DCF: bishop's address

Via Stand Firm:

Bishop Howe's Diocesan Convention Address, January 30, 2010
Posted January 30th, 2010

Central Florida Episcopalian: Bishop's View

The Bishop’s Address

The Forty-First Annual Convention of The Episcopal Diocese of Central Florida

Held at the Lakeland Convention Center

Lakeland, Florida



January 30, 2010

The Rt. Rev. John W. Howe


Having Done All, to Stand

“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 1:2)

Welcome to the Forty-First Annual Convention of the Diocese of Central Florida! And thanks to Fr. Al Jenkins and all the good folks from All Saints, Lakeland and from all over the Diocese who have helped with the preparation for our time together. We were last here back in 1999, and my recollection is that it was one of our very best Conventions in terms of the way the day unfolded. I pray that today might be a repeat of that experience.

Thanks as well to Canon Ben Lane and the musicians and choir members who are supporting us in our worship today - weren’t they terrific! Very special thanks, too, to Dr. Peter Moore for that wonderful homily at our Eucharist; will you join me in expressing our appreciation?

I think that our principal work today is signing onto the Anglican Covenant and - hopefully - adopting the Strategic Plan that will be before us this afternoon. Both of these are endeavors that have significant implications for all of us. As I thought about today’s Convention I remembered a little card one of our clergy gave me a couple of years ago. It says: “When in doubt Repeat This (sort of a paraphrase of the motto from Alcoholics Anonymous): Let me change what I can. Let me accept that which I cannot change. Let me ignore that which I cannot change or accept. Let me run away from that which I cannot change, accept or ignore. Let me lock myself in the bathroom, hold my hands over my ears, and hum about that which I cannot change, accept, ignore or run away from….”

We will see how we do!

We have been very clear on three separate occasions that as a Diocese we support the development of the Anglican Covenant, and in a direct answer to my inquiry on behalf of our Diocesan Board the Archbishop of Canterbury said that doing so “would be a clear declaration of intent to live within the agreed terms of the Communion’s life and so would undoubtedly positively affect a diocese’s pastoral and sacramental relations with the rest of the Communion.”

We need to do this, and I hope we can do it unanimously.


Two Letters from Haiti

As we continue every day to see more of the devastating aftermath of the earthquakes in Haiti I want to begin with excerpts from a letter sent out just a week ago by the Episcopal Bishop of Haiti, the Rt. Rev. Zache Duracin. It was initially sent to the President of Episcopal Relief and Development, but with the request that it be distributed as widely as possible.

Bishop Duracin says,

I am writing to you from the tent city we have set up behind the rubble of College Ste. Pierre, our marvelous senior secondary school that is no more. As you know, we have gathered approximately 3,000 people here alone. Across the land, the Diocese of Haiti has set up at least 21 refugee camps, caring for more than 23,000 people.

In this letter, I wish to make clear to the Diocese of Haiti, to Episcopal Relief and Development and to all of our partners that Episcopal Relief and Development is the official agency of the Diocese of Haiti and that we are partners working hand-in-hand in Haiti's relief and recovery efforts…


We in the Diocese of Haiti have a vision and a plan for this relief and recovery effort. We know the situation on the ground, we are directing emergency relief to those who need it most, and we already are making plans and moving forward to help our people…

Finally, I wish to make it plain: I know that many of our partners wish to come to Haiti right now to help. Please tell them that unless they are certified professionals in relief and recovery, they must wait. We will need them in the months and years to come, but at this point, it is too dangerous and too much of a burden for our people to have mission teams here.

Please tell our partners, the people of The Episcopal Church, the people of the United States and indeed the people of the world that we in Haiti are immensely grateful for their prayers, their support and their generosity. This is a desperate time in Haiti; we have lost so much. But we still have the most important asset, the people of God, and we are working continuously to take care of them…


Faithfully, Mgr. Jean Zaché Duracin



I also received a letter from the Executive Director of the Bishop Tharp Institute, which is an ERD partner agency in Haiti, and a paragraph from it details what has happened specifically to The Episcopal Church in Haiti.

