MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS IN CHRIST, ON THIS OCCASION OF THE ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-EIGHTH REGULAR SYNOD OF THE DIOCESE OF SPRINGFIELD, I HAVE THE PRIVILEGE OF ADDRESSING YOU AS YOUR BISHOP IN THE FOURTEENTH YEAR OF THIS EPISCOPACY, AND I DO SO IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, AND OF THE SON AND OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.  Amen.

On behalf of the Rector, Vestry and parishioners of Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, and with sincere appreciation for their grand hospitality and hard work, I am pleased to welcome all of you to this Regular Synod of the Diocese of Springfield.

Joining us at this Synod, are a number of very special guests.  Though you will have the opportunity to meet them as they bring greetings to this Synod, I want to introduce each of them to you now.  I am asking them to stand as I call their names.

            My good friend, Bishop Warren Freiheit, of the Central/Southern Illinois Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America is here and it is a joy to welcome him.

            The Very Rev. Dr. Robert S. Munday, Dean and President of Nashotah House, is with us again this year after a two year absence.  As a “down-state” Illinois native from Benton, it’s a joy to welcome him back home.

            Also with us representing our esteemed neighbor, the Rt. Rev. Keith Ackerman and the Diocese of Quincy, is the Very Reverend John Spencer.  Thank you, Dean Spencer, for being present.

            Representing the Rt. Rev. Robinson Cavalcanti and the Diocese of Recife with whom, along with the Diocese of Barbados, we have established a Companion Relationship, is the Venerable Miguel Uchoa who has traveled over twenty-four (24) hours to be with us.

            It is a joy to welcome again this year the Rev. David Anderson, Executive Director of the Illinois Conference of Churches.

            The Rev. Fr. Daniel Jurek, Pastor of St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church, is here.  Thank you for your support especially in allowing us to use your beautiful facilities.

            Finally, the Honorable Milt Sees, Mayor of Mt. Vernon, is expected to visit us sometime this afternoon.  We will be honored by his presence.

We thank you all for coming and we are pleased to extend a warm welcome to each one of you.

As mutual members of a sacred community, the Church, of which Christ Himself is the head, it is appropriate for me now to recognize and welcome those who have joined us in ordained ministry or their ordained ministry status has changed since our last synod.  Please stand as I call your name:

The Rev. David J. Boase has come to us from the Diocese of Whitby in the Church of England to be the Rector of the Episcopal Parish of Alton.

The Rev. Dr. Gregory A. Tournoux has come to us from the Diocese of Eastern Michigan.  He is the Rector of Christ Church, Springfield.

The Rev. Canon Ellis E. Brust has come canonically to us from the Diocese of Florida and, living in Atlanta, Georgia (not Illinois), serves as the Chief Operating Officer of the American Anglican Council;

The Rev. Brian T. Kellington and his wife, the Rev. Laurie R. Kellington, a deacon, have come to us from the Diocese of Albany to serve St. Paul’s Church, Pekin.  Having received their Letters Dimissory earlier this month, their duties among us officially begin November 6; and

The Rev. Gene R. Tucker has been ordained priest and continues to serve as Missioner in the Hale Deanery Team Ministry;

We welcome these new colleagues as fellow laborers in ministry in this portion of our Lord’s vineyard.  Indeed, “the harvest is plentiful and the laborers are (far too) few.”

            During this past year, the following Letters Dimissory were issued by me:

Emily Schnabl, priest, to the Diocese of Missouri;           

Charles Walthall, priest, to the Diocese of Easton; and

Christian Pierce, priest, to the Diocese of Atlanta.

            This past July, I was informed by the Rt. Rev. Frank Lyons, Bishop of Bolivia, Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, that he had canonically received the Rev. Robert T. Giffin as a priest in good standing in the Diocese of Bolivia.  Given the current deplorable situation in our beloved Episcopal Church I cannot but support that action, and because Fr. Giffin continues to reside in southeastern Indiana I have licensed him to function in the Diocese of Springfield.

