Your congregation and your Diocese need you to participate in the listening sessions for our Strategic Planning process, which will provide a shared direction for the next five years. As an interested parishioner of the Diocese, you are engaged and informed. You also have a unique perspective from your context.
This process is primarily intended to help the people of the Diocese discern how the Holy Spirit is leading us into the future and then naming that shared vision in a clearly defined plan. In asking, “What does fidelity to Jesus look like in this moment?” we can confidently look to the Spirit to guide us into new ways of embodying our living hope.
In-person sessions:
August 24, 9-11 am, St. Paul’s, Albany
August 25, 2-4 pm, Saint Paul’s, Augusta. (there will be a clergy listening session from 4:30 to 5:30 as well)
September 7, 9-11 am, Christ Church, Valdosta (there will be a clergy listening session from 11:30 to 1 pm as well)
September 8, 2-4 pm, St. Thomas, Isle of Hope, Savannah
Online sessions:
August 27, 6-8 pm
September 5, 6-8 pm – (this one is a Clergy Session)
September 10, 6-8 pm
While these listening session will be followed by a diocesan-wide survey, that is a second round of work based on what comes up in this initial process. After the survey, our consultants and the committee will offer feedback to Diocesan Council and the Standing Committee on the themes emerging in the process. Based on input from those elected, representative bodies, we will do more work together at our convention in November. This process is designed to offer multiple opportunities to help shape our visions, goals, and strategies. It all begins with these listening sessions.
We need to have a head count before the sessions. To assist with this, please click on the appropriate link to register:
Clergy can register for a session here: https://bit.ly/GAClergyListeningRegistration
Lay people can register for a session here: https://bit.ly/GAListeningSession
Living Hope
Bishop Logue announces here the theme for this work, which will also provide the theme for the 2024 diocesan convention.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!
By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”
-I Peter 1:3
New life in Jesus does not offer a vague, uncertain hope that things might one day improve. Instead, as followers of Jesus, we have the sure and certain knowledge that Jesus is with us now and always. The presence of the living God offers both comfort and challenge. We are called not simply to have hope, but to take actions that reveal the living hope within us. Living hope is embodied in our actions.
The Strategic Planning Process we are entering into this year is not just about creating a sound business plan for the Diocese of Georgia, even though we should expect our vision of how we are to be and what we are to do will make sense from that perspective. This process is primarily intended to help the people of the Diocese discern how the Holy Spirit is leading us into the future. In asking, “What does fidelity to Jesus look like in this moment?” we can confidently look to the Spirit to guide us into new ways of embodying our living hope.
In the visits we make to every congregation of this diocese, Victoria and I see that the resurrection we long for is already happening. We meet people new to the Episcopal Church who have found themselves connecting to their faith in Jesus in Word and Sacrament in the community of their Episcopal Church. We routinely meet people of every age and stage of life who are as grateful as we are to have found a home in this corner of the vineyard.
In addition, I see the new life taking root in places where parishes have begun to work with other Episcopal congregations as well as ecumenical partners. When we move outside our red doors to engage with our neighbors and to work with other churches, the Spirit shows up. When we live in hope, we give hope to others.
New life is already among us. The question is not the one that faced Ezekiel, “Can these bones live?” The answer to that is clearly, “yes” based on the evidence around us. Our call is to join with what God is already doing as we practice resurrection. This is the Christian call to die to what has been to let Christ be born in us anew, as individuals and as a Diocese. We strengthen our faith and deepen our trust in Jesus when we move from having hope to living hope.
+Frank
The Rt. Rev. Frank S. Logue, Bishop