The Right Reverend John Bryson Chane
Bishop of Washington

112th Convention Address
The Right Reverend John Bryson Chane D.D.

Delegates and visitors, diocesan staff and guests from our diocesan partnership with the Anglican Province of Southern Africa represented by the Diocese of the Highveld, greetings and God's blessing to all of you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Would you join me now in prayer?

O most gracious and merciful God, in the beginning you created everything that your children were able to know through the experience of the senses. And yet in time, it became clear to you that our senses alone could not contain the true, incarnate mystery of your love for all creation.

Following the story of the first Adam, you extended humankind's ability to reach beyond the Garden to experience the sixth sense of knowing the presence of the new Adam in our midst. And it was through this sixth sense of holy mystery that Jesus came to us so that your children could know you in all of your fullness; a fullness that transcended what we had been taught by our earthly masters; and an earthly knowledge limited by the primary ethers of the world.

You gave to us Noah, Moses, Abraham and Sarah, Hagar; Isaac and Ishmael, Rachael and the bountiful discourse of the prophets. In the fullness of time you brought us to know Elizabeth, Mary the mother of Jesus, “the one crying in the wilderness,” Peter, James and John and the other disciples, including Judas. Following the betrayal of your son by a world gone mad, your children were exposed to his joyous resurrection. And then in your good time you sent to all who would listen to the eternal words of your son your faithful servant and missionary, Paul. It was Paul, who through his conversion found his earthly senses stripped. Through his subsequent wanderings beyond his earthly senses, Christ brought him to a new conversion of light and life.

Paul, a convert like each of us, tried to share his conversion in ways that made practical sense to those still imprisoned by the world. Paul, through the power of your son escaped the gravity pull of earthly thinking, the selfishness of “me” and “mine” and spoke to your children in a new language of “us” and “ours.” Paul, as your servant, redefined community, articulated respect for diversity within the church, espoused mutual responsibility and preached radical hospitality.

O God, you filled Paul with such a passionate vision for the church as it could be; a new way of living and being in ecclesia , that we are right now gathered as your church in the Diocese of Washington still trying to break the chains of our own parochialism; a parochialism that still impairs the nourishment and growth of the whole Body of Christ.

Help us we pray to once again reclaim the truth that our identity as Christians is defined by living into community where each of our congregations is an integral part of all our congregations. Help us to live into the words of your servant Paul who said; “Indeed the body does not consist of one member but of many. But as it is, God arranged the members of the body, each one of them as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is there are many members, yet one body. The members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.”

May our journey begun this day be a journey where we understand that in order to become a mission-centered diocese, we must care for and support the work of each of our parishes and that such work must come from each of us and the integration of our parishes, one to another. No man is an island and no one parish by itself is a diocese. For the model of a diocese is one of mutuality and integration, not of individuality and segregation.

O God help us now to grow more fully into this understanding so that we can continue to pursue the building up your kingdom through our work as the many congregations that make up the one Body of Christ in this great diocese. Amen.

For the last four years, we have been building a foundation for mission and ministry in the diocese that is now bearing fruit. With the direction of the “Three Years Out” study of the diocese that many of you participated in, the Diocesan Council and I have, with the input of regional clergy and laity, established a Statement of Vision for who we are as a diocese; “A people of God, living out our faith together.”

As we move from vision to mission we have said that; “The mission of the Diocese of Washington is to build up the Body of Christ by equipping the people of the diocese, individually and together, to carry out their ministries in the world.”

In practical terms, macro goals have been established to carry out this mission. The task now before us is to do the hard work that must be done to live into these macro goals. Our goals are clear in the building up of a new diocese; “to build healthy, interdependent mission-driven congregations;” “to develop plentiful resources, both human and financial to accomplish this goal;” and “to sound a prophetic voice in the community, the nation and the world.”

Much work has already been done by so many of you to begin to live into various parts of the vision, mission and goals of the diocese. Beyond the success of our ever expanding South African partnership, our continuing work in Honduras and our role as an important participant in the life of the nation's capital and the broader Episcopal Church we can celebrate a myriad of other mission initiatives that have made a great difference in the lives of literally thousands of people.

Our ever-expanding and always creative work in youth and young adult ministries has been generously supported by many of our parishes, clergy and laity. After searching around the larger Episcopal Church for other models of this work, it can truthfully be said that we have one of the fastest growing and most creative youth ministry programs in the country. Our outreach to young adults, initiated by several of our congregations and supported by diocesan staff, promises to be the next level of missionary outreach to a huge population of persons who up until recently have been mostly forgotten by the church.

