Closing Remarks to Convention 2024
Setting our Sea Anchor to Face the Waves
Closing Remarks to the 203rd Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia
The Rt. Rev. Frank S. Logue
“I really believe that God is in our lives. Every day. Every single day. When we walk outside, anything can happen, but if you have faith and believe in God, you’ll be all right.”
The wisdom that Standing Committee member Toni Blue brings is not that nothing bad will happen, but that with God with us, God will work in and through whatever happens. The Apostle Paul told the Christians in Rome, “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” Not that all things are good. That wouldn’t be realistic. It is not that God created the loss of a job, the end of a relationship, or a terminal diagnosis. This wisdom is about how God can take every bad thing that happens and weave it together into something good. Our Triune God is in the redemption business.
We see this in the Acts of the Apostles as in the first seven chapters of this story of what happened to Jesus’ followers after his resurrection we see how they preach with boldness and thousands come to faith. Then as that seventh chapter is ending, the Deacon Stephen is stoned to death. A persecutation breaks out against the Jesus Movement and the community scatters. Then in Acts 8, we see how God uses this tragedy to spread the Gospel. Disciples who would have stayed together in Jerusalem are soon spreading the grace, mercy, and forgiveness they have found to people who would have remained lost and left out if the faith had stayed within that small geographic area.
We don’t believe that God willed that persecution, but God did what God does and used the hatred as an opportunity for more love, as the darkness can never overcome the light. How did they withstand the backlash against their faith in Jesus? They could continue to love others because of the presence and power of the Holy One in their hearts and minds through the power of the Holy Spirit. This was not reserved for the early church alone.
Toni reminding us that “God is in our lives. Every day. Every single day” is the sure and certain knowledge that because of this, it is reasonable and right to pause and despair. You gotta feel your feelings. But then, recall that God is present with you and that is how we move from despair to hope. As I named in my sermon that started us off yesterday, “Despair is what arises in our spirits when we look realistically at this situation but do so without the hope in a God who acts in human history.”
Toni is talking about the hope we can have in a situation that could lead to despair, because we worship a living God who gives us a Living Hope. This image has framed our strategic planning process as we depend not on what we could accomplish through our own might or ingenuity alone. We count on the guidance of the Holy Spirit through whom we can do more than we could ever ask for or imagine. In this process of listening, what I have heard most clearly is the ways in which we long for greater connection and mutual support and many in this room and around the Diocese, are ready to step forward to make that a reality that does not depend on me and my staff alone. The challenges we face are being worked together for the good, so we have sound reasons to be hopeful.
During my first months as your bishop, Victoria and I spent most mornings walking in Savannah’s cemeteries. This was during the lockdown phase of the pandemic and the graveyards offered for a lovely place to walk without anyone else around as we would arrive at dawn. We would vary which of the beautiful old burial grounds we would walk in and so took in lots of tombstones.
Hope features on a lot of Victorian markers, often as the word inscribed on an anchor, sometimes just the anchor itself. Like an anchor chain connecting a ship to sea floor, hope connects us to something sure and certain.
Our hope is not based on something that is passing. Our hope is connected to the eternal as we are grounded in God and rooted in Jesus. But don’t let me mix my metaphors too much. Let’s stay with the anchor. When a storm hits, if you can’t secure your boat in a marina, you have to anchor it or ride the storm out. If the water is shallow, you better drop the anchor off the bow to prevent drifting into rocks or out to sea. But I believe we are in deep waters and there is another way and that is the image I want to offer for what we are doing in this coming year. Deploying a sea anchor off the bow can be the best way for a smaller craft to weather a storm. Rather than the solid anchor found on Victorian graves, a sea anchor looks like a parachute.
This sea anchor stops the craft from drifting downwind. The sea anchor keeps the bow pointing windward, facing the waves head on. The reason this image speaks to me is that it shows that we are not being blown about by the winds of the culture or doing what the open water equivalent is of an ostrich burying its head. A sea anchor offers real stability, keeping a boat from being tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind. Anchored to the sea itself, the boat is not pushed off course, but turned into the storm in what could otherwise be an overcoming sea, we can not only endure, but in the words of the hymn Joyful, Joyful, we can experience the “Wellspring of the joy of living, ocean-depth of happy rest.”
