Unpacking the Vision:
Convention 145 Bishop’s Address

Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your name. Amen.

An age-old tale recounts that when he was a catechumen, Martin (who later became bishop of Tours), cut off his own cloak and gave it to a man who came in to him in poverty, begging alms. The very next night, the legend tells us that Jesus appeared to Martin wearing that cloak.

As bishop of Tours, Martin was unpopular amongst his fellow bishops, both because of his monastic tendencies and identification with the poor and because of his strong opposition to the violent repression of heresy used by the church. Martin was a strong missionary to the people who lived in the vicinity of his hermitage and served as a great influence in the development of Celtic monasticism in Britain.

When I read the stories of the life and ministry of Martin of Tours I cannot help but recall our own focus, here in this diocese, on the development of local mission. I am encouraged by the legend that depicts our serving Jesus in the face of the poor and the very people that live in the vicinity of our parish churches. Our mission in a genuine sense is to take our cloak in our time and to share it with those whom we recognize in need: in need of good news; in need of a home for faith; in need of shelter, food, or care.

In the fourth century, as in other times in its history, the church was too often focused on what others were saying, what others were teaching, how others were conducting themselves. Instead of teaching the faith, and living the faith as a means of example and instruction, it tended to want to eradicate the others. This fierce opposition to others, and the violence unleashed by the church against the others, is precisely what Martin preached and taught against. His concern was to build up, encourage, and inspire.

We gather here in convention as the church in council. For the 145th time the diocese of Long Island, this dominion in the sea, comes together to celebrate the past, to honor the present moment, and to grow together into the future. Look around at this church gathered in council. We are for one another a reminder of who Christ has called us to be. We are for each other a reminder of what Christ has called us to be. Coming together in convention we are returning to the source of our identity in relationship with one another, in relationship together with Jesus Christ. Baptized into one Body, here that body stretches, breathes, speaks, and dares to share the good we have – the cloak that we have received as a gift and that warms us – with others.

We are gathered here as the church in council. Since our last convention we have continued to focus our efforts and conversations, our planning, and use of resources on the development of strategies to bring the church alive in our towns and villages, neighborhoods and boroughs.

Our deaneries are being strengthened by the care of our clergy and lay leaders as we have all become aware of the need for the church to be the church in the neighborhoods of the diocese. Many of our parishes have accepted the invitation to move away from planning and worry of survival to accepting the missionary cause of being the church in the midst of the people we are called to serve.

Many have come to recognize that we cannot grow the church by merely going after more people – but that in ministering to their needs, teaching and preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, and by living it truly in the midst of the people we are fulfilling the mission of the church on the local level.

I am proud to be the bishop of a diocese that is growing in its understanding of being one diocese, with one mission to all God’s people.

So, let us unpack this vision a bit. Let us examine the need for change in the heart of this one diocese as we plan for the future and work to accomplish the missionary tasks before us.

When we speak of mission we must be clear about its meaning.

If I come to you and share my belief that there are hungry children in a town, raise awareness of this fact, and possibly ask you to write some letters and maybe even donate to the cause - that is a form of advocacy.

But if I come to you and tell you about these children and ask you to come along and help me feed them, and work to address the cause of their hunger - that is an invitation to mission. I invite you my brothers and sisters to be done with mere advocacy, and to endeavor to do mission in all the places we are called to serve.

If I tell you about the forty-three people who were baptized at Saint George, Flushing last Sunday; if I share with you the true story of the thirteen men and women who came to the altar to offer their time and energy, their talents, to help Saint Paul’s Church at College Point to make a fresh start, I am telling you a story. I may inspire you by the telling if I do it well, but it is only a story unless you are moved to act yourself, in your local circumstances, recognizing the needs of your community, and the people and churches there and planning how you will respond in the name of Christ. I invite you my brothers and sisters to go beyond storytelling, mine or anyone else’s, and to endeavor to do mission wherever we are called to serve.

If you and I go together into the schools of Greenport and talk there with a number of elementary school students who this year carry new backpacks filled with all they need for school because parishioners of Trinity Church there saw this need and acted on it, we may go and congratulate the people of Trinity – and indeed that thanks is worth giving. But I am not asking us to stop at being courteous. I am inviting you my brothers and sisters to go beyond the ordinary or the expected, and to do mission in all the places the church is called to live.

The Diocese of Long Island is on mission for the sake of the gospel, for the spreading and the living of the Baptismal Covenant in the communities where our churches are planted. Our mission in this diocese is what once was called outreach and in-reach, where everything is the business of the church, because everything is of God and is a part of God’s creation. We are one diocese with one Mission to God's people.

I celebrate with you our ongoing mission where there are hungry mouths to feed, where there are hearts longing for faith, and where there are children learning to live. But I’m not yet sure that we are organized today in the way that can best unleash our potential for mission. I’m not convinced that our diocese is organized in a way that brings us together rather than pushes us apart.