It now is my solemn task to declare a moment of silence during this assembly as we remember those clergy who have died since our last Synod.  They are: The Rev. Canon William Turner, retired priest of our Diocese, and the Rev. Dr. Thomas P. Murphy who, though canonically resident in the Diocese of Quincy, was Interim Rector of All Saints’, Morton.  As valued members of our community, we thank God for them and the good ministries of which they were stewards.  We acknowledge that our common community is significantly diminished by their demise, and with their families we grieve their deaths.

                                                            -- (SILENCE) --

May their souls rest in peace, O Lord, and may all who grieve know Your most gracious consolation through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

The theme of this Synod is “Called and Sent by Christ.”  Truly our ministries do not belong to us.  We are stewards who are called and sent by Christ to do His redeeming work in the world over which He is Lord and Savior.  We are His hands offering assistance, His feet offering companionship, His ears offering compassionate listening and His mouth offering to speak the truth in love.

The primary purpose of this address has not changed.  It is to report to you on the state of the Church.  But first I want to say something else has not changed for me: I continue to feel most privileged and honored to serve as the Bishop of Springfield and to be your servant in Christ.  We live in a culture where people demand their rights, both real and imagined.  This kind of thinking seems to have the ability to weave its way into our theology and faith.  A great truth of Scripture is that in God’s Kingdom there are no “rights,” but privileges abound.  The privilege of Israel was to be chosen and loved by God, and saved by Him from slavery in Egypt.  Our privilege is to be chosen and loved by God, who in Jesus Christ died for us and, thereby, redeemed us from the slavery of sin.  Knowing how imperfect my own life is and has been, I never cease to be amazed that the Lord of the universe cares so much for me that He chose me to be His servant.  I pray you share totally that sentiment when it comes to assessing your own lives.

In assessing the current state of our Church in general, I would have to say, using a physiological metaphor, we belong in an Intensive Care Unit.  All indications are the Episcopal Church is very ill and we are dying.

I agree completely with the assessment of John Lipscomb, the Bishop of Southwest Florida, when he said not too long ago, “Our decline stems in part…from the corporate timidity to acknowledge the uniqueness of Jesus of Nazareth as the Way, the Truth and the Life for all people.”  Too often we, corporately as the Church and individually as people who claim to be Christians, seem either to have forgotten the Gospel of Christ, or we have never been taught what it is and come to believe it.  If we as Episcopalians are guilty of anything as a Church, we are guilty of having been purveyors of “Cheap Grace.”

We perhaps would do well to read or reread Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship and Rick Warren’s the Purpose Driven Life and the Purpose Driven Church.  There we will have the opportunity to learn that life and the Church really aren’t first and foremost about us.  Their purposes are far greater than our own personal fulfillment, our peace of mind or even our happiness.  As Pastor Warren makes clear, “It all is about much more than our families, our careers, or even our wildest dreams and ambitions.  If we want to know why we were placed on this planet, we must begin with God.  The simple truth is we were born by His purpose and for His purpose.”

Pastor Warren continues by saying the Bible offers three metaphors that teach us God’s view of life.  They are:

1)     Life is a trust;

2)     Life is a test; and

3)     Life is a temporary assignment

There is something about being tested that reveals our personal character and plays a major role in developing it.  Additionally, understanding that life is a test, leads us to the reality that nothing is insignificant in our lives.  What is significant is how we handle the so-called “insignificant nothings.”  In the handling of them determines more often than not whether we truly are Christ’s ambassadors.

Our hedonistic culture tempts us to think life is something other than a temporary assignment when in truth the blessed Trinity is both the means and the goal of the journey.  The fact that earth is not our ultimate home explains why, as followers of Jesus, we should expect to experience difficulty, sorrow and rejection in the world.  We may think differently or we may even wish it weren’t true, but our true purpose on earth is to glorify God in all things.

