5 "Marks" of Mission (with video!)

From left to right: Mark Lattime ( Alaska), Mark Sisk  (New York), Marc Andrus (California), Mark Beckwith (Newark), and Mark Hollingsworth (Ohio),   who presented themselves as the "Five Marks of Mission" including a wonderful funny piece of hymnody. 

-Bishop Mathes

Bishop's Update: the Last Day

Today is Day Eight or the last day of the 77th General Convention. I think it is fair to say that this has been a rich experience for our entire deputation and others from San Diego who came. The sense of community within our diocesan family was palpable. In some sense, I believe it is something that we modeled to the wider church over these almost two weeks.

Today will be incredibly busy as both Houses work to quickly and responsibly consider all the remaining resolutions. We will break at midday for the Eucharist at which the Presiding Bishop will preach and celebrate.

We will end our work at 6:30 p.m. and the General Convention will be finished. This evening will be our official deputation dinner. Then we will pack, print boarding passes, sleep fast, and fly home. I has been a privilege to serve our wonderful diocese in the House of Bishops at The General Convention. God bless you.

As we end this night, may this be our prayer:

It is night after a long day.
What has been done has been done;
What has not been done has not been done;
Let it be.

-Bishop Mathes

Bishop's Update: Approximately Right

The last couple of days have been a whirlwind of activity at the General Convention. Both Houses passed a resolution providing a service for same sex blessing. My committee, Program, Budget, and Finance presented the proposed budget to a joint session of the General Convention (both houses meeting at the same time and place). We passed resolutions that neither turned down the Anglican Covenant nor accepted it, but rather committed to our Communion relationships and the continued conversation. Before us today are important conversations about restructuring.

In earlier reflections, I have suggested that our work is the stewardship of community and being a community of prophets. The contours of these seminal actions over the last couple days are fleshing out these themes of action and identity. As someone once said to me, “You cannot be perfectly right. And so it is better to be approximately right rather than perfectly wrong.” I think the Episcopal Church at this General Convention is getting it approximately right, and I am immensely proud.

Finally, I want to also note that our deputy, Polly Getz, is on the ballot today for vice president of the House of Deputies. It is a courageous and graceful thing to put your name forward in this way. Polly has gently made herself vulnerable in this holy work of leadership discernment. Well done, Polly.

Bishop's Update: The community of prophets and fearless love

Yesterday, our Presiding Bishop preached a tremendous sermon. Note I don’t say that it was wonderful or that I loved her message. That implies comfort and no necessary response. While reading a sermon is not the same as receiving it, I urge you to read this remarkable statement of mission: General Convention July 8 Sermon: Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori | Episcopal Church.

The Presiding Bishop calls us as a church to the prophetic work of being messengers of God. As we held up our hands, she suggested that they were "a sacrament of God’s mission". And she added that

"These hands can be instruments of warning, or to comfort and strengthen the wavering. Hands can be instruments of prophetic communication, a gift only some among us have learned." She closes with the phrase "a whole community of prophets."

As I reflected on her call to the church, I realized that we really did get it right in our diocese when we articulated God’s mission in our diocesan community of prophets—a missionary community that dares to follow Jesus Christ in his life of fearless love for the world.

Fearless love: that is our prophetic witness in the world. 

 A couple of days ago, my colleague Greg Rickel, Bishop of Olympia, noted that we were not taking up collections at our Convention Eucharists. He challenged us to change that. Unfortunately, the machinery of the General Convention is not as nimble as they would like to have you think. We were given all the reasons why a collection could not be taken. 

 Our deputation responded to Greg’s suggestion that we put our offering at the base of the baptismal font at the back of the worship area. Here is his excellent blog: bishoprickel.com and at the right you can see his photograph. 

 What you will not be able to see in the picture is what our deputation and others from our diocese did with their offering. We wrote the words "fearless love" on the bills. I am imagining these two prophetic words not touching the hands of all who use those bills in the commerce of their lives. Indeed, fearless love is the currency of the realm of Jesus, as the Presiding Bishop said “the world of God’s dream.”

Bishop Mathes

Bishop's update: Stewards of the Community

Unlike previous General Conventions, this 77th General Convention does not have an official “theme.” As I reflect on the issues with which we are grappling and what I am experiencing, I find myself thinking of the “stewardship of community.”

