In Search of our 11th Bishop by Charlotte Weaver-Gelzer
I’ve been gone from your fellowship for a month now, and I miss you. I wanted to explain where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing. As the chair of the 2014 Bishop Search Committee, I’ve had the distinct privilege and joy of being in worship with sister congregations in the Lancaster Convocation. As chair of the search committee, I am visiting the convocation’s smaller parishes, one each Sunday, not officially, but intentionally.
One of the longtime and complicated concerns in our diocese is the life and health of our many small parishes. Since learning about them in written material is not the same as experience gained in living words, it occurred to me to go to the smaller parishes within a reasonable driving distance, to meet members, be in worship with them, to listen to them in their home parish settings, and to talk with them about the search process and where we are now.
I want everyone to know the bishop search is not happening to them, the search is what they are doing, as well as what the committee is doing. How we all engage in the search and transition process is something of a predictor in our understanding of the candidates, and in, finally, our formation of the new bishop, and the new bishop’s influence in forming us. I will be bringing this deeper sense of diocesan life in small parishes to the search committee over the next two months.
And that is why I’m not sitting (and standing) in my usual place at St. John’s on Sundays. As I say, it’s not about you, and it’s not about me, it’s about the diocese. I’ll be back sometime toward the end of November. But in the meantime, pray for the search committee, for the candidates, and for the transition committee. Hope for us. Wonder about what will be coming. Wonder how we all will change. Look forward to newness about to begin in us. I will be with you again as Advent begins.
Please continue to visit the Bishop Search website for more information: http://cpabishopsearch.com.
Blessings,
Charlotte Weaver-Gelzer