A new policy of the Diocese of Georgia, as announced in January, calls for the Secretary of Convention to publish a list of eligible voters for our 120 days before the Diocesan Convention starts. The Standing Committee approved our beginning this best practice as a part of their setting policies and procedures for a bishop election years before we need to follow the full process:
Other dioceses have faced serious conflict over who can vote in a bishop election. To avoid those concerns when we elect a new bishop at some point in the future, the Standing Committee’s policy states that the Secretary of Convention shall annually publish the number of delegates for each congregation and the list of the canonically resident clergy entitled to a vote in keeping with the canons of the Diocese. Acting in her role as the Secretary of Convention, Canon Katie Willoughby is publishing here those lists 121 days prior to the diocese meeting in Tifton.
Delegate Count
The Canons of the Diocese of Georgia approved in 2022 define the delegate count as follows: Every Congregation shall be entitled to send lay delegates to convention with the number of delegates determined by the Average Sunday Attendance (ASA) of the congregation as “reported on the previous three parochial reports extant.”
2 delegates for congregations with 99 or less in ASA
3 delegates for congregations with 100-199 in ASA
4 delegates for congregations with 200 or more in ASA
Clergy serving under the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical authority of a diocese (typically the diocesan bishop) are canonically resident in that diocese. All deacons and priests canonically resident on the list linked below are entitled to seat and voice in every convention of the Diocese. Our canons require that those voting in our conventions, including a bishop election, have a current, active role in ministry within the Diocese
Canon I.1.3 of the Diocese of Georgia’s Constitution and Canons offers three ways a canonically resident member of clergy may have vote in convention. A member of clergy must be:
ecclesiastically employed within the Diocese; or
continually exercising clerical functions in some Congregation within the Diocese; or
exercising a ministry specially approved by the Bishop.
In announcing the list to the clergy in a prior email, Bishop Logue clarified point number three above saying, “I am of the firm conviction that someone serving as a supply priest meets that last test as does someone serving as a peer coach in our coaching network as could other service in the Diocese whether compensated or not. On the current attached list, supply priests on whom we absolutely rely for our common life are the prime reason I list someone as exercising a ministry specially approved by me.”
Bishop Logue added, “The main reason for not having a vote is that the person is serving outside the Diocese as often happens in retirement, or they are serving as an associate in another diocese during a first call out of seminary while maintaining their connection here. The second reason is that the member of clergy has needed to fully retire for health or other reasons who is not, with only very rare exception, regularly serving in a church.”
Address any concerns with the status of canonically resident clergy to the President of the Standing Committee, the Rev. Walter Hobgood. Contact the diocesan office through Canon Willoughby above for an email address for him.
The delegates to the 2023 diocesan convention unanimously voted to name Deaconess Alexander as the Patron Saint of the Diocese. Deaconess Anna Ellison Butler Alexander (1865-1947) has been recognized as a saint by the Diocese of Georgia since 1998 and by the General Convention of The Episcopal Church since 2018, with her feast day celebrated on September 24.
She served the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia despite the persecution and hardships she faced during the Jim Crow era, founding Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in Pennick in 1894 and Good Shepherd Episcopal School in Pennick in 1902. She was set aside by Bishop C. K. Nelson as the first and only Black Deaconess in the history of The Episcopal Church in 1907. She tirelessly and devotedly taught, led services, cared for the poor and elderly, and inspired young people with hope for six decades.
This gives every congregation in the Diocese the express permission to observe the Feast of St. Anna Alexander, with its assigned collect and scripture readings every year on the Sunday closest to September 24 if they choose to do so. The resolution also urged congregations to take up a special offering on that Sunday to benefit the St. Anna Alexander Center for Reconciliation & Healing and the preservation of the historic Good Shepherd Episcopal Schoolhouse. You can find out more about her life and legacy and the schoolhouse restoration here: GoodShepherdSchoolhouse.org
The following was given as a closing presentation to the 201st Convention of the Diocese of Georgia by Bishop Frank Logue.
Let Your Light Shine Matthew 5:14-16
The longest serving Secretary of Convention for the Diocese of Georgia, was the Reverend Doctor James Bolan Lawrence, who served several decades in leading these meetings. When he arrived at Calvary Church in Americus in 1905, they didn’t know what to do with him. He was a 27-year old priest and he was different, having earned a Masters in Classics at the University of Georgia before going to seminary, he fluent in Greek, Hebrew, and Latin. He was known for his love of “good food, good drink, good tobacco, good music, good clothes.” He once created a scandal by preaching a sermon about how good it was to play golf on Sunday.
In the history of Calvary Church in Americus, they talked about how his sermons were not that inspiring, they were too erudite, technical. But he served there for 47 years as a pastor to that community. When he died, his funeral was at Calvary and he was to be buried 13 miles away beside the log cabin church he had built in Andersonville. Many people walked the route with the procession itself stretching out for a mile. He was such a pastor that they saw the light of Christ shining through him.
The people in southwest Georgia loved Brother Jimmy enough to forget his sermons while recalling his example of “kindness, selflessness and utter goodness.”
