Dinner is $30 per person, including wine, and will be served at the Homestead B & B at 614 McLeod Street. Directions.

MENU
Tuscan Insalata Verde
Tuscan Green Salad
Verdure
Green Vegetables
Risoni
Orzo
Mediterranean Pollo Farcito
Mediterranean Stuffed Chicken
Focaccia
Bread
Tiramisù
Dessert

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You’ll find more information about Saint Andrew’s there, as well as audio of sermons from both Saint Andrew’s and Saint Mark’s. Each of the remaining two parishes will also get Web sites of their own this summer.

“The church needs to be a movement. Right now we are an organization. We have a critical mass of 2 million ministers,” Anderson said during the 2011 Kellogg Lectures.

Her lectures, collectively titled “Courageous Change: What it takes, and how it happens,” combined multimedia with her words. Sean McConnell, Diocese of California canon for communications, produced the multimedia portion of the lectures.

Anderson said in her first lecture that “since we believe in a dynamic God, and by our baptism we participate with God in the quest to reconcile the world,” the baptized “are called upon to … create the change that we believe will bring about a reconciled world.”

She also said that the church mistakenly thinks that the ministry of the laity is performed only within the walls of the church when “the real job of the laity is to reconcile the world. Out there.”

“These themes exemplify EDS’s approach to ministry,” the Very Rev. Katherine Hancock Ragsdale, EDS president and dean, said in a press release issued prior to the lectures. “We are delighted to have Dr. Anderson with us, once again, to show our students, through her words, and her life’s work, how dedicated people of faith can make a difference in God’s world.”

Anderson said in her afternoon lecture that “baptism calls us to dangerous and courageous work in this world.”

“Prodding the church along from a potentially irrelevant organization to a life-giving movement … that is about our baptism,” she said. “It is about how the very institution of the church can support the fulfillment of the baptismal promises.”

Anderson’s speeches and other remarks are often posted here on her webpages.

The Kellogg lecture series (two lectures delivered on the same day) is held each spring in conjunction with Episcopal Divinity School Alumni/ae Days. The late Rev. Frederic Brainerd Kellogg, a 1937 graduate, established the lectureship in memory of his father, Frederic Rogers Kellogg, a distinguished lawyer who was founder and first president of the National Community Chest of America. Upon the death of her son in 1958, Mrs. Frederic Rogers Kellogg continued the lectureship on a permanent basis as a memorial to her son and husband.

On May 4 Diocese of Los Angeles Bishop Suffragan Mary Glasspool, Diocese of Connecticut Bishop Ian Douglas and Diocese of Wyoming Bishop John Smylie participated in a panel discussion titled “Obstacles and Opportunities for Bishops Today.” The panel was moderated by EDS professor and Executive Council member Fredrica Harris Thompsett.

The alumni gathering also included an organ concert, an awards dinner and class reunions.

The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori
Presiding Bishop and Primate
The Episcopal Church

By Mary Frances Schjonberg, March 21, 2011

[Episcopal News Service – Atlanta] Nearly 200 members of the Episcopal Church House of Deputies left a historic March 18-19 churchwide consultation on same-gender blessings here promising to tell their colleagues and their dioceses about the work they did in preparation for the 2012 General Convention.

The Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music invited one lay and one clergy deputy from each of the church’s 109 dioceses and three regional areas to hear about and reflect on its work to date on the mandate given to it in General Convention 2009 Resolution C056.

The resolution, passed in 2009, directed the SCLM to work with the House of Bishops to collect and develop theological resources and liturgies for blessing same-gender relationships. The commission is to report to the 77th General Convention in 2012 in Indianapolis. SCLM members have already reported to the House of Bishops on the commission’s work and the three bishops who serve on the SCLM (Tom Ely of the Diocese of Vermont, Pierre Whalon of the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe and John McKee Sloan of the Diocese of Alabama) said they will discuss the consultation with their colleagues during the house’s March 25-30 meeting.

House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson and the Rev. Dr. Ruth Meyers, SCLM chair, stressed during the gathering that the participating deputies had not been asked to debate whether the church should gather resources about same-gender blessings or whether the church should bless such relationships. Meyers said that C056 asked the SCLM to gather resources and that the bishops and deputies who gather for the 2012 meeting of General Convention “will decide the status of those resources in the church.”

At its October 2011 meeting, the SCLM is due to decide on the substance of its C056 report that will be included in the so-called Blue Book collection of reports to 2012 General Convention.

