Provincial Synod Address

Anglican Province of America
Presiding Bishop's Provincial Synod Address - 2011

Welcome and a brief history

Welcome to the 13th anniversary of our Province and our 7th triennial Synod of the Anglican Province of America. To all Bishops, clergy, lay deputies, alternates, observers and special guests, we greet you in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Our last Provincial Synod was held at Our Lady of the Snows in Belleville, Illinois in 2008. There were a very different set of circumstances surrounding the Synod at that time. Without getting into the history, it is important to say that since then the Diocese of the West (DOW) and the Diocese of Mid-America (DMA) have regrouped with strong leadership in place and each is doing well. Our thoughts and prayers go out to our Bishop of the Diocese of Mid-America, the Most Rev. Larry Shaver as he is recovering from his accident. We are pleased to have with us our Global Partners from the Anglican Church of the Philippines, Traditional, the Most Rev. Frederick L. Belmonte and his wife, Eros, attending their first APA Synod together. (Please Stand) Bishop Belmonte will be our preacher at the Evensong this evening.

I want to recognize our special invited guests from the Anglican Church in America (ACA), beginning with the Rt. Rev. Brian Marsh, President of the ACA House of Bishops and Bishop of the Diocese of the Northeast; the Rt. Rev. Steven Strawn, Diocese of Missouri Valley; the Rt. Rev. Daren Williams and his wife Joy, Diocese of the West and Vicar General Fr. John Vaughan, Diocese of the Eastern United States. Welcome to each of you. (Please stand) Please give them a warm APA welcome. Bishop Marsh and his Diocese have very graciously looked after our Church of the Holy Spirit, Pepperell, MA since the retirement of Fr. Irving Cook. We are most grateful. Bishop Marsh will be our guest speaker at the Banquet this evening.

Thank you to our Synod Committee from St. Barnabas' Church our sponsoring parish. The Province as well as the DEUS and the DMA all join in thanking the Parish of St. Barnabas and their rector, Bishop Chad Jones and his Synod Committee chaired by Mr. Rette Ledbetter and Mr. Al Duncan. I would like Rette and Al and any Committee members here to please stand and be recognized. Our sponsoring parish of St. Barnabas has lived up to its namesake; they have truly been "Sons of Encouragement."

I want to welcome all new clergy who have been ordained or who have joined the Province since our last Synod in July 2008. I would like to ask each of them to stand and be recognized at this time.

I want to remember those of our Province who has passed to the larger life since our last Synod: the Most Rev. Herbert Groce, the Rev. Canon Rufus Kite-Powell, and the Very Rev. Douglas King.

State of the Province

It is my privilege and honor as your Presiding Bishop to address you concerning the State of the Province and to issue a challenge on this occasion as we move into our new Triennium. We will have challenges to face as we always do in the next three years. I will address them as I issue my charge.

I am pleased to say that although our Diocese of the West which held its Synod in May 2011 is diminished in numbers due to the departure of their bishop and others in 2008, they have organized themselves and elected a Standing Committee. They now have a budget and a commitment from their parishes to meet it. St. Michael's Church in Wilsonville, Oregon and their rector, Fr. Robert Hawkins, organized and executed a flawless Synod which I attended in May 2011 and I congratulate them. I would like to give special recognition to Fr. Walt Crites, rector of All Saints' Anglican Church, Prescott, Arizona for his leadership in the DOW and I have appointed him Vicar General of the DOW.

The Diocese of Mid-America held their first official Synod last summer, presided over by Bishop Shaver. Church of the Holy Nativity, Lima, Ohio and rector Fr. Richard Palmer did a masterful job of coordinating the Synod and they too elected a Standing Committee and initiated a budget. In both the DOW and the DMA, we look forward to a close and friendly relationship with our brothers and sisters in the ACA dioceses in the same areas of the country.

The DEUS continues to grow and we are most grateful for the new missions that have been established and for the parishes that have become part of the Diocese. Since our last Provincial Synod, Bishop Chad Jones was elected and consecrated a bishop and is serving as the Suffragan Bishop of the Diocese as well as rector of St. Barnabas' Church, Atlanta, Georgia. Bishop Peter Brewer, who served as Suffragan for a number of years in the DEUS, has retired as Suffragan Bishop but is busier now than ever. He is serving as priest-in-charge of two churches and is in the process of completing the new building at All Soul's Church in Asheboro, North Carolina.