The previous year, when he retired, Bishop Barnwell told the diocesan convention, “During these years Dr. Lawrence has shed the light of his life not only in Americus, but also in a half dozen or more mission stations scattered over a vast area in western and south-western Georgia.” He founded churches in Blakely, Cordele, Dawson, Moultrie, Benevolence, and Pennington, wherever he could ride a train to during the week and gather a congregation and preach and pray. When there were enough of them, he founded a church.
He shed the light of his life, the Bishop said, which caused me to look at the Gospel anew. Jesus put it this way, “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”
I am struck by Jesus saying, “Let your light shine.” This is about the gifts God has given you, that make you unique in what you have to offer to the Body of Christ.
While I have held up the very unique priest who his neighbors called, Brother Jimmy, he was not alone. Anson Greene Phelps Dodge Jr. accomplished much on the Georgia coast, dying before he turned 40. The Rev. Paul Hoornstra more recently planted churches on the islands at St. Francis of the Islands and St. Peter’s on Skidaway.
Then there is our beloved Saint of Georgia, Deaconess Anna Alexander, who accomplished so much with so little, especially little help from her diocese. And we see others who also served their African American communities with similar devotion, like her sisters Mary and Dora who started the school at St. Cyprian’s in Darien. Then there was Father Perry who led the school at Good Shepherd in Thomasville for 32 years. And from 1884 to 1928, St. Athanasius’ in Brunswick ran a very impressive secondary school with an Industrial Arts curriculum. I could go on to tell of generations of black Episcopalians who have been and are today leaders in this Diocese.
Rita Griffeth, a Glynn County native who led summer camps in this Diocese for 25 years at Camp Reese on St. Simons Island. Every year of 1925 to 1950, she drove the backroads of central and south Georgia to personally find counselors and campers and then tirelessly run the program. It is impossible for those of us who know camp in more recent decades to fail to compare her to Pam Guice, who also provided such dedicated service.
When I said yesterday that we find evidence of the Diocese of Georgia having creativity and resourcefulness deep in its DNA, these are the people I am talking about who decade after decade served the towns we now serve. My list could go on and on and would include names of people in this room. I find followers of Jesus meeting the challenge of their times led by the Holy Spirit. That same spirit abides in this Diocese.
My parting offering to you is a list of ideas and tools that are just a starter to get you thinking. We will email out the PDF files and the web page version is linked at the diocesan website now. There are ways to deepen faith, and ideas for engaging with your community, alongside new ways and time-tested old ways to engage with stewardship.
As I said yesterday, these ideas are not an invitation to work harder and do more. Some of the resources will assist you in what you are already doing, like having free studies to choose from as an offering on a Wednesday evening. For any new initiative, you will have to find something else you have been doing that it is time to stop. Some really good ideas from the past need a plaque and a sheet cake. Celebrate what was accomplished as you discontinue an effort that bore good fruit for a season.
Assess what you are doing now as a congregation. Any area that takes more energy than it seems to offer parishioners or the community in return, is probably ready to give thanks for and end. Anything that lacks leadership and volunteers, that could be a sign to let up for a season. There could also be great ideas from your past, that are time for a return. What we need now as a church can very well be what worked well before. None of this is about the institution of the church per se. I know I have a job that would make it seem otherwise, but the institution of the church is not worth getting up for in the morning unless it is serving the Gospel of Jesus Christ and making a difference in the lives of the people in the community. If the church is doing that then it is worthwhile. To the degree the institution of the church gets in the way of that mission, we have to acknowledge that it is getting in the way of our reason for being. Because there is a lost and hurting world that does not know that they were fearfully and wonderfully by the creator of the cosmos. There are people made in the image and likeness of God who have seen themselves in the eyes of others. Showing the love of God, however we do it, is something that matters so much.
My deepest conviction as we embark on a time of holy experimentation, is that the Holy Spirit will use our faithfulness. We don’t have to let the potential for the perfect prevent us from doing something good. I learned in working with Kairos Prison Ministry that being merely flexible is still far too rigid. Flexible is, here I stand. I can bend a little. They said that in the prison, that is not enough. We can be working as the whole prison goes into lock down and we are in the room longer, or it can go into lockdown overnight and we can’t get back in the next morning. We want to be fluid like water going down a mountain toward a river and the sea. The water knows its purpose and never loses track of the ultimate goal. The water may have to take a different path to get to the river and the sea, but it will accomplish its purpose.
In this way, we need to be fluid about methods, but we know that we are about is people coming into a relationship with Jesus Christ that transforms their lives as they see that God loves them, wants better for them than where they are now. This is the offering of healing, repentance, and new life. That is the goal, which is why we can be fluid in how we go about it.
The first Anglicans arrived as the colony of Georgia’s founders in 1733. While so much has changed, that core purpose has remained the same as they wanted to offer a haven for those in need of a fresh start. Sharing the Good News of Jesus is worth getting up for in the morning and is worth spending your days, and giving your life to accomplish. As we commit together to looking for new ways to share our ancient faith, we do not do so alone, the true missionary is God, the real work is being done by Jesus. This is the work of the Spirit. We are given the grace to be on the team.