If a true mission focus is going to take hold; if we are going to move forward as a diocese; our structures and the relationships they create must work to this end. In this convention it is my intention to invite us all to become more seriously mission-focused and less task-oriented to the ordinary and the expected; more faithful to the people we serve and less focused on who is doing the serving, or what their titles may be. During the past couple of years I have been told over and over again that our diocesan canons state "this or that," often drawing us back to a time in the ministry of the church that is now past. We need our canons to reflect, organize and enhance mission in the future, and to make possible our faithful response now, in the present. We need canons that promote mission, that enhance cooperation between ministries, that encourage transparent and open planning for the future. To this end I have asked the Committee on Canons to address some of the work that is presently underway in revision of the canons in our first special order in this convention.

Further it is my intention immediately following this Convention to bring together representatives from across the diocese to thoughtfully examine how we could more effectively organize ourselves as a diocese. How can we best relate to one another? How must our canons reflect our commitments and the paths we walk to fulfill them? How can our ways of ministry transparently reveal what we believe and what moves us to action? These questions are in no way minor, nor are they simple or to be answered in quick or simplistic fashion, and so I will appoint a Diocesan Commission on Structural Reform for Mission and Ministry that will work for the next three years to examine, report and make recommendations to the 148th Convention of the Diocese. Those recommendations, when we discuss them in convention in 2014, will advocate real ways in which the corporate structures that comprise the ministry of the whole diocese will better serve the call to be One Diocese with one mission to God's people. It may be time to incorporate the Diocese of Long Island, to empower and further equip diocesan council, and to step away from the segregated corporate structures under which we work today.

In that same spirit of moving away from segregated efforts in mission, and in an effort to fully and honestly embrace the enriching multicultural realities of our diocese, especially on the local level, I want to share with you today my intention to chair a summit on multicultural ministry comprised of individuals both clergy and lay who will represent the Hispanic Commission, the Asia American Ministry Commission, the Black Clergy Caucus, the LGBT Commission, and all the diverse populations of the diocese. This summit will be held in the Epiphany season of this coming year. It is my hope and prayer that this summit meeting will be the starting-point of our creating a wider, broader, deeper, and healthier vision for multicultural ministry in ways that may have been frustrated by our trying to do good work without one another’s help.

When I think of the reform I believe we need to undertake to carry forward the mission of Christ in our time, an image comes to mind. The eastern end of our diocese historically, and to an extent presently as well, has been marked by agriculture; by men and women planting the land and bringing forth the good things of the earth. Depending on the crops they planted, some farms built silos by the side of the barn. These structures were there to hold and safeguard something of value, quite often grain. Silos kept the grain apart, dry, and safe from contamination: but only until it was needed.

I mention this because it often appears that we work in silos: the silo of my office, the silo of my parish, the silo of my ministry. We work in partial isolation from one another. To do so is to diminish the potential we have right here right now to work for the building of God’s kingdom.

Unlike the legitimate use of silos in the countryside, you and I are here not to guard but to feed, not to hide away but to share generously the nourishment that the Gospel of Christ and the love of God bring to any and every human life. Our call is to open the silos within which we have lived and ministered, to engage every day in conversation and dialogue and cooperation as we do here and now in convention. What we are here in convention – gathered in one another’s presence, talking with one another, planning together, affirming all that is possible – this is what we must be for ourselves and for the people of God every day.

This is why we look for the hungry children to offer them food,

why we call people to the baptismal font and to service in the name of Christ,

why we in our parishes connect with local school systems and so much more that we recognize and undertake as our mission.

This is why the Commission on Structural Reform for Mission and Ministry will meet over the next three years, and why we will call together a summit meeting on multicultural ministry:

It is so that we can open the way for unimpeded growth in ministry and in the effective mission of the church. There can be forces around us in society that make it difficult to be the church in an open, loving, and effective manner. What I am saying is simply that we cannot also place obstacles in our own path, nor allow the things we can change to limit our labors in the name of Jesus Christ.

What we are doing at the level of the offices and ministries of the diocese hopes to model for you an invitation to similar action in parishes and ministries across the diocese.

For example, my staff - they are the most terrific and generous group of people I have ever worked with. I make them crazy - but they are all terrific and patient with me and all of you!

When I became bishop I initiated the term "the staff of the diocese" and requested that "diocesan staff" as a designation for the staff no longer be used. I was convinced, as I remain today, that "diocesan staff" creates a "them and us" paradigm that is not faithful to our understanding of who we are as the church in this diocese. My staff, the bishop's staff, is a group of people called to a servant ministry to the diocese as a whole - an ecclesial resource team for the work of each of our parishes and ministries.

In concert with this vision, my staff serves the needs of the diocese and responds to the initiatives that come from the parishes, deaneries and ministries of the diocese. We will serve you and expect that ministry development will occur on the local level - not primarily in response to diocesan or church-wide initiatives. In plain words, my staff will serve you, support you and encourage you, share ideas and be responsive, but not primarily create ministry for you. Practically, this means that the staff of the diocese will no longer substitute for the efforts that should be owned by elected members of commissions, boards and committees. There are so many wonderfully gifted and talented people in this diocese - we should invite and encourage all their talents (that is, all your talents!) to be used - because we are one diocese, with one mission to God's people. What we are meant to do as the staff of the diocese is to free you to do and to develop your ministry as you recognize the calls and opportunities to do so. We are your servants. You in turn are servants of the parish and community around you.

