Disciple: The Work of the Church Beyond the Diocese

By Summerlee Walter

As we celebrate the launch of the new diocesan mission strategy during the Special Convention on March 5, it bears remembering our Annual and Special Conventions, while crucial to gathering ideas and opinions from around the Diocese and setting the direction of our work, are only a single aspect of the governance structure that directs our collective ministry. Several other governing bodies throughout The Episcopal Church—and, indeed, the wider Anglican Communion—also influence what happens in central North Carolina. Two of those bodies—the triennial General Convention, and the decennial Lambeth Conference—will meet during the summer of 2022.

[Image: Members of Executive Council, including the Rt. Rev. Anne Hodges-Copple, attend a January 26 committee meeting on Zoom. Photo courtesy of Episcopal News Service]

A CONVENTION FOR THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH

A quick refresher on church polity: The Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina, led by our bishops, the Rt. Rev. Sam Rodman and the Rt. Rev. Anne Hodges-Copple, is one of 112 dioceses within the Episcopal Church. Of these, 100 dioceses, including the Diocese of Navajoland, are located within U.S. states; the others are the Dioceses of Cuba, Haiti, the Virgin Islands, Micronesia, Taiwan, the Dominican Republic, Central Ecuador, Litoral Ecuador, Honduras, Puerto Rico and Venezuela, plus the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe.

The Episcopal Church is led by Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, but, just as the diocese’s bishops are guided by Annual Convention and Diocesan Council, with advice from the Standing Committee, the presiding bishop is guided by General Convention and the Executive Council. Just as Annual Convention hears reports from across the Diocese and votes on various resolutions, representatives to diocesan leadership bodies and the budget, General Convention serves the same purpose for the Episcopal Church. Diocesan Council is charged with carrying out the work dictated by Annual Convention; Executive Council carries out the will of General Convention. Annual Convention is comprised of clergy active in the Diocese and elected lay delegates from each church in the Diocese; General Convention is comprised of the House of Bishops, which is exactly what it sounds like, and the House of Deputies, which includes elected lay and clergy delegates from each diocese. Currently representing the Diocese of North Carolina are Rodman and Hodges-Copple, plus the eight delegates elected by the 204th Annual Convention in November 2019: Martha Alexander, the Rev. Sara Ardrey-Graves, Megan Carlson, the Rev. Jamie Edwards, Alice Freeman, the Rev. Kevin Matthews, the Rev. Daniel Robayo and Delois Ward.

This summer, our bishops and elected delegates will join lay and clergy representatives from across the Episcopal Church in Baltimore, Maryland, July 7-14 for the 80th General Convention. The event was rescheduled from 2021 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Blue Book, available at generalconvention.org/bluebook2021, contains reports from boards, committees and commissions for the General Convention. Resolutions to General Convention may be submitted by an interim body or legislative committee of General Convention or by a deputy, bishop, diocese or province.

A GLOBAL COMMUNION

Later in the summer, Anglican and Episcopal bishops from across the globe will travel to Canterbury, England, July 26-August 8 for the 15th Lambeth Conference. Returning to our lesson in church structure, the Episcopal Church is one of 46 independent churches within the Anglican Communion and is led by Curry, who serves as the primate of the church. (A primate is the chief bishop of an Anglican province, which is not to be confused with the nine provinces within the Episcopal Church. While provinces and independent churches are not always the same thing—an Anglican province can contain more than one independent church—in the case of the Episcopal Church, they are.) The Anglican Communion itself is a coalition of the 46 independent churches led by the Archbishop of Canterbury, currently Justin Welby. The Archbishop of Canterbury is also the head of the Church of England, from which all other Anglican and Episcopal churches evolved since 1534.

The Archbishop of Canterbury is the spiritual head of the Church of England and, by default, of the Anglican Communion. He is not equivalent to the pope in the Roman Catholic Church; he cannot, for example, reverse decisions made by the Episcopal Church.

The Lambeth Conference is convened once per decade at the behest of the Archbishop of Canterbury and includes all bishops from across the Anglican Communion, who gather to discuss church and world affairs and the global mission of the Anglican Communion. Since its first meeting in 1867, the Lambeth Conference has served as one of four instruments of unity across the Anglican Communion.

The 2022 Lambeth Conference theme is “God’s Church for God’s World - walking, listening and witnessing together.” The conference will explore what it means for the Anglican Communion to be responsive to the needs of a 21st-century world. Decisions made by the Lambeth Conference are nonbinding, though not inconsequential. This year’s Lambeth Conference will focus on three areas of global concern for the Church: creation care, youth ministry and evangelism. The ideas discussed during Lambeth have the potential to inspire new ways of thinking about mission in our local contexts, as well as providing a means for the leaders of a diverse, global group of churches to understand each other’s perspectives. This work influences governance decisions made by both the General Convention and its interim body, Executive Council.

EXECUTIVE COUNCIL

Executive Council is the elected governing body of the Episcopal Church between triennial General Conventions. Two members of our Diocese—Hodges-Copple and Alice Freeman—are in the fifth year of their six-year terms on the body. During its most recent virtual meeting January 25-27, Executive Council addressed several pressing questions facing the Church, including how to address the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on worship and finances, how to engage around voting rights advocacy, and how better to include and celebrate transgender and nonbinary Episcopalians.