The Rt. Rev. Frank S. Logue gave this sermon for the Convention Eucharist for the 201st Convention of the Diocese of Georgia at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Savannah, Georgia, on November 11, 2022.
God meets us in reality Isaiah 58: 6-12 and Matthew 25: 31-40
God meets us in reality. God is not in my idealized past. God is not in my hoped for future.
The God who made us, loves us, and wants better for us is with us now and in every moment of our very real, sometimes glorious, sometimes messy, lives.
God becoming human in Jesus was all about the Second Person of the Holy Trinity entering into creation, weaving back the tattered tapestry of our world from the inside.
My Mom helped me to see this insight–God is real and deals with our actual lives, not our fantasies.
She has often repeated that phrase: God meets us in reality. This year, I have heard my mother’s sage counsel differently.
I had a poignant epiphany in September, when I was speaking with Diocesan Council at Trinity Church in Statesboro. Having a light bulb going off over my head as I am in the midst of talking to a group happens to me with some regularity. As an extrovert, I benefit from processing my thoughts externally. I sometimes don’t know what I think, what my deepest and best thoughts are, until I talk a matter through.
I was taking our Council through the process by which Canon Loren Lasch and I separately had arrived at the same conclusion about this convention. We realized that it would be most important to share a clear-eyed view of where the congregations of the Diocese of Georgia are now, after having experienced great shifts during a global pandemic.
In Canon Lasch’s opening presentation and in my Bishop’s Address we have done just that in a way that I trust is hopeful. We have seen the data on our attendance and finances as well as the signs of how God is present with us in the midst of what we face today in our corner of the vineyard, which is the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia. That morning in Statesboro as I told the members of Council about my Mom’s favored phrase, God meets us in reality, the word reality was a hard one to say.
Sixteen months ago, my mother called me to share a frightening incident. She had been sitting at a red light, waiting for the traffic on the state route to go by and the light to turn green. She knew that she was driving to her daughter’s house. That much she remembered. But Mom told me that she realized that she had not the slightest idea which direction to go to get there. My sister, Leigh, has been living in the same home near Arnoldsville, Georgia for 25 years. My Mom, Julia, had been, at that time, living in the same house in Winterville for nearly 20 years. Mom had made that 11.4-mile drive countless times, always making the left hand turn onto US 78. That day, she was stuck. She knew where she wanted to go and yet had no idea what to do next. Soon after, her doctor diagnosed my mother with dementia.
I can’t say strongly enough that she was brave in facing that new reality. My Mom was one of eight children. She had cared for one of her sisters, Laura Frances, as the relentless progression of Alzheimer’s had her sundowning each afternoon. My aunt would be looking for her deceased husband, Joe, and their children, who were by then living in three different states. Mom lovingly looked after her sister until care at home was no longer an option. She had witnessed how far from reality dementia can take someone.
All of this came to me at once as I told the Council that God meets us in reality. What does it mean, I wondered, when our view of what is real suffers distortion. And, as sometimes happens, the next step opened for me. Just as clearly as I could see my mother learning of her dementia diagnosis, I recalled the book that the Lasches gave to me. The Rev. Ian Lasch had been reading the work of John Swinton, a Practical Theologian in Aberdeen, Scotland. He and Loren gave me Swinton’s book Dementia: Living in the Memories of God. So as I spoke, I took that next step, following where I felt the Holy Spirit leading me and I told the members of Diocesan Council of it being difficult to talk of my Mom saying God is with us in reality now that she is less connected to what is real. I let them know of the book in which Swinton explores:
Who am I when I’ve forgotten who I am?
What does it mean to love God and be loved by God when I have forgotten who God is?
His exploration goes far from where my mother is now or may ever be with dementia. Swinton takes the reader to the farthest borders of where the various forms of what we call dementia can take a person. This work of practical theology is so important as it works from what we know of God to puzzle through the implications of our beliefs. If we are each made in the image and likeness of God, what does the loss of memory do to the imago dei, that image of God, imprinted on each person? We are not confined by what we can remember for we are always remembered by God. Even if someone’s cognition is such that they forget God, God never forgets that person. This is the deepest reality even in the furthest reaches of varied conditions we call dementia.
Since that phone call when she could not remember which way to turn, a lot has happened with my Mom. We worked through a variety of possibilities with her and after she visited for a few weeks last December, she decided to move into the apartments with her sister Emily. She pared down her possessions, we sold her house and moved her to Chattanooga. With her sister nearby and the care of the staff at her new home, she has remained as independent as possible. Between medication and a stable routine, my Mom is in a great environment. But it isn’t home. Even though I have been with her there as often as possible and my siblings have visited, the apartment may never feel like home to her. We all do what we can. Her two great grandchildren stayed with her for some days. We will be with her for her birthday later this month. The loss of home remains. Then there is the more difficult reality. Sometimes, when we talk, she does not remember any of us ever being with her in Tennessee.
Swinton’s book, I told the Council, helped me to see the value in spending time with my Mom even, or especially, when she might not recall it later. A visit that makes the hours spent with her better matters so much, whether she remembers it or not. And that time spent with her is good for me, even if she forgets the visit.
