Bishop’s Opening Address to the 192nd Convention of the Diocese of Alabama

February 3, 2023

“Grace to you and peace. I always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in my prayers, constantly remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.” That’s how Paul begins his letter to the Thessalonians. Scholars say Paul is looking back and reflecting on all his visits with this church, and is able to see how they’re living out abundant faith, hope and love, what Paul calls three signs of life. Paul’s greeting reminds me of you, and fits what I see over and over when I visit you.

I am happy to say, that as I convene my third Diocesan convention as your Bishop, I see very strong signs of life all over our many faith communities. Our churches, large and small, are rebounding and growing in wonderful, surprising ways. We’ve emerged from lockdown, through ups and downs, stops and starts, into a new chapter of sharing the gospel of Jesus in ways we never thought of before the pandemic. We have many things to be grateful for and much to celebrate.

Since my first convention began in the earliest days of lockdown, I have been able to watch as you’ve adapted and rebuilt, creating new and life-giving ways to share the love of Jesus with the world and be the Body of Christ. Since last convention, Bishop Prior and I have visited 80 of our 87 churches, all our faith communities, and Camp, sometimes more than once. We’ve seen your innovation and energy turn from Covid management to inviting, and welcoming old and new friends, seekers and strangers into your communities.

One of the best things about being Bishop continues to be visiting and seeing your home bases and the ministry that has captured your hearts. During this convention I hope you’ll get a glimpse of the bigger picture and a taste of our common life, and see Jesus at work all over Alabama - and beyond.

Our theme for convention is “Deep Roots, New Growth”, inspired by God’s words to Jeremiah as translated by Eugene Peterson: “Those who trust God, shall be like trees planted in Eden, putting down roots near the rivers, never a worry through the hottest of summers, never dropping a leaf, serene and calm through droughts, bearing fresh fruit every season.” This year we celebrated 150 years of ministry at the Cathedral Church of the Advent, 20 years of deacon’s service in our diocese, 30 years of Sawyerville ministry, and 100 years of summer camping, eventually leading to Camp McDowell. Last Sunday I met with nine churches from our Black Belt, most dating their beginnings back to the 1830s. We have many, many examples of deep roots in the Diocese of Alabama.

As I travel the highways and byways that lead me to you each Sunday, I see deep roots and much fruit, and I am proud of you. I can see how hard you’re working and how challenging it has been. I know there have been heartbreaking losses and setbacks. Still, I see your faith and the love of Jesus holding us, helping us, and making us one body.

This past year I traveled many places, some not on this continent. Because of Covid postponements, we had both Lambeth Conference and our General Convention within weeks of each other. The Lambeth Conference is a once every 10 years meeting of the worldwide Anglican Communion. Some 650 Bishops and 450 Spouses from 165 countries met near the Archbishop’s home base, in Canterbury, England for 12 days of worship, bible study and discussion. We talked about everything from world hunger, climate crisis to Anglican identity, all in an attempt to deepen understanding and support each other’s churches across a multitude of cultures and contexts. I’ve written about all this before, but what I’d like you to take away is that although it was exhausting and emotional, it was a great blessing to represent you.

The Anglican Church, of which we are a tiny part, is alive and growing. The American church has a very big role in the communion because we’ve reached out to so many across the globe, and built many relationships. My most powerful learning for the two weeks was that although our languages and skin colors are varied and our contexts and customs incredibly diverse, the love of Jesus bridged our differences and made the experience make sense. When all else fails, a network of common love can transcend global politics and encourage cooperation for Jesus’ sake. That’s one big reason why we should remain active there.

Just before I left for England, we held our General Convention in Baltimore, which was abbreviated into four and a half days. It was pretty chaotic and confusing and yet there were some redeeming moments that I will share in a minute. I appreciate the work of our deputation, and the good news is we get to have another convention in 2024. We’ll be nominating and electing our delegation this afternoon and tomorrow, and I hope you’ll think about serving. The next convention will be seven days long. I hope we learned that we can constructively condense the business, but we’re still in search of the perfect conven- tion. At the 2024 General Convention we will elect a new Presiding Bishop.

Speaking of Presiding Bishops, my cousin and brother Michael’s visit in May of this past year was amazing. We had a real Revival, and from all I have heard from you, it came at the right time. On my challenging days, I remember how it looked and felt to see all you processing with your banners into the arena at Birmingham-Southern. Wow, it was something, and it brought tears to many eyes. If you missed it, you can scan the QR code at the end and watch it. Bishop Curry can preach and his message rings so true: “If it’s not about love, it’s not about God.”

