To begin to think seriously about church planting is to begin to reframe the opportunities that lie before us. Imagine the vitality that would be released if two of our congregations in the four deaneries which have the greatest unchurched demographics (Beaufort, West Charleston, Charleston and Georgetown) planted two new congregations or satellites in the next five years. What new life would emerge within our communities and within the Diocese of South Carolina from eight new congregations or even twice that number? I believe this can be done even during a season of economic downturn. We often get fixated upon buildings and property. But for many in our present culture it is not the aesthetics of the building which attracts; it is the dynamism of the preaching, worship and fellowship which wins the heart of the unchurched person. Certainly we cannot leave entirely behind the need for property and buildings; a drab setting blesses no one’s heart. But if we can focus upon reaching the lost I believe the issues of property and building will emerge in many cases as quite secondary to the winning of the seeker and the transformation of his or her life in Christ. This change from building church plants to growing missional communities is a concept we need to embrace more fully. This will have the dynamism of a movement rather than the often stagnating effect of tending an institution.

The Diocese has in recent years held to the model of established parishes being planters of new churches or congregations. This has worked well in such places as The Cross, Bluffton where a satellite congregation was established at the Buckwalter Campus. So also with Holy Cross, Sullivan’s Island in the planting of a satellite at Daniel Island and their future plan of a third satellite congregation at ”˜Ion in the Mount Pleasant. Such vision is inspiring. Others like St. Paul’s Summerville, St. James’, James Island, St. John’s, Johns Island, and Christ Church, Mount Pleasant because of adjacent land were able to build ministry centers, essentially planting “congregations” on campus. There has been no lack of vision and creativity among us. Today, two of our congregations in the Georgetown deanery have begun initiatives as well. Trinity, Myrtle Beach, under the leadership of Rob Sturdy and Iain Boyd, has initiated a church plant in the Carolina Forest community. This is making good progress. The Rev. Wilmot Merchant and the people of St. Stephen’s, North Myrtle Beach with the help of the Congregational Development Committee purchased property in the Loris area for a potential church plant in the future. They are presently making a strong witness for Christ by their volunteer work in Loris Elementary School therein making a difference in children’s lives. It will also work as a relational base from which to plant a congregation in the future. Nevertheless, elsewhere we have lagged behind, and others have seized the day””God will have his witnesses ”“ with or without us.

The future of two other initiatives is more complicated and raises the question of Diocesan leadership in planting or acknowledging more complex cases. The Well By the Sea at Market Commons, in the area between Surfside and Myrtle Beach, is a “congregation” that has already outgrown its rented facilities and is at a crossroads….

Take the time to read it all.

South Carolina is thus far the only diocese in the Church to take measures to prevent the changes to the national Canons, which are scheduled to go into effect this July 1, from taking effect within its boundaries. I have explained some of the reasons why those changes are contrary to ECUSA’s Constitution in this earlier post: essentially, they extend unprecedented metropolitical powers to the Presiding Bishop, which that office has never been authorized to exercise, and they radically add to the authority of local bishops over their own diocese’s disciplinary proceedings.

Three other dioceses have protested the scope of the revisions made by General Convention in 2009 to Title IV of the Canons (having to do with disciplinary proceedings against clergy). Some have called for General Convention to revisit the subject, and scale back the powers granted to diocesans and to the Presiding Bishop. But most dioceses (including my own, alas, which I could not deter) have implemented the changes into their own canons, by making revisions in the disciplinary proceedings and in the bodies that carry them out.

Thus ECUSA heads into a Constitutional crisis of its own making, which its leadership seems determined to ride out, confident that the Executive Council and General Convention will back them up. As with the leadership’s current litigation strategy, the course is a very high-risk one for them to take….

Read it all.

Both important resolutions passed [for the second time as required] on the necessary vote by orders by more than the specified 2/3 vote margin necessary for their passage.

The Bishop’s address focused on church vitality, church planting, stewardship, and our collective future–KSH.

You can find basic information and links here and the delegate packet is there.

We would appreciate your prayers.

You can find them here.

Central Florida joins three other dioceses ”” Dallas, South Carolina and Western Louisiana ”” in expressing concerns about the new canons on discipline, which become effective July 1.

The diocese asks General Convention “to modify New Title IV, as it applies to the Diocese of Central Florida, so as to comply with the Constitution.” The resolution expresses two concerns about the new Title IV: that it “empowers the Presiding Bishop to take certain actions within the Diocese of Central Florida in violation of Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution,” and “creates a charging and trial system applicable to Presbyters and Deacons in violation of Article IX of the Constitution which provides that presbyters and deacons shall be tried by a court instituted by the convention of the Diocese.”

Read it all.

Read it all.

I am reliably informed they all passed–take special note of R-2 and R-3 and read them though.