It’s not about trying to get my mom to the reality she used to be in, or the exact way our relationship used to be. Going back to the past like that simply cannot happen. What we’re living into now is finding new ways of expressing the love and care we’ve always had for each other, that’s still fully present even though it’s different than it’s been before. I can’t let the loss of abilities prevent me from appreciating my mother as she is now.
The insight that we need to appreciate what we have is, of course, relevant to any situation we face. For people who feel like they have everything under control and life is perfect, the day will come when chaos breaks into that careful order. For followers of Jesus, when our carefully maintained façade of perfection crumbles, we know that our savior remains with us, even in the midst of the chaos. When anxiety overwhelms us, when we face problems with no clear answer, Jesus will never leave us or forsake us.
In our reading from Isaiah, the Children of Israel were living in exile in Babylon trying to hold the faith passed down in families through generations. The prophets had warned that Israelites would not be exempt from the judgment of God if they failed to be faithful. The people did not heed the prophets. Exile came in a traumatic way to Ancient Israel twice, first when the Assyrian Empire took over the northern kingdom of Israel, the land of ten of the twelve tribes of Israel, and again when the Babylonians captured the two tribes of Judah, the southern kingdom of Israel. When our reading takes place, the people were remembering God’s teaching while exiled in an enemy land. The people in exile would have been tempted to think “we can’t find God until we get back to where we were, and how we were.” But they needed to find God anew in exile.
The exile is a central story of the Hebrew Bible. The Children of Israel looked back to the Exodus, when their ancestors were brought out of captivity in Egypt to be returned to the Promised Land. Now in Babylon, they mourned the loss of Zion and longed to be restored once more as God’s people living in the land of Israel.
Our reading from Isaiah was a word from God to remind them that they were always God’s people, no matter where they lived. Then they could trust that God would be faithful, without yet knowing whether they would ever return to their homeland.
God instructed Israel to put their faith into practice if they wanted to find light anew in the darkness all around them. In the words of our reading:
If you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday.
The exiles learned once more to faithfully follow the God who made them, loved them, and wanted better for them. They studied scripture and found their faith was born anew as they learned not to long for the past, but to serve God in the here and now.
The lesson to the exiles holds just as true for us. For the light of Christ to shine brightly in our lives and in the midst of our congregations, we know the way–study the scripture together, say our prayers, gather regularly for worship, and serve our communities as if we are serving Jesus himself. As we worship and serve, we are more likely to be attuned to how God is already present among us.
When we put our faith into practice, we remember who we are, which is to know whose we are. For those with dementia, as long as someone remembers them, they are not lost. The Gospel tells us that even if everyone we know were to forget us, each of us lives in the memory of God. Even in exile, we can still serve God in the knowledge that we are never God-forsaken.
The God who will never forget us is with us now. This is true with my Mom’s journey. And as I saw during the Council meeting in Statesboro, it is true for where we are as a diocese. We don’t have to go back to our churches as they were in 2019 to find Jesus present with us, or to 2010 or to 2000 or any other magic date. When we get real with ourselves, we will see how the Holy Spirit is already in our midst, leading and guiding us, not back to a longed for past or even ahead of us in a hoped for future.
The overwhelmingly Good News is that the God who made us, loves us, and wants better for us is with us now and in every moment of our very real, sometimes glorious, sometimes messy, lives.
November 11, 2022 – Georgia Southern University’s Armstrong Center, Savannah
Beloved in Christ,
This is my third Convention Address as your bishop. A Bishop’s Address, by the canons of our church, is to share the work undertaken since our last convention, give the state of the diocese, and name plans for the coming year. While this year was quite unusual with Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion gatherings, a familiar pattern to my work is in place here at home.
Victoria and I have found a rhythm to our lives with each week focused around a journey. This past Saturday, we traveled the 229 miles to Good Shepherd in Thomasville. The drive is a favorite, hitting Georgia 122 just west of Waycross with more than 100 miles of two-lane blacktop cutting through a beautiful section of south Georgia all the way into Thomasville. I met with the vestry for a conversation about their future and then we celebrated the Holy Eucharist together in that beautiful church and enjoyed hanging out with folks at the reception. On Sunday morning, Victoria and I were at St. Margaret of Scotland in Moultrie for the Holy Eucharist and a fun time of fellowship over food.
Since we last met in convention, I have made visitations to 52 congregations and also made my visitation to Episcopal Day School for a total of 53 of the 71 visitations that make up a full cycle of visits for the Diocese of Georgia. In order to minimize multiple visits to a church over the course of one year, we have been counting celebrations of new ministry and ordinations as a visit. In this way, I am currently getting everywhere at least once every 18 months. I often hear that congregations would like to see me and Victoria more often, and we share that desire. Victoria and I love worshiping with you and spending time together. We are open to more non-Sunday visits if congregations would like to find a way to see us a bit sooner, but we are grateful that our current pattern allowed us to get to 53 visits in a year when the General Convention and the Lambeth Conference had us outside of the Diocese more than usual.
