Tag: Episcopal Church

GC has gotten real

Published on by The Rev. Jason A Burns2 Comments

In 1978, the Medical Missions that ministered to the Navajo people were organized by General Convention into the Navajoland Area Mission. For the past 46 years the faithful Episcopalians of this region have worked to build communities of faith, including raising up several of their own to be ordained priests and deacons. As a mission area their congregations have been under the care of the Presiding Bishop’s office who has appointed Bishops to oversee the area. Today, the House of Deputies voted unanimously to welcome Navajoland Mission Diocese into communion with General Convention, while the resolution still needs to pass the House of Bishops, that is clearly a formality at this point. What this change in designation means is that they are now free to hold a diocesan convention, adopt a diocesan constitution and canons, elect their own bishop, and call their own clergy to serve in their parishes. During debate over the resolution the President of the House of Deputies suspended the rules of debate, specifically so every member of the Navajoland deputation could speak. Their words moved me a great deal, almost to the point of tears and I will not try to repeat what they said because I will never be able to capture the sense of joy and jubilation they expressed at knowing that they will now be able to shape the future of their spiritual lives on their own terms. They likened it to The Long Walk, which is the name given to the forced removal and eventual return of the Navajo from and to their ancestral lands. Experiencing the creation of a new diocese is not something that occurs every day and I felt privileged to be able to participate in the process.

While you might think that nothing could top the great news about Navajoland Mission Diocese, you would actually be correct, but there were several other very important resolutions that passed the House of Deputies today. Resolution D039, which condemns censorship across the United States was passed. The resolution focusses on the growing trend of states and municipalities banning books about the LGBTQ+ community and many other things. The official youth presence to General Convention spoke to the fear they have by the wave of book banning across the nation.

Resolution D011 which called on the US congress to ban military style weapons, bump-stocks, and high capacity magazines was met with great debate. One deputy very passionary opposed the resolution believing that it is pointless to pass such resolutions instead of doing something that might actually have an effect. While I applaud her desire for action, I also recognize that she missed a very important component of the resolution, which was the authorization for the Office of Government Relations to lobby congress on behalf of the entire church. I draw this to your attention, not to shame the deputy who spoke, I would never do that, but to try to demonstrate that sometimes governing bodies have to take steps that seem hollow in order to allow the people that know how to take action to do so.

Resolution D031 addresses the ongoing harm of coercive and abusive Christian ministries – and several people spoke against this resolution. They felt that the inclusion of crisis pregnancy centers a.k.a. pregnancy resource centers, are in a different category than Indigenous boarding schools, that these organizations do their best to provide care for the people that come to them, which is likely true. We also heard that while they may do their best, in many cases their best involves telling patients that God will not love them if they terminate their pregnancy or that they will likely have a miscarriage anyway so it doesn’t matter what they decide to do (these examples came from a deputy, who happens to be a sociologist and specifically studies crisis pregnancy centers). The resolution passed and I am glad that it did because the only way we will be able to atone for the harm done in the name of God is if we acknowledge that the harm occurred. It is also important that we not split hairs, what was done at Indigenous boarding schools well into the 1930s and what is done at pregnancy resource centers is the same, in both cases people who claim to have the best interests of the people in their care at heart are using their position to manipulate and indoctrinate people against their will.

The last thing I will discuss is the latest on resolution A023. A023 originally asked GC to allocate $450,000 to the Association for Episcopal Deacons. Yes, that is a ton of money. Yesterday we got word that the House of Bishops removed all funding from the resolution, for various reasons I will not go into. In response to this Joint Committee #19 began to work behind the scenes as the resolution had come through their deliberations with a recommendation to adopt. As the chair of the committee is a deputy from my diocese she let me know what they were up to and I was able to get the word out to the other deacons who are in attendance at the convention. At 7:30 this morning the committee met and the gallery was filled with deacons. While the meeting was for deliberation only the bishop co-chair took some time to speak to us about why we were there so he could get a sense of our concerns. We made it clear that for the bishops to cut all funding from the resolution, without even discussing the resolution, its intent, or with any thought to how it might make their deacons feel, hurt a great deal. We reinforced our feelings of being the unseen and unsupported order within the church, reiterating that we just want recognition and support for formation, continuing education, and other areas. For his part Bishop Barker clearly heard us and apologized to us during the committee meeting. The entire committee then worked to craft a replacement resolution and develop a strategy to get it passed in both houses.

It was a busy and emotional day and I suspect that much of what I have written does not live up to my literary standards, but as the French say c’est la vie! Until tomorrow, be quick to love and make haste to be kind.

