Address to the Eighteenth Annual Convention of
The Diocese of East Tennessee
February 9, 2002

The Right Reverend Charles G. vonRosenberg
III Bishop of the Diocese of East Tennessee

Mr. President, valued clergy and lay delegates, and much-appreciated guests at this Diocesan Convention, I am blessed and honored to serve as Bishop of East Tennessee and, in that capacity, to address you on the occasion of this Eighteenth Convention of our Diocese. I greet you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the fellowship we share in the Holy Spirit of God.

I will file with the Convention Secretary a list of my official acts as Bishop of the diocese in the year 2001. That list - including many spellbinding facts and figures - will be found in the Journal of these proceedings.

I thank God for so many people who have shared in the ministry of the Diocese of East Tennessee during the past year. As always, thanks expressed to my staff are inadequate both in indicating my sincere gratitude and in conveying the extent of their efforts. Michael Doty has served as Archdeacon for the past two years, but he will be leaving soon to begin his duties at Church of the Holy Cross in Tryon, North Carolina. I am grateful for his ministry with our smallest churches and his efforts to highlight various areas of our church's mission. Amy Morehous, the newest staff member, has done an excellent job as Bookshop Manager for almost a year now, and I thank her for her good work. Would Michael, Amy, and the other diocesan staff members stand now, as we express our appreciation for jobs well done over the past year.

I also feel blessed by the outstanding clergy who serve in East Tennessee. You have indicated your commitment and dedication to our Lord, his Church, and our Diocese once again this year, and I am grateful to you. Therefore, would our clergy - active and retired, parochial and non-parochial - please stand and be recognized.

East Tennessee is blessed as well with wonderful lay leadership. Indeed, our laity, the laos, the people of God, have proved faithful in commitment, generous in giving, and eager in following our Lord. In order to give the ordained people among us the opportunity to express our appreciation to you, would our lay people stand now, please.

In the year 2001, the date of September 11 has made a profound mark on the calendar of history. The extent of that mark remains to be finally determined, experienced, and known in its completeness. Perspectives continue to be offered and examined, as time passes and as reality refocuses itself, almost like images in a kaleidoscope.

For instance, last December I heard on the radio one of those year-end retrospectives. And the person being interviewed made a point that I had not previously considered but which requires some attention, I think. He said that journalists who proclaimed that Americans had never before been attacked on home soil must not have been Southerners. Suddenly, stories about the Civil War rushed back into my awareness. In fact, this perspective called forth a particular memory for me. I thought of my hometown and of the ruins of stately buildings that had been burned on General Sherman's infamous March to the Sea. I remembered folklore about a mill that had once stood in the park across from my family's home … a mill that had been burned by the invading soldiers, according to legend. And so, somehow in my childhood mind, that destruction had become personal. Those memories resonated with the perspective offered by the Southern writer on the radio.

What does this awareness mean in the context of September 11? I certainly do not know yet, in any complete kind of way. Obviously, the horror of September 11 is not lessened, and the tragedies of that day are not belittled. Indeed, America was attacked; the World Trade Center destroyed; the Pentagon bruised; and many innocent and brave people lost their lives. It was a tragic day that propelled America into war, economy into recession, and all of us into uncertainty regarding our futures. However, surely also, history can teach us something. Indeed, history will unfold new meaning as it enfolds more completely the events of last fall. One thing I do know, though, is this. As a Southerner - and more importantly, as a Christian - I believe that good can come from evil and that commitment, dedication, persistence, and grace can rise from the ashes of tragedy. That is part of the positive legacy of the South, it seems to me … and, certainly, it is part of the Christian legacy as well. I pray God that resurrection will claim the last word from the September 11 experience and that evil, vengeance, and retribution will only be footnotes on that page of our history.

Certainly the world has shown some of its worst this past year. But when the world is at its worst, the Church must be at its best. When people feel lost, the Church must show the way home. When the light is blackened by fear, the Church must point to the light that shines in the darkness. When the task seems too big, too impossible, or too daunting, the Church must point to the One who gave his life up for the entire world, in order to give us life in abundance. So our faith proclaims, and so we affirm.