Canon Loren Lasch already told the stark reality of the drop in attendance and the shortage of priests in the Episcopal Church. Canon Katie Easterlin and our Treasurer Beth Robinson will offer more of the current financial picture of the diocese. In this address, I want to turn to the plans for the coming year, because a reasonable question after the reality check in the opening presentation is to look at me and ask, “Well bishop, what are we going to do about this?”
I will lay out some steps we are taking, but to understand why these steps now, I have to look backward. Canon Lasch rightly directed us to the present in her opening presentation. We also know that we need to learn lessons from the past. In this year as we lead up to the Bicentennial of the founding of the Diocese of Georgia, we are sharing stories from our history in From the Field. In our past we see mirrored some common struggles which remain today, as we seek to let the light of Christ shine through us.
In 1892, Bishop Cleland Nelson, elected well into a long economic depression, charted a bold course saying, “The proper attitude of the Church in Georgia is best described by the word aggressive.” He named areas which needed “to be attacked.” From 1893–1906, the diocese, which then encompassed the entire state of Georgia, funded missionaries as we expanded from 88 missions to 108 in 13 years, going from 6,292 communicants to 9,229 and building sixty-two new church buildings.
In 1920, as we were still reeling from the First World War and the Spanish Flu pandemic, the Rt. Rev. Frederick Reese, was pushing forward mission work within the Diocese saying, “Brethren, we have pulled up a peg or two; we have got a new conception of our duty and our ability, we have made a good start. Let us not drop back, go to sleep again or stop to congratulate ourselves. There is much to do yet. It would be fatal to feel that we had completed the job. Everybody’s mind must be set with a forward look. We cannot afford to grow weary and rest.”
I could share other times with different struggles met by new strategies. However, we are not serving in the same context as our predecessors. In addition to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which comes on the heels of more than a decade of churchwide decline, we face the increasing secularization and polarization endemic in our world today.
In our Diocese, we have cities that have more Episcopal Churches than they can seem to support alongside county seat towns that are doing well to continue their witness to the Gospel in the midst of a dwindling population. This is why it is helpful to see how each generation has responded to the challenges of their times, letting their light shine in their communities.
Throughout our history, we find evidence of the Diocese of Georgia having creativity and resourcefulness deep in its DNA. More importantly when I study writings from my predecessors, I see how our primary response has been to be prayerful as we seek to remain faithful to where God is leading us. This is still our call.
Moving forward in the present reality there will be new ways of being church and connecting with our communities that will be fruitful, and there are certainly some old ways we would benefit from turning back toward. While there is no silver bullet, one-size fits all way to be the faithful church in this moment, we can respond to challenges knowing that whatever we face, we do so guided by the Holy Spirit. Rather than being led by the latest business practice the church wants to baptize, we can see the benefit of energy and leadership coming from the ground up to support creative endeavors that are life giving to each unique community.
The Rev. Melanie Lemburg recommended a book that has been helpful to me, How to Lead When You Don’t Know Where You’re Going. The challenge for me is that the author, Susan Beaumont, convinced me of what I already suspected: as bishop, I have a different role in faithful experiments. As much as I love being creative, I am not the Chief Entrepreneurial Officer for the Diocese or any other kind of CEO. I am the Chief Pastor. My day-to-day life and ministry are diocesan, which is often a helpful perspective. Yet, removed from serving a particular parish in a certain city, I don’t need to be the one making every local decision. We all know that what is perfect for Augusta, may not be right for Albany, and is less likely to be what is needed in Cochran, and what is faithful for a congregation with 200 people attending each Sunday is not possible for most of our congregations. Beyond this, if the bishop initiates an idea, that is different in kind in an Episcopal Church as it could be seen as holding more weight than I intend.
I am working to further foster our existing diocesan culture of sharing ideas among congregations. The lay leaders and clergy can decide what is right for their congregation to consider. One important means of learning from others in this Diocese is Leading with Grace. This is the retooled version of Bishop Scott Benhase’s signature program, the Church Development Institute. This training has not been simply renamed but reconfigured based on the experiences of leaders and past participants. Our Director of Leadership Ministries, Carey Wooten, will share more about this later today.
Canon Joshua Varner will talk tomorrow about the lay ministers’ conference, which is another way we have been sharing best practices we are discovering. We brought this conference back this fall after not holding one for 12 years and plan for it to be held annually.
In meeting with our peers, Canon Lasch and I were drawn to two new initiatives paid for largely by grants from Trinity Episcopal Church on Wall Street. They have focused their funding with grants targeted at congregations with 70 or fewer people in worship on Sunday.
The first, LeadersCARE, is a program that has us learning alongside the Dioceses of Atlanta, West Tennessee, and East Tennessee. This is a training for lay people in just the sort of faithful experimentation I am pointing toward, as it offers not a single solution, but a prayerful approach to discern what might be right for your congregation. Canon Lasch, Carey Wooten, and Shayna Cranford, a postulant for the priesthood from Trinity, Cochran, joined leaders from the three other dioceses for a multi-day meeting in Atlanta recently. Based on what they learned, the three began working on a new vestry retreat for this February. Vestries of congregations not regularly served by a priest will be invited to take part in this retreat, shaped by the principles of LeadersCARE. No vestry has to take part, of course, but this will offer a time to be at Honey Creek to worship together, to learn alongside other vestries, and to have time for each vestry to work on its own, in planning the coming year and beyond. We are also working on a way to share what we’ve learned from LeadersCARE with the wider Diocese during Lent even as we plan to bring the formation opportunity to a larger group at Honey Creek later next year so more lay leaders can get training first hand.
