MY FRIENDS IN CHRIST, ON THIS OCCASION OF THE ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FIFTH REGULAR SYNOD, I HAVE THE PRIVILEGE OF ADDRESSING YOU AS YOUR BISHOP IN THE ELEVENTH YEAR OF THIS EPISCOPATE, IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, AND OF THE SON AND OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.  Amen.

With sincere appreciation for our kind hosts, the rector and parish Church of St. John’s, Decatur, I am honored to welcome you to this Regular Synod of the Diocese of Springfield on the one hundred twenty-fifth anniversary of our founding.  I thank God for each of you, knowing you are the heart and soul of this Diocese and your inspirational faith and ministry are accomplishing God’s purpose here and now.

Our theme is: “Reaching forth Our Hands in Love.”  Those words, themselves, are contained in a Morning Prayer collect which encapsulate the saving mystery of the Gospel of Christ and the mission of His Church, and are entirely appropriate in setting the tone for all that we do both here and everywhere else.  The full text of that prayer is most significant, and I want to share it with you now.  Let us pray.

            Lord Jesus Christ, You stretched out Your arms of love

            on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come

  within the reach of Your saving embrace: So clothe us in

  Your Spirit that we, REACHING FORTH OUR HANDS

  IN LOVE, may bring those who do not know You to the

  knowledge and love of You; for the honor of Your Name.

  Amen.

I’m pleased to extend a special welcome to the bishop of our companion diocese, the Rt. Rev. John Holder, the thirteenth Bishop of Barbados.  He is joined by his colleagues the Reverend Canon Geoffrey Mayers and the Rev. Jeffrey Gibson.  Canon Mayers is the Rector of St. John’s Parish Church, St. John, Barbados, the companion parish of St. Stephen’s Church, Harrisburg.  In addition, he is Rural Dean of St. John’s Deanery and adjunct lecturer in Pastoral Studies at Codrington Theological College.  Father Gibson is the Rector of St. Leonard’s Church, St. Michael, Barbados, and adjunct lecturer in Ethics at Codrington Theological College.  St. Leonard’s is the companion parish of St. Andrew’s Church, Carbondale.  It is a joy to welcome all three of them to the Diocese of Springfield.

This year their Diocese is celebrating three hundred and seventy-five years of Anglicanism in Barbados, as well as the one hundred seventy-eighth anniversary of the founding of the Diocese of Barbados, itself.  That reality assists us in putting our anniversary celebration in perspective.  Anglicanism was established in Barbados in 1627, a mere 20 years after the founding of the first permanent English settlement in this country, that being Jamestown, Virginia.  Moreover, the Diocese of Barbados was founded in 1824, eleven years before the establishment of the Diocese of Illinois.

Nevertheless, our history is not diminished in any way by comparison.  You might recall there had been discussions about subdividing the Diocese of Illinois as early as 1872, but the mechanics to do so weren’t put in place until the annual Synod of 1876.  The Primary Convention of what became the Diocese of Quincy met in that city in April of 1877.  There was disagreement over the geographical boundaries so consent was not immediately forthcoming.  On July 24, 1877, clergy and laity from southern Illinois met in Alton at St. Paul’s Church to consider the specifics of becoming a diocese.  Subsequently, Bishop McLaren, the Third and final Bishop of Illinois, wrote to the Rev. David Dresser, Rector of St. Paul’s, Carlinville, and chairman of the Alton meeting.  Bishop McLaren stated he would approve the establishment of a Diocese of Springfield provided there was agreement as to how the geography of Illinois would be divided, and if sufficient funds were available to support a bishop.  The suggestion Bishop McLaren put forth providing for the territory lying south of the Counties of Woodford, Livingston, Ford and Iroquois and east of the Illinois River was accepted.  The General Convention of the Episcopal Church, meeting in Boston that October, gave their concurrence as required by Canon.  The Primary Convention of this Diocese met in Springfield on December 18, 1877.  Thirteen Clergy and thirty-one laymen attended.  (41 clergy and 78 lay persons have registered for this Synod.)  Bishop McLaren presided.  The Very Rev. George Franklin Seymour, Dean of General Theological Seminary, was elected Bishop of Springfield on the first ballot.  Interestingly enough, Bishop Seymour had been elected Third bishop of Illinois but did not receive the necessary approval at General Convention in 1874, because he was a proponent liturgically of employing candles on the Altar, a custom seen as too “Romish” for the times.  That fact should give us all pause as we consider controversial matters in our time.