God has saved the lives of the bishop, the 32 active priests, 9 retired priests, the 6 deacons, the 17 seminarians, 3 nuns and the 4 missionaries and their families. All private houses have been damaged to some degree, but all churches, schools, rectories, clinics, and hospitals from Croix des Bouquets to Miragoane are not permitted to be used. In Port au Prince and Leogane, all structures of the Episcopal Church have been completely destroyed. We cannot evaluate how many parishioners and staff members we lost. In the south, BTI is ok but the Saint Sauveur rectory is not safe to sleep in. The seminarians went back to their home town; one of them is a physician, and he has stayed at college St Pierre in Port au Prince to give first aid to the people. The Episcopal Church of Haiti has set up more than 7 centers to support victims, mostly in the worst hit areas where the bishop is based with whatever supplies they have been able to receive.



Of course there are many ways you can be of help. You can give to the Salvation Army or the American Red Cross or any number of other agencies. But in my opinion, giving to The Episcopal Church, through ERD, is one of our very best options, and we will co-ordinate our efforts as a Diocese through Chuck Dunlap’s office.



A Look Back at the Past Decade

What a decade has just passed! Ten years ago we adopted by Resolution of Convention a Statement of Vision for this first decade of the new millennium. We are now at the beginning of 2010, and we need to consider how well we have done.

We said ten years ago that our Vision was “to make the Great Commandment and the Great Commission the twin priorities of this Diocese.”

And we fleshed that out with seven goals, some of which were broad and ongoing, and others that were very specific. First, we called upon every congregation to “establish intentional programs of evangelism and stewardship,” to “raise up and support clergy and laity in discovering and developing their individual gifts for ministry,” and to “develop and enhance intergenerational ministries.”

We are at various stages in terms of fulfilling these goals, but I believe the great majority of our congregations have embraced them for themselves. These remain among our ongoing priorities. And in the Strategic Plan that we will consider today we will ask that all of our congregations recommit themselves to these priorities.

We also said that the Diocese as a whole would “strengthen and support the ministry of our existing mission congregations and smaller, rural churches.” This, too, remains an ongoing commitment.

Two very specific goals worked out in extremely different ways than we had imagined, and a third we have not accomplished at all.

Let me take the third one first. We said we wanted to establish a Canterbury House at the University of Central Florida, and that simply has not happened. Perhaps one day it will. Happily, in the meantime we do have an outreach to the campus out of nearby St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church on Dean Road, where Fr. Charlie Fritch is Rector.

Ten years ago we said we wanted to “establish at least 15 new congregations by the year 2010, and conduct a capital campaign to raise at least five million dollars for that purpose.”

As I reported to you when it concluded, our Moving from Strength to Strength capital campaign was a great success, but not at all in the way we had anticipated. Overwhelmingly, the fruit of the campaign was realized at the local, congregational level, rather than the diocesan.

Even though the campaign officially ended four years ago, money has continued to come in so that at the diocesan level the total is now just under $1,023,000. We helped to reduce Camp Wingmann’s mortgage from $560,000 to $92,000 currently, we set aside over $90,000 for a new building at the Canterbury Conference Center and helped to fund operations there with another $42,500, and we funded Congregational Development and new church planting at more than $491,000.

But, in addition to that, at the congregational level, more than five million dollars was raised for new buildings, new ministries, mission and outreach, and much-needed renovation. Over 80% of our congregations participated in the campaign-, stewardship-, and planned-giving seminars that we provided at diocesan expense - that is, at no cost to the congregations themselves.

But what about planting new congregations?

In 2003 Santa Maria de Los Angeles was birthed as a daughter congregation of St. Mary of the Angels in Orlando. Eventually it merged with a Hispanic congregation meeting at Christ the King, also in Orlando, and it is going strong as Iglesia Episcopal Jesus de Nazaret (the Episcopal Church of Jesus of Nazareth), with Raul Rubiano serving as Vicar.

In 2004 we started the Church of the Epiphany in Oviedo, but it did not survive. (Sadly, about half of all new church plants don’t.) However, two years later the Church of the Incarnation began in Oviedo with Jon Davis as Vicar, and it is going great guns. As I hope all of you know, Incarnation has just this month moved onto the Canterbury Campus as Jon has taken on additional responsibilities as Executive Director of Canterbury. I will say more about that in a few moments.