I will never forget his time with our youth. They asked him hard and direct questions, like “Tell us about growing up and a hard time you had, how did you get through it?” And “how was it to grow up as a Black man where you lived?” “Tell us how you found God.” The youth simply reflected the good formation they’d received in their church. Our youth are hungry, curious and devoted. The Presiding Bishop’s breakfast with clergy and ECW was also a great blessing and a shot in the arm for all of us. The music at the Revival was beautiful and so inspiring. The witness talks from our three presenters gave us a glimpse of the depth and breadth of our work together. I so appreciate everyone who helped make that day so wonderful. I hope we can do it again, because we saw the power of coming together to share what God is doing in our lives. That’s what revives us.

During COVID our clergy and laity became overnight televangelists and YouTube teachers, and even though everyone is completely back to in-person gathering, our careers on the internet are still growing. Is our theology big enough to accommodate our virtual congregations and communities? As amazing as it sounds, I think it’s all here to stay. In responding to COVID, a new kind of church has been born and we’re still figuring it out. Our teaching, preaching, meeting virtually will continue and change.

We’ll get better at it and understand how to make it work. We’re blessed with hard working, creative, determined, inspired and faithful clergy and I’m proud of their selfless love for Jesus and their flocks. They’ve given everything they’ve got to keep their churches going, and I want you to know I am grateful.

Everyone has worked together to relentlessly feed the hungry and the lost, in Wednesday night car lines, pop-up food banks, food trucks and more. You’ve organized vaccine clinics and clothing drives, helped with utilities, gas and rent. Name it, we’ve tried it. You’ve become nimble and responsive to circumstances in unbelievable ways. Our churches have seen their home communities as a mission field and responded with generous hearts. And you’ve become more engaged in the communities outside your parishes as a result.

Our youth ministry has rebounded with giant camp events, two Happenings, 110 kids at Christmas conference and no reports of Covid after. Youth also attended a Province IV leadership event and we added a new Diocesan Service Day with Rise Against Hunger. Campus ministry has continued to regroup and grow. I think that one thing we are learning is our strongest campus ministry happens when it’s directly connected to a parish.

The dire financial forecast that so many predicted, thankfully, has not materialized. Thanks to your careful planning and your extraordinary generosity, even with inflation, we are emerging in a healthy place and able to help some of our most vulnerable and smaller communities.

This past Sunday I was in Selma at St. Paul’s, where they are reeling and recovering from a violent tornado that destroyed homes, schools, churches, and business in both the richest and the poorest areas. St. Paul’s was spared, but every parish member lost something. We blessed their new Gamble House, which was made to be lodging space for people coming to Selma on Pilgrimage, and now is being used to house first responders and work crews who are there to help. The people of Selma will need support for months and years as they rebuild their community, and also will need resources for those without insurance. You can go to our website and make a donation to support disaster relief.

You continued to give faithfully and sacrificially to your parishes and the diocese in support of our shared mission and ministry. When I say thank you, it never seems like it’s enough. But I do thank you, and I thank God. Your generosity and the dedication of your lay/clergy leaders has helped many churches end their year financially whole, and we can look ahead to next year with hopeful spirits, and that is something to celebrate.

In April 2022, the Standing Committee, Commission on Ministry and Diocesan Council met together at camp, and led by Bishop Prior, considered their work for the coming year. They agreed that the purpose of the diocese is to be a resource for our parishes - not just a regulatory body - but a resource: a group of people who come together as a team to help so that our parishes can witness to the love of Jesus in us, around us and through us, therefore transforming the world. This governing body organized their work around the four areas that wherever I go seem to represent both our strengths and our challenges. The directions we affirmed last year are viewed through these four lenses:

1. Leadership Development:

Last convention I promised to strengthen our leadership with both Bishop Prior and the Rev. Canon Geoff Evans, who both just had their first anniversary with us. They are building our leadership capacity across the diocese. We are advertising and recruiting for the Diocese of Alabama all over the country, and encouraging more people to enter our discernment processes. I am happy to report we’re making significant progress. We spent Clergy conference with faculty on Adaptive Leadership, and we’ve introduced Leading in Hope to our newest clergy.