As a further example, you know that I have appointed four new archdeacons who have begun their service among us now. This is common at beginning of a new bishop’s ministry. For the sake of continuity, I waited a time to do so. I would like to take a moment now to recognize the four former Archdeacons whose time of service ended this year: The Rev. Canons Howard Williams, Bernard Young, and Mary Garde and The Very Rev. Theodore Bean, for their years of faithful and dedicated service to the diocese and the clergy and people of their Archdeaconries. (Appropriate recognition).

As many of you are aware the job description of the Archdeacons has changed in this transition. Archdeacons Carver Israel, Juan Quevedo-Bosch, Brenda Overfield and Hickman Alexandre have accepted my invitation to become bishop's vicars for mission. This dramatic shift in emphasis in their work primarily removes all administrative responsibilities and in turn creates a rich space for the development of mission strategies on the local level. To further aid the effort of local mission support I have begun and will continue to assign our Deacons to deaneries rather than individual parishes. Primary to the deacons’ role of bridging the church and world, the deacons will become increasingly strategic in the discernment of deanery-wide mission.

The clergy of each deanery are to meet on a monthly basis with their dean for clericus meetings, and the lay leadership in each deanery are to meet on a quarterly basis with the clergy and dean in a deanery meeting. The Archdeacons will participate in a way that shares information and resources. They will coordinate local cooperation on all levels of ministry, and share these plans and needs with me and the staff of the diocese insuring that we truly are one diocese with one mission to God's people.

Our one diocese exists also not in a silo but in a living relationship with the rest of the church. One year ago we formalized our Companion Diocese Relationships with the Diocese of Ecuador Central and the Diocese of Torit in South Sudan. A great deal has taken place since we welcomed Bishop Luis Fernando Ruiz and his wife Tania, and Bishop Bernard Oringa Balmoi and his wife "Mama Suzy". Bishop Luis and Tania have had a baby girl, Luisa, who met her Aunt Jeanne and Uncle Larry this September during the House of Bishop's meetings in Quito. Unfortunately that is the only happy news coming from Ecuador Central. Due to continued internal strife - Bishop Luis has resigned as diocesan bishop, as well as the entire Standing Committee. He and his family have moved back to Colombia for the time being while he awaits the opportunity to serve as an assisting Bishop in another diocese. Our Companion relationship there is now officially "on hold" until the future of the diocese is determined.

Bishop Bernard and Mama Suzy kept in close contact with us throughout the referendum process in South Sudan and we have been able to celebrate and prayerfully anticipate all that this newly formed country will experience. To that end I have been very grateful to Dean David Lowry, who apparently has so much extra time on his hands (given the four hours sleep he gets each night), for providing us a possible way to fully embrace our mission focus in this relationship. Fr. Lowry has been working on behalf of the diocese in formulating a support system for direct assistance to the Diocese of Torit that will result in significant development of infrastructure to support Bishop Bernard, the people of his diocese, and the entire region. We will hear more about these details before the end of convention.

You will note also that the 2012 Ministry Plan has a designated line item for Episcopal Assistance. I would not like anyone to get the wrong idea: I have not decided to give up the ancient model and custom of one bishop, one diocese. And no one should begin to imagine the call for the election of a bishop-suffragan. The inclusion of this line item is recognition by Diocesan Council and me, that to provide faithful and attentive episcopal ministry in a diocese where over 168 languages are spoken may take more than just one bishop who can get by with conversational Italian. My hope is that during key moments in our developing mission, I can seek out the quality help we will need to care for the people of our congregations and allow myself some needed respite during the year.

There is much more - tangible and intangible - that we will discuss these next two days together. I remind you that in all that we say and do, in all our planning and voting - the goal never really changes. We don't need mission statements and vision statements and the tools of the corporate world. We need the heart and mind of Christ. To see Jesus in the face of our brothers and sisters and to allow ourselves to be so clothed in the Spirit, that reaching out our hands in love we might bring those who do not know Jesus to the knowledge and love of him; that all might come within the reach of his saving embrace.

The church possesses very few words passed on from the saint of this day, Martin of Tours, with whom I began these words of mine. His instinct was to share what he had where he saw need: giving his cloak to the poor man who stood before him. One phrase that is attributed to Martin expresses that same spirit. He said, “Lord, if your people need me, I will not refuse the work. Your will be done.”

That’s our mission too. Whatever cloak we carry, we have it for the sake of others, for the sharing. And we in this Dominion in the Sea affirm Martin’s prayer as our own: ‘Lord, if your people need us, we will not refuse the work. We will accept the mission. Your will be done!’

Amen.

The Right Reverend Lawrence C. Provenzano
Bishop of Long Island
November 11, 2011