We are also working with our friends in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s Southeastern Synod on a ten-month long expert-led, peer-enhanced learning cohort called the Strategic Imagination Sandbox. This will have a group of our priests learning alongside peers who are Lutheran pastors. The details of this have just been solidified. Canon Lasch and I will be contacting priests for the pilot cohort in the coming weeks.
And yes, I get it. Saying there is no one-size-fits-all solution and then talking about LeadersCARE and a Strategic Imagination Sandbox sounds exactly like chasing the shiny new thing. The goal of this approach is to benefit from learning alongside other Episcopal dioceses and our Lutherans colleagues. These are gifted leaders who are working in very similar circumstances. A process for learning together is much more adaptable than any plan created for another congregation in a different setting. We selected these initiatives precisely because of this: they do not offer a set plan, but a process of discovery that will lead to varied faithful responses in differing contexts. This path is about opening ourselves up to where the Holy Spirit is leading us.
Beyond these initiatives, we are testing new ways of forming licensed lay leaders. We currently have two people in the lay preacher training offered online by Bexley-Seabury Seminary. At the same time, we are keeping in touch with the Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast as they work with the Episcopal Preaching Foundation on another way of forming lay preachers. We will see if that experience could bear fruit in our diocese as well, while they learn from what we are trying out here. We will similarly test ways to form licensed lay worship leaders, building up the capacity of those who lead Morning Prayer when a priest is not available on a Sunday.
I am also working with bishops from other dioceses around the country and the world on sharing what we are trying as we learn together, rather than going it alone. The relationships I continue to form among colleagues in the House of Bishops and others that began at the Lambeth Conference are also bearing fruit in our corner of the vineyard.
In a very different way, I see how the work of RacialJusticeGA is also part of our faithful response to our times. After lunch, we will hear how their interracial fellowship pilot program is already having an impact on those who have taken part. In addition to this, the pilgrimage they have put together for the weekend of the Feast Day of Saint Anna Alexander has been successfully tested for two years. They will open the pilgrimage up to others next fall. I have added this important new event to my calendar to take part as a pilgrim. There is much in their work that offers us critical ways we need to learn and grow.
Tomorrow, I will share ideas and resources from around the Diocese of Georgia as I see this season as one of possibility, rather than decline. I will say more about this then, but know that the answer is not simply to work harder and do more. Looking at new possibilities will also mean discerning what we need to stop doing, in order to let new possibilities flourish. The perfect idea that was just right for a congregation in the 1970s, 1990s or even 2019, may have seen its season. We do not need to do more and more. God has already done everything that needs to be done in Jesus. We are not looking for a program to save us. Jesus already did that on a Friday more than 2,000 years ago.
What I am hoping for in this season is to cross-pollinate simple ideas that bring Christ’s light into our midst and I want you to bring your creativity to the party. The Diocese will benefit as others come to know what is bringing your congregation life and giving your parishioners and community hope.
This is an intentionally messier strategy than a single plan for everyone. It needs to be so. As we seek to honor the unique needs and gifts of each of our churches, I trust that we will see what Jesus is up to in our communities. Because God is already active.
As your bishop, I have come to see how dispersed experimentation, learning, and decision making fits us so well, as the Episcopal Church is less hierarchical and more democratic than it first appears. For the oversight that a bishop in the Episcopal Church is charged with is shared oversight. I don’t serve alone. I am blessed to work with a dedicated staff, the deans and archdeacon, the Standing Committee, Diocesan Council, and the other commissions and committees of the diocese, as well as the wardens and vestries of each congregation, and all of the deacons and priests of the diocese. Shared oversight is also the work of this body. Each one of you is participating in our shared responsibility for this Diocese that we steward for future generations.
I am so very grateful for the Diocese of Georgia, where I see how your varied gifts come together to let your lights shine as you serve your communities. I look forward to seeing how the Holy Spirit will bless our faithfulness as we keep Jesus at the center of our common life for the year to come. As your chief priest and pastor, I find myself, as always, extremely grateful to be with you on this team.
Reality Canon Loren Lasch 201st Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia
Thank you, Bishop Logue, and good morning, everyone. As Bishop Logue said, I am the Canon to the Ordinary for the Diocese. I began in this role in July of 2020, and so I may still be a relatively new face to many of you. However, before this time, I spent 16 years of my life as a part of this diocese, first as a high school student, and continuing on through college, seminary, and the first five years of my priesthood. This is the Diocese that shaped me and encouraged my vocation…I see many faces in this room who have played an integral part in shining the light of Jesus Christ into my life. I have been so grateful to be back in my diocesan home these last two and a half years!
