For those who haven't heard yet, I am in Indianapolis until July 13 participating in the Episcopal Church's General Convention. I'm a deputy for the Diocese of Spokane and have been busy on the World Missions committee. Our job over the next 10 days is to work on the governance of the church for the next three years (we work a lot like the US government with a bi-cameral governance structure). It's crazy and busy and really interesting. If you want to know more, post comments and I'll answer what questions I can. ;) Otherwise, I really put this here as a short intro to my blog post that I did today on our convention deputies website for the Diocese. I thought I'd stick it on here to so you could see what's on my mind today. Love you all and see you soon!
PS. Thanks Katie, Mom, and Tony for moving all my stuff this weekend!
Pia
Impressions of World Mission
The Episcopal Church (TEC) is doing amazing things in our world. I know. I’ve been listening to testimony all day from members of our church on world mission. Our committee got to hear about the work missionaries are doing all over the world, and learned that the proposed budget is calling to increase money so that we can support more missionaries around the world. They are even planning on increasing the Young Adult Service Corps from 15 to 30 young adults – a missionary opportunity in which our own Diocese’s Matthew Kellen took part. We got to hear from the head of the Committee on World Missions, and we heard testimony from Bishops around the world who head our Covenant Partner Episcopal Churches. TEC is building schools, ministry, providing health education… the list is endless. There is so much good news in the area of World Mission.
But not everything was positive in the missionary world. We also heard testimony on the impact the TEC had on our Covenant Partners when TEC pulled part of the funding promised those churches over the last Triennium when the budget was cut across the board. It was heart-breaking to hear that we had not met the financial end of our covenant agreement with some of our Covenant Partners and because of this, they had to cut important ministries, couldn’t fund schools, couldn’t do all of the good work that they had planned because our agreement wasn’t kept.
I was reminded today of the importance of faith-built agreements and the far-reaching impact they can have on others. A decision by someone to include our Covenant Partners as part of the Program budget instead of the block grants they really are created a loss of necessary programs for thousands of people who are truly in need. The decision of a Diocese (who can afford it) to not give their full asking to TEC creates a budget shortfall that keeps TEC from supporting hundreds of amazing ministries throughout the Episcopal Church that help our poor and destitute, and support every member of the church. The choice of a parishioner to not tithe what they can could keep a church from reaching its full ministry potential. We need to give what we can not because of some misplaced duty, but because when we plan in faith and dream ministries in faith, we need to support those dreams too.
Today, I am reminded of the parable of the woman who gave two coins, and how her generosity, as small as it seemed, was an outward expression of her faith. I want to be her and watch how my gift feeds the world through faith.