In 2005 the Episcopal Church of the Blessed Redeemer began in Palm Bay with Ron Manning as its founding Vicar, Hazel Kundinger becoming Vicar two years later. Meeting in a school cafeteria up until now, they are about to begin work on their own building.

In 2006, in addition to Incarnation, the Hispanic congregation that had begun in St. Christopher’s, Orlando, became the congregation of Iglesia Episcopal San Cristobal, with Carlos Marin as Vicar.

In 2007 we welcomed Coventry in Ocala, and this year they have welcomed Stephen Dass as Vicar. Coventry made its way through a number of “alternative jurisdictions” to “come home” to the Diocese of Central Florida. And as I said at the time that just doesn’t happen very often!

In 2008 we welcomed Corpus Christi as our newest congregation, in Okahumpka, where Don Gross serves as Priest in Charge.

That’s not bad; seven new starts, six of which have survived. But it is not the fifteen we had hoped for. Instead, we were hit by a tsunami of “disaffiliation” of parts of three of our congregations back in 2004 and six more - plus two “church plants” - in 2008. You all know it has been a very difficult time in the lives of those congregations and the Diocese as a whole.



Four Things to Rejoice In

But I want to suggest that there are at least four things we can rejoice in as we have come through this difficult time. First, we made good on the promise that if there were those who had to leave we would say to them, “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.” To repeat the “bottom line”: we have had no inhibitions, no depositions, no litigation, and no loss of property.

In dealing with these separations we have done something that has not been duplicated in any other diocese. I hope we never have to do it again, but if we had to go through it, we did it right.

Second - though I surely would not have chosen it to happen this way - there are eleven new congregations worshipping God in Anglican jurisdictions here in Central Florida. And they are not our enemies! They are proclaiming the Gospel, and most of them are growing. I wish they were part of this Diocese, and they are not; but with us they are committed to “taking Central Florida for Christ.”

One of the “church plants” that left was St. Nicholas in Poinciana. I told you two years ago that they were planning to return to the Diocese the $25,000 we had given them as start-up money. Last week I got a note from them with the final installment. It said:

Dear Bishop Howe,

This note brings with it warm greetings from us at St. Nicholas. We want to thank you and the Diocese for the $25,000 grant which enabled us to plant St. Nicholas. Enclosed is a check for $4,000 which will complete our repayment of the grant.

We very much appreciate our beginnings in the Episcopal Diocese of Central Florida and pray that God will strengthen you to continue to stand firmly for the faith once delivered to the saints in the midst of the turmoil in The Episcopal Church.

We have chosen different paths, but we serve the same Lord.

Perhaps one day we will once again witness to the saving grace of our Lord Jesus Christ under the same roof. Until then we continue to pray for all faithful Christians everywhere who reach out in love to a broken world.



And it was signed by all of the adult members of the congregation.

Every couple of months I get a little note from the Daughters of the King in what used to be Gloria Dei in Cocoa. They now call themselves Glory to God Anglican Church, and they still have a chapter of the Daughters who write to assure me they are still praying for me and for us.

As far as I’m concerned, that’s one heck of a lot better than litigation!

When Paul and Barnabas split up in the Book of Acts there were then two missionary teams evangelizing Europe and Asia where before there had only been one.

And you do know the response to “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.” It is, “Thanks be to God!”

Following the first mediation, with the Church of the New Covenant, back in 2004 - a seventeen hour day of mediation - the professional mediator working with us came back to see me. He said, “I have never seen a mediation conducted in such a Christian manner; I’m going to become an Episcopalian!” And he did.

Third, the congregations that experienced “disaffiliation,” and the loss of significant percentages of their members, are strongly into recovery. St. John’s, Melbourne, Shepherd of the Hills, Lecanto, St. Edward’s, Mount Dora, Holy Cross, Winter Haven, Good Shepherd, Maitland, Grace, Ocala, and Trinity, Vero, have all called new rectors, or in one case a Priest in Charge. They are doing well.