As a Diocese, we do see the challenges we face and we will face them head on. We want to look directly at the problems in sustainability that have plagued Honey Creek since the pandemic, some of which came, of course, long before. We need to consider the challenges facing congregations of every size as we are all experiencing the impact of the loss of generations of parishioners who gave generously to their church. For some, this has meant fewer priests on a staff, when that support is still very much needed by the congregation. For others, it means difficulty having a full-time priest, or finding a priest who can serve part-time, or not currently having a priest who routinely serves the congregation.
As I have said before, from my vantage point, I see that we do face serious threats to business as usual, yet I also see that there is no existential threat to our church. The threat is to the church we became in the boom years following the Second World War. In 1925, 35 priests served the 60 congregations of the Diocese of Georgia, which by that point had the same boundary with the Diocese of Atlanta to the north for 18 years, so this was the same size Diocese. Bishop F.F. Reese reported that year that the 414 confirmations were the most in a year since the state was divided into two dioceses in 1907. 35 priests for 60 congregations was considered to be a priest for every church as the norm was lay led Morning Prayer for many congregations on most Sundays. I am not saying that is exactly where we are headed, but I want to point out that when we had fewer clergy by far serving fewer congregations, this Diocese had the sense that we were thriving, because we were. Lives were being changed for the better by the Gospel of Jesus Christ from Augusta and Albany to Brunswick and Savannah. They were also being transformed by the presence of the living God in Sandersville and Cordele, Quitman and St. Marys.
We have a living hope in a risen savior. We need not manage decline as there are ways we can do more. We have seen that in the church’s in Augusta. When the vestry of Christ Church in the Harrisburg voted to close, we could see the vital ministry still ongoing in that place and we kept the doors open and have birthed the Byllesby Center there, named for Deaconess Ruth Byllesby who ministered there for years. We are doing more there than ever. In Glynn County, our congregations formed Glynn Episcopal Ministries that has more impact as they work together for the good. And in Savannah, St. John’s Church reached out to other congregations as they are starting a respite ministry for care givers, Hope Haven, as that is also something we can do better together than as a single parish. So the new Episcopal Center that will house the diocesan offices while ministry continues alongside us is following that lead. There is more than we can do when we work together.
And the great news within our strategic planning process is how you want to bring more of the gifts God has given you to enrich the life of this community. I see this process as unlocking untapped potential already present in our midst. This is not about working harder. That is not the Gospel. This is about sharing the load. When more of us bring what we can joyfully offer, we will find that God can, does, and will bless what we bring to bear and will do more than we could ask for or imagine. This is not making something happen by our own might or power, but through the Spirit of the living God.
So, we can face the challenges we see head on knowing that God has not brought us this far to leave us. Whatever causes us to despair, when we tap into the certainty that God can, does, and will show up, we have a reason to hope. We set our anchor not on the sea floor, but on the sea itself, knowing that God is with us, guiding us. We need not fear as the one who could calm the storm is with us. Even more than that, the one who walked upon the waters is with us. We don’t have to shrink back, managing decline. The one who the cosmos could not contain is with us, our transcendent God is with us, and neighbors still need to experience the joy that we have found in Jesus.
This convention has been so helpful for me. This job is, of course, a blast. Victoria and I get so much joy from crisscrossing backroads to get to worship with you, which makes it all the more wonderful to be able to be together in this way. As you go back to your congregation, please let them know that we are being realistic, and the reason we are not in despair about all we see, is because we are anchored to the sea itself, facing what comes knowing that the Spirit of the living God is working all things together for the good.
Amen.
Since we last met in convention in Augusta, that city has been hit hard by Hurricane Helene. As I said in my sermon this morning, the aftermath showed Episcopalians serving their neighbors including at Saint Paul’s where our previous convention Eucharist was celebrated and the Byllesby Center which is supported significantly by Good Shepherd where the convention met in the school gym. While many of us have been able to move on, it will be quite a while before many people in Central and South Georgia can say their lives are back to normal. Crisis reveals what is already present in a community and the Hurricane revealed the faith and resilience of our people and communities.