In his opening remarks, Curry described how the Episcopal Church has advocated for the Freedom to Vote Act, a recent federal voting rights legislation, which is currently stalled in the Senate. Reminding listeners that advocating for voting rights for all Americans is not a partisan position, he said, “The ideal of democracy, while not perfectly lived out to be sure, offers the best hope yet devised for government that fosters human freedom, equal justice under law, the dignity and equality of every human being made, as the Bible says, in the image and likeness of God. A cornerstone of that democratic ideal is and remains the right to vote.”

The gathering’s two plenary sessions also focused on hearing the stories of groups of people who have been marginalized in the church and society. The first day’s plenary session featured a 90-minute listening session during which seven clergy and lay leaders shared stories of hope and hurt that highlighted both the progress the church has made and the distance it has yet to travel in embracing transgender and gender-nonconforming people. The presenters also educated Executive Council on queer identities beyond people who are cisgender and lesbian, gay or bisexual. Several of those who spoke highlighted the work done by TransEpiscopal, which since 2006 has secured General Convention resolutions condemning anti-transgender discrimination and violence against transgender and nonbinary people.

[The Rev. Rowan Larson gives a presentation on LGBTQIA+ identities during the meeting of Executive Council on January 25. Photo courtesy of Episcopal News Service]

The January 26 plenary session featured a presentation by Brant Lee, a law professor from the University of Akron in Akron, Ohio, and a member of the Presiding Officers’ Advisory Group on Beloved Community Implementation, who spoke about racism experienced by Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

Also on January 26, Executive Council passed a resolution, presented by the Joint Standing Committee on Ministry Beyond the Episcopal Church, that “expresses grave concerns about the escalation of tensions and military buildup along the border of Russia and Ukraine” and enjoined Episcopalians to pray for peace following Pope Francis’s call for a January 26 world day of peace.

Executive Council also heard reports from both Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD) and Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM). ERD has worked with its global partners to provide assistance to people in more than 50 countries during the past few years. From assistance to victims of Hurricane Ida in Louisiana and New York to tornado relief in Kentucky; from help for earthquake and flood victims in Haiti, Honduras and Western North Carolina to hygiene kits in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Colombia, ERD has been essential. In addition, since March 2020, ERD has reached more than 2.1 million people directly with personal protective equipment, food, COVID-19 prevention messaging, economic resilience efforts and vaccination education.

For 40 years, Episcopal Migration Ministries has partnered with the United States government’s humanitarian efforts to provide protection to those most vulnerable around the world. During this time, EMM has assisted more than 100,000 refugees and special immigrant visa holders. At no time has their work been more critical than it is now as the United States has agreed to accept 125,000 refugees from Afghanistan. EMM is one of only nine agencies across the country authorized to process these resettlements.

FUNDING THE WORK

Much of Executive Council’s work, including figuring out how to fund the critical services of groups like ERD and EMM, happens in committees. The Finance Committee, of which Hodges-Copple is a member, worked on the draft 2023-24 budget that will be voted on by General Convention. One possible change under consideration is increasing the exemption on diocesan revenue in the fair share calculation by $60,000. Currently, dioceses contribute 15% of their annual revenue to the church-wide budget, with an exemption on the first $140,000. The proposed change would increase that exemption to $200,000.

The committee also pondered how to allocate a $15 million budget surplus from the 2019-21 triennium. The surplus is largely the result of delaying the slated 2021 General Convention by one year; preemptive budgetary measures, including restricted travel and in-person meetings, taken as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic; and $3 million received as part of the Paycheck Protection Program. The church already awarded $3 million in pandemic relief grants to 76 dioceses and shifted $2.5 million to the 2022 budget to cover the cost of this summer’s rescheduled General Convention. On January 27, Executive Council voted to use up to $5 million from the past triennium’s surplus to balance the proposed $101 million 2023-24 budget. The draft of the 2023-24 budget that was introduced in October 2021 started with an $8 million shortfall. The proposed budget now advances to General Convention’s Joint Standing Committee on Program, Budget and Finance.

“It was a huge piece of work to prepare the draft budget for the mission and ministry of the Episcopal Church in 2023-2024,” Hodges-Copple said. “It was fortunate we could designate a significant portion of the surplus from 2019-2021 to close the gaps and present a balanced budget proposal for General Convention’s consideration this summer. It was satisfying to reduce the asking from dioceses by raising the income deduction. In some ways, I feel like I’ve been working toward this moment since 2018 when we convened to begin our work after the last General Convention.”

Committee work also focused on addressing the obstacles to financial sustainability for dioceses in Latin America and the Caribbean, most of which are located within Province IX. These dioceses have struggled with widespread poverty and the consequences of natural disasters, in addition to the hardships of the pandemic.

LOOKING AHEAD

Much of the Executive Council’s final day of deliberations centered on the revised parochial report. The House of Deputies Committee on the State of the Church has been working on a new format since before the pandemic, though ongoing changes to worship and in-person gatherings certainly exacerbated the need for new ways to quantify the work happening in congregations. The revised parochial report focuses on narrative questions. Some demographic questions, like communicants in good standing, have been tweaked to account for current circumstances, e.g. communicants still can be counted if pandemic conditions gave them “good cause” not to receive communion. The parochial report does not address the common question of how to count online attendees, instead asking questions about hybrid and online worship without requiring precise counts.

Looking to the months ahead, Executive Council finalized plans for General Convention. Masks and proof of vaccination will be required, and additional safety measures are under consideration.

Summerlee Walter is the communications coordinator for the Diocese of North Carolina.