Let's Grow Up Together
We at Center Aisle bring to the tasks of the next nine days a rare quality in Episcopal quarters—optimism.
It’s not that we’re dewy-eyed idealists who underestimate the pain some of General Convention’s decisions may bring. It’s that we celebrate the opportunity God has given us to grow at this critical juncture.
Those determined to continue the “bickering” and “fussing,” as two of our nominees for presiding bishop have put it, will receive no support from us. We’re all about growth—growth from the transformational center of our faith. Here are three goals for growing that demand our attention:
Growth in mission: The theme for General Convention, “Come and Grow,” is precisely on point. It’s time for us to rebuild our sense of mission, to reach out to the least among us.
We fervently support the global embodiment of that mission—the Millennium Development Goals, which would help relieve the world’s most desperate poverty. But you don’t have to look across the oceans. There are examples of material and spiritual need in all of our parishes as well.
Growth in numbers: The 20/20 campaign calls for doubling average Sunday attendance by the year 2020. For the past six years, our numbers have been going south. That means we need 14 good years of reversing those trends by connecting with those in search of a spiritual home. Look around the world of Episcopalians these next few days and you’ll find a wealth of creative examples for how to grow our numbers and, more importantly, deepen our spiritual communities.
Growth in understanding and love with those with whom we disagree: Much of the world outside our church will see these next few days as all about sex. Our differences on human sexuality are not trivial. They are deeply important and earnestly felt. But we have allowed them to become a distraction to our broader mission as a church.
It’s time for us to return to the table of the Worldwide Anglican Communion. That means foregoing elections and consents to the consecration of candidates to the episcopate who are living in non-celibate, same-gender relationships, or to proposals to change our liturgy on the blessing of same-sex couples, until there is greater consensus in our communion.
It also means a halt to the crossing of diocesan boundaries by uninvited bishops—a key point in the Windsor Report that has not received the attention it deserves. Rules must be obeyed if we are to build trusting relationships and mutually submit to each other.
Finally, a return to the communion table must be accompanied by a reaffirmation of our embrace of gays and lesbians within the family of the baptized.
Three years ago, we supported General Convention’s consent to Gene Robinson’s election. Today we genuinely regret that the bonds of communion have been breached. We have seen how damaging to communion the perception of unilateral action can be.
Let’s temper our passion for principle with the humility of those at the foot of the cross, as we begin the intensive listening process called for by the Windsor Report.
We at Center Aisle don’t intend to be the same in nine days. We hope to grow during our time together because, at day’s end, this General Convention will be judged, not by who “wins” the debates here, but by what we resolve to do together to spread the love of Christ when we leave here.
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