Before I share with you what I’d like to talk about today, though, I should be honest…when I first arrived here, a month after beginning my freshman year of high school in 1995 I was…not grateful. And maybe just a teensy bit bratty about it. My mother and I had moved from Gordonsville, VA, a town of just over 1500 people where I’d lived all my life, to the sprawling, grand metropolis of Savannah (remember…1500 people). I went from being in a class with several dozen people I’d known since kindergarten, to a class of several hundred people I’d never met. And I’d left behind my church family at Christ Church in Gordonsville, people who had helped raise me from birth, who knew me and loved me, just as I was. I was not happy about this move.
In time my mother and I joined St. Paul’s in Savannah, and were graciously welcomed by the community there. In the spring of my sophomore year of high school, still unhappy with the move and feeling lonely and adrift, I attended Happening #52 at Honey Creek. Happening is a Christian weekend retreat for youth, led by youth, that encourages faith renewal, community, and discipleship. I’d been signed up for the weekend by Father William Willoughby, the Rector of St. Paul’s (a risky move on his part!) and I knew very little about what I was in for. We had a family funeral that week, and so I was several hours late arriving to Honey Creek. Happening doesn’t begin until everyone has arrived, so I walked into a room full of people who all turned to stare at the person who’d delayed their retreat. Not at all awkward. As my mother spoke with the organizers to get me signed in, a kind young man ran over to welcome me. At that moment the entertainment team began to play the song Lord of the Dance. If you were active in diocesan youth programs in those days, you know that whenever that song was played, the crowd went wild and began dancing and running around the room. The kind greeter grabbed me by the hand, yelled “hey, I’m Cletus, c’mon, let’s dance!” and took off running. I immediately fell to the floor, and proceeded to be dragged across the room while he sang with glee and joined the group.
If my life had been a movie, that would be the point when everyone else would suddenly freeze, and I’d look directly into the camera and say something like “how in the world did I get here???” At that moment I did not feel hopeful, or ready for renewal. I felt even more deeply in my bones that I did not belong here and I wanted my life to go back to exactly the way it was before.
During a Happening weekend there are a series of talks given by the teenage staff members, about challenges and opportunities that youth face on a regular basis, and how God is present in those moments. One of the first talks at each Happening is the Reality talk. It invites the participants to think about the different realities of our lives – physical, material, social, and spiritual.
Basically, it asks the listeners to ask where they are in the present, and how God is a part of that reality. Listening to that talk, on that first night, I did not have a sense of God’s presence in my reality. I so longed for what had been that I couldn’t see past my disappointments and envision a future of new possibilities, with Jesus walking alongside me.
As you might have guessed, much changed for me during that weekend. It was my road to Emmaus experience. I saw, possibly for the first time, how God was present in my reality, even when that reality wasn’t what I expected or even what I hoped for. When I was able to begin to let go of the way things were, I saw that God was calling me forward, into the community of this diocese and the joy could come with sharing in ministry here.
This is a long introduction to the core of what I’d like to share with you all today: the reality of our present moment as the people of the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia. The reason I share this story of my own recognition of God in the midst of reality is not to say “look at how faithful I was!” It’s to share that, even though I had that powerful experience, many times since then I’ve fallen back into the default of missing the presence of God in the now, because the then was better. I’d say it’s a pretty safe bet that many of you have, too. Episcopalians aren’t really known for liking change!
The way in which I’ve embraced this tendency the most has been, of course, in the months and years since the COVID-19 pandemic began. In March of 2020, I’d already begun the interview process for this role, and had spent a good bit of time thinking toward the things I’d love to focus on if I were to return back to the Diocese of Georgia. COVID guidance and risk mitigation strategies were not among those things. The arrival of the pandemic put a halt to so much, in our lives and in our churches. We spent so much time yearning to return back to normal, to pick up where we left off and not lose all the momentum we’d built.
But normal never came. Church life has been different in so many ways. Some of them brought unexpected joy, like livestreaming services so we could join in community. But many of them have brought stress and worry and disillusionment into our parishes. Rather than directly facing that reality, I’ve held tightly to what was, convinced that normal must be just around the corner.
Early this Fall I was putting together the annual full time priests’ salary survey. For a decade this has been an incredibly helpful tool, helping parishes to determine fair compensation relative to churches with similar attendance and finances, and toward parity among the clergy of the diocese. As I was working on this document, I was struck by seeing the average Sunday attendance of our parishes, knowing what they’d been in recent years. And so I went to the parochial reports, to compare the average Sunday attendance for in-person services across the diocese for 2019 and 2021. (In 2020 the report only used data from January to March, so those numbers aren’t as accurate a picture of the state of the diocese). I decided to look at 2019 because that’s the year that we’ve been looking back at in the Diocesan Office. Knowing our parishes have been in such flux, we’ve continued to focus on 2019 data, until things settle down (read: until things return to normal). We even used the 2019 ASA to determine the number of voting delegates for this convention. I knew we’d been doing a lot of looking back, and I wanted to see how different that really was from our current reality.
For the 2019 parochial report, the 68 worshiping communities of the Diocese of Georgia reported a combined total in-person average Sunday attendance of 5,176. For the 2021 report, it was 2,816. A 46% decrease across the diocese.