         In addition to Bishop Holder, Canon Mayers and Fr. Gibson, it is a pleasure to welcome Bishop Warren Freiheit.  He is the third bishop to serve the Central Southern Illinois Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.  His geographical responsibility includes all the Diocese of Springfield, most of the Diocese of Quincy, and a goodly portion of the Diocese of Chicago.  He has been a very valuable colleague and friend in ministry since he became bishop on September 16, 2000.  Except for being an unrepentant and unremitting Vikings fan, his character is of the highest sort.

          Also visiting us at this synod is the Very Rev. Robert Munday, Dean of Nashotah House Seminary, Nashotah, Wisconsin.  It is pleasure to have him with us and to commend him for the good work he and his associates are doing at Nashotah House.

Another special guest with us is the Rev. Wayland Middendorf.  He is the Pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Shumway, Illinois.  As such he has been providing faithful ministry to the people of St. Laurence’s Episcopal Church, Effingham, for well over a year.  We thank God for his faithful and kind service.

As members one of another, it is appropriate for me to recognize and welcome those who have joined us in ordained ministry from other dioceses or through ordination since our last synod.  I would ask them to stand as I call their names:

The Rev. Desmond Francis, Rector of Christ the King, Normal, from the Diocese of Lexington;

The Rev. Christopher Coats, Rector of St. George’s, Belleville, from the Diocese of Central Gulf Coast;

The Rev. Beverly Factor, Missioner for Monroe County, from the Diocese of Los Angeles;

The Rev. Robin Cona ordained deacon and assigned to the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, Springfield and serving Trinity, Mattoon, and St. Andrew’s, Paris;

The Rev. Allan Feltner ordained deacon and assigned to Christ the King, Normal;

The Rev. Charles Walthall ordained deacon and assigned to the Hale Deanery Team Ministry;

The Rev. Gary Way ordained deacon and temporarily assigned to the Diocese of Virginia Missioner in Stafford County;

The Rev. William Moore ordained priest and continues to serve as the Archdeacon of the Diocese of Springfield; and

The Rev. Jon Griffin ordained priest and serving St. Mark’s, West Frankfort, in the Hale Deanery Team ministry.

 Their presence and work among us is encouraging as we are inspired and strengthened by results of their faith and commitment.

            During this past year, letters dimissory were issued by me for the Rev. Lloyd Johnson to the Diocese of Northern Indiana, the Rev. Mary Milano to the Diocese of Chicago, the Rev. William Privette to the Diocese of East Carolina, and the Rev. Michael Hardwick to the Diocese of Missouri.  We pray God’s continuing grace on them in their respective calls that have taken them from the Diocese of Springfield to new work.

            Over the last year I have found it necessary to take the following disciplinary action:

            The Rev. Robert Harmon, former Rector of Trinity, Mt. Vernon, was inhibited on June 1, 2002, for conduct unbecoming of a member of the clergy.  That inhibition was renewed on August 31, 2002.

            Mr. James McEvers, formerly a priest canonically resident in this Diocese, was deposed on August 29, 2002, for violation of his ordination vows.

            Please pray for Robert and James and their families as they deal with the consequences of their inappropriate behavior.

As always, my designated responsibility in this address is to report to you on the state of the Church.  Recognizing that, to a degree, I have already undertaken that duty by listing those new among us in ordained leadership, those clergy who have left the diocese for new work and those who have been disciplined, I feel compelled to say reporting on the state of the Church is never an easy task.  Obviously the Church is a large and very complicated entity, and it would be easy to err by emphasizing the good things that are occurring without at least naming that which is problematic; or to be overly focused on the difficulties facing us without articulating and thanking God for the ministry successes that are being accomplished by His grace through us.

