Say it with me: I’m a beloved child of God. And I believe there is a future for my church. It may take courage to make a proclamation on the future. It may take strength to remember how beloved you are when the airwaves have been filled with so many expressions of hate. And if you can’t say it. If you can’t say it like you believe it, let me tell you: YOU are a beloved child of God. And I believe there is a future for our church. For our country. For our place in the world.
When I was a child, I would have done anything to have a community remind me that I was loved just as I was, on a regular basis. I’d hear it from grandparents when we’d visit. When I was old enough to read, I’d read it in books and somehow understood that God loved me. But the world around me was really good at communicating that I was not enough. Not smart enough, not pretty enough, not wealthy enough, not thin enough to matter. And God was really present to me in my prayers telling me, “don’t believe them”. The little bit of time I spent I spent in church as a young person—I mean before I was in college—I felt safety. I felt loved. I felt the care and love of people who seemed to think I mattered. I don’t have to look back and wonder IF being part of a church would have made a difference. I knew it then when I was eight years old. God had planted a seed in me that helped me claim a narrative the world was violently withholding—that I was loved and treasured. And I’m here to tell you: that little seed of knowing, that little seed of clarity about my worth in the world saved my life.
Fifty years later, I stand here as your bishop and chief pastor and I want to remind you that our work and ministry is the same now as it was when you called and elected me—to serve as beacons of Christ, to stand with the vulnerable and marginalized, to transform systems of injustice, to join hands with others working for good, and to raise up the next generation of Jesus-followers and leaders for the present day as well as the future. And we do this by remembering who we are and whose we are. You are a beloved child of God. And there is a future for this church we cherish.
No matter what is happening in the world, no matter how perilous the moment feels, how tenuous our future seems, how stretched our resources may be—the facts on the ground and the facts in God’s realm are that you are beloved and the body of Christ that is the church has a future.
All that you have heard during this convention, all that we have been preparing for, praying for, working for is to make this reality known in every one of our faith communities and those with whom we live, work, and serve. This is not just soothing self-talk. This is the life-saving truth. I invite you to hold onto this truth like a mustard seed.
Over the past few years, I’ve come to believe more deeply in the power and symbol of the mustard seed. I’ve seen reasons to be hopeful around the church and I recognize the opportunities for being hopeful because of the mustard seed moments I’ve experienced right here in the Diocese of Indianapolis.
A year ago, we had dreams of reviving and renewing ministry with and for young people in our diocese. The pandemic had shut down so much of what we could do. We have gone from dreaming to planning a diocesan youth confirmation curriculum, engaging 20 youth in service on the diocesan youth mission trip to Philadelphia; having many of our youth lead in a public witness on reducing gun violence in Louisville at the General Convention, and over 65 youth signed up for the first fall youth retreat in five years taking place in two weeks. And all the while, you have engaged young people in your congregations—chorister programs, youth groups and intergenerational ministries. Every one of these is an example of mustard seed statement of hope in the power of God to transform and surprise us.
When Jesus compares the kingdom of God to a mustard seed—using the parabolic device to signal to his hearers to expect the unexpected—when Jesus makes this rhetorical move, he is calling his disciples to trust that in God’s economy the smallest seed can grow to occupy the space of a sequoia. Let’s not bother trying to make sense of whether a mustard seed actually grows into a shrub, or tree, or bush—that’s not the point. Jesus is calling his disciples—and calling us—to see with new eyes, to imagine a different future, to trust that any moment can contain the possibility for God to do the impossible.
Speaking of impossible, I can hardly believe that this is my eighth diocesan convention with you. We have grown together, we have deepened our commitments as beacons of Christ. You have been gracious when I’ve made mistakes and you’ve been courageous in taking risks and trying new things. Because of our faithfulness to each other on this journey of witnessing to Christ’s love in central and southern Indiana, we’ve been able to accomplish amazing things that have blessed our diocese and the church at large.
Thanks to the generosity of the Lilly Endowment and in partnership with the University of Indianapolis, we are well into the research to better understand how to support parents and caregivers as they shape the faith of the young people in their lives. In the coming months we will launch another Lilly Endowment funded program called Centering Children in Worship that will help our faith communities learn and expand their intergenerational opportunities for liturgy and music. These generous resources will help us to strengthen the faith lives of our multi-generational congregations. These programs are examples of mustard seed trust in God’s full future and the place of the church—the Body of Christ—in that future. We will not just passively let the future come hoping that our young people and future generations will be ready for it—we are hard at work preparing, forming, and expecting that the church of tomorrow will rise up deeply grounded in the Christian values of God’s all-embracing love for all.
