<br />
gave the little girl her own plate of food to eat at camp.<br />
“What would Jesus do?”<br />
Frankye Regis co-manages a high school learning lab where<br />
she works as a reading and writing interventionist. She is also<br />
a freelance writer and editor.<br />
33
Kindness<br />
opens doors,<br />
hearts, and<br />
the mission<br />
of Jesus<br />
The Rev. Loyda E.<br />
Morales<br />
Karin Hamilton<br />
The Rev. Loyda E. Morales outside of the Church of the Good Shepherd.<br />
The Rev. Loyda E. Morales came to the<br />
Church of the Good Shepherd as their<br />
new rector this spring in part because<br />
it was more financially stable than her prior<br />
church in the Bronx. She has an innate<br />
sense of how spiritual and material aspects<br />
of life impact each other, how they both<br />
need attention in life, and sometimes, need<br />
adjustments to their balance.<br />
As a Christian, especially a priest, she<br />
didn’t want to put material things in front of<br />
spiritual ones, but knew that when material<br />
things get so overwhelming that you can’t<br />
sleep at night — as they had for her — it’s<br />
time for something to change. She decided<br />
to look for a new position.<br />
“One of the ‘pros’ for me coming here was<br />
[the] endowment,” Loyda said. “I do have<br />
responsibilities for the building. But I can<br />
also dedicate more time to the spiritual life<br />
of the congregation, which for me is the<br />
most important part of my calling, to be<br />
with the people and grow together and find<br />
new ways to discern God’s call for us with<br />
the community, as a family.” That’s been her<br />
focus since arriving in May.<br />
She’s been learning a lot about the church,<br />
the diocese, and the neighborhood — with<br />
particular empathy and understanding for<br />
those struggling with the material and<br />
spiritual challenges of poverty.<br />
Loyda grew up in Trujillo Alto, Puerto Rico,<br />
daughter of an Episcopal priest with cousins<br />
active in other denominations. Her first<br />
career was in banking. In the late 1990s she<br />
was transferred to a bank position in New<br />
York City and joined the Episcopal Church<br />
of the Mediator. The bilingual, bicultural<br />
community and its clergy further nurtured<br />
her faith, encouraged her to attend seminary,<br />
and later sponsored her for ordination to the<br />
priesthood.<br />
She was ordained by the Diocese of New<br />
York in 2005; served as a vicar of a church<br />
on Staten Island for a while; then took<br />
time off to care for her mother. When her<br />
mother was well enough again, Loyda<br />
decided to return to work. She was called<br />
to lead the Church of the Mediator as its<br />
priest-in-charge in 2016. Their historic church<br />
building, designed by Henry Vaughn and<br />
called the “Little Cathedral of the Bronx,”<br />
needed serious work and a diocesan<br />
Photo: Elizabeth Parker<br />
process to declare the church as a vulnerable<br />
congregation became stalled.<br />
Eventually, the declaration of the<br />
congregation as vulnerable came through,<br />
for which Loyda is grateful. However, by then<br />
she had entered the search process and had<br />
been attracted to Good Shepherd’s location,<br />
proximity to New York, and its multi-cultural,<br />
multi-lingual congregation. It also had an<br />
endowment. After interviewing, they chose<br />
her as their next rector, she accepted, and<br />
their mutual journey started in May <strong>2019</strong>.<br />
Good Shepherd, also known as Iglesia<br />
del Buen Pastor, is also a historic church.<br />
It was built in the mid-19th century with<br />
profits from the Colt firearms company<br />
at the direction of Colt’s philanthropic<br />
wife Elizabeth, a devoted Episcopalian.<br />
“Coltsville” includes other properties from<br />
that period and is in the process of becoming<br />
a National Park site. A representative from<br />
the church will have a seat on the board<br />
of an official friends group for the planned<br />
National Park. The church and its parish hall<br />
are endowed from the Colt legacy.<br />
The congregation strives to be part of the<br />
fabric of its surrounding neighborhood. Good<br />
34
Shepherd/Buen Pastor hosts community<br />
festivals on its front lawn; rents building<br />
space to other faith groups as well as<br />
community, civic, and arts groups; hosts<br />
Foodshare’s mobile truck twice weekly;<br />
distributes donated clothing and furniture<br />
in collaboration with other churches; and is<br />
part of the revitalization committee for its<br />
immediate neighborhood, Sheldon/Charter<br />
Oak. Sermons, worship, music, printed<br />
material, newsletters, and its website are all<br />
bilingual, English and Spanish.<br />
Loyda is ready to work with their existing<br />
programs and help them reach out even<br />
more.<br />
“For so many families there is no answer;<br />
they live day to day,” Loyda said. “As I<br />
continue learning, I hope [we move] more in<br />
the direction of social services.” She’d like to<br />
see them help people find housing and jobs,<br />
for example.<br />
She explained that most people she’s<br />
meeting in the community don’t feel secure<br />
about their future and don’t have enough<br />
income to take care of basic expenses.<br />
“They’re worried about what will happen<br />
to their home if they get sick, or what will<br />
happen to their children as they grow up –<br />
whether they’ll be able to afford college or<br />
get an apartment, or how they will be able to<br />
raise a family.”<br />
She thinks one component is helping people<br />
to identify their talent – their passion, that<br />
which brings them joy – as a way to help<br />
them to provide a living.<br />
“Think out of the box, be more creative, and<br />
that way the spirit will open up minds and<br />
hearts so they can start trusting themselves<br />
again, and transforming the structures that<br />
they live in,” she said.<br />
She advocates a creative process, merging<br />
spiritual and material, with the congregation<br />
as well.<br />
“Let’s focus on ways where we can find<br />
God, doing that gospel work, recognizing<br />
the reality that it takes to do God’s mission<br />
today.”<br />
She emphasizes the importance not only of<br />
always having faith, but also of always being<br />
kind with each other, in that work.<br />
“Kindness is very much needed in this<br />
world, precisely because people don’t know<br />
about the future,” she said. “Kindness opens<br />
doors and allows people to start working<br />
with each other. The mission of Jesus, to<br />
walk and find the way, to put both together,<br />
the spiritual and the material, to work<br />
together to build.”<br />
For Loyda, that work reveals God’s creation,<br />
also.<br />
“We also have to think of the environment.<br />
Life depends on the Spirit, and God’s gift for<br />
creation. We have to put those together and<br />
be more conscientious of how our actions<br />
affect both.”<br />
Her prayer practices include celebrating<br />
at the Eucharist, praying for those who<br />
come to the altar, and working with a<br />
spiritual director. She also listens for God in<br />
conversations with people in the community<br />
and to nature all around her whether on<br />
walks or even in church.<br />
She recalls one Sunday service when she<br />
left time for what was supposed to be<br />
silence, and yet, to everyone’s delight, it was<br />
filled with the sound of birds singing.<br />
“It’s healing, and it also brings you to reality,”<br />
Loyda said, of her experience of being in<br />
nature.<br />
She knows that nature can also be harsh.<br />
When Hurricane Hugo hit Puerto Rico in<br />
1989, she was still living there and working<br />
at the bank. Yet she saw the hand of God in<br />
the storm as well, both in the way it called<br />
people to work together before and after<br />
the hurricane, and in the unexpected way it<br />
scattered seeds across the island with new<br />
greener surroundings .<br />
“Nature spoke to us - It was like renewing<br />
the earth,” she said.<br />
NEW TO ECCT AND ALREADY<br />
A LEADER<br />
Loyda said she’s glad to be part of the<br />
Episcopal Church in Connecticut now and<br />
and recognizes many of the same issues as<br />
those in New York. She’s already involved<br />
in ECCT’s Hispanic Ministry Network and<br />
serves on the Leadership Team for the North<br />
Central Region.<br />
She knew Christ Church Cathedral’s now-<br />
Dean Miguelina Howell from earlier work<br />
in the church and is looking forward to<br />
working with her in Hartford to address<br />
common concerns. She knows of some<br />
resources for Spanish-speaking congregants,<br />
including retreats and video-based training;<br />
she is hoping for more, particularly for more<br />
documents translated into Spanish.<br />
Asked what else she might want to share<br />
that hasn’t yet been mentioned, Loyda is<br />
quick to name and praise the live band that<br />
plays for the Spanish language worship<br />
services at Good Shepherd/Buen Pastor,<br />
although her story turns out to be as much<br />
about how the parish has become part of her<br />
