Loading...During the extended Bible study, which followed the bishop’s annual address, Grieb examined Paul’s epistles and other New Testament scripture, commenting on those ecclesiological approaches that have been useful in dealing with difference and conflict within the Church. 
In particular, she described St. Paul’s epistles and Matthew 13 as offering excellent models for Anglicans and their leaders to follow. Paul, she noted, urged the Corinthians, for example, to view all of their members as equally important when he likened the church to the body whose members cannot say to one another, “I have no need of you” (1Cor. 12:21).
The parable of the weeds growing in the wheat field in Matthew, she said, expresses a similar ecclesiology, urging Christians to “let both grow together, to let God do the sorting out.” That ecclesiology recognizes that “one person’s wild flower is another person’s weed” and reminds us that what “we do not have God’s point of view so clearly as God does.”
Casting her vision toward the churches in the Anglican Communion today, she told those gathered that, as in the early churches, “we are having a family argument, and our family ties, the bonds of affection that unite our Communion, are being tested.” Anglicans, she said, must decide what ecclesiology they will follow in dealing with difference and conflict within a church in which “the traditional, English model of being an Anglican is no longer the only one.”
Describing the typical, 21st century member of the Anglican Communion as an African woman, she said, that when the bishops gather at Lambeth in England July 16-Aug. 3, they “will have to decide how to relate to that woman and the millions of other Christians who make up our far-flung church family.”
She concluded by inviting Kentucky Episcopalians to let Bishop Gulick know the approach they feel the worldwide Anglican Church should take.
In response to a question after her talk, Grieb elaborated on why she feels “it is a good idea to have a covenant” while acknowledging it has brought considerable debate.
“It seems like a good idea for having procedures for dealing with disagreements. …” she said. “We need to be a little more intentional, have a little more clarity up front so expectations will be met. This conversation is still very much in process and very much the question of the day.”
This year’s convention, through Grieb’s sermon and talk, the bishop’s annual address and a host of workshops, was thematically organized to spotlight the diocese’s mission “to engage the world as a witness to Christ, through worship, study, fellowship, evangelism, social justice and service.”
Unlike the four previous convention addresses, Bishop Gulick focused this one entirely on the state of the diocese without reference to the tensions besetting the wider Church. The year has brought joy and a “shower of blessings,” he declared. “Like Joseph, I have observed lean years and fat years, but never—and I want you to hear this m—never have I felt so lavishly blessed, so joy filled, so humbled by grace upon grace as this past year as bishop of this amazing diocese.”
Among the blessings he cited were the opening of the new inn and lodge at the diocese’s camp and conference center, the ordinations of six new, “amazing” clergy members, including the youngest ordinand in “my time as bishop”; an $85,000 increase in congregational pledging to the diocese; a 25 percent increase in baptisms, 15 percent increase in confirmations and 101 percent increase in receptions in our congregations; and a host of new, revitalized ministries being offered by diocesan departments and our congregations.
Gulick also outlined actions the diocese is taking or needs to undertake in order insure blessings in the future, including buying land and hiring a missioner to start a new mission and helping a congregation in rural Kentucky that has outgrown its building to buy property so it can continue to grow.
After celebrating the ministries of the diocese’s many second-career clergy members, Gulick spoke about the need for the diocese to develop “a focused ministry” for Episcopalians under age 35 and had the four clergy members present from this generation to stand. “Look at these icons,” he told the convention. “They look a lot like the people that I don’t see on my visitations to your congregations.” Because the people of this generation “do not seem to be in church in large numbers,” he said, the church needs to have “these living icons of committed service under 35 as an intentional evangelical strategy to our diocese.”
During the business session, the convention approved resolutions to
• Reduce the number of people and organizations receiving the Journal of the Diocese of Kentucky in order to reduce printing and mailing costs.
• Set out the requirements a local nonprofit organization must meet in order to be officially affiliated with the diocese.
• Support a legislative proposal (House Bill 211) before the Kentucky General Assembly that will strengthen the protections of young people from sexual predators and increase the criminal statute of limitations for reporting sexual abuse incidents against minors.
A proposal to revise another diocesan canon would have allowed “youth” to be included in the annual parochial report’s total of a congregation’s communicants in good standing, but it failed because of a tie vote. This parochial report total is used to calculate the number of lay deputies and alternates who may represent a congregation at diocesan conventions. Objections to the resolution were made over the wording of the resolution, not the intention to include children and adolescents under age 16 in the calculations.
The convention approved a 2008 budget of $1,541,659.
The convention's opening Eucharist also was an occasion for celebrating the new ministry of the Rev. Canon Joan Smith. In the picture on the right, the Rt. Rev. Edwin F. Gulick Jr., assisted by the Rev. Matthew Bradley, installed her as the diocese's canon to the ordinary, a position she has actually held since last December.
For a transcript of the Rev. Dr. A. Katherine Grieb's homily during that service, click here.
For more photos from the convention, click here.