Diocesan staff outreach and support of our 20 Episcopal/parish affiliated schools, their heads and chaplains, has quickly developed as a new and exciting ministry that continues to support the very important work of our schools to well over 5,500 young people and their families whose lives are touched each day by the Episcopal Church's presence.

Full time college chaplaincies at the University of Maryland and Howard University , a part-time chaplain at Bowie State University and congregation-based ministries near Georgetown University and George Washington University are growing new mission and ministry initiatives to Episcopal and non-Episcopal students alike. With possible future financial grants to the diocese, college work may expand to community colleges. With the partnerships developed between diocesan staff, our excellent Episcopal school chaplains and motivated parishes, this broad college work has emerged as some of the best and most comprehensive in the Episcopal Church today. Recently, thanks to the mission initiative of Saint Andrew's, College Park, and the hard work of our chaplaincy at the University of Maryland, the new Episcopal/Anglican Student Residential Center was opened on the grounds of Saint Andrew's, next to the university campus. It is one of only a handful of such Episcopal centers in the United States today.

The development of the Bishop John T. Walker School for Boys, which will eventually be situated across the river in Southeast Washington , continues to move forward with great speed and with the support and blessing of the Diocesan Council. Funding has already been secured to hire a project director. The work in progress is a significant response by the diocese to those young people of color who continue to be marginalized by the public education system in the District of Columbia .

Latino ministry continues to expand and grow under the leadership of our full time Latino Missioner. And the congregations in the diocese where this ministry is expanding now numbers six and could expand to more if additional funding could be found. To support this mission to Spanish speakers, I have said to all those in our ordination process that ordination to the priesthood will be contingent upon their ability to have a working knowledge of conversational Spanish and the ability to celebrate the sacraments of the church in the native tongue of those from the Spanish speaking world; a number that now approaches 600,000 souls within the broad geography of the Diocese of Washington and Northern Virginia.

Following the work of last year's convention, a committee was formed by the Diocesan Council to begin an extensive study of the heritage and history of the African American experience in the Diocese of Washington. This work is well under way. Oral history will be gathered by taping stories and interviews. Archival research is ongoing and the Rev. Carlton Hayden has been tasked with the writing of this work in such a way that it can be used by congregations of the diocese as an educational tool for the study of both racism and the significant role played by the black church in the diocese. To my knowledge, we are one of only a few dioceses in the Episcopal Church that has taken to heart the national church conversation about “telling the story” of our African American heritage and its contributions to the life of the church. Such work by our diocese can be a useful model for the rest of the Episcopal Church as we and the larger Episcopal Church struggle with the past evils of slavery, segregation and now the stain of racism.

The Racial Reconciliation Task Force formed by the Diocesan Council a few years ago will be meeting with the council in March to discuss plans to expand anti-racism training within the diocese. I will be asking the council to make mandatory the requirement that any person elected by the convention or appointed by the bishop to serve on any committee, task force or commission will be required to attend anti-racism training. Likewise all members serving on Church House staff will be required to participate in such training provided by the Racial Reconciliation Task Force. This action is in keeping with the policies of the national church and is, in my opinion, overdue as a requirement in the Diocese of Washington. I trust that I can count on the support of this convention to move this requirement forward.

For the first time in 40 years, ground breaking took place in early December to build a new church for a parish established by this convention several years ago. St. Nicholas, Darnestown promises to be a beacon of mission and outreach to the rapidly expanding population of the Germantown , Darnestown communities of northern Montgomery County .

With the Diocesan Council's blessing, the new Urban Ministry Committee of the diocese has been working hard to raise up and address the many complex issues that define the nucleus of urban ministry that now extend beyond just the core of the District of Columbia .

As the cathedral, under the strong leadership of Dean Samuel T. Lloyd, continues to move forward in redefining its mission and ministry I am pleased to say that such work promises significant partnerships with the Diocese of Washington. Some of these partnerships are already under way, especially in the area of global work and Katrina relief efforts. This new cathedral/diocesan relationship has been one that I have been hoping and praying for ever since I became bishop. I am truly grateful for the dean's leadership and the leadership of his staff, and fully support his vision for the future development of the cathedral's far-reaching mission and ministry to the diocese, the city, the nation and the global community.

