2011 Fall Camp at Shrine Mont

The Tri-Diocesan Council on Aging will offer its annual Fall Camp on October 24-27 at Shrine Mont in Orkney Springs. The keynote speaker is Marcus Borg, Canon Theologian at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Portland, Oregon. Chaplain for this year's camp is the Rt. Rev. Ted Gulick. Singer, storyteller and folk theologian Ed Kilbourne will also be there. Click here for a registration form.

Youth Blogging from Episcopal Youth Event in Minneapolis

Fourteen youth and adults from our diocese leave tomorrow for the 2011 Episcopal Youth Event on the campus of Bethel University in Minneapolis/St. Paul. The Episcopal Youth Event (June 22-26, 2011) is a triennial gathering of youth and youth leaders from all over the Episcopal Church and takes place in the year before General Convention. Throughout their travels and time together, our youth will be blogging on their own Tumblr site - eye2011diosova.tumblr.com. Parents, friends and diocesan colleagues will have an opportunity to stay in touch and see what's going on at EYE.

Participants from our diocese include: Bailey Basden- Emmanuel Virginia Beach, Kortney Bodge- St. Thomas Chesapeake, Erica Cooke- Emmanuel Virginia Beach, Conor Davidson- St. Andrew's Newport News, Adrienne Davis- St. David's Chesterfield, Claudia Hazelwood- Grace Norfolk, Audrey Jerauld- Emmanuel Virginia Beach, Eric Marcolini- St. Andrew's Newport News, Anna Marks- St. Aidan's Virginia Beach, Evan McLaughlin- St. Christopher's Portsmouth, Elizabeth Palmer- Emmanuel Hampton, Nick Sarandria- St. John's Portsmouth, Harper Lewis- St. Andrew's Newport News, Ashley Scruggs- Diocesan Youth Missioner. Keep them in your prayers and check their blogsite often for photos and updates!

Chapel Series Welcomes Bishop Gene Robinson

Eastern Shore Chapel's lecture series, The Chapel Series, will welcome Bishop Gene Robinson on November 11 & 12, 2011. Bishop Robinson will speak on "Getting in Gospel Trouble." Bishop Robinson is the bishop of New Hampshire. He holds two honorary doctorates and has received awards from numerous civil rights organizations. His book, In the Eye of the Storm: Swept to the Center by God, was published in 2008. Friday's lecture is at 7 p.m. and Saturday's lecture begins at 9:30 a.m. Tickets provide admission to both days. Tickets are $45, $35 for seniors 65+, $25 for students with valid school ID. Call 757-428-6763 to purchase tickets or for more information.

New Episcopal Campus Minister Called For ODU

Upon the recommendation of the Old Dominion University Canterbury Board, Bishop Hollerith has appointed The Rev. Gillian Barr as the new Chaplain and Episcopal Campus Minister for Old Dominion University in Norfolk. She begins her duties on August 1.

A native of Annapolis, Maryland, Gillian graduated from the College of William and Mary, where she was a student leader in the Canterbury Association and first developed a passion for campus ministry. Prior to being ordained, Gillian worked for a number of years as a lay professional in Christian formation and in non-profit management in history museums and libraries. She has served churches in Charlottesville, Virginia, and Rochester, Minnesota, as a lay associate for formation. Gillian is a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary and Virginia Theological Seminary. She comes to Southern Virginia from the Diocese of San Diego, where she has been serving as Campus Missioner to the University of California San Diego and priest associate at Good Samaritan Church in University City, San Diego.

New Wine Process Moves Forward

The six regional listening sessions that marked the beginning of the New Wine Strategic Planning process were completed during Lent. Working with our consultant Sandi Scannelli we have begun to distill the many comments that were gleaned from those meetings. The meetings produced a tremendous amount of data.

One dominating theme was the need for greater interconnection between the diocese and the parishes as well as between parishes. There was a strong interest in building stronger bridges within the laity of the diocese and calls for the diocese to help with this. Many wonderful ideas were shared, although some of the information was more problem solving rather than looking at the diocese from the 3000 foot level. These ideas will all be kept for use when the mission and vision are written.

An important aspect of this planning process is that this is not a top down process, but one that works from the concept of a network that the bishop described at the meetings. The Executive Board made a conscious decision to begin with the people in the pews as we assessed where we are as a diocese in order to begin to look at where we want to go and what we want to be.

As a second step, The Rev. Mark Wilkinson, Rector at St. Aidan’s and chair of the committee, The Rev. Jeunée Cunningham, diocesan Canon for Congregational Development and Sandi Scanneli, our diocesan consultant, presented a summary of these results to the clergy gathered for the Spring Bishop’s Day on May 3rd. The clergy were asked for their reactions to the material gathered. That information has been gathered and will be given to the Executive Board during a retreat day planned for late June.

One of the challenges that our consultant brought to our attention is that we are looking at planning in a new context and for a very different world. Sandi spoke to us about discontinuous change rather than continuous change. Continuous change is change that we can anticipate. For example a rector leaves a parish, we have a search process and a new rector is called. In entering into a planning process in today’s world, the end is not nearly as clear because the world we operate in is very turbulent. Discontinuous change is change where there may not be one clear trusted solution, because the issues and challenges are constantly evolving. What this means is that a traditional strategic planning process may not generate the result we want. The result we desire is one that equips our parishes and the diocese to function in this world where the old answers may no longer be the best answers.

This process may take a little longer than we anticipated. We had hoped to have a mission and vision crafted by Pentecost, but that would be forcing the process and may not result in a mission and vision that will address our needs. Instead, the Executive Board will work on our diocesan mission and vision at its June 23rd meeting, and as necessary, continue the work over the summer, gathering any other information we need to move forward. By early fall, we should have the mission and vision in place, and will be able to deploy our congregational and diocesan resources to build toward our common vision.