larger family already as about music.<br />
As described on the church’s website, the<br />
band plays music from South America,<br />
Central America, Mexico, the Andes, and the<br />
Caribbean. The multicultural ministry got its<br />
start in 2003 with support from ECCT and<br />
a Colt bequest. Two members of the band<br />
Sucari plus additional musicians perform<br />
every Sunday and include a variety of Latin<br />
American and Andean instruments.<br />
One Sunday, the band played a well-known<br />
song often played at Christmas in Puerto<br />
Rico. Loyda was very moved, she said, and<br />
told the band she wished her father, now<br />
retired and living in Florida, could have heard<br />
them. They told her to call him on the phone<br />
and they’d perform again, which they did,<br />
bringing tears of joy and gratitude to both<br />
Loyda and her father.<br />
If mutual ministry is one marker of a<br />
parish’s potential for “success” in making a<br />
difference for God in its community, this one<br />
is off to a great start. ◊<br />
35
La<br />
amabilidad<br />
abre puertas,<br />
corazones y<br />
la misión de<br />
Jesús<br />
The Rev. Loyda E.<br />
Morales<br />
Karin Hamilton<br />
translated by Carolina Roberts-Santana<br />
The Rev. Loyda E. Morales outside of the Church of the Good Shepherd.<br />
La Reverenda Loyda E. Morales vino<br />
a la Iglesia del Buen Pastor como su<br />
nueva rectora esta primavera en parte<br />
porque era más estable financieramente<br />
que su iglesia anterior en el Bronx. Ella tiene<br />
un sentido innato de cómo los aspectos<br />
espirituales y materiales de la vida se<br />
impactan entre sí, cómo ambos necesitan<br />
atención en la vida y, a veces, necesitan<br />
ajustes en su equilibrio.<br />
Como cristiana, especialmente como<br />
sacerdote, ella no quería poner las cosas<br />
materiales por encima de las espirituales,<br />
pero sabía que cuando las cosas materiales<br />
se vuelven tan abrumadoras que no puedes<br />
dormir por la noche, como había sido para<br />
ella, es hora de que algo cambie. Ella decidió<br />
buscar una nueva posición.<br />
"Uno de los"beneficios"para mí al venir aquí<br />
fue [el] legado financiero", dijo Loyda. “Tengo<br />
responsabilidades con el edificio. Pero<br />
también puedo dedicar más tiempo a la vida<br />
espiritual de la congregación, que para mí<br />
es la parte más importante de mi llamado,<br />
estar con la gente y crecer juntos y encontrar<br />
nuevas formas de discernir el llamado de Dios<br />
para nosotros con la comunidad, como una<br />
familia”. Ese ha sido su enfoque desde que<br />
llegó en mayo.<br />
Ella ha aprendido mucho acerca de la iglesia,<br />
la diócesis, y el vecindario - con especial<br />
empatía y comprensión para aquellos<br />
que luchan con los desafíos materiales y<br />
espirituales de la pobreza.<br />
Loyda creció en Trujillo Alto, Puerto Rico, hija<br />
de un sacerdote episcopal y primos activos<br />
en otras denominaciones. Su primera carrera<br />
fue en un banco. A fines de la década del<br />
1990, fue transferida a un banco en la ciudad<br />
de Nueva York y se unió a la Iglesia Episcopal<br />
del Mediador. La comunidad bilingüe y<br />
bicultural y su clero nutrieron aún más su fe,<br />
la alentaron a asistir al seminario y luego la<br />
patrocinaron para la ordenación al sacerdocio.<br />
Fue ordenada por la Diócesis de Nueva<br />
York en el 2005; sirvió como vicario de una<br />
iglesia en Staten Island por un tiempo; Luego<br />
se tomó un tiempo libre para cuidar a su<br />
madre. Cuando su madre volvió a estar lo<br />
suficientemente bien, Loyda decidió volver<br />
a trabajar. Fue llamada para dirigir la Iglesia<br />
del Mediador como su sacerdote a cargo<br />
en 2016. Su edificio histórico de la iglesia,<br />
diseñado por Henry Vaughn y llamado la<br />
"Pequeña Catedral del Bronx", necesitaba<br />
un serio trabajo y el proceso diocesano para<br />
declarar a la iglesia como congregación<br />
vulnerable se estancó.<br />
Finalmente, la declaración de la congregación<br />
como vulnerable se hizo realidad, por lo<br />
que Loyda está agradecida. Sin embargo,<br />
para entonces había entrado en el proceso<br />
de búsqueda y se había sentido atraída<br />
por la ubicación de Good Shepherd, su<br />
proximidad a Nueva York y su congregación<br />
multicultural y multilingüe. También tenía un<br />
legado financiero. Después de la entrevista,<br />
la eligieron como su próxima rectora, ella<br />
aceptó, y su viaje mutuo comenzó en mayo<br />
de <strong>2019</strong>.<br />
Good Shepherd, también conocido como<br />
Iglesia el Buen Pastor, es también una iglesia<br />
histórica. Fue construido a mediados del<br />
siglo XIX con las ganancias de la compañía<br />
de armas de fuego Colt bajo la dirección<br />
de la esposa filantrópica de Colt, Elizabeth,<br />
una devota episcopal. "Coltsville" incluye<br />
otras propiedades de ese período y está<br />
en proceso de convertirse en un Parque<br />
Nacional. Un representante de la iglesia<br />
tendrá un asiento en la junta de un grupo<br />
oficial de amigos para el planeado Parque<br />
Nacional. La iglesia y su salón parroquial están<br />
dotados del legado Colt.<br />
La congregación se esfuerza por ser parte de<br />
la estructura de su vecindario. El Buen Pastor<br />
/ Buen Pastor organiza festivales comunitarios<br />
36
en su jardín delantero; alquila espacios a<br />
otros grupos religiosos, así como grupos<br />
comunitarios, cívicos y artísticos; aloja en las<br />
instalaciones el camión móvil de Foodshare<br />
dos veces por semana; distribuye ropa y<br />
muebles donados en colaboración con otras<br />
iglesias; y es parte del comité de revitalización<br />
de su vecindario inmediato, Sheldon / Charter<br />
Oak. Los sermones, la adoración, la música,<br />
el material impreso, los boletines y su sitio<br />
web son bilingües, en inglés y en español.<br />
Loyda está lista para trabajar con sus<br />
programas existentes y ayudarlos a alcanzar<br />
aún más.<br />
“Para tantas familias no hay respuesta;<br />
ellos viven día a día ”, dijo Loyda. "A medida<br />
que continúe aprendiendo, espero que<br />
[nos movamos] más en la dirección de los<br />
servicios sociales". Le gustaría verlos ayudar<br />
a las personas a encontrar vivienda y empleo,<br />
por ejemplo.<br />
Explicó que la mayoría de las personas con las<br />
que se reúne en la comunidad no se sienten<br />
seguras sobre su futuro y no tienen ingresos<br />
suficientes para cubrir los gastos básicos.<br />
“Están preocupados por lo que sucederá<br />
con su hogar si se enferman, o lo que les<br />
sucederá a sus hijos a medida que crezcan,<br />
si podrán pagar la universidad o conseguir<br />
un apartamento, o cómo podrán formar una<br />
familia."<br />
Ella piensa que un componente es ayudar<br />
a las personas a identificar su talento, su<br />
pasión, lo que les brinda alegría, como una<br />
forma de ayudarlos a ganarse la vida.<br />
"Piense fuera de la caja, sea más creativo,<br />
y de esa manera el espíritu abrirá mentes y<br />
corazones para que puedan comenzar a confiar<br />
nuevamente en sí mismos y transformar las<br />
estructuras en las que viven", dijo.<br />
Ella aboga por un proceso creativo,<br />
fusionando lo espiritual y lo material, con la<br />
congregación también.<br />
"Centrémonos en las formas en que podemos<br />
encontrar a Dios, haciendo el trabajo del<br />
evangelio, reconociendo la realidad que se<br />
necesita para hacer la misión de Dios hoy".<br />
Ella enfatiza la importancia no solo de tener<br />
siempre fe, sino también de ser siempre<br />
amables en ese trabajo.<br />
"La amabilidad es muy necesaria en este<br />
mundo, precisamente porque la gente no<br />
sabe sobre el futuro", dijo. “La amabilidad<br />
abre puertas y permite que las personas<br />
comiencen a trabajar entre ellas. La misión<br />
de Jesús, caminar y encontrar el camino,<br />
unir ambos, lo espiritual y lo material, trabajar<br />
juntos para construir ".<br />
Para Loyda, ese trabajo también revela la<br />
creación de Dios.<br />
“También tenemos que pensar en el medio<br />
ambiente. La vida depende del Espíritu y del<br />
don de Dios para la creación. Tenemos que<br />
ponerlos juntos y ser más conscientes de<br />
cómo nuestras acciones afectan a ambos ".<br />
Sus prácticas de oración incluyen celebrar en<br />
la Eucaristía, orar por los que vienen al altar<br />
y trabajar con un director espiritual. También<br />
escucha a Dios en conversaciones con<br />
personas de la comunidad y la naturaleza a su<br />
alrededor, ya sea en caminatas o incluso en<br />
la iglesia.<br />
Ella recuerda un servicio dominical cuando<br />
dejó tiempo para lo que se suponía que era<br />
silencio, y sin embargo, para deleite de todos,<br />
estaba lleno del sonido de pájaros cantando.<br />
"Es curativo, y también te lleva a la realidad",<br />
dijo Loyda, sobre su experiencia de estar en la<br />
naturaleza.<br />
Ella sabe que la naturaleza también puede<br />
ser dura. Cuando el huracán Hugo azotó a<br />
Puerto Rico en 1989, ella todavía vivía allí y<br />
trabajaba en el banco. Sin embargo, también<br />
vio la mano de Dios en la tormenta, tanto<br />
en la forma en que llamaba a las personas a<br />