Therefore, my friends in Christ, what is our mission as a people and as a Church in our diocese, at this time in our history? Why are we here? What does God have in mind for us, in these early days of the second Christian millennium, in this part of God's Kingdom that we know as East Tennessee?

According to our Catechism, "the mission of the Church is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ"(BCP, p 855). Then, also, the duty of ministers - lay and ordained - is "to follow Christ; to come together week by week for corporate worship; and to work, pray, and give for the spread of the kingdom of God"(p 856). Thus, our duty - our calling - is to live into our mission, to restore unity with God and with each other in Christ. In our diocesan vision statement, we find this year's convention theme: "We are called … to grow in people and in resources for ministry and for mission." Remember that our mission as Christians is to focus on the restoration of all people to unity and oneness in Christ. In this convention and in the year to come, my hope and prayer are that we will concentrate our efforts on resources that enhance the mission that God in Christ has given us. In a very real way, the mission is God's - God's work in God's world. However, there is no doubt that encouraging participation in that mission is the work of the Holy Spirit in us.

At this convention, we will consider new ways to speak of the subject of mission in East Tennessee … new ways to respond to the work we have been given to do. For instance, in the past, our diocese rightly has concerned itself with the life and work of our smallest congregations. Through the diocesan budget, funds from all our churches together have assisted those not able to support themselves. However, in recent years, the Church at all levels - in East Tennessee and elsewhere - has experienced several realities that force reexamination of former practices. For instance, our diocesan financial resources are more limited, relative to the requests for those resources. In addition, our individual churches struggle with their local needs relative to requests from the diocese and elsewhere. Indeed, I am grateful that the needs of the world beyond our local churches - including those needs of the diocese - are taken very seriously. All of us - local congregations and our diocese - struggle with competing requests from good causes for limited funds. Thus, the reality is that increased demand on diocesan resources exceeds our ability to meet all the requests from churches and on behalf of programs. Questions about the stewardship of limited resources require our careful consideration, open communication, and prayers.

Please understand this. As I have said before, I am not interested in closing our smallest churches as a solution to our financial challenges. However, we do need to work together in order to identify new ways to address current realities. This, therefore, is a call to faithful stewardship - of resources, of people, and of churches in East Tennessee. Decisions about small churches are not all about money, any more than life in those churches is all about money. However, in our day, we are forced to look at the issues that really matter - issues like faithfulness in the stewardship of all our resources and, most especially, faithfulness in mission. We want all our churches - large and small - to be here for the sake of their mission, not just for the sake of being here.

As one means to encourage us to look outside our old models, the Committee on Constitutions and Canons will place before us the opportunity to eliminate the distinction between "missions" and "parishes." That distinction has been an economic one, specifying "missions" as those churches that are not financially self-supporting. By calling all our existing congregations "parishes", we will eliminate this financial distinction. Also, we will enable any church to seek financial assistance from the diocese … recognizing, however, that those resources are limited. This canonical change will also codify similar treatment of all churches in convention representation and in the process of calling ordained leaders.

However, most significant of all, this canonical change will encourage us to broaden our perspective of the Church's mission. All of us in the Diocese of East Tennessee - small churches and large churches alike - have as our mission "to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ." In that work - that mission - we all share. It is extremely important that all our churches know themselves to be communities and outposts for the sake of the mission of Jesus Christ in the world.

Another new focus in our consideration of mission involves an on-going process. The work of the Mission Strategy Task Force several years ago resulted in a structure designed to assist cooperative mission at the local level. That structure attempted to take seriously the encouragement of mission initiatives within the three Areas of our diocese. Mission churches were involved, but beyond them, the mission of the Church was to be the focus. However, the experiences of the past two years have led us to recognize that the structures themselves have required too much attention. Rather than energizing mission opportunities, the structures have depleted energy to the detriment of local initiatives. Therefore, with the encouragement of the people directly involved, we will try a different means to enable local, cooperative mission efforts, funded as "task forces." The intention of this change is to streamline structure so that local work will be enabled more effectively. Again, stewardship is the issue here. Our financial resources will be better used, and our people resources will be focused on tasks rather than on structure.

