I am
grateful to all of you simply for being here.
You presence
says there are Nevadans
who want to be a diocese, want it
enough to drive some miles
to make a diocese
happen.
Usually, the
farther the Convention is from a population center,
the fewer people we have.
But this
year, registration has been significantly up.
So thank you
for being here.
Thank you
St. Barnabas for hosting us.
This has
been one of the most effective convention planning committees
we’ve had.
Thank you also
to our Convention Coordinator, Karen Lantz-Feith,
and to our office staff, Michelle
McCarragher and Wendy O’Brien,
who have worked tirelessly to make
this possible.
Several
things happened this year that deserve our attention.
For quite
awhile, we have felt as if we had a relationship
with the Anglican Church of Kenya.
we were doing there.
But those
presentations did not actually show our diocese
or our parishes doing anything for
Kenya.
Several of our members were involved
in four non-profit corporations that work in Kenya.
But as a
church we didn’t do much.
We sometimes
sent part of the collection from Convention
to prevent malaria.
I sent discretionary
fund money for seed during a drought.
But there
wasn‘t a lot in the way of real support
by the Church here for the work of
the Church there.
This year
was different.
A deacon at
St. Christopher’s was doing advocacy work
for the Electrify Africa Bill;
and she came across the alternative
energy strategy of solar lanterns.
For about
$10, we could get a solar lantern
that would give light to a household
for a long time.
So we put
out a request to parishes for donations,
hoping to get a few hundred dollars
and send 20 or 30 lanterns.
To my
amazement, the parishes sent us over $14,000,
enabling us to equip the Church
there
to make a life changing difference
for rural villages
of the Ukamba Region of
Kenya.
Some people who received these solar lanterns
now give the money they used to spend on paraffin
to the Church.
One man who didn't go to Church was so touched
by our gift of a solar lantern than he has joined the Anglican Church.
Second
story.
A few years
ago, we started St. Hugh’s Outreach Center in Silver Springs.
We didn’t
start it on a shoestring. We started it on nothing.
It is an air
plant, depending on donations from the people of Silver Springs,
the very people we are ostensibly
there to help.
It is an unfunded,
small, intimate, but lovely human ministry.
One of the
donations St. Hugh’s receives locally is free rent
in
a ramshackle little building.
But this
year, we had to come up with $1,400 in back property taxes
in order to keep the building.
So I sent
out a request to the priests to invite their congregations to help.
Churches and
individual clergy all over the diocese
pitched in to help us keep our
building.
Trinity,
Reno single handedly raised more than enough
money to pay the taxes.
The other
gifts will go to help poor people get by in Silver Springs.
Third story.
Bob Green of St. Martin’s, Pahrump
serves on our diocesan property
team.
He was
helping St. Mark’s, Tonopah with getting a new roof,
bringing the electrical system up to
code,
and addressing a few other safety
issues.
In the
course of working with St. Mark’s,
Bob learned that they weren’t
receiving enough
in the collection plate to pay their
monthly expenses,
so the priest, Mother Joan
LaLiberte, was not just working for free;
she was paying church expenses out
of her own retirement check.
Bob took
this matter up with the vestry of St. Martin’s, Pahrump;
and our Church in Pahrump pledged
$100 per month
to our Church in Tonopah to support
operating expenses there.
Last story.
This has
been a bad year for us financially.
Income from
parishes, is way below budget,
which is simply because income in
the collection plate
is down in several of
our larger congregations.
So the
Standing Committee proposed a budget
more in line with this year’s income
instead of last year’s hopes.
That’s the
bad news.
But here’s
what happened next.
I recently got
a letter personally signed by each member of the Vestry
of All Saints, Las Vegas.
It said, “We
can pay more than you have predicted.”
We can pay
$5,000 more next year, so you need to revise the budget.
That still
leaves us with a deficit to make up.
Although the
$5,000 additional income is good news,
the best news is the generous spirit behind letter.
We have an
unusually high assessment on our parishes,
but we still have an unusually low
income.
With rare
exception, that’s because the parish income is low.
Of course I
wonder what that’s about.
Sometimes we
trace our problems to Nevada culture.
There is a
little truth in that.
As compared
to our neighboring states, we are pretty tight with our money.
Utah is the
most generous state in the nation and Idaho is right up there.
But
nationally Nevada actually ranks 41st in charitable giving,
which is better than I expected.
Our problem may
have more to do with our history.
We were a
missionary diocese for a long time.
That means
we lived off money sent to us from the Church
in the East until the 1970s.
Even after
that we got significant grant subsidies for a while.
It was
generous of our East Coast brothers and sisters.
But the
downside is we got the notion that it is better to receive
than to give.
We got a bit
dependent, doing more grant writing
than evangelism and stewardship.
Living off
the national dole won’t get us by today
and that may be a good thing.
Two stories
from abroad.
At Lambeth
conference I met Bishop Wannadag
of the Episcopal Church in the Philippines.
I asked if
they had a companion diocese.
He said, “We
don’t want one. We are ruggedly independent.”
I said,
“Then we are the companion for you
because we have nothing to give.”
That’s how
we became partners with the Diocese of Santiago.
The
Episcopal Church formed the Philippines
into a missionary district in 1901;
but the
Episcopal Church of the Philippines claimed independence in 1990.
They turned
down the American money and raised their own.
In the
Philippines today, churches sell food from their gardens,
they keep bees, they manufacture
herbal medicines.
Everyone who
comes to church brings something to give
– money, food, clothing, whatever they have.
