Diocese of Easton
157th Annual Diocesan Convention
Christ Church Parish, Stevensville, Kent Island MD
Hosted by the Middle Convocation March 6th – 8th, 2025
On behalf of the Diocese of Easton and the Episcopal Church family on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, welcome to the 157th Annual Diocesan Convention! My colleague bishops, The Right Reverend Carrie Schofield-Broadbent, Bishop of Maryland, The Right Reverend Kevin Brown, Bishop of Delaware, The Right Reverend Martin G. Townsend, IX Bishop of Easton, Resigned and The Right Reverend James J. Shand, X Bishop of Easton, Resigned, clergy, delegates and alternates to the 157th Diocesan Convention, invited guests, friends, observers, and all present I bid you greetings in the precious name of Jesus our Lord and Savior!
We gather this year in the Holy and Penitential Season of Lent, a season distinguished by personal self-introspection, self-critique, contrition, fasting and prayer. A forty-day annual self-discipline that calls the churches to live into the Jesus’ way to Calvary, a way defined by suffering and love. A season of self-sacrifice that is demanded of Christians. Walter Brueggemann reminds us, “we are in Lent, not unlike the tax collector in Jesus’ parable, cognizant of our own sin in public practice”.
Diocesan Convention
Each year the diocese meets at the Convention to address the business of the church by reviewing the work that has been done in the previous year through reports from committees, ministries, commissions and boards. In addition, the Diocesan Convention sets the vision and business agenda for the year ahead.
We gather in convention, as the Body of Christ in the Diocese of Easton for this our 157th Annual Diocesan Convention under the theme “Camp Wright: Preserving our Heritage. Our Legacy” by their fruit you shall know them” (St. Matthew 7:20). The focus of this year’s convention is our own Camp Wright as it celebrates its 95th year; that is over nine decades of selfless, transformative, creative and life-changing ministry. It is without a doubt the diocese’s most consistent, respected, sustainable, popular and well-known ministry. Numerous people on the eastern shore, western shore and beyond bear witness to the overwhelming role Camp Wright has held in their hearts. It is evidenced through how emotional they become whenever Camp Wright is introduced into the conversation. The Camp Wright Committee has been working tirelessly for close to two years. The committee will share with the 157th Diocesan Convention future plans for the preservation of the infrastructure of this liminal or thin space, that is – a place where God lives and breathes transformative life into all who pass through.
Call and Expectation – A Background Story
I look forward to hearing all that the Camp Wright Committee has to share and to seeing the creative ways that this Convention will show support to this invaluable ministry. Camp Wright is the tenth and final component to be addressed in the Diocesan Ten-Year Vision commonly referred to as PAROUSIA, a Greek word meaning – Second Coming or Second Chance. I anticipate meeting this challenge in exactly the same way we met every challenge of the Parousia Vision and in my tenure here.
It is hard to believe that I stand before all of you today, having served in ordained ministry for forty-four years, and the last 20 of those as Bishop. What an honor and privilege it has been to commit my life’s work to God and to God’s Church. Eight years ago, when I was interviewed by the Search Committee for a new bishop – at Kent Manor, a short distance from here, by a group that included Tom Shuster, Sandra Bjork, Phil Tilghman and others, I remember asking, “Do you think that this diocese will be bold enough to elect a person of color to be its bishop?” … And you were! This courageous step was only the first in a landscape of change and adaptation that has defined these years.
On the day of the Special Elective Convention at Trinty Cathedral on June 11, 2016 (incidentally, The Feast of St. Barnabas – “one who encourages”) I received several encouraging messages from friends and colleagues, old and new. One text from a friend in the House of Bishops read, “If there is anyone capable of leading Easton in a new direction, it is you.” This text, and others like it, were divine confirmation that I was called here not to maintain the status quo, but to challenge it and to push boundaries. Another story came from a delegate to the Special Elective Convention, Julia Moore from Christ Church, Cambridge, who shared with me, from a place of deep faith, a rather profound story… “When invited to pray before the vote, sitting in Trinity Cathedral, she looked up and saw, in capital letters SANTOSH written on the Sanctuary wall. In recalling this story, which I share with you now with her permission, she ended by saying, “Bishop, God sent you to us for a purpose.” Talk about a powerful, reassuring and convicting message! Granted unanimous votes in both houses in the election of the first bishop of color to be elected Bishop Diocesan, I interpret my election as a divine mandate from God confirmed by the people of God. Notwithstanding, the fact that I had been serving my call as a bishop twelve (12) years as Bishop Diocesan and Assistant Bishop in three separate dioceses in the global Anglican Communion and the Episcopal Church. This story, and others like it, empowered me to be both bold and steadfast in the pursuit of mission and ministry expansion and extension of the demographic to reflect the population make up on the Eastern Shore, always centered on Christ and unwavering prayer.