And fourth, it is my perception that somehow as this Diocese has come through this season, this terrible season, we have become more united, more focused, more energized, than we ever were previously. I don’t fully understand it, but isn’t that what Jesus promised? “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower…. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.” (John 15:1, 2)

Sometimes what is cut from the branch can be replanted and become a new vine. That is up to the vinegrower. But if we have been pruned we can expect more fruit.

We are in a very different place than we envisioned ten years ago, but I think we are in a good place. We are committed to being faithful, orthodox, Anglican, and bearing fruit in The Episcopal Church. I think many of us have some pretty deep disagreements with some of the recent decisions of The Episcopal Church. But, as Bishop Bob Terwilliger put it when someone asked, “Are you threatening to leave?” he responded, “No, I’m threatening to stay!” We are not about winning political battles. We are about bearing faithful witness.

We know we are part of something much larger than The Episcopal Church, and while we may be in a minority in TEC we are squarely in the center of the great majority of orthodox Anglicanism around the world. We recognize there may be those who continue to leave in the months and years to come, but we believe we are called to stay and, in the words of St. Paul, “having done all, to stand” faithful, with the help of God. (Ephesians 6:13)

That’s my vision. That’s my commitment. And I believe you join me in it.

So, where are we headed? Let me talk about the Commissions of the Diocese; I have not done that previously in a Bishop’s Address.



The Special Commissions

Last year’s Convention called for the creation of four Special Commissions: one to create a School for Contemporary Worship, one to prepare a curriculum for a Parish Weekend to strengthen and renew each local congregation, one to equip our congregations for sending out teams of people on short-term Mission Trips, and one to continue the work of Strategic Planning for our future.

Join me in giving heartfelt thanks to all those who participated in the work of these Commissions this past year. I believe we have made great progress.

The School of Contemporary Worship Commission surveyed the Diocese and determined that almost exactly half of our congregations now offer some kind of contemporary service, and of the half that do not roughly fifty percent are interested in beginning a service with contemporary elements. Accordingly, the Commission has designed a Conference to train and equip both our clergy and lay people to introduce and lead such services.

The first Worship Conference will be at the Canterbury Retreat and Conference Center September 16 - 18, Thursday evening through Saturday. Singer, songwriter, author, worship leader, the Rev. Steve Fry, and the Rev. Dr. Reggie Kidd, Professor of New Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary, and a faculty member of the Robert E. Webber Institute for Worship Studies, will be the keynoters. The Conference will offer a number of workshops, including:

Using technology effectively
Contemporary worship design
Building a worship team
Music selection
Blending ancient liturgy with contemporary music
And more.
More details will be available on both the Diocesan and Canterbury websites. I am asking all of our parish clergy, whether you already have a contemporary service or not, to seriously consider attending this Conference, and to bring your congregation’s musicians with you.

The Parish Weekend Commission has designed an “on campus” retreat weekend to be held in the facilities of the local church that focuses on the prayer of Jesus that although we live in the world we are not to be of the world. This is a different kind of weekend than Cursillo or Faith Alive! or even the Alpha program. It is a call to deep discipleship, focusing on life rather than Christian belief.

The weekend is not something that will be imposed from the outside. The curriculum is one that can be led by the rector or vicar of the congregation and the music can be led by the congregation’s musicians. Let me tantalize you with the titles of the teachings:

The Inconvenient Jesus, focusing on some of his “hard sayings”
The Inconvenient Bible, focusing on the discrepancies between its values and those of the world around us
Money - the god of consumption or the God of Sacrifice?
Sex and Food - the god of Taking or the God of Giving?
Time - all about you or all about others?
Count the Cost!
The Weekend is still a work in progress. The Commission has developed summaries of the teachings, and a draft timeline, and St. Andrew’s, Fort Pierce will be the first congregation to “test drive” it on the weekend of March 5 and 6. The Commission encourages our congregations to schedule this Discipleship Weekend to coincide with the Bishop’s official Visitations which are now on a two-year rotation cycle. So, once the materials have been finalized, I am asking all of our congregations to consider hosting such an “in-house Discipleship Weekend” sometime in the next two to three years.