Anderson told the deputies as they prepared to depart Atlanta March 19 that “we don’t agree on every single word and every single approach and on all of the theology. Some deputies didn’t agree on C056. They said so then and they say so now and that’s okay.”

“Some of us did agree and we have moved together in a common rhythm,” she said. “We have learned from each other and it reinforces the fact that we are the holy people of God brought together by God in holy and Christian community.”

Anderson had told the gathering’s opening session that the consultation was historic both for its topic and because a large group of deputies have never before gathered together outside of General Convention for church business and to discuss a topic due to be taken up the next meeting of convention. One hundred ninety-five clergy and lay deputies from 98 dioceses registered for the gathering.

Nine deputies spoke to the consultation’s final session on March 19 about how they planned to use their experience when they returned home. Athena Hahn, Diocese of Southern Virginia, echoed an often-expressed plan to ask people with whom she talks “to just be open and think about this and reflect about this as we have for the last two days.”

Vermont Bishop Ely said during a post-consultation press conference that if the participating deputies carry through on their promises to engage their deputy colleagues in such a process between now and the 2010 convention “the general convention is going to benefit so much from that engagement.”

At the same press conference, Anderson predicted that relationships made and renewed among the deputies at the consultation, 51 of whom are new, will aid the convention’s work on C056. “And it will really be of great benefit to us in all the things we do at convention,” she added.

The participating deputies came with varying attitudes about same-gender blessings but many who spoke with Episcopal News Service praised the consultation’s process.

The Rev. Canon Emily Morales, the vicar general of the Diocese of Puerto Rico and chair of the diocese deputation, told ENS that the combination of plenary sessions and small-group discussion provided “an opportunity to be exposed to the thoughts of people from all over the Episcopal Church and how they have been dealing with this issue.”

Morales later told the gathering that she anticipated “a great struggle within Province IX” over the issue of same-gender blessings due to the conservative nature of many of its dioceses and the fact that the countries in which the dioceses operate have differing laws about marriage.

Sandy Williams, a lay deputy from the Diocese of Montana who will be a sixth-time deputy in 2012, told ENS that a member of her small group spoke of his opposition to efforts to have the Episcopal Church agree to bless same-gender relationships. “People in the group were touched by his honesty,” she said.

Williams said she favors approval of same-gender blessings because “we need to offer our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters the same opportunity that the rest of us have on an equal footing,” including an expectation of counseling similar to the pre-marital counseling required for heterosexual couples and a liturgical rite that is like the marriage rite.

The Very Rev. David W.T. Thurlow, of St. Matthias Episcopal Church in Summerton in the Diocese of South Carolina, is one of those who opposed what he called the Episcopal Church’s “agenda” to approve same-gender blessings during the 2012 convention. “But that doesn’t stop me from heralding what I believe is scriptural truth,” he said

In his small group, he told ENS, he was “the only voice that does not concur with the trajectory of the national church on this issue and I’ve been able to voice that and have been heard.”

Thurlow said he felt that the atmosphere during the consultation was far different from what he said he experienced during the 2009 General Convention, during which he was a first-time deputy. The Atlanta gathering, he said, felt “incarnational,” explaining that here “they see that people who have a different viewpoint are human beings to be respected and treated with dignity.”

Thurlow added that would be “prudent” for the 2012 convention to address questions that people assume have been asked and answered when they have not. “Are we blessing a friendship? Are we blessing a sexually intimate relationship? … There’s been no mention of homoerotic behavior. Is that what we’re blessing?” he asked, citing examples.

“We’ve got these questions that no one wants to touch,” Thurlow said. “They’re almost like taboo topics and no one wants to broach them but if we’re truly to solicit honest debate, I think these issues need to come to the forefront.”

Ian Hallas, a three-time lay deputy from the Diocese of Chicago, told ENS he felt some frustration with the small-group process because he and others thought that many of the discussion questions were “vague.” He was left feeling “inconclusive” after the group sessions ended, he said.

Acknowledging that the commission still has a lot of work to do before it reports to the 2012 convention, Hallas said he hopes “we get something definitive by Indianapolis, but we have to do it right and not throw something together just to have something to present.”

The Rev. Shawn Sheiner, Hallas’ deputy colleague from Chicago, told ENS that the consultation process was an opportunity for “really embracing that we can be a body that has some difference of opinion, but do it very amazingly respectfully.”

“If we can take what we’ve done here and continue that between now and General Convention, there’s great hope for what convention can look like no matter the outcome,” she said, adding the caveat that she is concerned that she will lose members at Grace Episcopal Church in Oak Park “if we continue down a road that doesn’t do something formally” about affirming same-gender blessings.