There is a renewed sense of energy in many of the parishes of the APA and as I mentioned in my address to the DEUS, this renewal has spread to others. Yet, there has long been a concern and well it should, that we are not attracting as many younger people as we would like to our Traditional Anglican churches. The Church in the western world in general has been described as becoming more and more gray-haired, a problem faced by all churches in the Anglican continuum as well. One of our former members in California recently e-mailed me asking about finding a continuing Anglican church to attend in the Oakland, California area. I suggested a specific traditional Anglican Church in that area. I later asked him about the experience. He said the Bishop was there, and described him as very nice, very old and kind of scary! There were a total of 10 people in church. Does that description reflect any of our APA churches? The part about being nice and old is one thing, but being a scary experience is not good.

We live in a different world than when many of our parishes began. The world we now live in includes sound bites, streaming live videos, instant messaging and "tweets", and all sorts of smart phones and iPads that allow incoming information from around the world to be literally at your fingertips. Capturing younger people's attention is difficult and calls for new approaches. Fr. Zwingert's daughter Katie, a college student, did a presentation at the DEUS Standing Committee on the use of social networking (Facebook) to extend the message of our church to a whole new audience of mostly younger people. Fr. Crites successfully offers morning devotion on his church's Facebook page. We all must find new and innovating ways of communicating the Gospel in our world. In the worship itself, studies show that the sermons likely to capture attention are clear, concise and relational. We do not need to compromise the Gospel; it has its own appeal if carefully presented.

Now, I am going to pick on both the clergy and the laity and perhaps offend some in both groups. As clergy, do we have more interest in millinery and church accouterment than in how we are communicating the Faith to our people in understandable terms? Do our sermons become lazy from lack of preparation or on the other hand become so esoteric that most of the congregation wonders off in a fog of daydreaming? Do we spend an inordinate amount of time on the internet reading and writing commentary neglecting parish duties such as visiting the sick and shut-ins and visitors? Do we as clergy tend to think that the most important work of the church is at some high level of discussion among bishops who travel to far away exotic places dealing with thousands of people? Clergy, lest we forget, the most important work of the church is and always will be at ground zero: the parish and their respective communities. With no well functioning parishes, there is no well functioning diocese, province, and so on. Do we, as clergy, purposefully develop laity to become disciples? To the laity, do you complain that the congregation is not growing the way you think it should, implying it is the parish priest's fault? As laity, do you ever consider inviting someone to church for a dinner or some other non-threatening activity? Do we think of the priest as the hired hand at the church? When things go wrong at the church, is it the parish priest's fault, after all he's the one who gets paid? It reminds me of the Poet Laureate John Betjeman ...when things go wrong its rather tame to find you are yourself to blame, it gets the trouble over quicker to go and blame things on the Vicar.... Let me be absolutely serious, it is so important that both clergy and laity take stock of themselves and consider what and how our particular ministries can reach out to our increasingly deteriorating country and world. I am convinced the church and the Gospel is the best and only hope that can effect positive change in society.

Finally on this subject, we need to break the mold in our presentation and be a church that is warm, welcoming and living in the 21st century. Part of this will be parishes that are healthy in their outlook to the future. The church whose members get to know each other on more than just a Sunday worship basis is going to communicate a compelling atmosphere to newcomers. Getting involved with each other in projects, both inside and outside the church, builds church community and results in taking on an attractive parish personality to which others would like to be a part. Informal study groups based upon Scripture help to inspire people to know their role in the church as the body of Christ, reaching out to bring others into the welcoming fold, yes, becoming disciples.

Our Statistics for the Province since summer 2008 are as follows:

Total APA Membership: 4,628
Parishes and Missions: 60
Bishops: 8
Priests: 94
Deacons: 14
Total Clergy: 116
Deaconess: 5

Our Global Partnerships

I want to make special mention regarding our Vicar General, Johann Vanderbijl who is presently on a medical leave of absence, for the work he has done with our Global Partners in India, the Philippines and Haiti. Please pray for Fr. Johann's quick and complete recovery. Mary and I will be visiting his parish of St. George the Martyr upon leaving here on Sunday July 17th and visiting Fr. Johann and Louise that afternoon. Our Mission Team was able to visit India twice since last Provincial Synod and Fr. Johann visited an additional time to coordinate our work there with Operation Mobilization (OM). Fr. David Haines who is part of the mission team and assistant to Fr. Johann will provide information on OM in his report later.