trabajar juntas antes y después del huracán,<br />
como en la forma inesperada en que esparcía<br />
semillas por toda la isla con un entorno más<br />
verde.<br />
"La naturaleza nos habló, fue como renovar la<br />
tierra", dijo.<br />
NUEVA EN ECCT Y YA LÍDER<br />
Loyda dijo que está contenta de ser parte de<br />
la Iglesia Episcopal en Connecticut ahora y<br />
reconoce muchos de los mismos problemas<br />
que los de Nueva York. Ella ya está involucrada<br />
en la Red de Ministerios Hispanos de ECCT y<br />
sirve en el Equipo de Liderazgo para la Región<br />
Centro Norte.<br />
Ella conocía a la ahora decana Miguelina<br />
Howell de Christ Church Cathedral por su<br />
trabajo anterior en la iglesia y espera trabajar<br />
con ella en Hartford para abordar inquietudes<br />
comunes. Ella sabe de algunos recursos para<br />
congregantes de habla hispana, incluidos<br />
retiros y capacitación en video; espera más,<br />
particularmente más documentos traducidos<br />
al español.<br />
Cuando se le preguntó qué más podría querer<br />
compartir que aún no se haya mencionado,<br />
Loyda se apresura a nombrar y alabar a la<br />
banda en vivo que toca para los servicios<br />
de adoración en español en Good Shepherd<br />
/ Buen Pastor, aunque su historia resulta<br />
ser tanto sobre cómo la parroquia ya se ha<br />
convertido en parte de su gran familia como<br />
sobre la música.<br />
Como se describe en la página web de la<br />
iglesia, la banda toca música de América del<br />
Sur, América Central, México, los Andes y el<br />
Caribe. El ministerio multicultural comenzó<br />
en 2003 con el apoyo de ECCT y un legado<br />
Colt. Dos miembros de la banda Sucari<br />
más músicos adicionales actúan todos<br />
los domingos e incluyen una variedad de<br />
instrumentos latinoamericanos y andinos.<br />
Un domingo, la banda tocó una canción<br />
muy conocida que se toca a menudo en<br />
Navidad en Puerto Rico. Loyda dijo estar muy<br />
conmovida, y le dijo a la banda que deseaba<br />
que su padre, ahora retirado y viviendo en<br />
Florida, pudiera haberlos escuchado. Le<br />
dijeron que lo llamara por teléfono y volverían<br />
a actuar, lo cual hicieron, trayendo lágrimas<br />
de alegría y gratitud tanto a Loyda como a su<br />
padre.<br />
Si el ministerio mutuo es un marcador<br />
del potencial de "éxito" de una parroquia<br />
para hacer una diferencia para Dios en su<br />
comunidad, este es un gran comienzo. ◊<br />
37
Still learning about the Church<br />
after seven decades<br />
A. Bates Lyons<br />
Karin Hamilton<br />
You take charge of your<br />
destiny, or your destiny<br />
takes charge of you.<br />
A. Bates Lyons<br />
You can look up “A. Bates Lyons” on<br />
LinkedIn and find out where he went<br />
to college (Central State University,<br />
Ohio; Columbia Business School, New York<br />
City), that he’s an “independent management<br />
consulting professional,” and yet because it’s<br />
secular, nowhere do you find out that he’s<br />
a cradle Episcopalian who got his start in an<br />
historic church and has a history of increasing<br />
engagement over seven decades in its<br />
opportunities for lay leadership on the local,<br />
diocesan, and church-wide levels.<br />
“Get to know the church,” is the advice he<br />
now gives out to those just joining, or even<br />
to those long-time members who still don’t<br />
realize the richness in the wider church.<br />
A partial list: On the local level, Bates has<br />
served as acolyte, choir member, worship<br />
assistant, vestry member, budget planner,<br />
and program volunteer at his home parish<br />
of St. Monica’s in Hartford, where he’s<br />
been since about 1975, even after buying a<br />
house in Torrington, where he still lives. He’s<br />
served as anti-racism trainer and facilitator<br />
and as member of the Planning & Budget<br />
Committee, Standing Committee, and<br />
Convention Planning Team for the Episcopal<br />
Church in Connecticut (ECCT) on the diocesan<br />
level. He’s served on the church-wide level as<br />
2018 General Convention deputy.<br />
Bates was part of Taskforce for Reimagining<br />
the Episcopal Church in Connecticut (TREC-<br />
CT) the multi-year endeavor that revised<br />
diocesan organization and governance to<br />
be more missional, and he’s now part of a<br />
team at St. Monica’s that is implementing<br />
the spiritual and financial components of ECCT’s<br />
Joining Jesus initiative. He loved serving as a<br />
General Convention deputy and on one of its<br />
legislative committees and will run again for 2021.<br />
It all fits his approach to life: “You take charge of<br />
your destiny, or your destiny takes charge of you,” he<br />
explains. At nearly 75, he’s still marching forward side-byside<br />
with God and looking forward to what’s next.<br />
“I’ve enjoyed my time here in Connecticut, in<br />
ECCT. I enjoy the people. That’s why I travel<br />
25 miles to church and 27 miles to<br />
Meriden. I enjoy what I’m doing for<br />
ECCT. I’ll do it until I’m laid to<br />
rest.”<br />
Bates was born<br />
in Philadelphia,<br />
Pennsylvania and<br />
attended their public<br />
schools. He and his<br />
family were members<br />
The African Episcopal<br />
Church of St. Thomas,<br />
originally founded by<br />
the Rev. Absalom<br />
Jones, first Black<br />
priest of The<br />
Episcopal Church.<br />
Once he was old<br />
enough to serve<br />
as an acolyte, he<br />
did. In fact, he<br />
served twice on<br />
Sundays. He was<br />
an acolyte at Low<br />
Mass, their early<br />
service, and sang<br />
tenor in the choir<br />
at High Mass,<br />
their later service.<br />
Since he lived<br />
only a few blocks<br />
from the church he<br />
ran home between<br />
the two services to<br />
get breakfast instead<br />
of staying for Sunday<br />
School.<br />
38
He earned a bachelor’s degree from Central<br />
State University (then Central College) in<br />
Ohio, majoring in business with a focus on<br />
human resources. It was the 1960s and the<br />
draft was still active. Instead of leaving his<br />
destiny to the draft, he joined ROTC and<br />
served for two years, then enlisted instead of<br />
serving two years in the Army Reserve.<br />
“I said if I was going to go into the Army, I<br />
might as well go in as an officer,” he recalled.<br />
Bates was sent off for training in medical<br />
service and then sent to a hospital at Fort<br />
Gordon in Georgia as their Property Book<br />
Officer, responsible for purchasing and<br />
maintaining supplies. He did such a great job<br />
that when he was called up to go<br />
to Vietnam, his commanding<br />
officer blocked the<br />
order. Eventually, after<br />
the commanding<br />
officer was called<br />
up, Bates too<br />
was sent to<br />
Vietnam.<br />
He served at<br />
an evacuation<br />
hospital, the<br />
last stop before<br />
wounded<br />
soldiers<br />
returned from<br />
Vietnam.<br />
Returning to<br />
the States, he<br />
was offered a<br />
job in Virginia<br />
but had his<br />
eye on one<br />
in California<br />
instead.<br />
When that<br />
didn’t work<br />
out, he chose<br />
to let his time<br />
run out, which<br />
was about six<br />
months, and<br />
retired as a<br />
Captain.<br />
His work<br />
career began<br />
with positions<br />
in the human<br />
resources<br />
departments at “all the vices,” as he<br />
describes them: ARCO (petroleum) and<br />
Philip Morris (big tobacco) in New York; then<br />
Heublein (liquor distributors) in Connecticut.<br />
Along the way, he earned an MBA from<br />
Columbia University with a focus on human<br />
resources behavior, married, moved to<br />
Connecticut, and became a father to three.<br />
Eventually Bates was recruited by the State<br />
of Connecticut to serve as undersecretary<br />
to the office of Policy Management, having<br />
impressed them with his work on Philip<br />
Morris’ programs for the community.<br />
Governors sent Bates out to help state<br />
agencies respond to problems and challenges<br />
with the community, such as when the state<br />
was rationing gas and closing hospitals.<br />
After 17 years, Bates retired and moved into<br />
consulting as a “leap of faith,” spurred on by<br />
a friend who hired and trained him for her<br />
diversity consulting business. Eventually he<br />
took off on his own.<br />
DISCOVERING THE EPISCOPAL<br />
CHURCH<br />
Bates didn’t begin his deeper engagement<br />
with The Episcopal Church until he was an<br />
adult, living in Connecticut. It was the late<br />
1980s. He remembers the moment: He was<br />
at a celebration of the Feast Day for the Rev.<br />
Absalom Jones at Christ Church Cathedral in<br />
Hartford.<br />
“I was sitting up in the Cathedral, up with the<br />
choir, and they were talking about Absalom<br />
Jones, and Richard Allen, and St. Thomas’,”<br />
he said. “And I thought, wait a minute, I grew<br />
up in a historically Black church! And decided<br />
then that it was about time I found out about<br />
this Episcopal faith that I’ve been part of all<br />
my life.”<br />
So, again following his personal directive<br />
to take control of his destiny, he joined the<br />
diocesan Program & Budget Committee,<br />
eventually serving as chair. He joined the<br />