We held two Explorer’s Days in 2022, designed for those interested in discernment for ordained service, and a total of 48 people from 26 parishes attended. We currently have 15 postulants and candidates for Holy Orders in process, an increase of two from last year, and several of those are in alternative training. Alternative training for ordained ministry is a changing area of the church. Most of our students are enrolled at Sewanee’s program, two are at Bexley/Seabury, but all the seminaries are offering low-residency training. While we can explore new ways to educate, we can’t compromise on quality. Residential seminary is still the norm, but virtual life has entered in a strong way, motivated and encouraged by COVID. I’m grateful to the Rev. Canon Kelley Hudlow for working closely with our clergy and postulants to help prepare them for ministry.

The Commission on Ministry has been incredibly active, and the Rev. Polly Robb has been a great chairperson. We’re checking our assumptions, asking lots of questions, looking at lay and ordained work, and this year we will have two cycles of active shepherding to try and accommodate more interest.

2. Congregational Vitality:

This is an idea you heard articulated in the Rev. Sam Wells’ offerings last year, and you will also hear about from our speaker, the Rev. Dr. Jason Byassee, this year. What makes a congregation vital and vibrant? Is the sharing of the gospel bringing life to those inside and outside their walls? Is the ministry inside attractive to those who are outside? How has COVID changed us?

Each parish context is different. I’m always wondering how we best support your ministries, and how is your ministry vital to the community you call home? We’re finding that when the diocesan staff partners and comes alongside people in their parishes to strengthen connections to the community, things start to happen. Two years ago, we began more deliberately considering each parish’s circumstances, asking “What are your barriers to vitality?” and “How can we help you overcome those?” We’ve encouraged small church + large church partnerships. Some of you are doing that now. Mission and Outreach parish grants have stimulated amazing ministries. St. Catherine’s, Chelsea used $2,500 to fund a Halloween Fair for children with disabilities that’s now a tradition. St. Peter’s, Talladega leveraged their grant into a choral scholar’s program that’s revitalizing the town’s music. There are so many good stories to tell.

Clergy leadership is often directly related to vitality. We are focused on that issue and work every day to build more ordained and lay support for those who need it. Last year at convention we had 14 vacancies in rector or associate rector positions. This year I’m happy to report we have only four vacancies, and we have every reason to believe we will fill those four this year. But for those of you still waiting, we haven’t forgotten you.

At your request, we also studied salary equity issues and found that our salary differences are related to parish size, not gender or race. Larger churches are able to pay higher salaries than smaller churches. I’m happy to share details with those who raised the questions last year.

Last year we had 45 parishes being served by retired clergy, and this year that number is 24, with 17 parishes served solely by supply clergy. That doesn’t mean we don’t have some parishes that would rather not be served by supply clergy. We do. My point is we’re finding that developing an individualized plan for each parish according to their context is what works best. So deliberately, thoughtfully, that’s what we’re doing. I want us to develop a process so when a transition happens, we know the best way to help that group of leaders. Thank you to Rev. Geoff Evans and Bishop Brian Prior in particular, who work on this all the time, and for the rest of the team working with them.

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3. Racial Healing:

This began as an effort to energize ministries that help us share God’s reconciling love with a priority on racial reconciliation. Building on the fine work of 30 years of Sawyerville, the excellent leadership of the Commission on Truth, Justice and Racial Reconciliation, I want us to support Sacred Ground groups in our parishes, expand our education and training, and do more to be part of the legacy in Montgomery, Hayneville, and Selma. To that end, the task force I appointed on Becoming Beloved Community worked for ten months to study how we might strengthen our ministry around racial reconciliation. They have finished their work and made some recommendations, and I will give you more details tomorrow.

This summer, we had 187 youth from all around the Diocese and Hale County who staffed Sawyerville. Twelve young people participated in Person2Person. Approximately 250 people came together from all over the country to walk the Jonathan Daniels Pilgrimage this summer. We also named our first Missioner for Racial Healing and Pilgrimage, Ms. Breanna Mitchell. She will help us respond to the growing mission of pilgrimage that has come to our churches in Montgomery. We have made great progress but more is to come.

Sometimes our deep roots in the geography of the Black Belt yield a chance to help communities in unexpected ways. This year we partnered with the Black Belt Citizens in Uniontown to provide water filters to residents, free of charge. These filters are, for some, an answer to prayer. So far we’ve given away over 50, at a cost of $400 each, and thanks to your generosity and leadership we’re able to show love this way. As one happy recipient wrote us and said, “In my home I am a caretaker of two elderly gentlemen with dementia…it’s not easy…access to clean water means a lot.”