My beloved, if I were asked where the Diocese of Easton stands now, eight years after my election, I would say we are a diocese ready to embrace the future with grace, hope, fortitude and confidence. You stated then that the diocese was willing and ready to try new models, take risks, be creative, be open-minded, be a broad tent 21st century church. You wanted to be financially sustainable and secure, and you wanted to always be mission-centered. I strongly believe, as I prepare to demit or resign office as your bishop, you are all the above and more. The Diocese of Easton is also FAITHFUL + FRUITFUL + WELCOMING + LOVING + LIFE CHANGING + ROBUST + RESILIENT + CREATIVE + ADAPTIVE + MISSION RE-DEFINING + REDEEMED OF CHRIST + RESURRECTED + HOPEFUL and CONFIDENTLY EXCITING. “Welcome to the Land of Pleasant Living”
In February 2013 I had the opportunity to attend a one-week Faith in Conflict Conference, at Coventry Cathedral, England. One of the takeaways from the conference was the recognition that, “if the church is not a place of both conflict and of reconciliation it is not merely hindering its mission and evangelism, appalling as such hindrance is, but it is a failing or failed church. It ceases to be the miracle of diversity in unity, of the grace of God breaking down walls. We must be reconciled reconcilers. It’s not about who wins or who loses, who is right and who is wrong. We are unbelievably attractive, distinctively prophetic, not because we all agree, but because we disagree with passion in love, and set the bar high for the world around. And, then reach out and help people over the bar”.
Statement on Delegated Episcopal Pastoral Oversight (DEPO)
I know that even these words will do little to quell the curiosity or desire of some to speak openly on the Title IV matters that were recently and officially closed by the appropriate parties and Reference Panel of the Episcopal Church. You should all have received communication of this action prior to the Convocation meeting on February 10 and in my Pre-convention Pastoral Letter. To discuss this would be both a breach of the process – which endeavors to protect the integrity of all involved and a breach of the Pastoral Direction issued by Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe to “refrain from discussion of the Title IV matters”. This Pastoral Direction by extension includes the precursor Title III filed in March 2023 and dismissed on April 21, 2023. We have all learned much, we will continue to learn much, but we turn again together toward a bright future, and we forge ahead.
Pursuant to this movement toward the future, and as I wrote in my Pre-Convention Pastoral Letter, Delegated Episcopal Pastoral Oversight (DEPO) has concluded. I will be resuming pastoral visits and episcopal oversight to the fourteen (14) complainants that had requested Delegated Episcopal Pastoral Oversight during the pending Title IV matters (four parishes, three non-parochial clergy – two are retired non-parochial, one unretired non-parochial and one lay member). I remain grateful to Bishop James Shand and Bishop Kevin Brown for their assistance in this matter
Statement on Amendments to the Constitution and Canons
Two years ago, the 155th Diocesan Convention voted to affirm the four-years’ work of a Task Force on the Comprehensive Review of the Constitution and Canons. You may have grabbed a copy of their work on your way in today – and this remains one of the great achievements of our Diocese in the last decade. It was recommended to convention that canonical amendments to the newly revised instrument in diocesan life and ministry be tabled until the 158th Diocesan Convention 2026. This recommendation acknowledges a call for a temporary three-year moratorium. The 2026 convention is scheduled to be organized around a two-day in-person gathering at one of the hotels in Ocean City. Initial plans are actively proceeding in fulfilment of this decision.
With some new developments before the diocese, it offers a second compelling reason for this advice. The fact the future ecclesiastical shape and form of the diocese will be undergoing an unprecedented review through a Diocesan Discernment initiative, it is my humble submission that it may be counterintuitive to consider canonical amendments for a diocese that may take on a completely different configuration. A model that may have a consequential impact on the Constitution and Canons of the diocese. I humbly caution you for a commonsense approach and patience and sincerely suggest that convention could use the time reserved in the agenda for canonical amendments to conduct other immediate and crucial business. However, as bishop please recognize that one of my roles is to advise, convention is the body that implements. You have the ultimate decision.
Re-defining the Church
I would like to refer you to your convention materials where you will find the pre-convention document “Stewardship and Accountability Report” which highlights more of the activities of these eight dynamic years. Included are extracts of my 156th Convention Address last year, which refers to the diocesan vision – Parousia and how it “overwhelmingly achieved what it was designed to accomplish”. Yet still this is just a sampling of the various ministries and initiatives that have re-defined this Diocese. Our churches have each shown great resilience and creativity, setting mission goals and achieving them through focused and intentional work, prayer and fortitude. Last year we highlighted three of these churches. This year, we would like to do the same.