Resolution C056 also asked the SCLM to invite theological reflection and dialogue about its work from around the Anglican Communion. Episcopal Church bishops are being asked to discuss the church’s work on C056 with the bishops of any companion diocese relationships they may have and with the members of their so-called “indaba groups” from the 2008 Lambeth Conference of Bishops.

In addition, the theological principles and principles for evaluating rites for blessing same-gender relationships (summaries available here) that the SCLM developed for its C056 work have been turned into a survey that Anglican Communion bishops are being asked to respond to, either electronically or on paper or during conversation with commission members or other bishops.

Meyers and Ely recently met in England with the steering committee of the International Anglican Liturgical Consultation in preparation for a half-day session that will be devoted to their report on the SCLM’s work during the IALC’s August 1-6 meeting in Canterbury, England.

The liturgy and music commission is also preparing a response to an IALC working document on marriage. The international group’s goals for that document are outlined in a communiqué issued after its last meeting in August 2009 in Auckland, New Zealand. The working document and its appendices are downloadable here. A list of questions to which provinces were asked to respond is on page 21 of the working document.

In the document, the IALC also asks the provinces of the Anglican Communion to provide it with “theological perspectives” on gender-related issues including “the meaning of ‘male’ and ‘female’, ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’, gender complementarity, the cultural construction of gender, same-gender attraction, and gender hierarchy.” That section also notes that the consultation also wants to work on issues of marriage and polygamy, and divorce and remarriage.

ENS coverage of the Atlanta consultation’s March 18 sessions is here. The plenary sessions were webcast live, as well a post-gathering press conference and can be viewed here.

The commission met for nearly three days before the consultation. During those sessions it also:

Reviewed “Daily Prayer for all Seasons,” which is meant to supplement the Daily Office of morning, noonday and evening prayer provided in the Book of Common Prayer. The final text of “Daily Prayer” is expected be include in the commission’s report to the 2012 General Convention in the Blue Book.

Heard an interim report from a sub-committee that is reviewing the trial use of “Holy Women, Holy Men,” the 2009 General Convention-approved revision to its calendar of commemorations of saints. The trial use period began July 1, 2010, and ends June 30. Holy Women, Holy Men’s prayers and propers for each saint are posted daily here, where an opportunity for feedback is provided. 

Reviewed a sub-committee’s work on a creation season, or cycle, of liturgies, and prayers for the loss of companion animals.

Heard a preliminary report on the results on a feasibility study for a possible revision of The Hymnal 1982. Responses are being taken until April 30. Links to various versions of the survey are here. Additional phases of the study are planned with an aim toward supplying complete results to the SCLM by the summer.

Agreed to plan before its next meeting in October how to develop possible Spanish additions to the Book of Common Prayer or the church’s Enriching Our Worship series that would expand the rites and versions of prayers beyond the current Spanish translation of the prayer book.

– The Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg is national correspondent for the Episcopal News Service.

By Mary Frances Schjonberg, March 18, 2011

[Episcopal News Service -- Atlanta] In a historic meeting, nearly 200 Episcopal Church General Convention deputies gathered here March 18 to begin a churchwide consultation on same-gender blessings.

The Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music invited one lay and one clergy deputy from each of the church’s 109 dioceses and three regional areas to hear about and reflect on its work to date on the mandate given to it in General Convention 2009 Resolution C056.

The resolution, passed in 2009, directed the SCLM to work with the House of Bishops to collect and develop theological resources and liturgies for blessing same-gender relationships. The commission is to report to the 77th General Convention in 2012 in Indianapolis.

One hundred ninety-five clergy and lay deputies from 98 dioceses registered for the gathering that began mid-afternoon on March 18 and will conclude at noon March 19. Among the deputies registered to participate, 51 will attend their first convention as deputies in 2012; for another 18, Indianapolis will be at least their fifth convention, according to statistics presented during the opening session.

Another nearly 50 people are participating as presenters and small-group facilitators. In addition, representatives of the Presbyterian Church USA, the Moravian Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America are observing the process.

Calling the gathering historic, House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson said during the opening session that “never before have only deputies met in a large gathering outside of General Convention for the specific purpose of church business” and to discuss a topic due to be taken up the next meeting of convention. In addition, she said, the topic itself is history-making.

Anderson said the SCLM has set a new standard in transparency by how it has done the work asked of it in C056 and how it is sharing it with the church at this point in its process.