Finance Committee. Struck by a headline<br />
he read in another Episcopal diocesan<br />
publication, “Is there room for Blacks in The<br />
Episcopal Church?” he talked to then-Bishop<br />
Diocesan Andrew D. Smith about starting<br />
anti-racism training in the diocese. With that<br />
support, he was trained by Jayne Oasin of<br />
The Episcopal Church, assembled and chaired<br />
a small team in ECCT to hone the training,<br />
and began offering programs at parishes and<br />
for seminarians, who were required to have<br />
the training before ordination. He was also<br />
part of the team that put forward a resolution<br />
for the diocesan Annual Convention in 2009,<br />
based on a similar one from the prior General<br />
Convention, apologizing for complicity in the<br />
slave trade. That team later organized an effort<br />
to start research by parishes in Connecticut<br />
and organized a Day of Repentance at the<br />
Cathedral.<br />
“I thought maybe we’d get 20 people at<br />
most, but it was packed,” he said.<br />
Today, though he moves a bit more slowly<br />
than in his earlier years, Bates keeps a<br />
positive outlook on life and laughs easily.<br />
He is long divorced, but still enjoys his roles<br />
as father of three and grandfather of seven.<br />
In addition to secular and church work, he’s<br />
remained active in his fraternity, Kappa Alpha<br />
Psi, since joining at Central. He also served<br />
in various leadership roles on the Torrington<br />
Board of Education for more than a decade.<br />
Some years ago, Bates had a serious medical<br />
issue. He said that he asked God to take him<br />
if he’d accomplished what God had wanted<br />
him to accomplish. When he survived, Bates<br />
said he took it as a sign to keep going, which<br />
he’s done.<br />
For about the past five years he’s been<br />
teaching workplace diversity to business<br />
students UCONN. “I tell them first, they need<br />
to deal with their stereotypes, and get rid<br />
of those,” he said. “Go below the surface,<br />
and find out who the individual is, and what<br />
they can do. … the visual is only 10%, the<br />
other 90% is below.” He also leads the future<br />
managers in discussions about topics such as<br />
workplace romance, religion in the workplace,<br />
and the effect of undocumented immigrants.<br />
He's also exploring his personal faith more<br />
deeply, even beyond regular Bible study, since<br />
St. Monica’s is engaged in ECCT’s Joining<br />
Jesus initiative.<br />
“The older you get, the closer you want to<br />
get to God,” he said.<br />
He also appreciates that the initiative focuses<br />
on engagement with the community and<br />
emphasizes collaboration, both of which are<br />
consistent with how he’s lived his life.<br />
“Get to know the church, and what’s going on<br />
in the diocese, because we’re all a part of it.”<br />
◊<br />
Photo: Marc-Yves Regis<br />
39
from ECCT<br />
New ECCT model policies and safe church training<br />
8th ANNUAL<br />
SPRING TRAINING &<br />
GATHERING<br />
SATURDAY, APRIL 18<br />
BERLIN HIGH SCHOOL<br />
139 Patterson Way<br />
Berlin, CT<br />
Join Episcopalians<br />
from across ECCT<br />
for a day of<br />
fellowship, learning,<br />
prayer, and fun.<br />
All are welcome, from people in<br />
the pews to vestry members to<br />
parish leaders and staff.<br />
For information on all of the<br />
workshops being offered at this<br />
year's event visit:<br />
episcopalct.org/spring-training<br />
REGISTRATION OPENS<br />
JANUARY 2020<br />
DEEPENING CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY AND "RIGHT RELATIONSHIP"<br />
Robin Hammeal-Urban<br />
Deepening Christian Community and<br />
restoring right relationship is essential<br />
to our baptismal vocation. This includes<br />
creating a safe church and ministries for<br />
all of God’s people.<br />
Early in <strong>2019</strong>, the Episcopal Church in<br />
Connecticut (ECCT) rolled out Universal<br />
Training and updated Model Policies for the<br />
protection of children, youth and vulnerable<br />
adults. Together these initiatives support our<br />
work to recognize our differences, power,<br />
privilege, and vulnerability, so that we can<br />
come together in the fullness of who God<br />
calls us to be.<br />
Universal Training, designed<br />
and produced by ECCT, explores<br />
the promises of our baptismal<br />
covenant and the often-subtle<br />
ways we fall short of respecting<br />
the dignity of all.<br />
Universal Training, designed and produced<br />
by ECCT, explores the promises of our<br />
baptismal covenant and the often-subtle ways<br />
we fall short of respecting the dignity of all.<br />
Topics include: dynamics of healthy Christian<br />
community: vulnerability as a positive<br />
attribute in relationships and community;<br />
sin; forgiveness; sexual orientation and the<br />
full range of gender identity and expression;<br />
the #MeToo movement; gender bias; racial<br />
microagressions, and restorative justice.<br />
Universal Training is a narrated online program<br />
that includes videos and consists of seven<br />
segments. It runs for about one hour when<br />
viewed straight through and is designed<br />
to be divided into two or three sessions<br />
to fit the constraints of parish schedules<br />
and programs such as adult forums. This<br />
also allows time for individuals and groups<br />
to consider and reflect on the discussion<br />
questions included at the end of each<br />
segment.<br />
ECCT’s new Model Policies incorporates<br />
Universal Training as the initial component of<br />
all ECCT’s safe church training programs.<br />
ECCT’s Model Policies are consistent<br />
with those used throughout The Episcopal<br />
Church and include a new level of detail to<br />
enhance clarity for all who minister with,<br />
and to, vulnerable populations. Each parish<br />
is required to have policies that contain the<br />
same standards as ECCT’s Model Policies.<br />
Some of the highlights of the new Model<br />
Policies include:<br />
• A broad definition of who is a “Vulnerable<br />
Adult” which includes anyone ministered<br />
to in their home and those who are<br />
vulnerable due to crisis or dependence on<br />
a pastoral relationship;<br />
• Best practices for ministry visits in a<br />
private home or residential facility;<br />
• Best practices for hotel stays when<br />
traveling with youth;<br />
• Best practices for social media and<br />
electronic communications;<br />
• Best practices for travel, which includes a<br />
travel administrator, medical<br />
considerations, insurance, and planning for<br />
international travel;<br />
Robin Hammeal-Urban is ECCT's Canon for Mission Integrity & Training and author of<br />
Wholeness After Betrayal: Restoring Trust in the Wake of Misconduct. She chaired The<br />
Episcopal Church’s task force that developed the new Model Policies.<br />
40
Taking the next steps in clergy transitions<br />
Lee Ann Tolzmann<br />
What is God up to in the world of clergy transitions in the Episcopal Church<br />
in Connecticut (ECCT)?<br />
• A chart that shows who is required<br />
to attend safe church training and have<br />
background checks;<br />
• Definitions of the full range of gender<br />
identity and expression as well as best<br />
practices to respect the dignity of all,<br />
including sleeping arrangements and other<br />
aspects of communal life; and<br />
• Clarification that each event for children,<br />
youth, or vulnerable adults needs an<br />
identified sponsoring entity, the governing<br />
body of which must grant prior approval for<br />
all off-site events. The vestry is the<br />
governing body for any parish-sponsored<br />
event. ECCT’s Model Policies include a<br />
process for prior approval for all off-site<br />
events sponsored by a region or ministry<br />
network.<br />
The purpose of Universal<br />
Training and ECCT’s Model<br />
Policies is to support our loving,<br />
liberating, and life-giving<br />
relationships with God, each<br />
other and all of creation.<br />
The purpose of Universal Training and ECCT’s<br />
Model Policies is to support our loving,<br />
liberating, and life-giving relationships with<br />
God, each other and all of creation. These<br />
resources are available to all members of<br />
ECCT.<br />
To access ECCT’s Universal Training please<br />
contact Debbie Kenney at dkenney@<br />
episcopalct.org. ECCT’s Model Policies and<br />
safe church training schedule are available on<br />
ECCT’s website at episcopalct.org.<br />
A year ago, I wrote about the increasing number of parishes who have only part-time clergy<br />
and the decreasing number of priests available for either part-time or full-time parish ministry.<br />
Since then, these trends have continued.<br />
Only 38% of our parishes have the capacity<br />
to pay a full-time clergy person and 14% of<br />
ECCT congregations have no clergy in place<br />
because there are not enough qualified and<br />
available to serve. The pressure to “fix”<br />
things is very intense on leaders across the<br />
church. Clergy are working hard, vestries are<br />
working harder than ever, and the workload<br />
on diocesan staff seems to be increasing<br />
