• 4/1/2006: ANTI-RACISM - Training Scheduled to take place at St. David's in Lansing has been cancelled.
• 4/16/2006: Summer Camp Easter Discount Deadline
  for registrations. (Over 23 campers registered by Christmas 2005!)
• 4/19/2006 - GOOD FRIDAY - EPISCOPAL CENTER OFFICES WILL BE CLOSED.
• 4/20-22/2006: Accredited Godly Play Training (.pdf brochure)
  Grace Episcopal Church, 616-241-4631 
  1815 Hall St SE, Grand Rapids 49506
  (link to Google® Maps)
• 4/29 & 4/30: HOW SHALL WE MINISTER? - "How do we deal with Conflict?"
  carolann.bailey@westernsem.edu for more information.
  • April 29th - Plainwell - 10 am to 4 pm at First Presbyterian Church
    303 East Bridge Street, Plainwell, MI 
  • April 30th - Evart - 2 pm to 8 pm at St. Paul's Lutheran Church
    435 W. 5th Street, Evart, MI
    (click above links to visit Google® Maps)
    
• 4/29-30/2006: Nightwatch Midwest - The Sacred Castle
  @ The Cathedral of Christ the King in Portage.
  For grades 6-8.

• 5/62006: ECW of the Diocese of Western Michigan will hold its 125th Annual Meeting
  on Saturday May 6,2006 at
  Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, 5333 Clyde Park SW, Wyoming , MI 49507. Click link to GOOGLE® Maps.
  A complete packet containing a letter of invitation, registration form, flyer, directions, agenda and board nomination form is available at the following link:
  http://www.edwm.org/ecw/pdf/2006_ECW-PACKET.pdf
  
• 5/8/ through 510: THE 2006 CLERGY CONFERENCE
  "Lord, let our eyes be open and our bodies be healed."
  St. Francis Retreat Center - Dewitt, MI.
  Registration Deadline: April 28.
  Click HERE for a downloadable .pdf with additional information & registration
  
• 5/20/2006 - Anti-Racism Training Traverse Deanery
  9AM-4PM @ Grace Church, Traverse City
  Registration due: May 6
  
• 5/29/2006 - MEMORIAL DAY - EPISCOPAL CENTER OFFICES WILL BE CLOSED

JUNE:

• 6/14 - 6/18/2006 E3 – Youth Participation at General Convention
  Where: Columbus, Ohio (site of General Convention 2006)
  Contact Gennie Callard at the Episcopal Center for more information on attending.
  This is an opportunity for high school students (young people in grades 9-12) to attend the General Convention with a group of other high school students from the entire Episcopal Church (all around the nation and even beyond!).

• 9/9/2006 - Anti-Racism Training - Lakeshore Deanery
  9a - 4p at St. John's in Grand Haven. Registration due: August 26th.

• 10/7/2006: Anti-Racism Training - Grand Valley Deanery - Location to be announced.
  9a - 4p

This pastoral letter was issued by the House of Bishops and Bishop Gepert requests that it be read at announcement time in all parishes this Sunday (April 2nd, 2006).

March 21, 2006

We ask that this pastoral letter be read in all churches as soon as possible.

We, the bishops of the Episcopal Church, acknowledged the painful reality of the consequences of racism in the 1994 pastoral letter "the Sin of Racism." In that letter, we stated "the essence of racism is prejudice coupled with power. It is rooted in the sin of pride and exclusivity which assumes 'that I and my kind are superior to others and therefore deserve special privileges.'" We issue this new pastoral on the pervasive sin that continues to plague our common life in the church and in our culture. We acknowledge our participation in this sin and we lament its corrosive effects on our lives. We repent of this sin, and ask God's grace and forgiveness.

When Jesus entered the synagogue in his first public act of ministry (Luke 4), he read from the prophet Isaiah. The vision proclaimed is known as the desire of God, the peaceable kingdom, a society of justice and shalom, or the city set on a hill. It is an icon of what God intends for all creation ˆ that human beings live in justice and peace with one another, that the poor are fed and housed and clothed, the ill are healed, prisoners set free, and that the whole created order is restored to right relationship. That vision is our goal and vocation as Christians.

The fundamental truth undergirding this vision is that all are made in the image of God. It is in our diversity that we discover the fullness of that image. If we judge one class or race or gender better than another, we violate that desire and intent of God. And when our social and cultural systems exacerbate or codify such judgments, we do violence to that which God has made. Racism is a radical affront to the good gift of God, both in the creation described in Genesis, and in the reality of the Incarnation. Jesus came among us to bring an end to that which divides us, as Paul so clearly identifies in Galatians 3:28, "in Christ there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female."

Whenever individual or community behaviors work against God's vision, we have promised to respond in ways that will serve to heal: "Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being? I will with God's help (BCP p 305)." God has created us with skins of many colors, God has created us in thousands of tribes and languages, and none is adjudged more godly than another. It is our behavior that gives evidence of godliness, not the color of our skin.

The world has witnessed the evil of institutionalized racism and classism in the United States in the aftermath of the hurricanes of 2005. The poor and persons of color were often served last -- or not at all -- while wealthy and privileged residents had greater resources to escape the immediate danger of the hurricanes and begin the process of rebuilding. We are all shamed by the sin of racism in the reality of inequity in housing, employment, educational and healthcare opportunities, and the disaster response.

