The work given to the Episcopal Church by the July meeting of General Convention in Anaheim, California, has begun.
Nearly 270 volunteer members of 24 of the Episcopal Church’s so-called interim bodies, the Committees, Commissions, Agencies and Boards (commonly know as CCABs) are having their first meetings here Nov. 17-20. The meeting included an orientation session the morning of Nov. 18.
Each CCAB will also have 18 hours meeting together here. Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson commissioned the members during a Eucharist at the end of the orientation session.
Perhaps they should consider the work that GOD has given to them:
“go and ake disciples” (not: go and gather affinity groups), “teaching them to observe all that I have taught you” (not: have each person share their story and equate that to Christian education).
I know, I know. It won’t happen so long as the current tribe of leaders remain. Well, one can hope.
Somehow I see a new ‘prayer book’ in gestation somewhere in this muddle…
“She said that those efforts ‘need the ministry of all the baptized… every person baptized is baptized for leadership somewhere, to bring about change toward the reign of God.’
“Anderson echoed that idea, noting that the Episcopal Church was founded in part on the ‘strange idea … that all the baptized belong in the counsels of the church.'”
I wouldn’t say this is a bad idea or even, rightly understood, an unbiblical idea. I question whether it’s historically accurate to say this is the idea (THE idea) on which the Episcopal Church was founded. It seems to me that “ministry of all the baptized” is being used as the rationale for a lot of very strange ideas.
Pax,
Chuck Bradshaw, Hulls Cove, Maine