The Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee



The Rt. Rev. John C. Bauerschmidt: Bishop’s Convention Address, Diocese of Tennessee, January 24, 2009, Christ Church Cathedral Nashville

Delegates to this 177th Convention of the Diocese of Tennessee, honored guests, and worthy participants in this annual gathering of our Diocesan Church: I give thanks to God for all of you, and for the people of the Diocese of Tennessee who continue to welcome and support me in my ministry. I am continually grateful to the clergy of the Diocese, my particular colleagues in the Gospel, for the grace and diligence with which they continue to serve the People of God. I am thankful for the ministry of David Herbert over the past twenty-two years as Chancellor of the Diocese of Tennessee. God has been good to us in the Diocese, in raising up faithful servants who embody the life of the Church here in Middle Tennessee.

Let me remind you that we a Eucharistic Community, gathered around the altar as the baptized People of God. We are a community of thanksgiving, rooted in the great verities of the death and resurrection of Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit to give thanks to the Father for what he has done in raising Christ from the dead. We have been given new life, and that is our cause for joy. We have confidence in God, who is trustworthy and able to save.

We recognize that our life in the Diocese of Tennessee over the past year has taken place against the backdrop of transition in our national life. We have experienced an extended primary season preliminary to a national election, in which change was a prominent theme. We have in this same period seen the most unusual challenges to the economic health of our nation since the Great Depression. These changes affect society as a whole, though as I mentioned yesterday they tug at us as individuals. Finally, we have participated in a presidential ballot that has brought to office America’s first African-American Chief Executive. There is no doubt that we are in the midst of change, wide-ranging transition of all sorts.

There’s also been transition in the Diocese of Tennessee: perhaps not as dramatic as in 2006, with the election of a new bishop, but still profound, and not unrelated to these broader issues, especially the economy. I continue to point to this theme of change, as I have since the weekend of my consecration two years ago. God is at work in our midst, and it is the Church’s business to attempt to discern what God is about, and to cooperate in it. We look to the places of transition in order to see what God is up to, to look more deeply and evaluate what’s happening.

The financial challenges that face our nation have had an impact on the life of the Diocese of Tennessee. The value of the Episcopal Endowment Corporation’s investments in the short term has diminished, and this has reduced the income available to the Diocese from these funds. The general state of the economy has had an impact on our parishioners and on congregational budgets, and this will have an impact as well on the budget of the Diocese.

I repeat what I said in my sermon yesterday: the Diocese of Tennessee is the co-borrower or guarantor of a number of significant bank loans made to parishes, intended to help them grow and expand the ministry of the Diocese as a whole. This is appropriate work for the Diocese, but it has had some consequences. Our indebtedness now is significant and serious in relation to our ability through unrestricted assets to meet those commitments. The same economic challenges that have had an impact on our annual budget have also had an impact here.

As a Diocese, we are going to have to dig deep within the resources that our common life affords in order to continue to move forward. We need to build our resources at the Diocesan level so that we can continue to help our parishes. We are in this together, “in season and out of season” (2 Tim. 4:2). There are no quick fixes here, and we will need to be in this for the long haul.

This financial challenge is an opportunity to claim the reality of our life together as a Diocese, as the Church in Middle Tennessee. We need to help supply each other’s needs as congregations, to pull together so that we can move ahead. Our imaginations, our energies, and our resources will be called upon. We need to deepen relationship and connection with each other, rather than to isolate ourselves. We need to build bridges, not burn them.

This past Spring and again in the Fall I invited the clergy of the Diocese to join me in a series of small group gatherings, to spend some time in theological discussion and in getting to know each other. Our subjects were, “Who is Jesus Christ?” and “What is the Holy Spirit doing in the Diocese of Tennessee?” This was time-intensive work, but the investment of time for me was rewarding. It was good to hear others articulate their faith, to discern connections and to recognize my own faith in that of others. In retrospect I think this was the single most important thing I did in 2008 to help build up my own ministry. Along with the retreat I took in November, it helped increase my faith and my understanding of what God is doing all around me and in the Diocese of Tennessee. I plan to gather the parochial and institutional clergy again in this way in the Spring, to continue to build relationships and connection and to refresh my faith.

Last January in the Bishop’s address I called for the creation of an Outreach Committee in the Diocese, thinking that this would be the means by which we might focus our outreach into the world that God has created and continues to sustain. It’s a wonderful meditation on the old maxim, “Man proposes, God disposes”, to realize that this Committee did not come into being, but that another group did, one which moved us forward in a way that I had hoped the other would. I’ve commissioned an environmental ministry that has begun to generate theological discussion and practical proposals that will make us all more aware of the importance of Creation, the cosmos that is being redeemed through the sacrificial death of Christ.