Independence
isn’t a matter of nationalistic pride.
It’s that
they want their people to experience the full joy
of Christian faith.
Their
members are far more joyful, far more committed,
and far more passionate about faith
than we are.
That happens
when we trust God, let go of possessions,
and give our time, talent, and
treasure to God’s mission.
Second
story.
Recently, the
President of Taiwan spoke to our House of Bishops.
He thanked
America for 20 years of foreign aid
that helped them become an
industrialized nation.
But in 1965
that aid stopped,
and Taiwan set a goal to stop being
an importer of compassion
in order to become an exporter of
compassion.
Taiwan now
supports needy children in developing nations
and provides the very best disaster
relief services.
They have
come to the rescue in the Japan, in Haiti, and around the world.
The
Taiwanese have learned the joy of giving.
Sometimes
the clergy shortchange our people,
by not teaching financial faith,
gratitude, and generosity.
These are
really two challenges with one solution:
First, we need to fund the mission
of spreading the gospel
in a place that needs
grace worse than it needs water.
Second, we need to show our people
the freedom and joy
that come from living by
faith rather than fear,
from gratitude rather
than resentment,
to put a point on it: from giving to God’s mission.
The hard
thing about church in Nevada is the high percentage
of assessment on parish income,
which still produces a shoestring
austerity budget for the diocese.
If this is a
zero sum game, we are stuck in that forever.
We need to
reduce the percentage of the assessment.
There are
theoretically two ways that can happen.
Restructuring
of the Episcopal Church could reduce the amount
of money the diocese has to pay New
York
and we could then pass that savings
on to parishes.
over typical churchy power
struggles.
So I don’t
think we can count on the East Coast to help.
The other is
that we could grow stewardship in the parishes.
If total
parish income goes up, we can take the assessment
further down, which will help parishes even more.
Could that
happen in spite of our history of dependency
on mission support from other
dioceses?
Could we
learn to support ourselves
like our companion diocese in the
Philippines does?
In 2013,
Nevada had the largest representation of any diocese
at The Episcopal Network for
Stewardship conference in Salt Lake.
This year,
we sent 9 people the 2014 Conference in Atlanta,
and many more participated by live streaming
at All Saints, Las Vegas, St. Paul’s,
Sparks, and St. Peter’s, Carson City.
In 2014, we
had good participation at Stewardship workshops
in Sparks and Las Vegas.
We will
repeat that workshop in Las Vegas next year,
sharing costs with the Methodists.
We are learning about stewardship here in Ely
today.
Next year 5
of us will attend the Project Resource Conference in Denver
to learn how to improve giving in
our diocese.
All of this
points to a deep culture shift in our diocese.
Nevada is
growing up into mature faith.
Stewardship
is part and parcel of the larger project
of education that forms people as
disciples of Jesus.
In order for
congregations to fulfill their mission,
attract and retain people, and
demonstrate that they
are doing something worthy of the
people’s support,
they have to offer formation programs.
Churches
with Christian education and formation programs
are consistently better attended,
better funded,
and get along with each other better
than those who do not.
This year,
several of our congregations have either begun
new formation programs or expanded existing
ones.
St. Michael
& All Angels is now offering instruction
in basic Christian teachings using
the Animate series.
Grace in the
Desert has several groups learning basic discipleship
through the Pro-Claim series,
which was also used this year at
Holy Spirit, Bullhead City.
Trinity,
Reno teaches the Ignatian Exercises and has a book group,
currently studying Richard Rohr’s Great Themes of the Bible
series.
St. Paul’s,
Sparks also has a book group as well as a lectio divina Bible Study.
Christ
Church, Las Vegas has just started a new EfM group.
Other
parishes have programs as well.
These are
just a few examples of congregations engaging
the mission of forming disciples of Jesus in new ways.
For the
first time in several years, a Nevadan will attend
the Western Christian Educators Conference at Zephyr Cove.
There are
two connections between Christian Formation
and our survival.
The first is
that if we do not engage in formation, we will not survive.
The seconds
is that if we do not engage in formation, we should not survive.
We are here
to learn as individuals, as communities, and as a diocese
(which is a community of
communities).
We are here
to learn how to become followers of Jesus.
If we do
that, we’ll be just fine.
Unless we do
that, we are wasting our time.
But it is
not enough to tell congregations to offer formation programs.
We have to
offer guidance and inspiration.
So we are
priming that pump.
We shifted
money from several things we’d been saving for,
we allocated our rental income from
the old St. Stephen’s,
and we used a gift from one of our
members
to hire a Canon For Congregational
Vitality.
Canon
Catherine is coming to help us figure out what kind of formation
will be most effective in each of
our different communities.
Last
weekend, we commemorated St. Francis,
but I wonder if we remembered what
his life was really about.
Francis came
back from war -- broken and needing healing.
So he went
looking for God in the ruins of a little church, San Damiano.
God healed
him by giving him a mission.
God said,
“Francis, rebuild my church.”
So Francis
gave up all his worldly possessions
– not some, not most,
but all of his worldly possessions --
and devoted
himself to a capital fund drive.
The first
thing Francis did was rebuild a down-on-the heels little church.
The second
thing was to form a community of fellow believers.
The third
was to hit the road sharing the good news of Jesus
with people who called themselves
Christians
but who hadn’t really gotten it.
I wonder, as
the Diocese of Nevada lives into the coming year,
what we might learn from the example
of Blessed Francis.