This year's convention will focus a great deal of its time and energy on supporting the growth of our congregations, as Dr. Diana Butler Bass helps us envision the mission-driven church. We are becoming a diocese where the support for congregational life and growth are no longer “drawing board” conversation pieces. Our work with regional conveners and the work of the fall regional gatherings have provided us with the stated desire to engage more fully in increased networking among parishes and regions, a desire for more administrative and church growth training, more workshops on stewardship development and marketing and a desire to partner with agencies such as the Alban Institute to help grow healthier congregations.

One of the inhibiting factors that continues to plague our ability as a diocese to engage in this creative work of growing healthier and more dynamic congregations is our inability to increase the financial resources necessary for such an initiative. We live in a “Catch 22” scenario where our clergy and congregations want and need Church House to provide the human resources necessary to increase stewardship development and congregational growth, yet the dollars are not there at this point to be as responsive as I would like us to be. With the decision of the Diocesan Council to slowly move away from using Soper Trust revenues as a means of bridging the shortfall between what parishes pledge and what parishes need in terms of congregational support, hard decisions have had to be made in Church House staffing.

Several months ago, the decision was made to conclude the position of Canon for Congregational Development. This decision was a painful one and was based on finances and our realization that expectations about the nature of supporting “congregational development” were so varied as to defy the prospect of successfully defining the work of this position. I concluded that it was just not helpful to fund a senior level staff position until such time as there exists greater clarity about the positions underlying rationale and priorities and until such time as additional financial resources surface to fund this position.

A large portion of the budgetary savings from concluding this position has been earmarked in the 2007 operating budget of the diocese as a financial reserve to support congregational life, growth and advancement. In the area of stewardship, I have asked Jamie Samilio , well know to many of you as the person with principle responsibility for developing and executing the annual stewardship workshop, to add at least two additional programs around the diocese during the upcoming year. These additional gatherings will provide both the opportunity for our congregations to share ideas, as well as to learn from people from within and outside the diocese who have recognized expertise in the area of stewardship growth and development.

Finally, I am pleased to announce the decision to promote Jim Naughton , who has served well in the position of Director of Communications, to a position of broader scope; Canon for Communications and Advancement. This new position and title recognize Jim's outstanding performance as well as his dedication and interest in the areas of parish growth, outreach and marketing. In this new position, Jim will continue to exercise broad oversight with regard to the communication efforts of the diocese, although Lucy Chumbley will assume a higher degree of responsibility as editor of the Washington Window . Amy Elliott likewise will assume a greater degree of responsibility as our diocesan webmaster. One area of Jim's new portfolio will be the responsibility for assisting with the development and strategic priorities of diocesan development and fund raising.

The other expanded aspect of Jim's work will build on his passion for issues of evangelism and church growth. I have asked him to look for additional topics that might lend themselves to dialogical opportunities such as the Church Marketing 101 series he convened. More broadly, I have asked Jim to dedicate a significant amount of time making and nurturing relationships with persons and organizations around the nation and then bring their ideas and methods of church growth and marketing to our diocese. My hope is that with Jim's assistance in this area we can have an expanded and enriching diocesan-wide discussion on these important matters before the 113 th Convention of the diocese.

As a response to the “Three Years Out” study, the Diocesan Council created the Congregational Development Committee, which has been charged with creating strategies for supporting congregational life and growing healthier congregations. This committee's most recent report to the Diocesan Council was quite comprehensive and promises a solid new direction for supporting the life, health and growth of all our congregations, both large and small. Their work will in many ways find a symbiotic relationship with the work entrusted to Jim Naughton

Likewise, in order to address the major crisis of affordable housing within the District of Columbia and throughout the rest of the diocese, by action of the Diocesan Council, the Committee on Affordable Housing and Land Use was formed. It will be working throughout the rest of this year to present to the council and then the 2008 convention a full study addressing these issues with recommendations as to how the diocese and its parishes might be more effective in responding to the crisis of affordable housing. Attention will also be paid to ways in which the diocese and its parishes might make more effective use of their existing property for possible partnership in developing low and affordable housing starts with other nonprofits.

As the diocese reevaluates its current assets that have been held in such funds as the Philips Fund and the Closed Parish Fund, and as additional income is realized from the sale of property within the diocese, the council recently adopted a policy under which such funds would be held separate from operating funds and expended only for specified purposes such as addressing the current situation of economically imperiled congregations. Imperiled congregations are defined as those possessing a combination of diminishing congregational size, inadequate operating funds and the lack of cash reserves. Also, congregations that present special growth opportunities should have the attention of the diocese to support their efforts in further growth in mission outreach and membership growth.