We are already highlighting Camp Wright later in today’s program, but I have also invited St. Mary Anne’s, Northeast and St. Paul’s Church, Marion Station to share this morning about all that God is doing in their community….
Presentation from St. Paul’s, Marion Station
Presentation from St. Mary Anne’s, North East
Not only are we becoming a broad-tent family, with innovative ministry happening in both Parishes and Diocese, we are also grateful to be able to finance these innovations. Toward this goal, the diocese has supported clergy formation with creditable in-house Diocesan School for Clergy Formation and Iona Eastern Shore collaborating with Seminary of the Southwest, Austin, Texas.
During my episcopate, the diocese witnessed the ordination of six (6) traditional residential seminary trained clergy, seven (7) Iona Eastern Shore clergy (one to be ordained soon to the vocational diaconate, and seven (7) clergy trained at the Diocesan Diaconal School for Ministry Formation. The Diocese remains exceedingly grateful to the Rev. Canon Daniel Dunlap, PhD for his instrumental role in the success of both of our local tracts (IONA and the Deacon School). I am looking forward to the remaining ordinations of five (5) Transitional Deacons to the Priesthood and one (1) Vocational Deacons prior to my departure.
From a fledging and uncertain financial position eight years ago, the diocese is more financially stable today – with a viable and sustainable financial landscape going forward. I pause to give thanks to our dearly departed treasurer, Charlie Bohn, and the Finance Committee for this healthy financial state. The Easton Episcopal Fund has grown from 19.5 million to 42.5 million with 31 units inclusive of 29 parishes, the Children’s Home Foundation and diocese, in the last eight years. This is mainly credited to the committed stewardship of the Board of Managers, Diocesan Finance Committee, and the two Finance Administrators of my tenure, Art Kendall and Megan Timms. I have been fortunate to work with such a dedicated team of gifted people, whose financial competence, investment acumen, and dedication to God and God’s church has led us to this place of fiscal health.
Additionally, in the latest 2023 Parochial and Statistical Report from the Episcopal Church, the Diocese of Easton is one of twenty-one dioceses, out of 102 dioceses, that reported an increase in baptized members. Our baptized members increased from 6,840 in 2022 to 6,858 in 2023 or 0.3%. Another notable fact is that of the 102 dioceses, reporting we have more baptized members in this narrow strip of real estate on the Eastern Shore than in many US States (Hawaii, Vermont, West Virginia, Iowa, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Kansas, Alaska, Idaho and 18 other in-state dioceses). Additionally, the Episcopal Church is experiencing a marked and steady increase in Average Sunday Attendance since the decline experienced during the Pandemic. The Diocese of Easton in 2022-2023 increased in ASA by 11% (from 1,622 up to 1,799). The average pledge has also increased in the Diocese, by 21% or $522, for the period 2019-2023.
If you look closely, these may seem like marginal increases, nevertheless, they are fundamental indicators of a hopeful and positive message revealed by our membership. This should reaffirm that our creativity and perseverance through COVID, our continuing adaptive online worship offerings, our Latino ministry centers, and our many other unique outreach offerings are bearing fruit. And it points to a faithfulness, commitment, dedication and responsiveness from amongst our parishioners – toward the Church and toward the mission of God – that our Episcopal family is an integral part of their lives. I firmly believe this data is a message of hope that speaks to a larger narrative about the diocese and sparks greater enthusiasm for the future.
The diocese is overflowing with gratitude and appreciation for the work done with sacrificial grace by the staff at Bray House and voluntarily offered by the Diocesan Council, Standing Committee, Board of Managers, Diocesan Finance Committee, Bishop’s Institute, Children’s Home Foundation, Commission on Ministry, Property Committee and by every parish ministry serving at different levels and areas in their communities to meet human needs, preserve the environment and, as called by our baptismal covenant, to protect the dignity of every human being. Our most vulnerable small church, St. Andrew’s Church, Hurlock Food Ministry, Dorchester County, distributed over 5,121 food packages to those in need in their community. It is estimated that each of these packages can feed the equivalent of 4 people in a household. There are similar testimonies in many of our parishes. As I have often mentioned before – church isn’t only about Average Sunday Attendance; it’s more about Church Presence and Relevance (CPR) in a community. Initiatives like this one are replicated and bearing much fruit across the diocese.