exponentially. One could argue we’re<br />
pedaling faster and faster, only to be falling<br />
further and further behind.<br />
It feels like we’re wandering, with no clear<br />
path ahead. God’s people have been in<br />
the wilderness before,<br />
wandering, feeling lost,<br />
wondering if they’d ever<br />
get out. And what our<br />
sacred story tells us is<br />
that sticking with God,<br />
following Jesus, seeking<br />
the guidance of the Holy<br />
Spirit, is the only thing that<br />
will get us through it. We know the ultimate<br />
destination. All we have to do is listen to<br />
God for the next step to take. It helps to<br />
remember that Jesus taught us to pray for<br />
daily bread each day, not to pray for all the<br />
food we’ll ever need.<br />
In the world of clergy transitions, the<br />
traditional model is a process of gathering<br />
information about the needs of the parish<br />
and the desired qualities in the next rector,<br />
advertising the details in a published profile,<br />
interviewing a pool of candidates, and<br />
making a choice. We have tried to move the<br />
focus to discerning the leadership that God<br />
needs, rather than what the parish thinks it<br />
needs, but the process is basically the same.<br />
For about a year, a parish is focusing on<br />
How could a parish utilize<br />
the occasion of a clergy<br />
transition to grow in faith,<br />
to grow in love, and grow in<br />
service to God's mission?<br />
preparing to work with their next ordained<br />
leader, being guided by an Interim Minister.<br />
I am now wondering if that is the best use<br />
of a parish’s resources, particularly as, no<br />
matter how “appealing” a parish may be,<br />
applicant pools are decreasing drastically.<br />
It may be time to stop trying to focus on<br />
the long-term future (which is less and<br />
less certain) with the goal of finding just<br />
the “right candidate” who can help us get<br />
there. Perhaps it would be more faithful to<br />
simply take the next step of welcoming a<br />
new priest, who can then immediately begin<br />
walking with the parish, step by step, into<br />
God’s preferred future?<br />
We are required to work<br />
within the existing canons<br />
and structures of ECCT<br />
and the Episcopal Church.<br />
It’s not simple or easy to<br />
make big changes, but that<br />
does not mean we should<br />
not try.<br />
In the world of clergy transitions, it seems<br />
our next step is to figure out what it means<br />
to faithfully follow Jesus in our current<br />
circumstances. Finding the perfect clergy<br />
person has never been the answer, even if it<br />
were possible. How could a parish utilize the<br />
occasion of a clergy transition to grow in faith,<br />
to grow in love, to grow in service to God’s<br />
mission? I believe that we are being called to<br />
think and pray seriously about that question.<br />
The Rev. Lee Ann Tolzmann<br />
serves as Canon for Mission<br />
Leadership for the Episcopal<br />
Church in Connecticut. She<br />
previously served as rector of<br />
churches in Baltimore, MD and<br />
Riverside, CT.<br />
41
from ECCT<br />
ECCT’s Season of Racial Healing, Justice, and Reconciliation: Where are we now?<br />
Karin Hamilton<br />
The Episcopal Church in Connecticut (ECCT) is now a year into a<br />
“Season of Racial Healing, Justice, and Reconciliation,” entered into last<br />
October by vote of Convention... this was effectively a mandate from all of<br />
ECCT to itself.<br />
While it followed other resolutions from prior years, and some from prior decades, this effort<br />
identified specific current goals with timetables. Here is the full text of the 2018 resolution:<br />
How now do we get to<br />
places where some think<br />
racism was “resolved”<br />
50 years ago? We need to<br />
sit with each other. We<br />
need to bring people to<br />
understanding that this is<br />
still painful for me<br />
and others.<br />
The Rev. Rowena Kemp,<br />
priest-in-charge,<br />
Grace Episcopal Church, Hartford<br />
• RESOLVED, that ECCT launch a “Season of<br />
Racial Healing, Justice, and Reconciliation,” to<br />
last a minimum of two years, with the initial<br />
goals of: introducing foundational concepts,<br />
language, and tools to help encourage and<br />
enable congregations to begin opening hearts<br />
and minds; recognizing the reality of white<br />
supremacy and bias against people of color;<br />
and awakening Episcopalians in Connecticut<br />
to the need for concerted action to address<br />
the ongoing injustice of the racial divide; and<br />
• BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the second<br />
Sunday of February be set aside as a Day of<br />
Racial Healing, Justice, and Reconciliation,<br />
during which parishes are asked to begin a<br />
conversation about the sin of racism in our<br />
lives and in the world by hosting a forum<br />
on racial healing, justice, and reconciliation,<br />
utilizing video and discussion questions from<br />
the Joint Session on Racial Reconciliation<br />
from the 2018 General Convention of The<br />
Episcopal Church; and<br />
• BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that each<br />
parish includes a simple report, which will<br />
be submitted to the Mission Council, with<br />
their annual Parochial Reports detailing how<br />
they have engaged in conversation, study,<br />
and action regarding racial healing, justice,<br />
reconciliation, and the sin of racism; and<br />
<br />
• BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that all leaders<br />
in clergy transition processes be trained<br />
on the impact of white privilege and the<br />
importance of including diverse candidates<br />
in every search, and that parishes in clergy<br />
transition processes report the number of<br />
candidates of color included in their process<br />
to the Office of the Canon for Mission<br />
Leadership; and<br />
• BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that all<br />
searches for ECCT staff positions include at<br />
least two people of color, or one, if there are<br />
fewer than four people in total, among the<br />
final candidates interviewed.<br />
Convention also authorized ECCT to hire a 10-hour/week Racial Justice Resource Coordinator,<br />
through its new process of hosted conversations based on questions submitted by voting<br />
members.<br />
Members of an expanded Racial Healing, Justice, and Reconciliation Ministry Network have<br />
energetically led ECCT-wide efforts, as have several Region Missionaries and individual parish<br />
teams. The Season began immediately after the Convention vote, though many parishes<br />
waited until the second Sunday in February, the designated day to begin conversations in<br />
congregations.<br />
Please visit episcopalct.org/events/annual-convention/<strong>2019</strong>/ for the Network’s Annual<br />
Report to Convention, which has more details.<br />
42
Network members meet every three months<br />
in person on Saturdays from 9 - 3. They<br />
divide their work into six areas and those<br />
team leaders plus the two overall Network<br />
co-conveners hold monthly weekday evening<br />
video meetings. (Details are online in the<br />
Ministry Network section of the website.)<br />
WITH LEADERSHIP FROM THE NETWORK<br />
There is now a logo for the “Season of Racial<br />
Healing, Justice, and Reconciliation” that can<br />
be used by the Network, Regions, parishes,<br />
and other groups to brand or co-brand their<br />
efforts;<br />
ECCT elected governing leadership bodies,<br />
at their quarterly joint gatherings, have<br />
held book studies, watched videos, and<br />
held discussions, with suggested content<br />
and discussion prompts from the Network<br />
members;<br />
<br />
Monthly bulletin inserts for parishes are sent<br />
out via eNews on the last Tuesday of each<br />
month with first-person testimonies along<br />
with a brief list of resources and contact<br />
info for the Network conveners; notices and<br />
reminders are in weekly newsletters;<br />
Workshops were offered at ECCT’s annual<br />
“Spring Training and Gathering,” and an initial<br />
list of trained facilitators was developed<br />
as a “speakers’ bureau” for parishes, to<br />
help them with programming on leading<br />
discussions, book groups, and crafting<br />
sermons;<br />
Four ECCT-wide pilgrimages have been held<br />
and one is planned for November <strong>2019</strong>; other<br />
events have been hosted;<br />
Research on training opportunities for<br />
conversation facilitators is underway, as is<br />
research on models of reconciliation and<br />
possibilities for advocacy;<br />
<br />
An annotated list of resources is available<br />
with more being added all the time.<br />
REGIONS AND PARISHES<br />
North and South Central Region Missionaries<br />
teamed up to offer a three-part series,<br />
“Sacred Healing,” over the summer, each<br />
“I am truly inspired by how<br />
many parishes and individuals<br />
have embraced the Season<br />
and lived into it in innovative,<br />
authentic, exciting ways. They’re<br />
so engaged. We have 30 people<br />
who meet all day on Saturdays,<br />
and 140 people on our email list.<br />