One of the blessings of this year's convention is that we will be spending less time debating resolution and more time being exposed to the issues of how best to move forward and how all of us, not just diocesan staff, can begin to build stronger congregations, engaged in mission and ministry. It is my hope that this convention might support an additional gathering of the diocesan family sometime near mid-year. We could spend the entire day working with leaders from around the country who would bring to our diocesan table their vision and expertise on such issues as church growth and development, new mission initiatives, clergy wellness, leadership training, conflict management skills for clergy and parish leaders, stewardship development skills and additional financial growth opportunities for all of our parishes. Such a gathering would take place away from the cathedral at a facility large enough to accommodate leaders from all our parishes. I would like to know whether you believe this mid-year mission-focused gathering of the diocese would be helpful to your parishes. If there is a consensus to move forward, then I will ask the council to appoint a planning team to gather and explore setting a date, procuring a location, developing an agenda and acquiring the appropriate human and financial resources necessary to make such an event happen. It is important that such a gathering helps us all discover a common language for defining what it means for congregations and the diocese to be mission driven during these times of great challenge and change within the life of our diocese and the Episcopal Church.

As I reflect on the search for a common language for doing the mission of Jesus Christ as individual congregations, as regions and as a diocese, I share the following thoughts with you. First there must be a blueprint for such work to be successful. I believe we already have a portion of that blueprint as it is found within the vision, mission and goals statement of the diocese. And I believe that a significant portion of the blueprint is also found within the core teachings of Jesus Christ and his clear admonition to the disciples to go forth into the world to minister in his name. This blueprint is refined by the profound theological reflections of the Apostle Paul. His understanding and teaching of the church as the unified body of Christ, with each community and individual possessing unique and special gifts that must be merged together into one unified body, is a teaching that the institutional church of the 21 st Century seems to have lost. It must be reclaimed!

It is no secret that the work of engaging in common mission requires among other things great leadership. Such leadership must initially come from the clergy in charge of congregations and the laity who have been charged with the responsibility of being the core leaders of the mission and ministry of a parish's common life. If the leadership is stressed, tired and unenthusiastic or compromised by conflict or apathy then there can be little hope for aggressively carrying out the mission of Jesus Christ within the congregation and beyond into the surrounding local community and world.

As clergy and lay leaders serving a parish, we must have a passion for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and an enthusiasm for living it and teaching it. The leaders of any congregation and its members must be passionately engaged in giving the message of the Gospel away, and living it well in their own personal lives so that others are not only witnesses to it but are confirmed in their faith by leaders speaking unashamedly about their own faith journey in Jesus Christ. To be Christ in the world requires great energy, a willingness to take risks, a need to possess genuine humility and an acknowledgment that all we have and all that we are, are gifts given by God and experienced through the Holy Spirit.

As clergy we must above all else love the people we have been called and elected to serve, even those who seem unlovable. We must truly love our vocation and community life as lived out daily in the parish with all the challenges that such community living presents. If we love our people, see our ministry as vocation and not a job or profession and are willing to work hard at building up the Body of Christ, then we can be true agents of mission, and will be leaders that others are willing to follow.

Congregations must become more aware that no matter how great their individual resources of time, talent and treasure might be in comparison with other congregations, they must have a connection with all the congregations of the diocese. “For those who have been given much, much will be asked.” Congregationalism is not in the Anglican/Episcopal dictionary. Silos belong on farms, not in dioceses. All congregations in a diocese are connected one to another and all have a responsibility to one another, if we are to live well into the model of Christ's teaching. A diocese exists as shared residences, not as gated communities.

In closing, I realize that this address has not been one of the sexiest I have ever delivered, but what it attempts to do is to give each of you as delegates to the 112th Convention a sense of where we've been, where we are now and where I hope we can be in the coming year. As always I extend my deep appreciation and thanks to the dedicated staff at Church House and for their work that has extended itself above and beyond the call of duty. To my compatriot in the journey, Canon Paul Cooney, I say once again thank you for your leadership, your friendship and your willingness to travel the extra mile with me and all the brothers and sisters who make up this wonderful diocese. I also want to thank the hundreds of people both clergy and lay who give so unselfishly of their time to grow the greater good and ministry of this diocese. Without your willingness to serve and give of your time, none of the work of the church and diocese would be possible. You have responded faithfully and unselfishly to the Prayer Book admonition to take your place in the councils of the church.

It continues to be an honor and a great privilege to serve as your bishop during these times of great challenge and opportunity. Am I still having fun? You bet I am!

The Right Reverend John Bryson Chane D.D.
Bishop of Washington
The 112 Convention of the Diocese of Washington, January 27, 2007