I’d like to note here that plate and pledge has gone up around $228,000 from 2019 to 2021…while this is heartening, it means that fewer people are giving more money to reach a modest increase, and that may not remain sustainable.
When I looked at those numbers, there in black and white on my screen, my first impulse was to simply close the computer, forget what I’d seen, and just keep looking back. But after the initial shock, I realized that much of the stress we’d been feeling as a diocesan staff, and much of the stress I’d seen in the parishes I’d been working with, could be attributed to the chasm between these numbers, and the struggle to move backward, thinking God was waiting for us in the before. And instead of feeling anxious, I felt relieved. (Ok, yes, I was still a little anxious!) Truly facing the reality of where we are with this data was a weight off my shoulders. Of course things have felt drastically different in our parishes. Because, on the whole, they simply are. And in a way that’s not likely to change over the course of just a couple of years. I shared these findings with two attendees of the Diocesan Lay Ministers’ Conference the following weekend, and recognized my own reactions on their faces: shock, anxiety, and then a bit of a sigh of relief, knowing that the things they’d been seeing were not just present in their own congregations, but across the diocese.
Around the same time as I was looking into these numbers, diocesan transition ministers from across the country were coming together for annual gatherings. At these meetings open positions and clergy searching for calls were being presented, in case a good match between priest and parish could be made. I met with colleagues from Province IV, which encompasses the Southeastern part of the United States. Together, from eleven dioceses, we presented 41 full time openings, 51 part time openings, and just 11 priests looking for positions. The next week another group of transition ministers, from 32 different dioceses across the church, presented 104 full time openings, 177 part time openings, and just 26 priests. We saw very clearly that the days when we had more priests than openings are far behind us. The reality is simply that there is a shortage of priests, and especially those looking for part time calls.
That reality has felt especially stark here within the Diocese of Georgia. Of our 68 congregations, we currently have 19 in transition, from rectors who have just announced retirement, to congregations with interims in place, and those actively searching for candidates (and we have another four congregations not actively in transition, who will likely rely solely on lay leadership and supply priests for the foreseeable future). Of the 19 parishes in transition, 12 are searching for part time priests.
This is all the reality of our present moment: we’re at 46% of our previous average Sunday attendance, fewer people are giving more to reach a modest financial increase, and 27% of our congregations are searching for priests, in a wildly different transition ministry landscape. It is not at all surprising to find ourselves wishing to get back to normal. To the way things were. This new reality is complicated. Scary. And, yes, like so much else since March of 2020, unprecedented.
I do not share all of this with you to leave you with a sense of depression or dread. Believe me, when the Holy Spirit led me to make this presentation to convention, I replied with a firm (but polite!) no thank you. Because who wants to get up in front of the dedicated leaders of the diocese and say here’s where things are, and on paper, they seem somewhat bleak. I share all of this with you because I hope that you too can find some encouragement, as I have,
in the fact that we are not alone in any of what we’ve been experiencing. Churches across all denominations are facing similar situations of lower numbers and clergy shortages and none of it is because we didn’t work hard enough or believe deeply enough. We simply are where we are, and we’re facing it together. I believe there is hope in that sense of community in the midst of our new reality.
But, here’s the most important thing I want to say to you all here today. The Triune God is present with us in this new reality. We don’t need to go back to the way things were to see the Holy Spirit’s movement. Even with fewer people and more churches in transition, the light of Christ is shining so brightly across the Diocese of Georgia. One of the gifts of coming back to the Diocese in July of 2020 is that I can say, without a doubt, that God was not only present here before the pandemic. Since I began in this role I have had the privilege of worshiping with 26 parishes. I’ve worked, in many cases multiple times, with 9 search committees and 30 vestries. I’ve spent time talking with most of the deacons and priests of the diocese. In all of this I have seen God at work more times and in more ways than I can count.
In the form of congregations who have spent their time providing lunches for children who didn’t have enough to eat when school wasn’t taking place in-person. In the form of parishioners banding together to build a home for a family in need. In the form of vestries and search committees prayerfully and deliberately leading and discerning throughout the pandemic. In the form of laypeople and deacons and priests across the diocese providing compassionate care for others in a time of immense worry and grief.
Though we find ourselves in a new reality, the mission and ministry of the 68 worshiping communities of this diocese has not changed, and the fruit of that work, God’s work, is all around us, here and now.
Throughout convention we will share a series of stories and resources, including some to take home with you after the closing prayers. These will hopefully provide some ways we can, even in the midst of uncertainty, move forward together and hold fast to the knowledge that God is here, and God is faithful.
I’d like to close today with the first of these, a video from Grace Episcopal Church in Waycross, which reveals God’s presence and work among us in this reality more beautifully than I could ever put into words.
The delegates to the 2023 diocesan convention unanimously voted to name Deaconess Alexander as the Patron Saint of the Diocese. Deaconess Anna Ellison Butler Alexander (1865-1947) has been recognized as a saint by the Diocese of Georgia since 1998 and by the General Convention of The Episcopal Church since 2018, with her feast day celebrated on September 24.