When I hear what they’re doing,<br />
it’s incredible.”<br />
Suzy Burke, lay leader at St. John's, Essex<br />
featuring a film followed by facilitated<br />
discussion on race;<br />
<br />
St. James’, New London received a UTO<br />
grant for “Bridging the Racial Divide.” It<br />
worked with existing anti-racism groups;<br />
held a three-day training camp for students<br />
to “speak their truth,” and are now following<br />
up with support for the students’ proposed<br />
solutions to problems and issues they<br />
identified;<br />
<br />
Individual parishes are forming groups, or<br />
strengthening existing groups, that address<br />
aspects of racism, white supremacy, and<br />
related issues; they are also teaming up with<br />
other churches and/or faith groups to hold<br />
programs and conversations.<br />
ECCT BISHOPS AND STAFF<br />
The bishops and the HR administrator<br />
followed the resolution mandate regarding<br />
hiring, resulting in more people of color hired<br />
on staff;<br />
<br />
Mission Communications & Media staff<br />
included related podcasts and related<br />
interviews on the blog, kept updates on<br />
the website, and included related updates,<br />
events, notices, and opportunities from<br />
ECCT and The Episcopal Church in digital<br />
newsletters and social media posts;<br />
Mission Leadership and Mission Integrity<br />
& Training staff canons teamed up to<br />
develop and offer training in “unconscious<br />
bias” to lay leaders in parishes with clergy<br />
transitions, in response to the resolution;<br />
<br />
ECCT hired Kelli Ray Douglas as its Racial<br />
Justice Resources Coordinator in late spring.<br />
She has been in conversation with Katrina<br />
Brown, director of the documentary, Traces<br />
of the Trade, about customizing a training<br />
module offered by The Episcopal Church,<br />
Sacred Ground, for ECCT.<br />
TO BE DONE<br />
Work on developing and distributing a<br />
“simple report” for each parish to report<br />
how it has “engaged in conversation, study,<br />
and action,” as mandated by the resolution,<br />
has not yet been completed. As of early<br />
September <strong>2019</strong> it had not been assigned<br />
to, or taken up by, any group, network, or<br />
ECCT staff member. The resolution sought<br />
this report for Mission Council, due with<br />
parochial reports (March 1).<br />
The Rev. Rowena Kemp, priest-in-charge<br />
at Grace Episcopal Church, Hartford and<br />
Suzy Burke, lay leader at St. John’s, Essex,<br />
serve as the Ministry Network co-coveners.<br />
They’re impressed by ECCT’s response, and<br />
are looking for more conversations, in more<br />
places, in the future.<br />
“I am truly inspired by how many parishes<br />
and individuals have embraced the Season<br />
and lived into it in innovative, authentic,<br />
exciting ways, said Suzy. “They’re so<br />
engaged. We have 30 people who meet all<br />
day on Saturdays, and 140 people on our<br />
email list. When I hear what they’re doing,<br />
it’s incredible.”<br />
“For me the current challenge is having<br />
enough folks trained to be able to go<br />
to places where conversations are not<br />
happening and gently usher people<br />
into those conversations, faithfully and<br />
authentically,” Rowena said. “Yes, many<br />
people have been in relationship and felt<br />
part of the process. How now do we get<br />
to places where some think racism was<br />
“resolved” 50 years ago? We need to sit<br />
with each other. We need to bring people to<br />
understanding that this is still painful for me<br />
and others.” ◊<br />
43
ECCT STORIES<br />
FOLLOWING WHAT GOD IS<br />
UP TO IN CONNECTICUT<br />
Allison Gannett, ECCT's digital<br />
storyteller is excited to help folks<br />
around the Episcopal Church in<br />
Connecticut share their stories,<br />
embrace social media and online<br />
platforms to spread the Gospel,<br />
and bring a little bit of God’s love<br />
to this world.<br />
HAVE A STORY TO TELL? Contact<br />
Alli at episcopalct.blog/contact<br />
44
from ECCT<br />
The office of Mission<br />
Communications & Media<br />
DIGITAL ECCT NEWSLETTERS<br />
STAY CONNECTED WITH ECCT<br />
Stories and conversations to touch your heart, inspire your<br />
ministry, affirm your faith, make you laugh and think! Plus<br />
essential news and announcements sent directly to your<br />
inbox.<br />
BLOG<br />
episcopalct.blog<br />
Digital Storyteller Alli Gannett travels<br />
around Connecticut and invites<br />
guests to The Commons to talk<br />
with everyday Episcopalians as well<br />
as parish and ministry leaders and<br />
honored guests. Weekly blog entries<br />
are posted Monday afternoons.<br />
Visit our website, episcopalct.org, to sign<br />
up for ECCT newsletters. Enter your email<br />
address and check off which newsletters<br />
you want to receive. You can unsubscribe<br />
and change your preferences anytime. Or<br />
sign up by text to start with the weekly<br />
newsletter: Text ECCT to 22828 and follow<br />
the prompts.<br />
Canon for Mission Communications &<br />
Media Jasree Peralta publishes a weekly<br />
digital newsletter with essential news<br />
and announcements, upcoming events<br />
and registration links, updates on ECCT<br />
initiatives, and more. She also produces<br />
a monthly newsletter for all clergy and<br />
a bi-monthly newsletter for anyone<br />
working with parish administration and<br />
finance.<br />
REGION NEWSLETTERS<br />
Enter your email address at the<br />
bottom of the home page to receive<br />
notifications of new posts by email.<br />
Each of ECCT’s six Region missionaries<br />
publish a newsletter with local events,<br />
notices, and stories.<br />
An ECCT blog post on the Armsmear, a<br />
place that “provides affordable independent<br />
living for women of limited income who are<br />
60 years of age of older.”<br />
ANNUAL CONVENTION NEWSLETTER<br />
Secretary of Convention the Rev. Adam<br />
Yates publishes an Annual Convention<br />
newsletter with updates, reminders, and<br />
links to all the content and information<br />
you’ll need.<br />
PODCAST<br />
coffeehour.org<br />
Welcome to Coffee Hour at The Commons<br />
— a podcast where faith meets daily<br />
life over a cup of coffee and casual<br />
conversations. Modeled off of the eighth<br />
sacrament of the Church, the Coffee Hour,<br />
your host Alli Gannett, joined by guests,<br />
engage in a variety of topics, interviews,<br />
and yes even discuss the occasional<br />
sermon. Weekly podcasts are published<br />
Fridays at noon.<br />
Subscribe on Podbean, Spotify, Apple,<br />
Podcast, Stitcher, or by RSS Feed.<br />
45
EPISCOPAL<br />
NEWS<br />
SERVICE<br />
Connecticut diocese engages parishes in collaboration<br />
by replacing deaneries with Region Missionaries<br />
Egan Millard<br />
reprinted from Episcopal News Service<br />
“The people and the parishes have<br />
faithfully chosen to realize the truth<br />
that the church and the world is<br />
changing… and there’s only going<br />
to be more change afoot... Let’s look<br />
forward in faith and try on new ways<br />
of being the body of Christ.”<br />
Ian Douglas<br />
The Rev. Erin Flinn (left), North Central Region missionary for the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, talks to participants<br />
during a “Wild Worship” outdoor Eucharist service on Aug. 21, <strong>2019</strong>. Photo: The Episcopal Church in Connecticut<br />
For many years, reorganizing church<br />
structure and governance to be more<br />
efficient and effective has been<br />
suggested as a way to adapt to the societal<br />
changes The Episcopal Church is contending<br />
with. But the record of progress toward that<br />
goal has been mixed, at least on a churchwide<br />
level.<br />
The Episcopal Church in Connecticut has<br />
taken its own action on structural reform by<br />
replacing its 14 deaneries — which were<br />
seen as outdated — with six regions, each<br />
served by a “region missionary” who fosters<br />
collaboration and engagement in the parishes<br />
of that region.<br />
Two years after the first missionaries were<br />
hired, their positions have gone from part time<br />
to full time and the program has been hailed<br />
as a success.<br />
“The people and the parishes have faithfully<br />
chosen to realize the truth that the church and<br />
the world is changing… and there’s only going<br />
to be more change afoot,” the Rt. Rev. Ian<br />
Douglas, bishop of Connecticut, told Episcopal<br />
News Service. “And instead of licking our<br />
wounds or wallowing in loss and decline, the<br />
people of The Episcopal Church in Connecticut<br />
have said, ‘Let’s look forward in faith and try<br />
on new ways of being the body of Christ.’”<br />
The traditional deanery model — which hadn’t<br />
been adjusted since 1984 — had become<br />
dysfunctional, diocesan leaders said. When<br />
asked what wasn’t working about the deanery<br />
model, the Rev. Timothy Hodapp, canon for<br />
mission collaboration, couldn’t help but laugh.<br />
“We had 28 participating members in what<br />
was then called the diocesan Executive<br />
Council, so that was two representatives<br />
from each of the 14 deaneries,” Hodapp said.<br />
“And of those 14, three were actually on<br />
