Dear Friends in Christ,

This Council Address, my tenth as your bishop, is about mission and radical hospitality. It is about our call to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves.

In the Catechism, The Book of Common Prayer asks, "What is the mission of the Church?" and answers, "The mission of the Church is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ."

The mission of the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia is to challenge and support the creativity of our congregations in their Christian growth and global responsibility. Let me share just a few examples of mission which I have seen as I have traveled the diocese this year.

Good Shepherd, Galax, our ecumenical Episcopal/Lutheran congregation, built a new church this past year. We dedicated it on July 6. Before the congregation put pencil to paper to design that new building, they spent a year in study and reflection and recommitment to mission, ultimately producing a new mission statement. Let me read it to you as an example for us all:

The mission of the Church of the Good Shepherd is to embody the Gospel of Jesus Christ so that all people, young and old, rich and poor, wise and foolish, who are drawn here may know themselves deeply loved and deeply welcome, nourished by joyful liturgical worship as the center of their common life, and living out their calling in generous service to one another and to our community.

Their new building has been intentionally designed to embody their commitment to mission.

Similarly, R. E. Lee Memorial, Lexington, has spent a year in study and reflection on mission, producing a paper that pledges them to mission throughout every aspect of the life of the congregation, including the simple fact of making the church facilities more accessible to everyone. The congregation is now considering a capital funds drive to acquire the tools to carry out their mission.

Let me quote from three other mission statements from around the diocese. Perhaps you will recognize yours.

• "We strive to do God’s work in this fallen and broken world."
• "A church that lives to itself will die to itself."
• "Our mission is to serve Christ in the community and in the world through outreach, worship, education, fellowship, and stewardship."

Christ Church, Big Stone Gap, has accepted a call to mission to schoolchildren through a program called KinCare. This program provides backpacks, notebooks, pens, pencils, and like supplies for children who are being raised by grandparents, uncles and aunts, and even great-grandparents. Many of these folks live on fixed incomes and never expected to raise another family after their own children left home. This program helps take the edge off the poverty in which so many live.

Let me say a few words about the St. Nicholas Day Offering. The 2005 Offering is dedicated to furthering the work of the Marc Nikkel School for Sudanese Children, located in the Diocese of Bor in southern Sudan, by providing wind-generated electricity so that a clinic can be added. Education and health care lie at the heart of redevelopment efforts, and we are blessed with a sacred trust to make a difference in a war-torn part of the world.

The school, named for the late Marc Nikkel, a priest of this diocese who served the people of southern Sudan, provides access to education for children who otherwise would have no formal education. Until recently there had been no school in this part of Sudan for over twenty-five years. Father Bol Deng, a Sudanese priest and a protégé of Marc, our guest again this year for Council, formally received the St. Nicholas Day Offering at our banquet last night. A substantial amount of this gift came by way of a challenge grant from one of our parishes.

When St. John’s, Waynesboro, received an unexpected bequest in 2005, the vestry voted to give 20% of that bequest to the larger mission of the diocese, dedicating $30,000 to the St. Nicholas Day Offering. This $30,000, plus over $15,000 from the offerings of individuals and congregations throughout the diocese, plus $5,000 interest from the diocesan outreach endowment fund, means that our total St. Nicholas Day Offering is over $50,000 dollars. Thank you all for your generosity, and thank you St. John’s, Waynesboro.

Now, for a bit of practical business. The diocesan budget received a major shock when St. John’s, Roanoke, made a significant reduction to their funding of our common mission through their Voluntary Proportionate Giving pledge. St. John’s is not alone. For the past several years and for a host of reasons, a number of congregations have not been able to be as generous as in times past. Historically St. John’s has been the most generous congregation in the diocese in its financial support of the ministry and mission of the diocese, giving both the largest percentage and the largest dollar amount. This year the St. John’s vestry was not able to hold to that tradition. They do intend to give generously above their pledge in 2006, and they hope and pray that in the future they will return to their former leadership. I share that prayer.

The Executive Board and its finance committee worked long and hard to craft a budget for 2006 in the wake of the St. John’s decision. The work was painful, and I am most grateful for the hours put into producing a realistic yet hopeful budget.

To balance the budget of the diocese in 2006 and to avoid immediately laying off key ministry staff, the Executive Board has recommended to Council that we establish a $114,000 line of credit, to draw on as needed for this year only, as a bridge to 2007. This action will give the Executive Board time to reflect on our priorities. In the long run, some programs will need to find other sources of income, face radical reduction in funding, or be closed.

Despite this gloomy news, I remain convinced in my bones that God always gives us the gifts and talents to carry out the mission to which we are called. The only limit is our imagination. The desire to serve and to do mission, answering the call to engage in mission—these come first. The funding comes second.

One of the great new hymns in Wonder, Love, and Praise is Hymn 779, "The Church of Christ in Every Age." The first stanza speaks to us.

The church of Christ in every age,
Beset by change but spirit led,
Must claim and test its heritage
And keep on rising from the dead.

Radical hospitality is another way of defining mission. Radical hospitality demands that we serve and provide for the "other," the stranger, the marginalized, and the outcast. It is hard to let the visitor or the stranger into our midst. When we open our churches to people whom we have never seen or met, especially those who look and dress differently from us, people who will then sit in our very pews, we are living the life of mission to which Jesus calls us. We promise at our baptism and confirmation to “seek and serve Christ in all persons.” When we welcome the stranger, we welcome Christ himself.

Remember when Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well? Alone, Jesus spoke directly to a woman--and a disreputable one at that--an act of radical hospitality that breached every written and unwritten rule of civil decorum of the day. His disciples were shocked by his action. Yet, Jesus reached out. He invites us to do the same.

The fifth stanza of the hymn concludes:

We have no mission but to serve
In full obedience to our Lord
To care for all without reserve,
And spread Christ’s liberating word.

Let’s get about doing God’s work. Do mission and ministry. Practice radical hospitality. Practice generosity.

Finally, I pray for you every day. It remains a challenge and an honor to serve as your bishop.

Amen