Equally, the faithfulness and commitment of each and every parish should be applauded for believing in the overall well-being of the diocese. Your dedication and devotion to diocesan life and witness and sustainability is the reason for our transformation and growth. To the parishes, parishioners, clergy and faithful I humbly say thanks to you. Because of you I leave this diocese grateful that I can say with humility that I have done exactly what the Lord Jesus asked of me and what you hoped for when you elected me eight years ago.
Diocesan Discernment or Self – Introspection
The Standing Committee has called the diocese into a proposed period of discernment of its present and future life. An exercise that I fully endorse. And, if I may add, it is a healthy practice for every system or organization to undergo a period of introspection, what St. John of the Cross called “dark night of the soul” or translated in the modern vernacular by Michael Washburn, “Regression in the Service of Transcendence”- to step back in order to step forward.
By his own admission, Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe has embarked on a strategic vision to reshape the Episcopal Church at every level with the goal of transforming the church into a more responsive, adaptive, mission driven, gospel centered ungirded by deep incarnational Christian spirituality and inclusive theology centered on our relationship with God in Christ and with humanity.
Conclusion
It is without a doubt God has blessed us as a diocese and that abundance is clearly manifested in the work that has been collectively and collaboratively achieved over these eight years. My beloved, we are all loved by God not despite our differences but because the very nature of God’s love embraces difference. Part of my role was to help you see the goodness of God in and among you. My role in the diocese wasn’t to critique diocesan life and faith, rather to journey with you, so that together we could create a healthy, hopeful, safe and thin space or (liminal space) for the work God has called us into – a work that requires each of our peculiar and unique expressions of creativity and faith. We are, each of us, peculiar, unique, special and beloved of God.
However, similar to Jesus in his earthly ministry, there will always be those who disbelieve that the work of the Spirit is guiding this iteration of diocesan renewal and resurrection, but in the words of a colleague from another denomination “for those who believe – no proof is necessary, for those who doubt no proof is enough.”
Likewise, if I may add a word of caution, resist the temptation to exclude God from this exercise if you do, you do so to your peril. Engage God front and center in your discernment. Resist the temptation to deny the effective role that the Holy Spirit is playing in the real and active transformation of the diocese.
We have come a long way – from uncertainty about the future to a more confident and hopeful position. So go and feel bold… renewed… and reassured to journey into the ‘heart of God.’ Like Joshua, in the Book of Joshua 24:15, you stand at the banks of the Jordan River discerning your next step. To go back, is to return to Egypt and the Wilderness, where hopelessness and slavery tethered the spirit. Instead, look across the Jordan – there is the land of great promise and insurmountable hope, new life, independence, self-identity, faith in the promise of God as proclaimed in Jesus, a place defined by the resurrection of Jesus, the gift of new beginning. In the words of Joshua, “choose you this day whom you will serve…” (Joshua 24:15).
In John 11, when Lazarus was called from the tomb, Jesus said to the bystanders “unwrap him and let him go”. Notice God did the miracle of calling forth new life, however, he challenges the people to also play their role – to release him by unwrapping the binding cloth. To complete the act of new life, God invites us to accept our own role in the meta narrative of collaborative hope. Over the years we have worked hard to unwrap this diocese, I encourage you to continue in the task of unwrapping, to avoid the temptation to re-wrap, and to complete the act of new life, so that like Lazarus you are empowered to live fully into God’s vision of ‘second chance’.
Sometimes we, as a church and as a people, can find ourselves stuck in the Book of Lamentation, complaining and lamenting. And while there is a time and place for lament, God calls us onward to the Book of Song of Songs or Song of Solomon which points to celebration. We move as the story moves, from darkness to dancing, from despair to hope, from lament to thanksgiving.
I pray that this year may be a Song of Songs year together – filled with joy and gratitude and hope. To this end and acting on the advice of the Orderly Transition Conference, I have established a “Leaving Well Committee”. Their task, among others, will be to respond with grace to any continuing feelings of lament, while also planning and scheduling times for celebration and thanksgiving.
And so, I join with you here on the banks of the Jordan, I gaze with you toward the next adventure, and I am confident that God will lead us – ever onward and toward hope.
The words of Jesus’ remind us, “by their fruits you shall know them” (Mattthew 7:20).
Let us Pray:
Almighty God into your hands we placed this diocese today; its immense tapestry of hope and fear, its possibilities and challenges, its uncertainty and doubts, its contrition and grace; into your hands we place our time, talents, resources and future direction and ask that you may use them and us in ways that bring the brightness of faith and honesty of doubt into a world and church where faith and doubt are real. Open our minds and hearts to the graciousness we find in the words and actions of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen!