The current national disciplinary canons were patterned on the military code of justice. And it was argued that the Church could do better than the military. Perhaps so. But it is my opinion that the new canons give far too much authority to the Bishop of a Diocese over his or her clergy, and they give unprecedented authority to the Presiding Bishop over the other Bishops of the Church ”“ and there is a tremendous loss of “due process” in their implementation.

If a Diocesan Bishop, or the Presiding Bishop, is a wise and caring person there may be no danger in these new canons. But I think there are few of us who might not be tempted to misuse the enhanced powers given to the Bishops and the Presiding Bishop to act against those with whom he or she disagrees.

I will tell you plainly: I do not want to have this enhanced authority given to me in my dealings with our clergy. Nor do I welcome this intrusion into the life of our sovereign Diocese of the unprecedented authority of the Presiding Bishop. (And I have told her so.) It is a radical revision of the polity of The Episcopal Church from its inception.

Read it all.

Read them all and make sure to compare them to the submitted resolutions.

I realize that there are presently clergy and congregations who have addressed these questions of blessing, community, society and Scripture in ways that could be deemed thorough and conclusive. Furthermore, you may remember that I have always affirmed that committed, monogamous same-gender relationships can indeed be faithful in the Christian life. Therefore, I plan also to begin working immediately with those congregations that want to establish the parameters for the “generous pastoral response” that the 2009 General Convention called for with respect to same-gender couples in Episcopal churches. Personally, it is my hope that the 2012 General Convention will authorize the formal blessing of same-gender unions for those clergy in places that want to celebrate them. Until then, we might not be able to do all that we would want to do but, in my judgment, it is right to do something and it is time to do what we can….

We all know that the litigation has been expensive, but I will remind you that these costs are being covered by a line of credit secured by unconsecrated, non-strategic real estate. No pledge dollars given to the diocese’s annual budget are being used to fund this legal battle. And this reminds me . . .

I remain shocked and grievously troubled by the lack of adequate funding for our diocese. Make no mistake: this is not about sexuality or any other controversy. Virginia has been dead last in the Episcopal Church in its percentage funding for the diocesan budget for decades. Our congregations’ average giving to the Diocese is a less-than-modest 6.5 percent of plate-and-pledge, and only 5.4 percent of all unrestricted operating revenues. Only 18 of our 183 congregations give at least 10 percent of their revenues to the Diocese.

Read it all.

[Katharine] Jefferts Schori, president bishop of the Episcopal Church, preached to a packed house of clergy and lay delegates of the 168th annual convention of the Jacksonville-based Episcopal Diocese of Florida. The convention began with the 4 p.m. Eucharist service and continues today at the cathedral and at the Marriott Hotel.

The homily compared the diocese, the denomination, the nation, the world, other cultures and religions to the human body. The body is healthy when its different parts work in harmony, but breaks down when they don’t, Jefferts Schori said.

The miracle of the human body is that its different limbs and organs, together with digestive bacteria and other micro-organisms can work together to create a healthy life. But sometimes the body turns on itself, creating anti-bodies against needed organisms it perceives as outsiders and threats.

Read it all.

From here:

The Rev. Peter Keese, president of the Standing Committee, announced today that the Rev. Joseph R. Parrish, Jr. has been nominated by petition to stand for election as bishop, joining four other nominees, in our diocesan election scheduled for February 12, 2011 at St. John’s Cathedral in Knoxville. Fr. Parish was nominated by three clergy and three lay persons from the diocese and has completed all the background checks that every nominee must undergo. The petition process closed December 3, and no more nominees will be added to the slate.

Some further information about this latest nominee may be found there.

3. Episcopal turmoil

Slowly, deliberately, steadily, the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina has been pulling away from the Episcopal Church for reasons theological, administrative and cultural.

Unhappy with what the diocese’s leadership calls the inclusive and liberal drift of the church, local officials have voted to disengage, aligning instead with conservative Anglicans in the U.S. and abroad.

But for a few parishes in the coastal region of the state, the diocese wasn’t doing enough.

In March, St. Andrew’s Church in Mount Pleasant voted to sever ties with the diocese and the Episcopal Church and join the Anglican Church in North America.

Read it all.

Area Episcopalians elected a church historian and former divinity school president as their 11th bishop Saturday evening after more than seven hours of voting.

The Rev. R. William Franklin, who has been a priest for just five years, but spent nearly 30 years in a variety of Episcopal lay ministry roles, received the majority of votes needed from both clergy and laity of the Episcopal Diocese of Western New York on the seventh ballot.

Franklin edged out the Rev. Barbara J. Price, rector of St. Peter’s Church in Amherst and the only local candidate in the four-person race.

Read it all.

The 227th annual convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania, by a vote of 341-134, has asked Bishop Charles Bennison Jr. to “resign immediately.”