This House of Bishops, meeting in Hendersonville, North Carolina on 21 March 2006, which is the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, commit ourselves as bishops to discern and confess our own prejudice and complicity in the pervasive sin of racism, to confront it, and make amends for it in intentional ways every time we gather as a House. We ask the Holy Spirit to empower the House to fully live into this covenant, and we invite the members of this Church to covenant with us, in the following actions personally, corporately, and globally. With God's help, we will:

• renew our commitment to the 1994 pastoral letter, "The Sin of Racism";
• take responsibility to expose, dismantle and heal those situations of injustice based on racism;
• seek forgiveness for our lack of charity and consciousness in recognizing those situations which degrade the image of God in our neighbors;
• make amends for our undeserved position and benefit as a result of unjust situations both now and in the past;
• empower all members of God's human family, that they may live into the fullness of what God intends;
• encourage the larger church to continue and expand its work of education, spiritual formation, and anti-racism training, that all might discover the riches of God's diverse creation, especially in those who differ from us;
• advocate for the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals by the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society, our respective dioceses, the parishes which comprise them, and our governments, as well as our own households, that God's desire may become increasingly evident for all of humanity;
• recruit and empower people of all races and ethnic origins as leaders in our church, and as members of all boards, agencies, commissions, and committees;
• dedicate equitable resources for all races and national origins in the funding of theological education for all ministries, lay and ordained;
• advocate for continued response to the sinful legacy of slavery;
• expose situations of environmental racism and classism which poison and threaten the poorest among us, and seek justice for those communities; and
• advocate for compassionate care of the stranger in our midst, and demand just immigration policies.

Having entered into covenant with each other to root out the sin of racism in very specific personal and corporate ways, we, the bishops of the Episcopal Church, invite all members of our Church to join us in this mission of justice, reconciliation, and unity. This is an expression of our commitment to the fundamental covenant each of us entered into at the moment of our baptism.

May God give us the will to do this reconciling work, and the power and grace to accomplish it.

In this Lenten season we greet you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We write to you from the Kanuga Conference Center in Hendersonville, North Carolina, where we are gathered for our spring meeting. In Lent God calls us to examine our hearts and renew our companionship with the One who offered himself for the salvation of the world. We are very conscious of the larger context in which we gather and deliberate: in a country where the disparity between rich and poor persists, where we struggle to rebuild lives and communities along the Gulf Coast, a country whose daughters and sons are serving at war overseas.

Increasingly we are aware that we represent not a single national church, but one richly comprising congregations in fifteen countries. We wish to share with you something of our journey with Christ during these days of our meeting together.

The unity, mission, and faithfulness of the Church are matters very much in our prayers. We strongly affirm our desire for the Episcopal Church to remain a constituent member of the Anglican Communion, and we recognize that the gift of communion requires generosity and restraint on the part of all. We were blessed by the presence and presentation of our guest from the Church of England, the Right Reverend Michael Langrish, Bishop of Exeter, who encouraged and challenged us in respect to our relationship with the larger Anglican Communion. On behalf of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Ms. Sue Parks, the Manager of the Lambeth Conference, briefed us on the plans for the Lambeth Conference 2008.

We believe that the most effective way to foster communion is to be present for each other, as often as possible, so that we may learn from each other, be corrected by each other, and discern the mind of Christ together. In this regard we were encouraged by the report of the Special Commission on the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. We welcomed the Commission's overview of the report that it is preparing in order to assist the General Convention in addressing the critical issues and concerns raised in the Windsor Report, in the Primates' Communiqué, and by the Anglican Consultative Council. The report, which will be completed and issued early in April, affirms our commitment to the Anglican Communion, and will include a number of resolutions to be proposed for consideration by the General Convention. We commend to the prayerful reflection and legislative process of the General Convention this report of the Special Commission as a way forward in faithfulness to our Lord, to the Episcopal Church, and to the Anglican Communion.

A significant experience of our meeting was the opportunity to have a conversation with the seven current nominees for Presiding Bishop and Primate of the Episcopal Church. All the nominees listened carefully and responded with their own insights and perspectives. Our evening together gave testimony to God's blessing upon the life of the Church, and proved helpful as we begin to prepare for the election of the next Presiding Bishop. We are deeply appreciative of the generosity of these our colleagues in offering themselves for this discernment process.

We also benefited enormously from a day spent considering the nature and purposes of biblical interpretation in hearing God's living Word. Our guests for this day, eminent Anglican biblical theologians originally from Kenya, India, and Hong Kong, and the United States, provided us with a profound glimpse of the contexts in which the Word of God comes to life throughout the world.

As part of our continuing commitment to work against the sin of racism, and much informed by what we have learned about ourselves in the wake of last year's hurricanes, we developed a new Pastoral Letter to be read in all congregations.

We also wrestled with the grave difficulties regarding immigration and the injustices facing those who come to the United States. Additionally we considered important studies relating to the opportunities and challenges of evangelism and church growth today. As we prepare for General Convention, we commit ourselves to continued prayer and labor for justice for all of God's people, for the unity of the Church, for the faithfulness of the Church, for the mission of God.

At the heart of our meeting was a retreat led by our Presiding Bishop, the Most Reverend Frank T. Griswold, III. Our time together in prayer was deeply enriched by his profound gifts as a spiritual guide and teacher. This occasion manifested his depth of conviction and generosity of heart, which have so characterized his years as Presiding Bishop and meant so much to so many of us.

As a result of our time together we are better prepared to join at General Convention our sisters and brothers of the House of Deputies, whose presiding officer, the Very Reverend George L. Werner, also addressed us. Together we will journey with hearts confident in God, eager to seek the Holy Spirit's guidance in serving Christ's mission of drawing all things to God.