What is perhaps most helpful in beginning any task like this is to acknowledge and confess that every good thing falls within the purview of God’s providence, including the Church.  The victory over sin and death has been won in Christ and through Christ.  Alleluia!  But apparently God has chosen not to do the work of salvation transcendently and unilaterally, working His will on us from afar without our consent.  On the contrary, He seems to have chosen to include us by our own free will to be instruments by which the Gospel of the Incarnate Christ is preached and eternal salvation is embraced.  God works through us, but only if we are willing participants.  We must continually choose to be His servants, denying ourselves and taking up the Cross.  Otherwise, He will work around us to accomplish His purpose.

Having said this and thereby, hopefully, connecting us with our Everlasting Foundation, and having returned from the House of Bishops just nine days ago, let me say it is clear, at least to me, our Church continues to be in serious disarray.  The theme of the House of Bishops’ meeting just past was “Inhabiting Reconciliation: Living the Mystery.”  At the meeting’s very beginning there seemed to be a strong consensus that we should address what was being identified as an elephant in our midst -- the constitutional crisis created by the Bishop of Pennsylvania’s inappropriate deposition of the Rector of Rosemont, and the subsequent reception of that priest by a bishop in Central Africa.  He then was transferred immediately and received in good standing by the Bishop of Pittsburgh.  It is to be noted that the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Archbishop of Canterbury Designate are reported to have joined the fray by saying the Rector of Rosemont was still a priest.  Appropriately, at least a portion of our House of Bishops felt it was important to address the actions of the Bishop of the Diocese of Delaware and the Bishop of the Diocese of Kansas as we dealt with the problem of unilateral actions.  This concern and direction came on the heels of the Anglican Consultative Council meeting in Hong Kong, and their issuance of a resolution calling for individual dioceses in the Anglican Communion not to take unilateral actions or adopt policies that would strain our communion with one another without reference to their provincial authorities.  The full text of that resolution is as follows:

          This Council, being concerned about a range of matters of faith and

order which have arisen since we last met, and having in mind the

constant emphasis on mutual responsibility and interdependence

in the resolutions of successive Lambeth Conferences, from the call

in 1867 for “unity in faith and discipline…by due and canonical

subordination of synods” (1867, IV) to the call in 1998 for a

“common mind concerning ethical issues where contention threatens

to divide…” (1998, IV 5 [c]) calls upon: 1. Dioceses and individual

bishops not to undertake unilateral actions or adopt policies which

would strain our communion with one another without reference to

their provincial authorities, and 2. Provincial authorities to have in

mind the impact of their decisions with the wider communion, and

3. All members of the Communion, even in our disagreements to

have in mind the “need for courtesy, tolerance, mutual respect and

          prayer for one another” (1998, III.2 [e]).

         It perhaps is significant to note the resolution would have passed unanimously save for the one abstaining vote cast by Bishop Catherine Roskam, Suffragan of New York.  In any case, our House refused to deal directly with the serious and ongoing problem of our inappropriate unilateral actions.  Instead, we opted to have “…the Committee on Pastoral Development create a proposal (to be considered at our next meeting) for: 1) dealing with beaches of collegiality; and 2) providing assistance to bishops with diocesan situations which impact the larger Church.”

I pray this will be a significant initiative.  However, if that is to happen, we will need more resolve and courage than we have demonstrated as a House over the last decade.

It was a difficult process even to amend our agenda at the recent House of Bishops in order to consider the conflict between Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh.  The Presiding Bishop did agree to allow five minutes for each of those bishops to state their position, introducing the subject by saying what is an elephant for some people is a mouse for others.  That can be true, but it can be pathological denial, too.  Each bishop took ten to fifteen minutes to make their presentations, which were considered by many to be very helpful.  However, we couldn’t take too much time with this.  After all, there were other, more important issues to address, i.e. the looming armed conflict with Iraq and our oil exploration and development in the Arctic—both of which we as a House are decidedly against.