The Mission Trips Commission was created to support our clergy and congregations in developing and sending out teams of people on short-term mission ventures to other parts of the country, to our companion diocese, Honduras, or wherever. Resolution R-6 at last year’s Convention stated that “mission trips are an effective means whereby Christians encounter the Kingdom of God and change society,” and it called upon every congregation of the diocese “to take a cross-cultural mission trip with no fewer than five people along with the rector or vicar within the next three years.”

Of course, many of our congregations have been doing this for years. Several sent teams to help clean up and rebuild in Louisiana and Mississippi following Hurricane Katrina. Many of our congregations have sent teams to Honduras to build homes and churches and to help distribute medical supplies. St. Peter’s, Lake Mary has been doing this annually. Even now trips are being planned to help deal with the devastation in Haiti.

(As we heard from Bishop Duracin, not yet, but in due time.)

For some of us, however, Mission Trips constitute brand new territory. How do we make the most of such an opportunity? How do we avoid the common pitfall of turning the trip into little more than a Christian vacation? And what are the cultural barriers that we need to be mindful of? The Commission is dedicated to creating a “user-friendly” way of preparing anyone, regardless of past missions experience or lack of it, with the ability to determine sound objectives and the tools and equipment to attain them.

When it is finished, quite soon, there will be a Short-term Missions Manual with a “quick start guide” focused on Team, Training and Trip. It will be available in print, on CD, and online for the entire Diocese. Additionally, members of the Commission will be available to congregations wanting them to come in person to train those planning to lead such trips.

The Commission concluded its report to me with the statement, “We look forward to the great reports of congregations developing, training, and leading their teams wherever God directs in building his Kingdom.”

The Strategic Planning Commission was asked to “develop a long-range plan to infuse this Diocese with the theological vision and values” that I attempted to express in my Pastoral Letter back in April 2008. Resolution R-8 asked it to “include long-range generational goals and short-term, one-to-three year measurable objectives” that will “carry this vision and these values into the future.”

The Commission understood this task to be one that builds upon the Vision Statement of 2000, and includes the ongoing work of the Diocese, much of which is carried out through the standing commissions of Congregational Development, Christian Formation, Evangelism, Finance, and Stewardship. The “measurable objectives” are that our congregations will actually use the tools that have been developed by the special commissions this year.

The Report of the Strategic Planning Commission is before us today, and we will be asked to accept it this afternoon.

The Standing Commissions

In addition to these Special Commissions that eventually will have completed their work and be dismissed, there are these five Standing Commissions of the Diocesan Board that oversee and manage most of the work and ministry of the Diocese as a whole. (There are, of course, other ministries in the Diocese, and the ministries of our congregations.)

The Congregational Development Commission works with new congregations and, over the past couple of years, with congregations recovering from disaffiliation. They are currently developing the model for the next new plants here in Central Florida. And they have also represented us in conferences around the country sponsored by The Episcopal Church. What we have developed in terms of support to the local congregation is very inexpensive, very “hands on,” and quite different from what has traditionally been used elsewhere. It seems to have caught the attention of a lot of people around the country who are interested in congregational development and think we are doing the job very well.

In 2009 The Christian Formation Commission continued its aggressive work on the goal I asked them to tackle of compiling a “best practices” set of resources for this Diocese and beyond. If one of our congregations is doing hospital visitation, or confirmation training, or personal evangelism, or youth ministry, or Lay Eucharistic Minister Training in a way that is truly excellent we want to get the formula, bottle it up, and make it available to all of our other congregations.

I told you last year that we are committed to developing a new, lectionary-based, biblically-grounded children’s curriculum for Sunday School. To date $55,000 in grants has allowed CFC to contract with Higher Life, Inc. to do market research focusing on two critical questions:

What is the market for the resource that is envisioned? And,
What should be the key components of this resource?”
The Commission has contracted with a local grant writer, a member of Incarnation, Oviedo, to seek funding for this project, anticipated to be in the neighborhood of three quarters of a million dollars.

