Diocesan Convention

The in-person portion of our Diocesan Convention is this Friday and Saturday. If you are not joining us in person, you can watch the live stream of Bishop Curry’s keynote address on Friday at about 5:15pm on our Youtube channel. The Eucharist will be live-streamed at 10:00am on Saturday morning. Below are some of the reflections about evangelism and the Power of the Spirit that I shared with the online convention last Saturday: 

Next weekend most of us will gather in person to better equip ourselves for evangelism in two ways: one is skill-building. We’re offering great workshops by leaders from within our diocese and outside of it on ways in which your congregation and you personally can better witness to the power of the Spirit so that you have the skills to speak about your faith in words and actions, online, face to face, at work, and when someone walks through the door of your church.

And the other parallel way is by inspiration. Bishop Curry is coming here to preach the Way of Love to us and fire us up with the Holy Spirit.

I know most of us are tired and stretched thin. I know people are tired of arguments about masks, about what topics the church should talk about, and how the church should discuss those topics. Tired of feeling unappreciated. Tired of living into the new hybrid reality of congregational and church life.

When I’m tired like that, I need a reminder of why I follow Jesus. I need that palpable, head-to-toe, soul-and-body inspiration that I can get from a good sermon, a prayerful gathering, a beautiful song.  A reminder that rejoicing in God does not necessarily mean that I am happy or that life is easy, but that I possess the sure and certain hope in God’s abiding love for me and you.

Skills for evangelism are important, but they aren’t enough on their own. Inspiration is important—but it is often not enough on its own. We have all been to some great lecture or sermon and felt inspired and then when we left the event couldn’t actually remember how to apply it in our lives.

I believe that there are many future Christians and specifically future Episcopalians in the state of Arizona. But most of them will not just accidentally wander in and join our churches. Jesus went out and said follow me to the people he met. He didn’t just sit in the synagogue and wait for people to gather around him.

The church is the place where people can bring their questions, their traumas, their grief over all that has transpired over the last 18 months—and beyond—and find a place to be with other people with questions… and other people with wisdom and other people to love them. People who can rejoice when they rejoice; weep when they weep; and who will share with them in the journey of faith in Jesus.

—The Rt Rev Jennifer A Reddall