the ground, active, doing a lot of really great<br />
work. The others — it would go from doing<br />
great work on one end to not participating at<br />
all on the other, and then kind of middling in<br />
between those two extremes. And so you<br />
might have your council come together and<br />
barely get a quorum, and the work of the<br />
council was oftentimes rubber-stamping what<br />
bishops and canons had already done.”<br />
Even though it was apparent to some in<br />
the diocese that the deaneries overall were<br />
not adding to the life of the church or the<br />
communities they served, it took a fresh set<br />
of eyes to make substantive changes in the<br />
oldest organized diocese in the United States.<br />
Douglas, who became diocesan bishop in<br />
2010, was the first to be elected from outside<br />
the state since the diocese was created in<br />
1784.<br />
“So the Holy Spirit was up to something here<br />
in Connecticut as far as wanting change,”<br />
Douglas said.<br />
“There’s been a tradition, particularly in<br />
Connecticut, that the diocese is embodied in<br />
the bishop and staff and diocesan structures,”<br />
he added. “What I’ve underscored in<br />
everything that we do is the diocese is not<br />
the bishop and staff and council and standing<br />
committee, etc. The diocese is the united<br />
witness of the 160 parishes in Connecticut.”<br />
The need for a change started to become<br />
clear during the work of the Task Force for<br />
Reimagining The Episcopal Church in 2013 and<br />
2014. The task force, also known as TREC,<br />
eventually issued a report that recommended<br />
consolidating church governance structures.<br />
Some the most significant recommendations,<br />
such as a unicameral General Convention,<br />
still have not been adopted, but TREC’s work<br />
inspired the diocese to start its own task force<br />
in 2014.<br />
“The good work that was begun by the<br />
general TREC initiative, I think, was too bold<br />
and too far-reaching for the whole church,<br />
which is why it really wasn’t picked up at<br />
General Convention,” Douglas said, “whereas<br />
46
we in Connecticut said, ‘Boy, sure makes<br />
sense to us. Why don’t we do it?’”<br />
The TREC report inspired the “four C’s” that<br />
would eventually become the job description<br />
of the region missionaries: catalyze, connect,<br />
convene and build capability. Redrawing the<br />
deaneries into larger regions required the<br />
diocese to examine how each unique corner<br />
of the state has evolved over time, which<br />
ultimately yielded a surprisingly familiar result.<br />
“As we devised where these lines might be,<br />
to siphon off which chunks of villages are<br />
going to be in a region, we went back into<br />
the archives and we tried several different<br />
iterations,” Hodapp explained. “But following<br />
the trunk highways and the river valleys, etc.,<br />
we parsed it, and it almost matched perfectly<br />
to 1843 archdeaconries; there were six of<br />
them. And here it was. So we returned to our<br />
legacy in a real sense.”<br />
Along with consolidating the deaneries<br />
into regions and establishing the region<br />
missionaries, the diocesan task force also<br />
recommended abolishing all committees<br />
and commissions that are not canonically<br />
required. Those were replaced with “ministry<br />
networks,” but it’s not just a change in<br />
terminology; in keeping with the spirit of the<br />
task force, these new groups are organized<br />
from the bottom up, not from the top down.<br />
If any group of Episcopalians wants to act<br />
together on a particular issue, they can form<br />
a ministry network and get support from the<br />
diocese.<br />
“There’s no application for recognition, there’s<br />
no canonical authorization; just do it,” Douglas<br />
said. “And if people say, ‘Well, how do we<br />
do the work, say, in prisons? Where’s the<br />
diocesan committee on prison ministry?’ We<br />
say, ‘Go and do it. Organize yourself. You don’t<br />
have to wait for us to give you authority. You<br />
have the baptismal authority you need.’”<br />
Two teams of about 30 people worked on the<br />
topic over the course of two years, Hodapp<br />
said, and when they put every committee and<br />
commission up on a wall, they realized what<br />
had to be done.<br />
“What’s common to all of this?” Hodapp<br />
said. “And why do we have it established as a<br />
group that needs to be meeting with Robert’s<br />
Rules of Order and taking notes when we<br />
need to be more flexible, and we need to<br />
network differently, and we need to be in a<br />
world that has changed completely around<br />
us?”<br />
Each region gathers for a convocation at least<br />
once a year, during which they select one<br />
layperson and one clergy member to serve<br />
on the diocesan Mission Council — which<br />
replaced the Executive Council — along with a<br />
representative from each ministry network.<br />
The task force’s plan was adopted<br />
enthusiastically at the 2015 diocesan<br />
convention, and the region missionaries<br />
were the last piece to be implemented, with<br />
the first cohort of three priests and three<br />
laypeople hired in 2017. Their task, Douglas<br />
said, is not to be a stopgap to help keep<br />
struggling churches in business, although they<br />
do play an important role in the 67 percent of<br />
parishes without full-time clergy. Their task is<br />
to rethink how the churches operate in their<br />
communities, Hodapp says.<br />
“Who else needs to be at the table? And<br />
that doesn’t mean just Episcopalians. But<br />
who are our allies within this village or these<br />
three villages? How do we really engage the<br />
neighborhood in a meaningful way, for what it<br />
needs for right now?” Hodapp said.<br />
Maggie Breen, the missionary for the sparsely<br />
populated Northeast Region, spends each<br />
Sunday at one of the region’s 16 parishes, and<br />
every Sunday is different.<br />
“I have been bringing a map of the town”<br />
in which each parish is situated, Breen told<br />
ENS. “And I’ll indicate where the parish is in<br />
the town, and I’ll ask people to think about<br />
the town and tell me what things have they<br />
noticed that break their heart and what things<br />
have they noticed that really bring them<br />
joy. And we map those out, and then we<br />
brainstorm, What could we do about any of<br />
those?”<br />
One of Breen’s accomplishments in her region<br />
is a lay preaching class, which had previously<br />
been done in the Northwest Region. She<br />
also organizes a series of “Crafting as a<br />
Spiritual Practice” days, in which participants<br />
– including members of other churches –<br />
connect over their hobbies and their faith.<br />
The North Central Region’s missionary, the<br />
Rev. Erin Flinn, has organized a film and<br />
conversation series on racial justice and is<br />
working to connect wardens from different<br />
parishes so they can feel supported and share<br />
their experiences. She also is focusing on<br />
enabling parishioners to start mission work on<br />
their own.<br />
“If you have a call, go do something,” Flinn<br />
said. “One of the things that I think the region<br />
[model] is great for is if you have a call to go<br />
and do something, but you don’t want to do<br />
it by yourself, contact me. Let me know what<br />
you’re doing. I guarantee there’s somebody<br />
else in the region that is doing the same<br />
thing.”<br />
Flinn, who was ordained to the transitional<br />
diaconate in June, said the regional model<br />
has been particularly beneficial to the small<br />
parishes, helping them join forces and<br />
accomplish more together.<br />
“We have several small parishes that are now<br />
collaborating in new ways,” Flinn said. “The<br />
mentality of regions and networks has really<br />
been a lifeline to our smaller communities that<br />
don’t have a lot of resources and only have<br />
half-time or quarter-time clergy.”<br />
The region missionaries have organized<br />
and facilitated mission trips, spiritual hikes,<br />
communication workshops, garden projects,<br />
paddling trips, book groups and more, and<br />
they also serve as a liaison between parishes<br />
and the diocese.<br />
“I spend a lot of time trying to build<br />
relationships,” Breen said. “I frequently act as<br />
a sort of bridge between what’s happening at<br />
the ground level in the parish and then what’s<br />
happening at the diocesan house, bringing<br />
information from [the diocese] into the<br />
parishes, and then also bringing interesting<br />
things are happening the parishes up to [the<br />
diocese].”<br />
Breen and Flinn were both in the original<br />
cohort of missionaries who started in 2017.<br />
After their two-year contract expired, three<br />
continued as full-time missionaries, while<br />
the other three chose not to stay and were<br />
replaced by new hires.<br />
Hodapp says the diocese has gotten queries<br />
from other dioceses interested in their<br />
structural reforms. He says his vision for<br />
the future of the regions and the region<br />
missionaries is “to be open-minded and to<br />