Trusting in a mustard seed means that our view of the future isn’t just about the year or decade ahead but it’s about future generations we won’t live to see. Over the past year you have listened and helped shape the broad strokes of a capital campaign effort for our diocese that focuses on ministry with and to children, youth, and young adults. I’m profoundly grateful to the Executive Council’s vote and charge to move forward with a feasibility study for this campaign.
The feasibility study will help us refine the case and purpose of the campaign and set the fundraising goal. Your input and feedback at the Neighborhood meetings was clarifying and we will continue to survey the diocese to make sure the campaign reflects our hopes, dreams and priorities.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the generations who came before us. Faithful people who, facing the challenging circumstances of their own day—world wars, economic collapse, uncertainty about the future—were extraordinarily generous out of their belief that the future church needed to be provided for. Every single one of us has been a beneficiary of their foresight and sacrificial generosity. Beloved, I pray that we can be emboldened by their example with a capital campaign that expresses our hopes and trust in the future. Our diocese has not embarked on a capital campaign in nearly 40 years and it is time.
While we make plans for the future, we will continue to tend the rich soil that is our present. Ensuring congregations have what is necessary to be beacons of Christ today remains central to our ministry together. We are growing as a diocese rooted in the practices of the College of Congregational Development believing that faith communities of all sizes, locations, and conditions can be more faithful, healthy, sustainable, and effective as local expressions of the Body of Christ. It has been beautiful to watch our congregations articulate their mission and develop lay and clergy leaders increase in their capacities to lead from within the congregations they care for.
As your bishop I believe in practicing what I preach so I continue to learn and participate in a cohort of bishop practitioners about how best to support congregations of every size. To borrow language from the College of Congregational Development, when I receive feedback that things aren’t working as we might have hoped, I work with my staff to initiate some planned interventions to course correct.
One of these course corrections involves mission strategy. When we restructured direct aid and reconfigured the Bishop’s Advisory on Mission Strategy we wanted to make sure every congregation had access to funds to help them be healthier and more faithful to their mission as they have discerned it. I have deep gratitude to those who have served on Mission Strategy over the past four years. They have done amazing work in helping us resource congregations in the ways they most needed it. Over the past few years, they have visited congregations and listened deeply to the dreams and needs of our faith communities. The grants they have made continue to bear fruit. But the Mission Strategy committee has been asking me for more direction. Watching and listening to what has been happening on the ground in our congregations has led me to believe that what is needed are targeted and strategic resources of guidance, tools, and funding to respond to the needs of this moment.
As I continue to figure this out, I will be reconstituting the Mission Strategy committee drawing on members of Executive Council to insure geographic and congregational diversity as well as others around the diocese so that we can help congregations with the particular strategic needs they have for mission in 2025 and beyond. This means working with congregations, coaching leaders, and thinking creatively. St. John’s, Speedway is a prime example. With diocesan funding they will be able to call a part-time priest and share space with an ELCA church in their community as they replant themselves as a congregation dedicated to Speedway. Providing clergy coverage and support in the Confluence Neighborhood for several congregations is another opportunity to be creative. In the Riverbend Neighborhood we are watching natural collaborations between St. Paul’s, New Albany and St. Paul’s, Jeffersonville invite new questions for deeper ministry together. Walking with congregations as they seek to be faithful in their contexts is a ministry best shared. The Mission Strategy committee will play a central role in supporting these efforts. I am so grateful to those of you who have expressed interest in serving on this body—stay tuned for more.
All of this mission and ministry in the name of the God who calls us beloved is not happening in a vacuum. As we continue to discern possible reunification with our siblings in the Diocese of Northern Indiana I’m well aware that we may decide for a future that is even more expansive if we return to a state-encompassing diocese. Beloved, I invite you to lean into this discernment knowing that whether we reunify or not, our two dioceses contain the same DNA. The lighthouse in their diocesan seal and our deep call to be beacons of Christ all point to our mutual call to shine the light of Christ in the path of a world that desperately needs to be reminded it is loved. And whether we worship in Fort Wayne, Evansville, Indianapolis or Warsaw, we bear the light of Christ that can never be extinguished. So let us hold one another in prayer as we continue this discernment. And let us press on with the urgent work of instilling belovedness and looking to the future with hope.
So, one more time… for now: I am a beloved child of God and there is a future for my church. Amen.