4. Camp McDowell:

Camp is a beloved resource for parishes and the diocese and a vital part of our identity. It’s been through some ups and downs in the past two years. I’m happy to report it is stable and has emerged, rebounded and even excelled. Bishop Prior’s leadership as he has worked with me and with Camp McDowell has been tremendous. The camp listening sessions and Brian’s guidance has been essential and life-giving to this ministry. Brian was just given the Hero of Camping Ministry Award from the Episcopal Camp and Conference Center. He’s been doing this a long time and I love having his help. We have learned much and will continue to learn more. 31,000 people came to camp in 2022. We’re almost back to 2019 numbers of 1,400 in summer camp, and camp got $171,000 in grants. Thank you to camp leadership, and you’ll hear more from them this afternoon.

Watching and walking with you this year I want to thank our larger churches for their leadership in reaching out to share resources, not only money, although they’ve done that, but ideas as well. Clergy and lay leaders have also stepped in special ways to share. I want to applaud everyone’s willingness to experiment and try new things. Don’t stop doing that!

As I look at how our Church is changing, I see that serving the needs of the community around you is critical to vitality. COVID time opened us to new ways and has us asking new questions every day. You’ve taught me that asking for help, planning for the future, personally inviting someone to church every Sunday, engaging music, feeding programs, collaboration with other denominations, investing in some technology, are all ways that spread the Good News quickly. As I believe our speaker will remind us: “God’s gifts are not for God’s people. They are through God’s people for everyone else…God’s gifts are the sort you cannot keep…give them away and they always replenish.”

Thinking about God’s gifts leads me to mention one of our most painful, yet most tender and powerful experiences of Jesus love in the Body of Christ this year. We all know Saint Stephen’s lost three dear people June 16, 2022, and the three, Bart, Sharon, and Jane, were definitely gifts from God, giving themselves to faithfully serve so many. In the middle of serving, they were senselessly killed. Immediately, the people across our diocese, churches, and beyond responded with love, prayers, presence, money, flowers, ribbons, and food, and it was reciprocal with the people of St. Stephen’s. The parish opened itself to receive and return the love. It was unchartered territory for all of us, and I want to thank the clergy, the counselors, and the lay leadership for leading the way. Much healing has happened and much transformation. We’ve been changed by June 16 and I dare to say God is helping us love each other in new ways. I’m grateful to all of you for the support you showed me and St Stephen’s. They have a memorial that is being planned and will be built soon. Presiding Bishop Curry will come here for the June 16, 2023 dedication and remembrance. We can see God is working through it all.

I read about a preacher who received his first communion when he was ten years old. He described himself as an anxious kid who was very worried about taking communion correctly. After all, he knew it was really, really important and mysterious, and by the time he knelt at the altar he was crying. Being ten, he was embarrassed but he couldn’t stop the tears from rolling down his face. The bishop saw his tears and as he handed him the wafer, he stopped, wiped the boy’s cheek and touched his head, and, as the author puts it, “in a gesture of blessing, I didn’t see him offer to any other kid. And in that moment, I fell into God.” He goes on to say “I’ve spent the last forty years as a minister living the results of that moment.”

We’re all here now because at some time or another we fell into God. Most of us have done so over and over. We’re bound together by the reconciling love of Jesus, who saves us and gives a kingdom where love reigns. We are blessed to share that love with a world that needs desperately to hear the story. When we testify to the hope that’s in us, amazing, life giving, lifesaving love of Jesus is unleashed and the world is a better place. Last year, Rev. Sam Wells told us “That God would restore the years the locusts had eaten.” And that we “already had everything we need”. “The joy of the Lord is our strength”. I know we have still have many challenges, but new life, new growth is underway. As Paul tells the Thessalonians as he ends his letter, “May the Lord direct our hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ”. Thank you for sharing this ministry with me. I am honored to be your Bishop.

For the visitation schedules of Bishop Curry and Assisting Bishop Prior scan the QR code. For assistance, contact Liza Lee Horton, Executive Assistant to Bishop Curry, lhorton@dioala.org, (205)358-9224.

Scan this QR code to watch Revival 2022.

Scan this code for complete coverage of the 192nd Diocesan Convention, including video recordings of speakers, business sessions, worship services, and Bishop Curry’s addresses.