It has been said, and I believe it to be true, “the Church is one generation away from extinction.”  I also believe we have never been closer to that reality than we are right now.  The Episcopal Church continues to be in deep crisis and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of reasons to be optimistic that things will change anytime soon if at all.  A couple of months ago the Presiding Bishop was quoted as saying he believes our Church is healing.  I would be most interested in seeing the evidence upon which he based that sentiment.  What seems truer is that he is either in deep denial or raised the practice of “wishful thinking” to a new high.

The fact is the Episcopal Church has been suspended from the worldwide Anglican Communion until the next Lambeth Conference in 2008.  In the meantime we are to do two things: 1) Explain the action we took in Minneapolis in 2003 when we approved the election of a non-celibate homosexual as  a bishop and legitimized the blessing of same sex relationships; and 2) Repent, apologize and cease and desist from those actions in the future.  To date, what the Episcopal Church has done under the leadership of the House of Bishops is nothing short of pathetic.  After the issuance of the Windsor Report, the House of Bishops met in a special session in January 2005 in Salt Lake City with no effective direction resulting.  Our presentation to the Anglican Consultative Council this last June was an embarrassment.  Finally, with an opportunity to do something constructive, the House of Bishops met at the Ritz Carlton Resort in San Juan, Puerto Rico last month.  All that was and continues to be needed is: 1) Recognize that the Windsor Report is the prescribed way forward if we are to remain a part of the worldwide Anglican Communion; and 2) Commit ourselves to adhering to and following its directives.  But instead of doing that, most of the time and energy was given to discussing what our Church’s response should be to the hurricane devastation which occurred late this past summer.  Certainly, that consideration is important and appropriate but not at the expense of dealing with what has been even more destructive to our Church, and that is the hurricane winds we created in the ’03 Minneapolis Convention.

Additionally, a commission made up of bishops and chancellors was created to explore ways to prevent congregations and dioceses from leaving the Episcopal Church with their property.  That action appears to be a “hunkering down” posturing rather than working conscientiously toward reconciliation and change. 

Interestingly enough, the only recommendation made concerning the Windsor Report at the last House of Bishops meeting was that the Church should continue to study it.  I would submit that one only needs to read it and then decide if its prescription for the Church is appropriate or not.  If it is, then good, our communion within Anglicanism is affirmed and preserved.  If not, then we are moving inexorably toward schism.

As in every age, a clear choice is being presented: We may follow the historic Biblical faith and accept the same teaching on matters of sexual morality as is generally accepted elsewhere in the Communion, or walk apart from that Communion.  At present it is unclear which path the Episcopal Church will choose.  But let there be no confusion as to the course I have chosen.  I will serve God in the historic Faith once delivered to the saints.

Do not be deceived.  It is not broadminded and progressive for a bishop of the Church, or for that matter anyone else who claims to be Christian, to declare that Jesus is not the way, the truth, and the life but merely one way among many.  Far from being a Christian teaching, that is heresy and leads only to confusion, chaos and destruction.

Be on guard against false teachers.  False teaching seems to abound these days and it is a cancer in the Body of Christ.  Left untreated it will kill.  Those who would offer the world's temporal wisdom instead of Gospel truth are “carriers” of the deadliest kind of cancer because it kills the soul.

Common logic dictates that it is not a sign of hermeneutical dexterity to conclude that since Jesus did not specifically forbid homosexuality he must be for it.  Jesus did not specifically forbid speeding on I-57 or I-64, but it would be ridiculous for any one to conclude that He, therefore, would condone it!  Rather than arguing from silence or getting lost in obscurity, we must reclaim the clear teaching of Scripture.  A gospel of inclusion without the Gospel of transformation is no Gospel at all.  We have a clear commandment to obey and a clear message to proclaim.

The bottom line in relation to the National Church for me is this: The resolution of this crisis is highly unlikely to come from that quarter.

