Over the next six weeks, members of the DCOH leadership team will write reflections of gratitude on six areas of ministry we have been given over the past twelve years, four years as a PEARUSA Network and eight years as the Diocese of Christ Our Hope. At the end of each reflection, we will pivot to look toward how that same ministry will be lived out in the next season of our life. We have much to celebrate, and much to anticipate! We could have easily picked any number from a dozen or more ministries. We could have had dozens of leaders write the stories. But we think you’ll agree that these particular ministries paint a broad-stroke picture of how the Lord has blessed us. We hope you will rejoice with us, and we hope you will look ahead with us. To God be the glory, great things he has done! Great things he will do!
One of my favorite French proverbs, from the novelist Alphonse Karr, is, “The more things change the more they stay the same”. When looking back on our life together as a Network, Multi-Province Jurisdiction, and the Diocese of Christ Our Hope, I see lots of changes, but I also see the great consistency of our life together. Jim Collins, one of my favorite business gurus, consultants, and author of Good to Great, says that a key characteristic that separates good entities from great ones is their consistency. Whether or not we are ‘great’ is not our focus, but I think being consistent is a great indicator of our impact as a group of churches.
Looking back, there are three areas that I see that were catalytic for our formation together: mission expansion and the intersection of Gospel and Culture. First, I’d love to discuss mission. Even today in the diocese there are only a handful of churches that have existed for more than 20 years. The earliest trajectory of our work was mission, and that mission was primarily expressed through the starting of new churches and reaching new people in new places. Isn’t the concept of ‘new’ captivating? But what made us fruitful was that we were taking that which was ancient – the Christian faith shaped by the apostolic tradition – and re-invigorating it in new places with new vitality to birth new life. I love seeing intergenerational ministry where the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ mingle and fellowship together in community. This winsome vision brought new leaders into our diocese. The Rev. Dr. Aubrey Spears, who recently relocated to Houston, was a new leader. Rev. Tom Bost was a new leader. Rev. Denis Ochieng was a new leader. Recently, I counted 37 New Churches that have been started by leaders in our diocese including one of our newest, Church of the Resurrection, in Mebane, NC. There are many more names we can list who have added to the great life of our diocese on mission.
In terms of mission expansion, we also knew that the disintegration of North American cultural life meant the church needed to be clear on “what we are for” instead of “being against something”. I remember fondly a few days in DC with Rev’s. Dan Claire, Tommy Hinson, and Mark Booker (and some others) as they dissected and discussed a cultural exegesis of life in the capital. They gave us the foundation and cultural assumptions of their city, and it opened my eyes to the many kinds of places and spaces where we would do mission and ministry in our Diocesan footprint. What has been consistent has been a serious desire to “love the city” where we are placed (Jeremiah 29) while proclaiming the sobering truth of Jesus that “no one comes to the Father without him”.
Over the years we have refined and discussed this mission, how we find leaders for it, how we fund it, how we train and assess people for it, and most importantly how do we offer support for those who follow the Lord and step onto the frontlines. That call of mission has morphed over time. At this year’s Diocesan Synod, we aim to display all the meeting spaces where our churches operate and celebrate those who have acquired a worshipping space while also praying for those who are still looking for worshipping space. That’s another take on mission expansion!
And yet, I think of the overwhelming number of places where we need new DCOH churches in our footprint. In our next season ahead, our Diocese is sponsoring a Missionary District in North Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska. We are already seeing people knocking on the door to talk mission. Add it to the DCOH, and we literally have nearly 130 million people in our diocesan footprint!
While a diocese and a church all need to have a focus on mission, I want to tell you why we have a bias towards it: Mission creates energy and life. A new church can be as exciting as a nursery room teaming with new life. It is certainly clunky, and it has interesting aromas, but who would rather hang out in a cemetery than a nursery? Gospel mission generates new people and resources, new strategies and practices. Then, as churches mature, they plant new churches. “Children” create more “new children.” Angela Kaye and I have no grandchildren and none on the way, but we long for those days. It is so exciting to watch our dear friends in our life stage just become agents of love, availability, and fun for their grandkids. Grandparenting is a form of personal redemption. Looking back, I wish we had taken more pictures of the missions and church plants as they were born and as they multiplied. Looking forward, we can hardly wait to see the new members of the DCOH that will surely be born among us!