As I have been getting feedback from the listening sessions and the survey, I have seen the direction the Diocese wishes to move. While there is more to hear, I already see clearly the ways in which the diocesan staff has to be more responsive to you, the people of the Diocese. There are two tiers in the Diocese—those who know staff well and have no trouble getting what they need from staff and those who don’t know who to call or how to learn where to go for help. This is not based on the size of a congregation, but the familiarity with the team. This cannot continue. To address this, I am taking a multi-pronged approach. We are making which staff to call for what is more readily evident on the website. We will also have a complete website redesign in 2025 with the sole goal of making it easier for you to find who you need and what you need. In addition, our phone system now lets a caller more easily reach the person you need. Additionally, I know that I need a Chief of Staff as my travel schedule has me away from the office enough that the staff needs a leader who is with them when I am traveling. Some other changes on staff are taking some responsibilities off of Canon Loren Lasch’s load and I am naming her the Canon to the Ordinary and Chief of Staff. This acknowledges some of what has already been a part of her work with the staff and leaning into it more.
Now, Jesus joins Cleopas and the unnamed other disciple on the road. They are in the depths of despair as they walk toward Emmaus. Neither of these first followers of Jesus know this seeming stranger on the road to be their Rabbi. This lack of recognition reveals the way despair clouds our vision and hinders us from seeing rightly.
I want to pause here to note how the Enlightenment that led to the gifts of modernity also found its way into our faith. The Desert Mothers and Fathers saw the struggle of good and evil playing out not just in their lives as they saw the cosmic struggle of good and evil playing itself out within their own hearts as they sought through their prayers and fasting to overcome temptations. They lived in a world shot through with a sense of transcendence, the knowledge that what we see is not all that exists in the universe as the time we live in is held in eternity. 
Seeing the ways God has broken into your life before gives confidence when looking to an uncertain future. For example, we can look at decline in church participation across the generations and join others in despair. Or we can look to the ways that the living God has been present with us in the past, is with us now, and already holds the future. That perspective makes it possible to be both realistic about where we are and what we face while remaining hopeful about the future. Whatever causes us to despair, when we tap into the certainty that God can, does, and will show up, we have a reason to hope.
Kindle our hearts and awaken hope.
Speak God, for this servant is listening.
When the weather is nice, one of the things I enjoy is grilling on the back patio of our home. When cooking outside, I use lump charcoal, which means that the process of starting the fire is not immediate like with a gas grill. Those of you who are familiar with lump charcoal know that it is not uniform in shape like manufactured briquets that are mostly the same size. I sometimes think of this form of grilling as being similar to cooking over a campfire. The lumps of charcoal, in a variety shapes and densities, must be stacked in such a way as to allow for air to flow through the heap. After lighting the stack, I make sure the bottom and top vents are open to allow for the greatest amount of air to flow and feed the smoldering flame. After about 15 to 20 minutes, I usually return to find the embers ablaze with fire and ready for whatever needs to be cooked.
“Baptized for Life: A Lay Ministers’ Conference” will take place September 9-10 at Honey Creek! This conference is intended for any lay person in the Diocese who is in any active ministry in their congregation. Examples of such lay ministries include those who assist or lead worship, serve on the Vestry, serve on committees, teach Sunday School or lead youth activities, serve on the Altar Guild, care for the buildings and grounds, lead outreach activities, and more. This conference will be led by Dr. Lisa Kimball, the Vice President for Lifelong Learning and the James Maxwell Professor Chair of Lifelong Christian Formation at Virginia Theological Seminary. “Dr. Kimball has focused her teaching and research on lifelong, life-wide, and life-deep discipleship and Christian vocation…She is a passionate advocate for lay ministry, the full inclusion of all generations, digital literacy, and leaders who are confident teachers of the faith.” For more information about Dr. Kimball’s background and history, 
This General Convention was the seventh I have traveled to on behalf of the Diocese of Georgia, but my first in the House of Bishops. The General Convention is sometimes compared to the US legislature with a larger House of Representatives and small Senate. In the General Convention, the House of Deputies comprises four lay persons and four clergy persons from each diocese for more than 800 deputies in a typical convention. Every convention has a lot of first time deputies learning their way around. The House of Bishops, which is more analogous to the Senate, has less than 150 members and most have previously taken part in a convention. 
This familiarity changes the nature of debate on resolutions in the House of Bishops as you are speaking to a smaller group of people who you know well, creating a higher level of trust and allowing deeper conversations.