I need to add here that the present time offers an important opportunity to reconsider ways to respond to God's call to mission in this diocese. We will be reexamining our means to support various areas of mission work at the same time that the Archdeacon for Mission is leaving. An important early step in this process, therefore, will be holding local forums to consider with me appropriate means to encourage regional mission initiatives and to engage our diocesan mission in general. We will begin that work this spring. I will not seek to replace a staff member until after that time of examination. Therefore, when I request your involvement in this task, I encourage you to respond.

As we seek to involve ourselves in God's mission - "to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ" - we need to look beyond East Tennessee. Work with our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ encourages us to claim a vision broader than our own. And, in claiming that vision, we may perhaps glimpse the Kingdom of God. If we are to be agents of that Kingdom, I am certain that we must cooperate in mission, join hands in fellowship, and love those different from us. Put another way, the Kingdom of God includes a citizenship considerably greater than the Episcopal Diocese of East Tennessee.

Therefore, I am delighted that joining us at this Convention are representatives of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and of the Episcopal Diocese of South Dakota. Pastor Paul Kehnle represents Bishop Ron Warren of the Southeastern Synod of the Lutheran Church. We heard from Pastor Kehnle at Evening Prayer last night, and at this convention, we will hear of additional opportunities to respond to the Common Mission into which we are called with our Lutheran brothers and sisters. In addition, we welcome the Rt. Rev. Creighton Robertson and the Rev. Dr. Martin Brokenleg from the Diocese of South Dakota. As I have observed previously, our diocesan Eucharist tomorrow falls on "World Mission Sunday", and the theme this year is "Companionship." May we grow in God's grace and mission as we examine with our friends from South Dakota the possibility of an official companion relationship with that diocese.

Remember that our convention theme is "to grow in people and in resources for ministry and for mission." As the final application of that theme, I want to mention the three areas of attention for our diocesan stewardship campaign … areas that will help enable our mission as Christian people and as a diocese and that will encourage us, in particular, "to grow in people and in resources for ministry and for mission."

First, we plan to develop a camp and retreat center for the Diocese of East Tennessee. This facility offers almost unlimited possibilities for the growth of God's mission among the people and churches of our diocese. It will be a place focused on relationships - relationships that will begin life-long friendships between campers and within the youth community, relationships that encourage interaction among vestries from different churches as well as those serving on diocesan groups, and relationships in which reconciliation with self, others, and God will be practiced and encouraged as our Christian mission. I pray God that we will be good stewards of this wonderful resource!

Secondly, our capital stewardship campaign will enhance our mission on college campuses. The annual diocesan budget will continue to be supportive of these efforts as well, but capital funding will allow greater investment in this ripe field for Christian ministry - encouraging growth in our mission to college students. Colleges in this country have become more and more secular through the years …. and less and less related to the Church in any way. Therefore, the call of Christ is to make his name known precisely there. We will not desert our college students to the secular culture!

Thirdly, we will also focus on adding support for seminarians in this capital stewardship campaign. Again, we do not intend to remove this support from our diocesan budget but, rather, to enhance that annual commitment. With additional funds, we will recruit younger seminarians, who will serve the Church for thirty years or more. Our intent is that those seminarians may graduate debt-free and that they may follow their calls to ministry rather than a money-trail to financial independence. We want to do our part to raise up future ordained leadership for the Church and to make sure that our individual congregations will always have qualified candidates when they search for rectors!

In summary, therefore, "We are called … to grow in people and in resources for ministry and for mission." May this convention and the year to come provide us incentive to "restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ." With a renewed mission focus, may we concentrate our attention and energy as we seek to fulfill our Christian ministry and duty "to work, pray, and give for the spread of the kingdom of God!" May God grant us the vision, the commitment, and the faithfulness to act as responsible stewards of this high calling from our Lord! And, may God bless us all in the days to come!

Copyright © 2002 The Episcopal Diocese of East Tennessee