Budgets and debate

Published on by The Rev. Jason A Burns1 Comment

The legislative day began with a joint budget hearing. The budget was presented by the hard working Executive Council’s Joint Committee on Finance (ECJCF)and Deputies and Bishops were given the opportunity to ask questions. While the budget makes sense to me, there were several things that I find interesting. The budget makes room for new initiatives, typically known as Task Forces, created by General Convention. The amount set aside is $2 million dollars. Which might sound like a decent amount of money, but that is $2 million spread over 3 years. What this means is that not every task force and commission crested by General Convention will receive funding or the amount of funding recommend by the resolutions creating them. Ultimately the Executive Council will make the decision about the distribution of these funds, and I have faith in their ability to make these difficult decisions, but I am also concerned that the budgeting process does not fully allow the will of General Convention to be truly enacted.

The second concern I had about the budget is that there is zero recognition of the Order of Deacons in the budget. There is money for the College of Bishops; for the support of planting new churches; for the support of youth ministry gatherings; for congregational leadership development; and many many other things, but what there is no financial support for is deacons. The order of deacons is the only Order within the Episcopal church that is not represented in the budget of the Episcopal church. I am not pointing this out because I am seeking a paycheck, I simply want it known that despite the applause deacons receive for the work that we do, the work that is the church’s presence outside the walls, there is not any funding or even a website designed to support the order’s ministry, which saddens me. With the encouragement of some deacon colleagues I decided to make the following statement:

Thank you Presiding Bishop, Madame President. I am a deacon and deputy from the Diocese of Western Massachusetts. I see line items for programming for the support of bishops, and the work of parish leadership and seminaries, which typically applies to the orders of priests and the laity, but I am not seeing anything that specifically applies to the order of deacons. The diaconate is the only order of the church who has no office or resources allocated to it in the church budget, yet we, who are unpaid, lead in service to the world. My question is what plans are in place to begin supporting the work and formation of deacons across the church?

In our afternoon session there was a great deal of debate around several resolutions, but more specifically A002 and A079. A002 was a resolution about the location of the 83rd General Convention, which will take place six years from now. The reason this caused a great deal of debate is because several of the locations are in places considered unsafe for members of the LGBTQ+ community, as well as Communities of Color, or even for women who are pregnant and because of this 3 amendments were proposed to include language asking that these realities be considered. Many arguments were made both for and against, but ultimately the amended resolution passed the House of Deputies and has been sent to the House of Bishops. For more information on the specific language please click the link above.

Resolution A079 is the one resolution I have been most excited about, I have be so excited that I have been working on my statement to the house to encourage it’s passage for two days. A079 would designate Oct. 10 or the closest Sunday as Mental Health Sunday. It was on our legislative calendar yesterday, but we did not get to it. I was afraid we wouldn’t get to it today, but we did. the second it came up for debate I submitted my name to testify and was second in line. Here is what I said:

Thank you Madam President. Deputy Jason Burns, Diocese of Western Massachusetts. I rise in support of this resolution. Mental illness carries a great stigma, a stigma that is so pervasive it causes countless people to hide the fact that they live with a treatable illness; neither seeking treatment, nor sharing their struggles with even their loved ones. As a deacon of the church my ministry focus is on ending this stigma because it has created an unknown and unseen group of people who feel forced to live their lives on the fringes of society, for fear of being ostracized and believing that no one sees them or their pain. I know this because I have been one of these people. The creation of a Mental Health Sunday would be one tiny step towards truly welcoming all people and making The Episcopal Church a safe space for those who seek comfort and healing. Like Jesus, we need to not only say that we are welcoming, we need to show that we are welcoming and the primary way of doing so should be through our liturgy because the work of the people needs to reflect all of the people who participate. My diocese has compiled liturgical resources for Mental Health Awareness and are happy to share them. To my fellow strugglers, God sees you, this deacon sees you, and it is my sincere hope that with the adoption of this resolution the church will begin to see us all. Thank you.

Following my statement many people said many things both for and against. Most of the statements in favor mirrored my own and to be honest the statements against were weak at best. Some people seem to think that Sunday should be reserved as the Lord’s day, but if we can’t highlight one of the primary epidemics affecting the Lord’s people during a Sunday service, why do we gather as the body of Christ? Some also apparently think that setting aside one day is tokenism and that we should pray for healing every week. To this I say, get bent! If that was something that the church actually did then we wouldn’t need to be having this discussion. That argument was nothing more than an attempt to continue the status quo. The resolution passed overwhelmingly and has been sent to the House of Bishops.