Having attended four prior General Conventions in the past (twice as an ECW Triennial Delegate and twice as a Deputy’s spouse), I felt somewhat prepared to serve as a first time Deputy for GC80. I was quite overwhelmed, however, with the rapid pace of voting on legislation on the house floor, with over 400 resolutions to be considered in only four days (and nights!). Just the time involved in searching the Virtual Binder to review the resolutions, the explanation of the resolutions, the floor amendments, the calendars, the agendas, the committee reports, and listening to the debates both for and against the resolutions, then being prepared to vote, was enough to make this first time Deputy’s head spin! Whew! It looked so much easier from the observer’s point of view! And then there were reports, memorials, elections, worship, and late evening deputation meetings, not to mention the daily Covid testing and wearing masks. But it was truly a privilege and a blessing to have the opportunity to do this work on behalf of our Diocese, and I am so very grateful for the support and assistance I received from my fellow deputies and from our Bishop, and for the opportunity to share this experience with them.
It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It was technology at General Convention. The 80th General Convention was the shortest in generations due pandemic concerns, only four days rather than the usual eight to ten days. How was this possible? The answer was technology. In particular, the committees of General Convention, which have previously only met in-person at convention, accomplished their tasks via zoom meetings in the three months leading up to the in-person meeting in Baltimore. Committee work is essential to the functioning of General Convention and thus the Church. Without technology, ie. the availability of zoom, it is possible that General Convention would have had to have been postponed another year. Technology, however, was not all good. General Convention has gone paperless with every deputy being assigned an iPad for access to the resolutions under consideration and for voting. Great idea, but an iPad is useless without reliable WIFI, and reliable WIFI was in short supply. A meaningful portion of those precious four days was squandered due to this problem. For all of its good and bad, technology is here to stay at General Convention. One of the resolutions passed was a change to the rules of the House of Deputies that will allow the use of zoom meetings in future conventions, not just in the extraordinary circumstances of this pandemic shortened meeting. This will allow more people to give input into the workings of the church—people can participate in committee without having to travel to convention for committee hearings—but we may lose the substantial benefit of people meeting face-to-face with all of the interactions that provides. Having been a deputy at four General Conventions. Technology, for good or for ill, will be playing an ever expanding role in the governance of the Episcopal Church. 
One of the recurring themes at this 80th General Convention has been racial justice and equity. The Episcopal Church has been on a journey in this regard for some time, having addressed matters of race consistently for decades. Much of this work has accelerated in recent years because of what has gone on in our nation, and the leadership of Presiding Bishop Michael Curry. While the General Convention has previously established educational offerings and encouraged the Beloved Community model as an aspiration for the Church, we have now committed to a time of study and introspection about our own specific history with race as a church. This includes evaluating the sources of Episcopal Church financial resources and beginning to allocate future funds to building up historically underrepresented peoples. We have also called for an honest evaluation of the Church’s role in facilitating indigenous boarding schools, where indigenous children were often abused. Understanding our history and the actions of previous generations is not about guilt, but about healing. If we do not know or admit the legacy of the Church’s historic actions we will continue to struggle to facilitate healing and reconciliation. Much of that history is recent enough that Deputies gave personal testimony on such matters. Before the 81st General Convention such investigations should give us a full sense of where we’ve been in the hopes that we can form a future that is defined by reconciling love.
In Austin, at the 79th General Convention, Georgia’s Deputy the Rev. Cynthia Taylor was working with a group of lay and clergy women to bring forth reckoning and healing regarding gender-based abuse with the ultimately passed set of “#metoo” resolutions. Principle in the coordination of those successful efforts was Cynthia+ and others’ testimonies, which came forth through the collaborative organization of Executive Council member Julia Ayala Harris among a few others.
While the entire experience of my first General Convention was illuminating and inspiring, I was especially excited about legislation that advanced two of my own areas of ministry, immigration and Creation Care.
There were two particularly important pieces of legislation involving our Indigenous brothers and sisters that passed at the 80th General Convention. On the first legislative day, the House of Deputies heard testimony from some of our indigenous sisters who had been personally affected or whose family members were affected by their experiences in Episcopal boarding schools. The testimony was heartfelt and impassioned, and sometimes difficult to hear. To hear about incidents of abuse that happened to indigenous students “on our watch” was disturbing and eye opening. It was important for all of us for these testimonies to be given. It is a step toward much of the focus of this convention – Truth Telling and Reparation. We must know our entire past to be able to have a stronger future.