Personally, in addition to a strong concern about the appropriateness of our body taking positions on any topic without a comprehensive knowledge of the facts, I wonder how our Church pronouncements are received by others when we appear so inept in dealing with the critical issues in our own Communion.  We either seem not to understand that community is built on communication, or we do not possess the courage, discipline and skills required to engage in it in any sustained and effective way.

I think part of the problem has been an acceptance by some of our leaders that there are multiple truths, as in “You share with me your truth and I will share with you my truth.”  In that way we have a right to act on our perspective no matter what others think.  How absurd, especially for Christians!  We believe God is truth, and we need to be continually discerning what that is.  Therefore, it is imperative for me to hear what you and everyone else think, because together we have a much better opportunity to know the truth of God than we do as individuals or a likeminded group.  That’s exactly why the Church, the Body of Christ, and her tried and true teachings are so important.

But it seems to me that the real issue is not simply those with which we deal.  I think the real issue is what Authority does Holy Scripture, supported by reason and tradition, hold for the Church and for our lives.  Do we as individuals and together as the Church interpret the world as a result of a primary grounding in Scripture, or do we interpret Scripture as a result of a primary grounding in the world?  If it’s the latter, I concur completely with those who have been labeled “Revisionists” and their position on the issues confronting the Church.  If it’s the former, then I must concur with those who have been labeled “Traditionalists” and their take on the issues.  However, as a member of orthodox Christendom, as one who strives to put God at the center of my life through the grace of Jesus Christ and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, my orientation in relation to Scriptural Authority must be such wherein I interpret the world through the lens of Scripture rather than interpret Scripture through the lens of the world.

In the third chapter of St Paul’s Second Epistle to Timothy, the Apostle warns his youthful associate of the Cross, “…the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths.”  Those times seem now to be here in spades.

Too often what one hears in Church is not about salvation, but a so-called self-centered spirituality and a so-called progressive morality couched in a religious aura.

The biggest problem here is the confusion and distraction it causes resulting in the faithful diverting their time and energy from being about the saving work of God’s Kingdom.

Desiring to assist this Diocese to put all this on some proverbial backburner, at least for the time being, let me say as clearly as I can, I will not license here any changes to the basic teaching and practice of our faith, and my communion with those bishops who do no doubt will be impaired.  In the eighth chapter of his fifth book of The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Richard Hooker says the following:

          The Church hath Authority to Establish that for an order at one time,

          which at another time it may abolish and in both do well.  But, that

          which in Doctrine the Church doth now deliver rightly as a Truth,

          no man will say that it may hereafter recall, and as rightly avouch

          the contrary.  Laws touching Matter of Order are changeable, by the

          Power of the Church; Articles concerning Doctrine, not so.  We read

          often in the Writings of Catholick and Holy men touching matters of

          Doctrine.  This we believe, this we hold, this the Prophets and

          Evangelists have declared.  This the Apostles have delivered.  This

          the Martyrs have sealed with their blood, and confessed in their

          Torments, to this We cleave, as to the Anchor of Our Souls; against

          this, though an Angel from Heaven should Preach unto us, We would

          not believe.  But did we ever in any of them read touching Matters of

          mere comeliness, Order, and Decency, neither Commanded nor

          Prohibited by any Prophet, any Evangelist, and Apostle.  Although

          the Church wherein we live do ordain them to be kept, although they

          be never so generally observed, though all the Churches in the world

          should command them, though Angels from Heaven should require

          our Subjection thereunto, I would hold him accursed that doth obey?

          Be it in the Matter of the one kind or of the other, what Scripture

          doth plainly deliver, to that the First place, both of Credit and

          Obedience is due, the Next whereunto is whatever any Man can

          necessarily conclude by Force of Reason; After these the Voyce of

          the Church succeedeth.