“We’re not here to debate; we’re here for theological reflection,” she added. “What a concept.”

SCLM chair Ruth Meyers echoed Anderson in her opening remarks, saying that “our purpose is not to debate whether to develop these resources; we had that debate in 2009.”

The commission will present its work on C056 to the convention in 2012, she said, and then the bishops and deputies “will debate the next steps.”

Meyers also told the gathering that the materials they will consider during the gathering are “a work in progress – not a finished product,” and she asked them to approach the material in that spirit.

The consultation is divided between plenary sessions and small-group discussions. The topics to be discussed include liturgical concerns, pastoral and teaching resources and canonical and legal considerations.

When representatives of the small groups reported back to the gathering about their first reflection time, one deputy noted that her group came from “very diverse experiences and are eager to know more about the how and the why of the process.” Another noted that there seemed to be an “inherent bias towards blessings as a foregone conclusion” that makes it hard to talk about the issues in a way that respects the dignity of each participant.

The participants’ work is being guided in part by the theological principles and principles for evaluating rites for blessing same-gender relationships that the SCLM developed for its C056 work. Summaries of those documents are here.

In theological documents the commission said that “covenantal relationships [of all kinds] are one way for Christians to live out their baptismal calling in the world.” As the church discerns the fruits of the Spirit shown in faithful commitments, the document says, “these commitments become a blessing to the wider community.” The church’s decision to bless all such relationships “belongs to the mission of the church in its ongoing witness to the good news of God in Christ and the Christian hope of union with God.”

When evaluating materials proposed for blessing same-gender relationships, the SCLM says, they “must above all be consistent with the implicit theology and ecclesiology of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer,” including the “assumption that the entire life of the church finds its origin in the baptismal font.” In addition, the materials must “embody a classically Anglican liturgical ethos and style” and ought to “be an expression primarily of the entire church, not the couple seeking a blessing” without it becoming a “generic rite.”

The Rev. Dr. Patrick Malloy, chair of the SCLM’s task group on liturgical resources, told the gathering’s second plenary session that his group’s first step of gathering existing same-gender blessing rites resulted in “hundreds and hundreds of rites — stacks of them.”

“One thing this suggests is that in fact the blessing of same-gender relationships has been going on for a long time,” he said, noting that one rite came to the group as a mimeographed copy.

The liturgical group also created a preliminary outline of a rite for blessing same-gender relationships and then sifted through the gathered material to find wording or structures that might guide the development of a proposed rite, Malloy said.

The deputies at the consultation are due to reflect on that outline, as well as the draft text of a blessing prayer itself. The text of the draft blessing was given to the SCLM earlier in the week by the subgroup.

Meyers stressed during a SCLM discussion earlier in the week that the text is a starting point for the consultation and is being given to them as a way for participants to practice applying the principals for evaluating rites. The text, she said, is “not in any way what [the church] may see in the final product.”

“This text has absolutely no finality to it,” Malloy told the gathering March 18, asking the group to react to it within the liturgical principals the SCLM developed as a way to guide the further work of the commission.

The draft text is:

“Praise and thanks to you, O God, Creator and Sustainer of the world. You spoke and the heavens came into being, the earth and everything therein. You looked and found it good. The world was charged with your glory and mercy.

“Praise and thanks to you, O Lord our God, Liberator and Healer of the world. You have broken down the walls of division, calling together by the law of love those who were far apart. For this, Christ died, giving birth to a new creation.

“Praise and thanks to you, O Lord our God. You renew the face of the earth. Pour your Holy Spirit upon N. and N. Let them love each other openly without fear, in justice, love and peace, a joyful sign of your new creation.

“Most gracious God, you have put in the hearts of your people a yearning for community. You call us into covenant and endow us with the will to keep faith with you and one another. Pour out your blessing upon N. and N. Deepen their joy, guide them and console them in difficult times; sustain them in the knowledge of your loving care; and bring them in the end to know you face to face; through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

The March 18 plenary sessions were webcast live and those on March 19 will be as well. They can be viewed here. The March 19 webcast schedule includes sessions from 8:30-9:30 a.m. (EDT) and 11 a.m. – 12 noon (EDT), along with a news conference slated for 2 – 2:30 p.m. (EDT).

According to statistics gathered from a survey of registered pariticipants, summarized by Meyers during her opening remarks, same-gender  relationships have been officially or unofficially blessed in 60 percent of the dioceses that registered to participate in the gathering.