Nevertheless, any kind of preemptive or premature action is most inappropriate.  First we need to see what happens or doesn’t happen at the upcoming General Convention to be held next June in Columbus, Ohio.  Then we need to see how the rest of the Anglican Communion responds to our action or inaction.  Surely, at the very latest, we may expect clarification and definitive direction from the next Lambeth Conference scheduled to be held in the summer of 2008.  My current commitment is to continue a steady course at least until after Lambeth three (3) years hence.

The unsettled state of things makes mission and ministry even more difficult than it normally is.  But there is no excuse for not pursuing mission and ministry with the utmost vigor, and I am fully committed to that.

At times like this, the most important thing is to recommit ourselves to the basics.  We are not commanded to like each other, but we are commanded by Christ, Himself, to love one another even as God loves us.  Don’t make the mistake of thinking “love” is necessarily feeling good about someone.  For the Christian “love” is about the discipline and discipleship of valuing God above everything else, valuing ourselves as God values us – He loves us so much He gave His only begotten Son to die on the cross for our redemption – and valuing others above ourselves.

An essential “basic” to which we must recommit ourselves is the community of faith, the Body of Christ, the Church.  Too many Episcopalians see “Church” as optional.  It’s not!  It’s fundamental to who we are as Christians.  If we do not anticipate with joy every opportunity to gather for corporate worship and to do God service, something is terribly wrong with us and our value systems.   If we do not anticipate with joy every opportunity to gather for corporate worship and to do God’s service, isn’t that a sure sign that we think creation is about us rather than God, and that an immediate reordering of things is required?

One thing we must stop doing as the Church is fashioning the Gospel to be a commodity which then is offered to the consumer.  What we tend to do is say we have these things to offer therefore wouldn’t you like to join us.  That approach may seem appropriate because that is what’s all around us in the world, but it’s not Scriptural and I don’t think it’s Christian.  Externally at least, too often it would appear the Episcopal Church has allowed the laity to consider themselves consumers and to function as such rather than being full shareholders.

The Christian approach is to say Jesus is calling every person to be a part of His Body, the Church, not so much for what we will receive but for what we can offer.  It’s blessed to receive, but it is always more blessed to give.  To think it’s about receiving is to think it’s about us.  To think it’s about giving no matter what the cost is to think it’s about God. 

Charles W. Slaton writes in Biblical Malnutrition & Today’s Episcopal Church, "We should all take issue with the notion that man inherits the right to update and revise Scripture as he sees fit.  This is what the revisionist movement is all about, changing God to accommodate man."  If we don't have a clear, unalloyed, Gospel message to proclaim and we offer more doubts and questions than direction and our mission statement is ambiguous, two things are clear.  The first is we don’t understand the Christian faith and what it means to be a Christian, and the second is we shouldn’t expect that anyone will be drawn to what we profess.

Certainly, as John R. W. Stott has said, “…it is comparatively easy to be faithful if we do not care about being contemporary and easy to be contemporary if we do not bother to be faithful.  It is the search for a combination of truth and relevance which is exacting."  Our task always is to engage the culture without being engulfed by it.  Our mission always is to transform the culture rather than conforming to it.

As noted by A. W. Tozer in The Set of the Sail, “the Church's mightiest influence is felt when she is different from the world in which she lives.  Her power lies in her being different, rises with the degree in which she differs and sinks as the difference diminishes.”  We are in the world, but we are not to be of the world.  It is most appropriate for every Christian to view himself or herself as having “resident alien” status.

It is clear to me our identity and mission as orthodox American Anglicans lie not in any name, institution or structure, but rather in the living Word of our living God.  The institutional aligning adjustments of the Episcopal Church with the rest of Anglicanism and Christendom will take whatever shape they may.  Much of that process will be very painful for many people.  But let us avoid getting bogged down in that mess any more than we have to.  Often we have the ability to choose between morass and mission.  We always need to be prepared to lean into the winds of the future rather than simply allowing them to blow us about or batter us at will.

