Tuesday

  • Returned to my Province V bishops meeting for the morning. Headed back to Logan Square a little before noon for some time with family. Hit the road for Springfield around 3:30.
  • My route home after exiting I-55 takes me right by St Luke's Church, which is having Vacation Bible School this week (evenings, except for Thursday, when they have a daytime outing planned), so I dropped in on them. To say I am "impressed" would be an understatement. They had 40 kids last night and 47 tonight, with lots of help from adults and youth. Games, crafts, music, food, teaching--the classic VBS stuff. For those of you not familiar with Springfield and St Luke's: This is real inner-city incarnational ministry. It's in a poorish predominantly African-American neighborhood, and it actually draws from the neighborhood, not only on Sundays, but especially for events like this. It's a congregation that numbers in the 60s on an average Sunday--mid-size by diocesan standards--and makes the most of a quite modest physical plant. Kudos to St Luke's. 
  • You may wonder what bishops talk about when they get together for meetings like the one I just attended. Obviously, it would be inappropriate to quote anyone or even characterize the tenor of a conversation. But I don't think it's compromising anything to just name the categores: 
  1. Idiosyncracies of midwestern culture that affect our ministry in midwestern dioceses.
  2. Issues around TEC's full-communion relationship with the ELCA, now ten years old.
  3. Issues around that Denominational Health Plan that is still in the process of being rolled out.
  4. Scuttlebutt regarding potential changes to the administrative structure of the Church Center in New York (in the wake of last week's announcement of a new COO).
  5. The changes to Title IV that go into effect July 1.
  6. A proposed amendment to the bylaws of Province V that will be considered by next April's Synod.
  7. The movement toward a sort of "endowment superfund" in which multiple dioceses will participate in order to achieve the investment return advantages only available to funds with assets of at least $1 billion.

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