Not all of those dioceses have officially allowed those blessings, Myers noted, and 32 percent of the participating dioceses have officially said they will not bless same-gender unions. Sixteen percent of the deputies from the registered dioceses are in same-gender marriages, civil unions or otherwise committed relationships. Twenty-three percent of the participating deputies are single.

At its October 2011 meeting, the SCLM must decide on the substance of its report that will be included in the so-called Blue Book collection of reports to 2012 General Convention.

Meyers has said that the commission envisions that the material it will present to convention will include one or more essays to provide theological foundations for its work, one or more rites, pastoral resources to assist clergy and others who prepare couples for blessings, teaching resources for congregations wanting to discern whether they will offer blessings and why the church would bless same-gender relationships, and guidance for bishops and clergy for addressing the legal issues in the various civil contexts in which the church operates. She has said that the SCLM is also discussing canonical issues, given the different civil contexts in which the dioceses find themselves.

To assist its work, SCLM established four task groups to focus on liturgical resources, pastoral counseling and teaching resources, canonical and legal considerations and theological resources. The commission also has a blog with a section on its C056 work and an e-mail inbox (the address is sclm@episcopalchurch.org) for comments and reflections.

– The Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg is national correspondent for the Episcopal News Service.

By Bob Honeychurch

They gather every week, just as they have done for over seventy-five years now. Different generations have come and gone, although the city in which they find themselves looks different than when their church was founded. What started as a church comprised almost exclusively of families whose backgrounds were from England and northern Europe has changed.

Now they are more diverse; they look a lot like the people they are called to serve. In those seventy-five years, although they have never grown larger than about forty people on a typical Sunday morning, they have remained a strong and visible presence in their community.

Everybody in town knows about them — knows about the ways they have responded to the needs of the town — knows that the church has always served as a clear voice and a beacon of hope, even as other churches went silent, dark.

This congregation’s story is not all that different from the stories of many Episcopal churches across the land, for there are thousands of small, prospering Episcopal congregations that respond to their communities as a vibrant and driving force. Still, some small congregations thrive while others close their doors. Some congregations are vital and alive; others are not. Why?

A vital congregation is a community of faith which:

• Invites people to become passionate followers of Jesus Christ
• Creates opportunities for personal and corporate transformation
• Equips and empowers people for gospel mission in the world

This definition says nothing about a congregation’s mission, size or budget, whether it is rural or urban, whether it can afford the services of full-time clergy, or where it is located — yet all congregations have the potential to be “vital” congregations. How can that vitality be best understood? “Invites people to become passionate followers of Jesus Christ.”

Much is proclaimed about “forming Christian leaders” in the Church today. One of the great challenges we face, however, is that be- fore we can form leaders, we must first form Christians. Christian formation is a lifelong process. This invitation contains three necessary dimensions: teaching people how to pray; teaching people how to engage the Scriptures; and teaching people how to live in community.

Congregations which are intentional and strategic about forming Christians — at every step along that life path — create a culture where the deepening of every member’s faith experience lies at the heart of the life of the community.

If our lives aren’t changed by being a part of a faith community, then what’s the point of being there? Communities of faith are places where my life can be changed, but they’re also places where our life can be changed as well as the holy People of God.

Transformation is that process of being made new; it’s about believing that the person that I am, and the community of which I am a part, is constantly being invited into a new relationship with God. Transformation is about believing that every time the Church gathers — whether it be for a worship service, a bishop’s committee or vestry meeting, a Bible study, an evening at the local soup kitchen, or a summer softball game — every time the Church gathers, we do so with the belief that we will leave that encounter as different people than we were when we entered.

At the end of the day, it isn’t about “me,” and it isn’t even about “us.” It’s about fulfilling the Great Commission to go out into the world. Vital congregations are those which give people the necessary tools — spiritual, technical, social, emotional, etc. — to “be the heart and hands of Jesus in the world,” for in the world where the church is ultimately called to be. We are not a cloistered community of prayer, defending ourselves from the assaults of the world around us. We are only the Church when we are fully integrated into the lives, the culture, and the daily experi- ence of our wider community. It does, how- ever, provide an opportunity to explore some real-life, incarnated examples of congregational vitality.

Considering the three characteristics named above, where are your own congregational strengths? Where might you continue to deepen and enrich your common life together? How might you even more fully live into the community which God is calling you to become? Seize the moment. Seize the day. With God, seize the opportunity to change the world.

Formerly the rector and vicar for several small congregations, the Rev. Bob Honeychurch is now the Program Officer for Congregational Vitality for the Episcopal Church.

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