For example, I am part of the process that is framing the budget.  This  is an exercise in stewardship of the community. It is coming together through careful listening, as we weigh hopes and dreams expressed, and through the shared wisdom of the body. It is holy work.

You may have heard that there is conversation in the House of Bishops regarding the actions of nine bishops of the church, who signed legal documents concerning property litigation in two dioceses.  These documents were an amicus brief in opposition to the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth in their litigation to safe guard the property, or an affidavit in opposition to the Episcopal Diocese of Quincy in their litigation to safe guard their property. As you might imagine, these conversations are not without passion and tension, yet they too are a part of the stewardship of the community. They are about being stewards of the community of the House of Bishops and the wider community of the Episcopal Church.

This same stewardship of community is also at the center of our conversations and decisions regarding statements on the structure of the church. We are wondering how we should change so that we can be the community that God is calling us to be, enabling us to participate fully in God’s mission in the world.

Let us pray that we can be good stewards of the community: the community of each of our congregations, our diocesan community, the Episcopal Church, the Church universal, and the whole human family.

Bishop Mathes

Day Two

Officially on the calendar this is “Day Two.” However, we began with our Provincial Synod on “ Day Minus One” and had the first Program, Budget and Finance Hearing on “Day Zero.” Maybe that is why it was hard to climb out of bed to make it to our 7:30 a.m. committee meeting.

I am pleased with the work of Program, Budget, and Finance. We are really working well as a committee. The task is daunting with fewer resources. With that said, I believe that it is very possible that will create a budget that funds new and exciting missional objectives. Stay tuned.

By the way, way it is currently 100 degrees in Indianapolis, 91 degrees in Palm Desert, and 95 degrees in Yuma—and that is not taking into account humidity.

Bishop Mathes

Bishop Mathes on the Marks of Mission Budget

Things got rolling today. My committee, Program Budget and Finance, was organized this morning and made a critical decision to not use the budget submitted to us by the Executive Council as the foundation of our work. Rather we are going to use a budget that was subsequently developed, which we are calling the Five Marks of Mission Budget. The Episcopal News Service story is linked here: Alternative ‘template’ will guide budget work at General Convention . I am pleased with this decision. While the final budget will surely look different, our starting place has items previously and unintentionally omitted, is balanced, and corrects some incorrect assumptions about income and debt service.

Gregory Straub, secretary of the General 

Convention, sporting his Indianapolis jacket.

In anticipation of the first day of official business tomorrow, bishops and deputies gathered to hear words of welcome from the Presiding Bishop and the President of the House of Deputies, after which both Houses met separately for orientation.  Our San Diego deputation has front row seating.  My table in the House of Bishops is in the back…hmmm.  I am off to an evening working session of Program Budget and Finance.  Stay tuned.

--Bishop Mathes

Bishop Mathes gets started

After an uneventful flight from San Diego to Indianapolis (with a very brief stop in Houston), I found my way to our home away from home for the next two weeks. The bus ride from the airport to the hotel was a convention warm up. There were folks from all over the Episcopal Church including Andrew Green, Mike Russell, and Allisyn Thomas from our deputation. Can Indianapolis survive this many Episcopalians in such a short time? I hope so.

 On Tuesday evening, the Synod for Province VIII will be held. Province VIII is the region of Episcopal Dioceses west of Idaho, Utah, and Arizona, including Hawaii, Alaska, and Taiwan. Collaboratively, we work together to provide support for various ministries including youth, campus ministry, and discernment for ordination. At tonight’s meeting, we will elect officers, trustees for Church Divinity School of the Pacific, the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church, representatives to the Nominating Committee for the next Presiding Bishop, approve a budget and consider resolutions for this General Convention. While typically the Provincial Synod meets within the bounds of the province, we have chosen to meet just before General Convention as a way to save funds.

 During this General Convention, I serve on one of the few Joint Standing Committees of both the House of Bishops and the House of Deputies: Program, Budget and Finance. It is our job to take the draft budget from the Executive Council, all the requests for funding that come from resolutions passed and present to a Joint Session of both houses a budget. Our first hearing is tomorrow at noon and we present the budget on Tuesday of next week—seven days to do an incredible amount of work. To make matters a bit more interesting, because of some problems with the budget draft that we received, the Presiding Bishop has presented to us an alternate budget. It should be very interesting.

Bishop James Mathes