A resolution containing the request also said that Bennison “does not have the trust of the people and clergy of the Diocese of Pennsylvania to continue to serve as their bishop.”

Bennison made no comment on the resolution after it passed.

Passage of the resolution came hours after Bishop Paul Marshall of the neighboring Diocese of Bethlehem wrote to Bennison and the convention, calling on him to resign and suggesting that convention participants urge Bennison to leave.

“You need to realize, I humbly submit, that you are the premier diocese of the Episcopal Church in this Commonwealth, and arguably (along with Connecticut) the mother diocese of our church in this country,” Marshall wrote. “It matters to the rest of us, and to the world, how you get along. It is not a confession of sin to admit that things have not worked out well, but it is surely a matter of empirical evidence.”

Read it all.

Read it all.

Unlike some Episcopal meetings, the Toledo gathering should slip under the media radar with no controversial issues on the agenda.

A group of about 30 clergy and lay delegates from northwest Ohio, bearing 93-page handbooks filled with pie charts and proposals, met last week in the basement cafeteria of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in West Toledo to discuss plans for the convention on Friday and Saturday.

“We’re beginning the process to get ready for convention. I’m not going to pretend to get you ready in an hour,” said the Rev. Bradford Purdom III, the Cleveland-based canon for congregations.

Read it all.

he Very Rev. Martin Scott Field was elected Nov. 6 as 8th bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of West Missouri, pending required consents from a majority of bishops with jurisdiction and standing committees of the Episcopal Church.

Field, 54, rector of St. Paul’s Church in Flint, in the Episcopal Diocese of Eastern Michigan, was elected on the third ballot out of a field of two nominees. A third candidate withdrew after the second ballot.

Field received 89 of 143 votes cast in the lay order and 53 of 103 clergy votes at the election, held during the 121st annual convention meeting of the diocese at Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral in Kansas City. A total of 52 votes was needed to elect in the clergy order and 72 in the lay order.

Read it all.

So the path I ended up following was one of loyal and oblique opposition. Ironically, the documents posted by the current San Joaquin Standing Committee, if one takes the time to examine them closely, quite clearly illustrate this. When the Committee on Constitution and Canons proposed an amendment to Article II of the diocesan constitution that said, in effect, “We’re going to be Anglican, and affiliate with a province to be named later,” I cooperated with two clergy colleagues in crafting a substitute that would have been compatible with remaining within the Episcopal Church. (True, it omitted any mention of TEC, but it is worth noting that the “unqualified accession” language had already been removed some years earlier, so that concern was not at issue in 2006.) This was supplemented by a resolution that we drafted that appointed a committee to study various options for ensuring continued affiliation with the Anglican Communion, one of which would have been continued affiliation with the Episcopal Church. I did everything within my power, given the political realities in the diocese, to retard and subvert progress toward separation from the Episcopal Church. I even proposed an amendment to the constitutional change on the floor of convention that would have restored mention of the Episcopal Church to Article II, but my amendment was roundly defeated. So I failed in my efforts, but it was not for lack of trying.

Of course, from late 2006””actually, about the time of the diocesan convention that year””and on into the following year, I was involved with the search process at St Anne’s in Warsaw, Indiana, where I now serve as rector. I accepted that call in May 2007. In my experience, God’s timing usually turns out to be pretty good (!), and in this case it got me out of a situation where my opposition would have needed to turn from oblique to direct, not only with my bishop, but with my own parish, where the vestry was overwhelmingly committed to Bishop Schofield’s leadership. As the saying goes, it would not have been pretty.

Let me conclude by reiterating my intention to make my vows when I am consecrated a bishop without crossing my fingers, either physically or mentally. I will neither attempt to lead, nor cooperate with anyone else’s effort, in taking the Diocese of Springfield out of the Episcopal Church. In fact, I will oppose any such effort. I have tasted the fruit of that sort of activity, and it’s not sweet. I am committed to the Episcopal Church, and believe my specific vocation is to exercise my ministry within the Episcopal Church. My voice has been and will continue to be a minority voice on many important questions. I accept what comes with that territory. It is my call.

Read it all.