I for one am not willing to be controlled or have this Diocese controlled by the current climate.  In partnership with Acts 29, we are in the process of instituting a pilot program called, “Yes, these Bones can Live,” designed to assist congregations to be vibrant and healthy centers of life giving Christianity.  If this project is effective, those centers will be characterized by spiritual, numerical and financial growth gained through a regimen of training for clergy and lay leaders by which they will be equipped with appropriate skills, tools and materials necessary to achieve that goal. Upwards of eighteen (18) congregations in the Diocese of Springfield have been identified and nominated to participate.  Early next month each of those congregations will receive material describing the project.  If the nominated congregations choose to be considered, having studied the material and being willing to commit to the training and implementation requirements, they will be interviewed by the project Task Force in early December.  As a result of the interviews, the Task Force will then select up to twelve (12) congregations to be involved.  The training consisting of three (3), three (3) day retreats will commence in May of 2006 and continue in June and August.  The project itself will then be implemented in September of ’06.

This is an exciting program and eventually could have a profound effect on the ministry of every congregation in this Diocese and beyond not only this Diocese but the Episcopal Church.  The potential is quite literally limitless.

In addition to this, next January our Youth Department is planning to participate in YouthQuake which is held annually at Ridgecrest Conference Center in Ridgecrest, North Carolina, with well over a thousand young people participating.  An announcement has been sent to all our congregations and it is hoped it will receive enthusiastic support throughout the Diocese.  I am planning to attend and I hope a multitude of our youth will, too, because I believe it will have a profound effect on their spirituality and its formation.

As I conclude this year’s address, I want to encourage each of you to use every resource God makes available to you, and never underestimate the significance of what effect your actions might have.  To illustrate that truth let me tell you a true story.  There was a poor Scottish farmer by the name of Fleming.  One day, while toiling to make a living for his family, he heard a cry for help coming from a nearby bog.  He dropped what he was doing and ran to the bog.  There, mired to his waist in black muck, was a terrified boy, screaming and struggling to free himself.  Farmer Fleming saved the lad from what could have been a slow and terrifying death.

The next day, a fancy carriage pulled up to the Scotsman's humble abode.  An elegantly dressed nobleman stepped out and introduced himself as the father of the boy the farmer had saved.

            "I want to repay you," said the nobleman. "You saved my son's life."

            "No, I can't accept payment for what I did," the Scottish farmer replied waving off the offer. At that moment, the farmer's own son came to the door of the family home. 
            "Is that your son?" the nobleman asked.

            "Yes," the farmer replied proudly.

            "I'll make you a deal,” said the nobleman.  “Let me provide him with the same level of education my own son will enjoy.  If the lad is anything like his father, he'll no doubt grow to be a man of whom we both will be proud."  And that he did.

            Farmer Fleming's son attended the very best schools and in time, graduated from St. Mary's Hospital Medical School in London, and went on to become known throughout the world as the noted Sir Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of Penicillin.

            But that’s not the end of the story.  Years later, the same nobleman's son who was saved from the bog was stricken with pneumonia.  Do you know what saved his life that time?  It was Penicillin of course!

            Do you know the name of the nobleman?  It was Lord Randolph Churchill.  His son's name of course was Sir Winston Churchill.

It’s been said that what goes around comes around, but it’s never that simple and it’s never that impersonal.  As Christians we are to pray like everything depends on God, and we are to work and witness as if everything depends on us.  We are to love as if we’ve never been hurt, dance and sing as if nobody is watching or listening, and live like Earth is Heaven.  If we do that, we may be certain that a rainbow will follow each rain, the hand of a friend will always be near, and most importantly God will fill our hearts with overflowing gladness.  May each of you always know God’s richest blessings.

NOW UNTO GOD THE FATHER, GOD THE SON AND GOD THE HOLY SPIRIT BE ASCRIBED AS IS MOST JUSTLY DUE, ALL MIGHT, POWER, MAJESTY, DOMINION AND GLORY NOW AND FOREVER.  Amen.