This brings me to my second reflection, Gospel and Culture. Just as a new church makes a culture, it inhabits a culture, namely its local setting. The church is responsible for interpreting the connections and intersections of its culture to the church and the church to its culture. I still remember our first Synod when we had a theme of The Gospel and Human Sexuality, which is still a radical and controversial subject today. We didn’t shy from teaching the truth, and we didn’t “create an enclave” trying to shelter ourselves from the culture. We taught with a passion to intersect the gospel and the culture. The Rev. Tommy Hinson, who has often been a great voice for this intersection, once said in a breakout, “As Christians, we have a better story to tell”. At the heart of this statement is a confidence in the story of God’s redeeming work through Jesus, as well as a heart to communicate confidently and lovingly to the culture instead of yelling at the culture. Recently, we held a Gospel discussion about politics where I heard a quote, “Anyone who marries a political party will become a widow.” We want to understand how to live in a politically charged world and hold forth a better story for people who will inevitably find their political hopes disappointed.
At another Convocation, we looked at “Welcoming the Stranger.” It challenged us to consider how our churches have a story to tell in a nation that is rapidly diversifying with new people from other ethnicities and nations coming here through many different pathways. As our churches began expressing genuine love and welcome to the stranger, we saw more leaders coming to our Diocese from other nations. Canon Lawrence Mbugua brought Emmanuel Anglican church into DCOH with its membership mostly of Kenyan heritage. Soon, Bishop Adam Andudu followed and has blessed our diocese richly by exposing us to our dear brothers and sisters in our footprint from Sudan and South Sudan. We have three Sudanese congregations in the DCOH now! I still fondly remember seeing two different choirs from two different cultures singing at my consecration as Bishop Coadjutor. This has only increased our “Every Tribe and Nation” desire. This past summer, Rev. Jeff Weber and I attended a Sudanese Retreat near Buffalo New York with more than 240 men, women, and children with a Sudanese heritage. It was beautiful.
Looking forward, when it seems things are growing dark, the church must throw off its “covering” and be a light. Understanding the culture means that the concerns, needs, and friction points of culture shine light on the gospel. These needs and circumstances become the medium and platform to share the light in our day. I know there is a place for true prophetic indictment. But telling a better story has always captivated me to make sure I know how to share and live the better story as a Christian with confidence and love. We are convinced as a Diocese that the gospel is both a true story and a better one than even our most sophisticated cultural narratives.
Some churches have entered into the story of their culture by loving the stranger, some by learning more and marketplace ministry, while still others have become agents of creation care. This is the power of thinking intently about how the Gospel is a true story and a better story. Those churches who pay careful attention to the culture without compromising truth, become salt and light in their spaces and places. Our diocesan story is this, “A God who, in humility, entered our story has invited us into his greater true and eternal story.”
Lastly, as any organism grows larger it also grows smaller. I once heard a famous North American pastor say, that in order for a church to grow larger it must grow smaller. He, of course, was referring to small groups. As more and more people come to a church body, more and more sub-groupings must develop to welcome everyone into the life of the church family. As we all say, church isn’t just a Sunday service but a body of people following Jesus. When we started there were 23 churches in the Diocese of Christ Our Hope. Today there are more than 49 “works” (interest groups, launch teams, church plants, missions, and congregations) and these “works” have multiple clergy. Today there are more than 170 clergy and another 40-50 in the process of ordination.
How do we “grow smaller even as we grow larger”? A few years ago, we held a retreat and decided we needed to formalize a smaller structural system for nurturing our life and mission. We used a very Anglican term, deaneries. We commissioned seven deaneries, and over the last few years, we have been growing and sustaining a Deanery strategy as our life together continues. We saw through lots of prayer and a burst of light in West Virginia in Rev. Derek Roberts. Today there are five churches in West Virginia and two of them recently acquired their own church building. We appointed the Rev. Dr. Ben Sharpe as a Canon Missioner to help catalyze more churches in this region. Now this region functions as a Deanery. We truly have become smaller as we grow larger.
The Deanery work in the diocese affords more clergy and lay leaders to work together in mission, prayer, and fellowship in a particular region. The Triangle Deanery instituted Clergy Care Groups (a way to grow smaller) and the recently retired Rev. Brian Campbell said, “In all my 30-plus years of ministry, the clergy care groups have been by far my best ministry experience.”
It is easy to become nostalgic on “days long ago” but the call to move forward always pulls our hearts towards that greater story. In terms of mission, expansion, gospel and culture, and structures, the more things change the more they have stayed the same. And delightfully so.
In Christ,
Bishop Alan