CFC is preparing a new link for the Diocesan website to showcase resources for Christian Formation.

The Evangelism Commission is distributing an “Evangelism Inventory” at this Convention, asking all of us to identify ministries that our congregations do well along with individual skills and experiences that might be tapped for ministry - everything from website design to care-giving to the sick and dying. This data will be consolidated on a website run by the Commission to facilitate and network the ministries already being provided throughout the Diocese.

For instance, most congregations have heard about the Alpha program, but some who have never used it might want to contact others to learn how to best put it into place. We want to include both the programs we have traditionally considered evangelistic in nature as well as other dimensions of outreach and ministry - everything from soup kitchens to scouting. How can we share what we are doing to the strengthening of all of us, the blessing of others, and the glory of God?

The Finance Commission meets monthly, and makes recommendations to the Bishop and Diocesan Board regarding our expenditures and budget. 2009 was a lean year (disaffiliation and economic slowdown), and we had to make significant cuts in both personnel and program, but as you will hear later this morning we were able to live within our income. Thanks be to God.

Finally, The Stewardship Commission has been encouraging the use of Crown Ministry resources. The approach of Crown is: “Preach it, Teach it, Celebrate it, and Apply it.” A congregation that is just beginning can start out with a four-week church-wide program and then move on to longer and more specialized series and workshops. The theme of the Lenten Retreat at Canterbury this year is Stewardship, and Fathers Don Lyon and Al Jenkins will be joining me in leading it. All are cordially encouraged to attend.

All of the members of the Diocesan Board serve on one or another of these Commissions, along with members at large appointed by the Bishop. There are other Commissions such as the Honduras Commission, the Minorities Commission, and the Commission on Ministry. But these five are the Commissions of the Board. If you would be interested in serving on one of them - or anywhere else that requires the Bishop’s appointment - please be in touch with me.

Canterbury Conference Center

Finally, let me give you an update regarding Canterbury. The vision for our Retreat and Conference Center has always been that it would be a place of sanctuary and a kind of hub and gathering place for our life together. But, especially with the economic downturn conference centers all over the country have been going belly up. And over the last several months there has been serious concern that we might be forced to shut down Canterbury altogether.

Then, after nineteen years as Canterbury’s Executive Director Fr. Paul McQueen accepted a call to return to parish life as rector of the Church of the Resurrection in Longwood. On behalf of all of us I want to thank you, again, Paul, for your nearly two decades of service and hospitality.

The Canterbury Board and I were faced with the question of where we go from here. One possibility was hiring an Interim Director and doing a nation-wide search. We didn’t have the money to do either.

I heard coming out of my own mouth something I had not intended to say, but I believe it was from God: “You know, you have the ideal person for the job sitting here at the table, Fr. Jon Davis. He has put on conferences all over the country for years, he has been on this Board and knows Canterbury, he has a church in the same town that can share facilities with the Conference Center, and he is the best networked person I know.”

In the next minute I watched Jon’s face go from horror to vision. And the faces of the other Board members from despair to excitement. I need to be honest; they were not unanimous. One member expressed concern we would be asking Jon to take on too much. And he may be right. But we think that with proper support this can be done, and so we have entered into a very bold experiment.

Incarnation has moved its services onto the Canterbury campus. We are going to have to juggle schedules when there are conferences that need the Chapel on Sunday mornings. Already renovations have begun on the physical plant. There is a new price schedule that we hope will attract increased activity. And in 2010 there are a number of new conferences scheduled to assist this Diocese is fulfilling the vision God has given us: stewardship, discipleship, church growth, worship, missions, and more will be on the agenda.

Visit the Canterbury Booth or the Canterbury website, or better, visit Canterbury itself: plan your own event or attend one or more of these great conferences this year. I am going to call on Jon later today to add his own comments to what I have just said.

I typically touch on a number of other subjects in my annual Address: Youth Ministry, the Institute for Christian Studies, seminarians in process, our Companion relationship with Honduras, Disaster Relief, and so on. I am going to skip all that this morning. There will be reports on all these ministries in our Journal, and I hope you will read them.