see where God is going to take us. To fan<br />
into flame what’s working, to fan into flame<br />
experiments, trying things on, watching things<br />
happen and fall apart, figure out what worked<br />
and what didn’t.”<br />
“What I’m learning,” Flinn said, “is that our<br />
churches are actually doing more than we<br />
realize. We just [weren’t] good at telling<br />
each other what we’re doing… That was the<br />
biggest discovery.” ◊<br />
47
I am a young person of faith.<br />
Karin Hamilton<br />
Aroub Jaber, Eli Lasman, and Nadira Baransy were in<br />
Connecticut this summer as part of the annual Service-<br />
Learning Institute of Jerusalem Peacebuilders (JPB). The<br />
three high school students, each age 15, are all citizens of Israel; two<br />
are Palestinian.<br />
The interfaith program was held August 4-14 at Christ Church,<br />
New Haven and included volunteering at local agencies as well as<br />
pre-arranged tours and meetings in New York City and elsewhere.<br />
On August 8 the group joined the “Interfaith Service Day” in New<br />
Haven, organized by IWagePeace, a JPB partner. It provided multiple<br />
opportunities for the community to volunteer on projects alongside<br />
the JPB teens.<br />
As described on its website, jerusalempeacebuilders.org, JPB is “an<br />
interfaith, non-profit organization with a mission to create a better<br />
future for humanity across religions, cultures, and nationalities.<br />
Integral to that mission is the belief that the future of Jerusalem is<br />
the future of the world. To that end, JPB promotes transformational,<br />
person-to-person encounters among the peoples of Jerusalem, the<br />
United States, and the Holy Land.<br />
“JPB’s interfaith programs focus on uniting Israelis, Palestinians, and<br />
Americans and providing them with the opportunities, relationships,<br />
and skills they need to become future leaders for peace in the global<br />
community. A passion for peace drives our mission and partnerships<br />
power our program.”<br />
The Rev. Nicholas Porter, founder and executive director of JPB, and<br />
former rector of Trinity, Southport, also leads programs and was in<br />
New Haven with the teens and other JPB staff and volunteers.<br />
“The exciting thing about the young Israeli, Palestinian, and American<br />
teens that came to New Haven for the service learning program,” he<br />
said, “is that they were here to grow personally; to grow as leaders;<br />
to be agents of change at home for peace and acceptance and a<br />
shared society. But they were also here in their own humble way to<br />
act as a catalyst or leaven for the religious communities here in New<br />
Haven. “Someone asked me recently, why now? Because now is the<br />
time. It's the time in the Middle East for change. But it's also time<br />
here in the United States as there are so many uncertainties we face.<br />
We're becoming a multi religious, multicultural democracy and we're<br />
proving ourselves not to be so adept at that. And these young people<br />
have things to teach us.”<br />
AROUB JABER<br />
Aroub Jaber is Muslim and lives in Umm el-Fahem with her family: father, mother,<br />
one older sister and one younger sister, and one older brother. She attends<br />
the Orthodox Arab College-School in Haifa. Her hobbies include playing the piano, listening to music,<br />
playing soccer, and swimming.<br />
Q. Did you grow up in your faith and tradition? Did you have to make a decision?<br />
A. Yes. My parents advised me and led me and told me what to do to benefit me. I chose myself but<br />
of course I listened.<br />
Q. What does it mean in practical terms to be Muslim?<br />
A. There are certain rules, for example, to pray five times a day, fast in Ramadan, and for girls, to wear the<br />
hijab. Our religion really wants peace. I am grateful and thankful for being Muslim.<br />
Q. Can you share an example of a situation you were in where your faith guided your action?<br />
A. Every day I want God to be with me. This is my second year here with JPB. A lot has changed and I was really worried and concerned,<br />
but now, I’m not worried because God is beside me.<br />
Q. What do you appreciate most about being Muslim?<br />
A. Many things! I am happy to be Muslim. Islam means a lot to me. Our religion says we must help poor people, to give them food; to<br />
give them a place to live; to help people as much as you can.<br />
Q. Before you were part of JPB, did you have friends who were of other faiths?<br />
A. Yes. My elementary school was mixed, Muslim and Christian, so I know many things about Christianity and have many Christian<br />
friends. I have a few Jewish friends and really hope that I can get to know more Jewish people.<br />
Q. Why did you want to get involved in this interfaith organization Jerusalem Peacebuilders?<br />
A. I want to get to know new people, new cultures, new religions. And get more information about the religions. Also, in Palestine,<br />
we have a conflict. I want to participate in this program to know cultures, and build bridges between two cultures, Jewish and Arab,<br />
that will hopefully lead to peace, I know JPB talks about peace. That’s what we need back home, peace: to live in peace.<br />
48<br />
Photos: Marc-Yves Regis
NADIRA BARANSY Nadira Baransy is Christian and lives in the village of Reineh with her family:<br />
father, mother, and two younger brothers. She attends the Almotran School<br />
in Nazareth and has declared majors in physics and electronics. Her hobbies include playing the piano and<br />
reading, and she reads in both Arabic and English.<br />
Q. Did you grow up in your faith and tradition? Did you have to make a decision?<br />
A. I grew up in it.<br />
Q. What does it mean in practical terms to be Christian?<br />
A. All the religions want us to live in peace with love. Not to hate any person; we have to love each other.<br />
Q. Can you share an example of a situation you were in where your faith guided your action?<br />
A. I ask my mother, who is like my best friend. When I have any problem, I pray for God to be with me in the problem.<br />
Q. What do you appreciate most about being Christian?<br />
A. I appreciate that Christianity tells us not to hate anyone because of their religion. We are all human. And also, to love our enemies.<br />
They want us to live in peace, without violence.<br />
Q. Before you were part of JPB, did you have friends who were of other faiths?<br />
A. Yes of course. In our school are Muslims and Christians. Most of my friends are Muslim. The religion of my friends doesn’t matter.<br />
What’s important is how he or she treats me.<br />
Q. Why did you want to get involved in this interfaith organization Jerusalem Peacebuilders?<br />
A. In our school, there are only Christian and Muslim students. So I didn’t meet lot of Jews, and thought JPB would give me the opportunity<br />
to meet Jews — and also Americans — because I would like to learn others' opinions about the conflict, and to hear what they think.<br />
Also so I can also meet people my age with different backgrounds and religions because I like to make different friends.<br />
ELI LASMAN<br />
Eli Lasman is Jewish and lives in Netanya with his family: father, mother, and older sister<br />
who’s in the army. He attends Sharet High School in Netanya and has declared majors in<br />
diplomacy and Arabic. His hobbies include reading and he enjoys history, geography, and politics.<br />
Q. Did you grow up in your faith and tradition? Did you have to make a decision?<br />
A. I am Orthodox Jewish, secular, and a bit traditional. Yes, I grew up in it. I always thought about the<br />
religion, and think this is the best for me.<br />
Q. What does it mean in practical terms to be Jewish?<br />
A. It depends on your secularity. For me, it means To eat Kosher, to pray at times, to accept the important rules,<br />
to ask and know and learn more about the religion.<br />
Q. Can you share an example of a situation you were in where your faith guided your action?<br />
A. Today, we were at an activity, and afterwards they gave us pizza, some with meat and some without meat. The pizza with meat looked<br />
good but I chose without meat, because my religion says we should not eat meat with dairy products. My faith guides me in a lot of<br />
actions. There are a lot of rules — it’s a very ancient religion.<br />
Q. What do you appreciate most about being Jewish?<br />
A. Mostly I appreciate the rules. They are mostly about forgiveness or justice or they are ethical rules to do what God wants. Because I<br />
believe in those values, it helps me to live them.<br />
Q. Before you were part of JPB, did you have friends who were of other faiths?<br />
A. I knew some, but they weren’t really friends. I only talked with them from time to time. In JPB I really met friends, like Aroub for example,<br />
and new people from different religions. It is so nice to know people from other religions; and they’re so nice, from a human perspective.<br />
Q. Why did you want to get involved in this interfaith organization Jerusalem Peacebuilders?<br />
A. I wanted to develop myself and learn more about the conflict and meet new friends.<br />
49
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