As a first-time deputy, it was a joy to attend and represent this diocese that has become home to my family and me. One of the truly refreshing aspects of General Convention was its inclusive nature. Inclusion wasn’t something simply given lip-service, but intentionally lived out in multiple aspects. From the ASL interpreter and captioning on every screen; worshiping in multiple languages; deputies who were in their teens to deputies who had been to 15 conventions; diversity among deputies including a high number of deputies of color, women, and deputies who are part of the LGBTQ+ community; one could not fail to notice the work that has been done to truly give voice to as broad a spectrum as possible. 
As the former Nominations Chair and Elections Czarina for the Diocese of Georgia, I’ve had the opportunity to facilitate the elections of our General Convention deputies the last few General Conventions. It was always an honor to send our deputation off to the infamous General Convention, and when I decided to run, it was with great respect and excitement. As a self proclaimed Church Nerd, arriving to the floor of convention was overwhelming. And getting to vote for the first time? Pure giddiness! Each session I grew more comfortable with the process and the flow of convention. We passed a lot of resolutions, had interesting conversations, and held elections. But more importantly, I came away with an even greater love for our church and the people in it. We continue to see where we have wronged others and how we can make amends, we continue to work towards proclaiming that the love of Christ is not exclusionary, and we look towards the future of the church. For all of this, and more, I am grateful to have been a member of our diocesan deputation. 
After a one year delay due to the pandemic, we returned to General Convention masked, vaccinated and ready to do the work of the Church. As Chair of Credentials, I had the unique opportunity to oversee the “checking in” of all deputies to ensure voice and vote of the dioceses. At last count, 802 deputies (clergy and lay) representing 107 dioceses were seated. My committee worked long hours on registration day, and then every day of sessions, as deputies checked in and alternates and deputies switched in and out. With shortened time frame and increased Covid restrictions, I knew this Convention would be different, and it was. Having been a deputy before, I missed the expanded worship services, the fellowship gatherings, the exhibit hall, and the in-person legislative hearings (and the snacks at the tables!). We still gathered together to accomplish the necessary tasks required by our constitution and canons. In spite of the differences between this Convention and others, great work, positive changes, and history-making elections were the result. 
I am reminded of the Anastasis, that great icon of Holy Saturday where Jesus has descended to the dead and is bringing Adam and Eve up from the grave. In iconography, the first two humans are buried there just East of Eden, which is also the foot of the cross. Christ’s glory is bound with his degradation in this place where worlds collide, the fallen and the redeemed. Jesus’ tomb will not be empty until Jesus empties Hell. 
Christmas is the story of human hopes and fears met in the night by the maker of heaven and earth coming to live as one of us. We invariably tell of Jesus’ birth as a night story. It need not be so as the Gospel writer Luke said of Joseph and Mary’s stay in Bethlehem for the census, “While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child.” Meanwhile Matthew writes of Joseph having a dream and waking to resolve to wed Mary and that after she bore a son, he named him Jesus. At right is Bishop Logue’s graffiti-style image of The Holy Family, which he painted last weekend on plywood, using spray paint and a hand-cut stencil he designed.
Bishop Logue and the Diocesan Staff have been working with the Louttit family on plans the funeral for the Ninth Bishop of Georgia, the Rt. Rev. Henry I. Louttit, Jr. 
And so we began. We took the molding from around the windows and peeled off the paneling. Another parishioner arrived with his Middle Schooler son. He was a sergeant with the St. Marys Police Department. He suggested the next step, “We need to get the windows out. We all know what to do there.”
Bishop Rob Wright of the Diocese of Atlanta, offered me a clarifying question this year. One he honed while taking a class in Inquiry-Driven Leadership at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. The professor challenged the executives in the program to craft a question appropriate for their business that would cut to the heart of the essentials for their work. Rob’s question became: What does fidelity to Jesus look like in this moment?
The Diocese will read together Love is the Way by Presiding Bishop Michael Curry as the 2021 1Book1Diocese pick.