Two to be Honored

There are two people who will be leaving the Diocesan Staff this year whom I would like to call forward. Beatrice Wilder has served as historiographer and Assistant Editor of the Central Florida Episcopalian since 1985. She has written a monthly column with reflections on our history for most of that time, and her book, entitled Florida Faith: a treasury of tales from The Episcopal Church’s colorful history in the Sunshine State, containing many of those columns, is about to be released.

Not bad for age 99!

Beatrice, will you please come forward? On behalf of all of us I want to present you with this plaque and a small check to accompany it:


Beatrice Wilder

Historiographer Extraordinaire

of the

Diocese of Central Florida

Thank you for your endless attention to detail!

It is said that those who cannot learn from history

are doomed to repeat it.

Because of you we do not repeat our history,

we celebrate it.



And secondly I call on our Archdeacon and Dean of the Institute for Christian Studies, the Venerable Linda Brondsted. Linda has been Dean for twenty-one years and Archdeacon for seventeen. At a meeting of the ICS Board back in November someone asked her what she has learned in all that time. She said, “I learned to hug; I grew up in a very beige family.”

On behalf of the Board of the Institute and the Diocese as a whole I present you with this “purse,” and you also are to receive a plaque:



The Venerable Linda J. Brondsted

The Diocese of Central Florida’s

First and Wonderfully Exemplary Archdeacon

We Give Thanks to God - and You

“Select from among yourselves

persons of good standing,

full of the Spirit and of wisdom,

whom we may appoint to this task.”

(Acts 6:3)



A Token

I want to close with a recent vignette. Two weeks ago we celebrated the new ministry of Fr. David Peoples as rector of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Lakeland. David has a friend and mentor whom he got to know in Ft. Lauderdale, and whom he asked (with my permission) to preach at the service, the Archbishop of the Eastern Orthodox Church in America, His Eminence Ignatios Obed Ishu Knox.

That’s a fairly exalted title and complicated name for an American. (“Ignatios” is the Greek form of “Ignatius,” and “Obed Ishu” is Aramaic for “Servant of Jesus.”)

I said to him, “I suspect that wasn’t your birth name.” He said, “My birth name was Bruce.”

(He gave a great sermon, by the way.)

At the time of the announcements the Archbishop said that it is the custom in his tradition that when a bishop is invited into the jurisdiction of another bishop the invitee brings a gift to the invitor. (I said, “I like that custom!”)

He then presented me with this pectoral cross, which has a representation of the resurrected Christ, surrounded by the four evangelists. He described it as, “ancient, Orthodox, and Anglican.” I asked him to explain that phrase. He said he purchased it from a monastery in Great Britain, and it came from the eighth or ninth century, predating the Great Schism: the break between Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism, when the Church in England had not yet become the Church of England, that is, separate from Rome. Thus, “ancient, Orthodox, and Anglican.”

I found myself blinking back tears at his gesture, because he was recalling a day in which we all were one, and he was looking forward to another day in which that will be true once again. You do know there will come a time when there are no Eastern Orthodox, Episcopalians, Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, Baptists, Congregationalists, Methodists, Pentecostals, or “alternative Anglican jurisdictions”…but only Christians, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb: “one holy catholic and apostolic church.”

In 1981 the Anglican scholar David Barrett published a huge book entitled World Christian Encyclopedia. It detailed just about everything that was being done in the name of Christ anywhere in the world as of that date. On the very first page he gave us the “bottom line.” At that moment in history how many denominations calling themselves Christian do you suppose there were? 20,600 denominations quarreling with each other in the name of Christ!

“And they will know that we are Christians by our love.”

Twenty years later he brought out the second edition. Now it required two volumes, because now there were more than 37,000 denominations! And how many more have spun off in the nine years since then?

Brothers and Sisters, it is a tragedy when churches split. And it is a travesty when they spend millions of dollars taking each other to court.

So, what is the vision? Let’s keep on keeping on. Let’s continue to make the main thing the main thing. Let’s redouble our efforts to walk in love as Christ loved us. Let’s talk to people about Jesus. Let’s continue to plant new churches, strengthen existing ones, and do all we can to take Central Florida for Jesus Christ.