This past year I also brought together a steering committee on the vocational diaconate. This group is helping me discern a way forward as we seek to implement a vocational diaconate program. Just saying “vocational diaconate” begs the question of what that is: we’re not all on the same page as to what this means. So the work before us will take some time: articulating what we mean, determining what we want, and charting a course.

I told you last year as well that I was in the process of taping some of the wisdom that we have gained in the work of church-planting over the past decade. Conversations in 2007 and 2008 with the small “think tank” I gathered on new church plants led to a number of recommendations this Spring. Chief among these was that future church plants needed to be better resourced from their inception, to begin with a larger “footprint” in volunteers and staff in order to allow new Christian community to grow and develop more quickly. The “think tank” also recommended additional supervision for new congregations, on the order of additional diocesan staff time or some other creative supervisory support for the enterprise.

Another recommendation was to return to a church-planting strategy that will be familiar to folks in Middle Tennessee: the creation of new missions by “hiving off” people and resources from another growing Christian community. Parishioners at Christ Church Cathedral, St George’s, and St Bartholomew’s, and some other congregations that have practiced this strategy or benefited from it in their founding will appreciate it’s wisdom. It requires partnership between the Diocese of Tennessee, its bishop, clergy and congregations, which is an additional benefit. We are in this together.

In the Summer I attended the Lambeth Conference, the once-a-decade gathering of Anglican bishops from all over the world convened by the Archbishop of Canterbury. I’ve written quite a bit about my impressions of the Conference, and what I’ve written can be found on the Diocesan web site. In short, let me say that this experience put flesh on the bones of the Anglican Communion for me: that is, it gave me a lively sense of what a world-wide communion of churches looks like, in all its cross-cultural diversity and common, shared faith.

At the end of the Conference the Archbishop articulated the broad consensus that exists in the Anglican Communion around the issues of human sexuality touched off by the consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson in 2003. There remains broad support for the continuation of the three moratoria called for by the Windsor Report of 2004: abstaining from same-sex blessings, from the consecration as bishop of a person living in a partnered same-sex relationship, and from the interference of bishops from one province of the Church in the life of another. The frame for these moratoria is the continuation of the life of the Communion, the terms of which go beyond our own power as the Episcopal Church to determine; in other words, the Report is saying to us that this is the common ground we must inhabit at this time if we are going to be able to continue as a Communion, much less continue our conversation about human sexuality as a Communion. I continue to support these moratoria as the means by which we can continue to go forward together.

The Archbishop also pointed toward broad support for the idea of an Anglican Covenant, as a means of repairing the breech in trust that now exists within the Communion. Again, no one is ever able to determine for others what terms will create trust. The Archbishop in his final Presidential Address at the Conference framed the discussion of the Covenant as a means of deeper engagement with each other in the Communion. “To embrace deeper and more solid ways of recognizing and trusting each other can be a grace not a burden; and when trust is deepened, more responsible and prayerful discussions can follow” (Rowan Williams, Lambeth, 2008). These words about trust we might apply directly to our Diocesan life. Another draft of this Covenant will be prepared for the meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council this May, and will eventually make its way to the constituent Churches of the Communion for discussion and action. I look forward to examining the next draft, and see this process as a graceful way for the Communion to engage more deeply and to move ahead together. Again, we are in this for the long haul.

There are a host of challenges to our common life, but I continue to point to the value of that common life; indeed, not simply to the value but to the very necessity that we be a Church, defined by connection and relationship and not by isolation and separation. Remember the story of All Saints’, Smyrna, that we have heard again today: about the way in which a parish that endured a painful division came to life again: not through the intervention of the rich and powerful, but through the ministry of a group of refugees, aided by a small group of grieving parishioners and resourced by an indebted Diocese. It’s a resurrection story, not just for the refugees, but for all of us. It’s an inspiring story of how a church goes about doing its ministry!

The story of All Saints is now our story in the Diocese of Tennessee. It’s all about cross-cultural ministry and the environment, about new church plants and the Anglican Communion, about our financial responsibilities to each other and about our future as a diocese. Each parish and mission of our Diocese is filled with compelling stories of ministry just like this one. All of us need to see that the Church exists for mission, and gathers as a community around the work we do in the world. I challenge you to discover your ministries as congregations and as individuals, to move ahead in a time of difficulty in our nation and our world, to stay connected and in relationship with each other.

Thank you for all your prayer and support in this past year. Take heart as you go about your ministry. I have confidence in God and ask for your continued prayers for us as a Diocese as we answer the call and respond to what God is doing in the world.

Back to Bishop's Forum