I will begin in reverse order of our visits starting with the Philippines. Archbishop Belmonte works with marginalized people in the outlying villages where he has clergy and lay support. Most of these people were raised Roman Catholic but for the most part are unchurched as the Roman Catholic Church works primarily in the cities and towns. The outlying areas of farm workers are where the Bishop and his few helpers go to carry the Gospel and the Love of Christ. His missions are spread from one end of the Philippines to the other and they are great distances apart to travel. While there the Mission Team traveled with the Bishop to visit most of the small village missions traveling by bus and air. He is in desperate need of clergy help and a permanent church facility. He relies upon faithful lay people, but he needs clergy. Bp Belmonte has set up a temporary house of studies in Solano near where he lives to bring men to study and work for two and three weeks at a time. Some of you were able to hear about his ministry at the breakout sessions this morning.

I want to make special mention of the project initiated by Fr. Johann following our last visit to South India last November 2010. As most of you are aware, the way to change the bondage of the Hindu caste system which imprisons 140,000,000+ Dalit people (Dalit means literally "broken people" or untouchables), which is more than the population of the entire U.S., is through the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the provision of an education. Without getting into more detail which I will defer to Fr. David, I will say this: we took on a project working with OM to raise the funds to build and equip a school for the children in the 14 villages where we have churches in the Kadapa District of Andhra Pradesh. The project meant we would need to raise $100,000 to buy land, build the building and provide the instructors for the first year. It seemed an impossible task, but Fr. Johann was persistent and we are pleased to report the project met and exceeded the goal. It is without a doubt the most money we of the APA have ever raised for a project and we give praise to God for his abundant blessing. As in all projects this is only the beginning and we have so much to do to help support the work begun in India, the Philippines and Haiti. A trip to Haiti is scheduled for later this year to assess their work in this incredibly poor country.

Ecumenism

With all of our seemingly hit and miss attempts concerning inter-Anglican relationships, I would like to remind you of some of the very positive strides we have made over the most recent years. Two smaller bodies were integrated into the APA during the past 8 years, the Anglican Rite Synod of the Americas with Bishop Larry Shaver and the Anglican Independent Communion with Bishop Robert Loiselle. We are most thankful for these bishops and the clergy and congregations they have brought with them. Our relation with the Reformed Episcopal Church has been a warm and friendly relationship and I will be reporting on this later in this Synod.

One of the desires that most of us have shared over the years is bringing the dispersed "continuing Anglican churches" into a functioning communion relationship with each other. As I mentioned, we have had some limited success in doing this. The obvious next step is our relationship with those of the Anglican Church in America (ACA). They have experienced upheaval in their ranks over the recent offer from the Roman Catholic Church to provide a way into that Body. Some of the ACA have opted to take this road, many others have not. The present leadership of the ACA is all new from the days when we were a part of that Body and I am pleased to report that the three diocesan bishops are here today in addition to the Vicar General of their Diocese of the East and all are supportive of the Agreement. We do not know what the final result will be as we begin this journey, but we do believe that they and we have expressed a strong desire to approve the Intercommunion Agreement. A copy of the Agreement is in the deputy's packet. I will present it later in this Synod for your approval. The ACA National Synod will be meeting in September 2011 to consider the same document. I pray that we will move forward in approving this Agreement before we leave this Synod.

I want to thank all of you for taking the time and effort to be here for this important time in the life of the Anglican Province of America. The Lord has blessed us over the past years since we last met and increased our ministries. We have much to do in this brief time together. We will of necessity move with dispatch to accomplish our ambitious agenda. We do not have time for long speeches (accept for mine) or delays so please return quickly after breaks. I look forward to a productive and positive time together.

We have a wonderful banquet prepared for tonight with excellent food and we look forward to Bishop Brian Marsh being our Banquet speaker. God bless you for being here at this triennial Synod.

Respectfully submitted,
+Walter

A Microsoft Word version of Presiding Bishop Grundorf's Provincial Synod addres may be downloaded here.