         That teaching is at the very core of Anglicanism and is to be followed by those who would participate responsibly and reasonably in the Christian faith.  What is lacking is a concurrence on what are those things of faith that are appropriately changeable and what are those things that are not.

         In transitioning to the current situation in the Diocese of Springfield, I’m pleased to refer you to Appendix I on page 65 of your Synod handbook.  There you will see a very brief synopsis of the wonderful ministry taking place in twenty-two of our forty congregations.  And though that is only the “tip of the iceberg,” it is indicative of who we are and the ministry we are doing.  In all of this, God is blessing those we touch even as He is blessing us.

         It was Langmead Casserley, an unsurpassed theologian in the twentieth century, who said that the fullness of Anglicanism is utterly catholic and uncompromisingly evangelical.  I believe that, and I believe the effectiveness of our ministry rests on it.  In addition, if the ministry we share is to be a factor in extending the Kingdom of God, our members must possess a profound commitment to faithful worship both corporate and private, to Christian education or the pursuit of Christian knowledge, to faithful stewardship of our time, talent and money, to evangelism or faithful Christian witness, to pastoral care or the sincere concern for others even as Christ cares for us, and to social outreach by assisting those less fortunate than we.

Faithful Worship, both corporate and private: Thirty to forty percent of mainline Church members worship regularly.  Our goal should be eighty to ninety percent.  Failure to worship weakens the individual as well as the Church.  Christians who don’t worship regularly are like athletes who don’t train responsibly.  If we don’t train responsibly, what kind of athletes would we be?

         Christian education or the pursuit of Christian knowledge: Too many Churches have no formal Christian Education Program at all and, if we are honest, the ones we have are too often perfunctory.  Sound Sunday school programs are vital for both children and adults.  So are comprehensive baptism, confirmation and marriage preparation courses, and programs like Alpha, Bible studies, Cursillo, Education for Ministry (EFM) and the Springfield School for Ministry (SSM).

        Faithful stewardship of our time, talent and money: Worship, Christian education, evangelism, pastoral care and social outreach are integral to our stewardship, and so is the tithe.  Stewardship is about keeping God at the very center of our lives.

        Evangelism or faithful Christian witness: In all we say and do, we are good witnesses or bad witnesses.  (Evangelism is, of course, both words and deeds.)  God challenges us to be profoundly good witnesses, not by being good but by being faithful.  The fact is we share everything that is important to us.  We need only to be clear why our faith is important to us and then be proactive in demonstrating it.

        Pastoral care or the sincere concern for others even as Christ cares for us: Pastoral care is about taking time to nurture one another.  We are to be instruments of Christ.  As such, we are the hands, the feet, the eyes, the ears, the voice and the touch of Jesus.

         Social outreach by assisting those less fortunate than we: Social outreach is blessing others as we are blessed.

          It behooves us as leaders to witness, to teach, to challenge and to support one another here and back in our communities so a growing cadre of fiercely committed people is the norm.  I would encourage all who are in attendance at this Synod as leaders in your Churches and in this Diocese to be a driving force in assisting our members and ministries to be more and more mission oriented and less and less maintenance centered by developing and implementing ministry in the aforementioned six areas.  In this way we will be doing what God has created us to do.  Please know I stand with you fervently in that commitment, and I expect you to employ me and each other in every appropriate way to that end.

         Leadership is always at the heart of every issue beginning in this Diocese with me and extending to every clergy, every warden, every vestry and bishop’s committee, down to and including every member.  Challenges, problems and crises are challenges, problems and crises for leadership.  Unresolved, they become challenges, problems and crises OF leadership.  I am continually thankful to God for each of you who are assisting me to be the bishop and leader you need, and not what you necessarily want.

         I continue to search for ways to resolve a major, if not the biggest challenge, problem and crisis we face as a Diocese--the funding and staffing of the clergy vacancies among us.  Currently, we have vacancies in eleven (11) congregations, each needing and deserving effective clergy leadership.  Resolving this crisis that seems to be ongoing demands innovative efforts from us all.  I am confident each of you will continue to assist me in seeking solutions in this critical area.