Here is one:

Adopted
Resolution 158-E
Support for Our Independent Judiciary

BE IT RESOLVED, that the 158th Annual Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Iowa express support for the state of Iowa’s system of judicial merit selection and retention of judges and for the justices of the Iowa Supreme Court in the wake of their unanimous decision upholding Iowa court case Varnum v. Brien, 763 N.W. 2d 862 (Iowa 2009). This decision has subjected them to campaigns by politicians, clergy, and lobby groups who are opposed to the decision and who are seeking to stir the electorate to vote against retaining the three justices who are up for retention election in November of 2010; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that while people have different opinions about the Court’s decision in this or any case, this resolution is to give thanks to God who inspired the founders of the United States of America to wisely entrust us with a government that includes an independent judiciary to serve as a check on the power of the state over an individual or minority group; a government where the liberties of individuals and minorities are protected by the Constitution of the United States and, here, of the State of Iowa. Where, by the founder’s design, and as was done in Varnum v. Brien, 763 N.W. 2d 862 (Iowa 2009), jurists are to be guided by law and statute. The Episcopal Diocese of Iowa supports our independent judiciary as the best way for all Americans to receive fair and impartial justice, not subject to the political pressures of politicians or lobby groups or popular majorities; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Episcopal Church in Iowa is grateful for the God-given, far-seeing, wisdom of the founders; who, over 200 years ago, saw the necessity of the separation of church and state to best protect our religious freedom; and
BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED, that a copy of this resolution of support be sent to each of the justices of the Iowa Supreme Court, and to the Supreme Court Administrator.

Read them all (scroll down).

Read it all.

The Diocese of South Carolina synod has revised its bylaws in a bid to protect itself from legal predations from the national Episcopal Church. Meeting on Oct 15, at St Paul’s Church in Summerville, South Carolina adopted six resolutions that ended the diocese’s automatic accession to the national church’s canons.

At the close of its March meeting, Bishop Mark Lawrence postponed the 219th annual meeting of the diocesan convention, after US Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori engaged an attorney to represent the Episcopal Church in South Carolina. The diocese requested an explanation for what it saw as an unlawful usurpation of authority by the presiding bishop, and postponed the adjournment of its synod pending a response.

The presiding bishop declined to respond, but as it waited the diocesan leadership began a review of the national church canons enacted at the 2009 General Convention covering clergy discipline.

“What we found was shocking,” Canon Kendall Harmon told Anglican TV, as it “violates due process” and natural justice.

Read it all.

“Whether a target’s on my back or not on my back is not my chief concern,” [Bishop Mark Lawrence] said. “I believe we should get on with the mission to which God has called us in the Anglican Communion.”

The bishop said that energy for mission is moving away from institutions, whether the Episcopal Church or the Anglican Communion’s Instruments of Unity, and toward more direct relationships, such as the diocese’s new arrangement to welcome the Rt. Rev. Michael Nazir-Ali, the retired Bishop of Rochester, England, as “visiting bishop in South Carolina for Anglican Communion Development.”

“Out of these relationships, I believe, the solutions will emerge,” Bishop Lawrence said. “We’re living in a world in which inhibitions and depositions can intrude into a vision.”

Lawrence added that he does not see himself as violating his ordination vows to conform to the doctrine and discipline of the church. Instead, he said, bishops who approve unconstitutional canons or who revise church teaching on sexual morality have violated their vows.

“We’re increasingly in a world in which people expect a bishop to swear fealty to every resolution of General Convention, regardless of its theological foundations,” he said.

Read it all.

The Diocese of Western Louisiana endorsed the Anglican Covenant at its 31st annual convention Oct. 15-16 in Alexandria, La.

Delegates passed by an overwhelming majority a resolution offered by St. Mark’s Cathedral of Shreveport that endorsed the Covenant. The resolution added that the diocese “remains committed to the Constitution and Canons of General Convention of the Episcopal Church while seeking to pursue our identity as constituent members of the Anglican Communion in communion with the See of Canterbury.”

Read it all.

The Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina took steps Friday at its reconvened convention to further distance itself from the “national” Episcopal Church by passing resolutions asserting its sovereignty.

The meeting held at St. Paul’s Church in Summerville was a continuation of the March convention. Last year, delegates voted “to begin withdrawing from all bodies of the Episcopal Church that have assented to actions contrary to Holy Scripture, the doctrine, discipline and worship of Christ as this Church has received them.”

Friday’s vote was the latest development in a drawn-out disagreement between the diocese and church leadership, which many local Episcopalians consider too accommodating to social trends and not substantially faithful to the authority of Scripture.

Read it all.

Read it all.

“What a great time to be alive and to be about the work of the Gospel of Jesus Christ,” said the Rt. Rev. Mark J. Lawrence in his address to the reconvened 219th Diocesan Convention held at St. Paul’s in Summerville, October 15, 2010. “But make no mistake; there are challenges that await us at every turn.”

Lawrence spoke not only of the opportunities currently unfolding to partner in relationships around the globe in fulfilling the vision of “Making Biblical Anglicans for a Global Age,” but about the ongoing challenges the Diocese faces. “We still have a God-given vocation within this worldwide struggle,” he said. “There is no risk-free way forward for us.”

Of special note was the announcement that the Rt. Rev. Michael Nazir Ali, retired Bishop of Rochester in England, and one of the most respected figures in the Anglican Communion, has agreed to be Visiting Bishop in South Carolina for Anglican Communion Relationships.

Read it all.