Bishop Steve’s (and everyone else’s) busy first day

What’s to come in the coming days

Bishop Steve and the deputation gear up for the coming days

After so ably handling the Flip Video camera at Lambeth, Gretchen Lane has agreed to a command performance during General Convention. Thanks Gretchen!

A Pre-Convention Word from Bishop Steve

Vows and Visioning at St. James’, Old Town

I’m beginning to feel as though I’ve been most places in the diocese. Or, perhaps, it’s fairer to say that I’ve covered the length and breadth of the state, and I’m beginning to fill in the gaps in the map.

Our most recent visit was to St. James’, Old Town. Because it’s better than two hours from home, we went up Saturday afternoon and had the opportunity for a leisurely supper with Interim Rector George Lambert. Then, on Sunday, we had a fairly short trip to Old Town.

On most Sundays, the focus of the service is baptism or confirmation. On this Sunday it was the renewal of marriage vows for David and Jeanne Lindsay, who celebrate 50 years together this summer. What a lovely occasion and an opportunity for the rest of us to consider our commitments.

Renewal of wedding vows for David and Suzie Lindsey with (in front) daughter Anne Srick, grandson Ben Srick, granddaughter Andie Rawson, daughter Sara Lindsay, grandaughter Kate Rawson. In back Dave Lindsay, Suzie Lindsay, Bishop Lane, son-in-law Paul Rawson.

Following the service we adjourned for a gala reception and a town meeting. St. James’ is a small, but vibrant community worshiping in an historic Henry Vaughn designed church. A recent architectural review suggests the need for urgent repairs and updates at a cost of more than $1,000,000. The community is very committed to ministry and is discerning appropriate next steps.

The town meeting was lively with serious questions about new ways doing ministry and being church. The conversation covered possibilities for new relationships with other Episcopal congregations and job descriptions that include campus ministry. The community is very interested in exploring new directions. We also spent time discussing the upcoming General Convention.

The meeting with the Vestry picked up where the town meeting left off with more conversation about building issues and ministry possibilities. We talked about looking for partnerships both in the ecumenical community and beyond. I encouraged the vestry to continue explorations and look forward to future conversations. The challenges faced by St. James’ are not unique and are, perhaps, a portent of similar conversations across the diocese.

+Steve

Congregations old and new – both full of life

On Trinity Sunday, we made our first visit to St. Bartholomew’s, Yarmouth. St. Bart’s is one of our younger congregations, having been founded by Hoppy Hopkins and spending part of its life in a converted gas station. St. Bart’s now resides on beautiful campus in the woods and worships in a lovely contemporary, post and beam church, with clear windows looking out on meadows and trees, and a magnificent organ loft.

On the day of our visit, Rector Nina Pooley greeted us on arrival and we quickly reviewed the service. The main event was baptism, a rite Nina and I shared. The day was a little grey, it had been a rainy week (what else is new…) but the clouds cleared away to brilliant sunshine. (A nice touch on God’s part – in my homily I used weather patterns as a metaphor for God.) The music was wonderful. Following the service we joined for a barbecue luncheon.

I then met for the Vestry for a thorough-going conversation about ministry and growth and money. St. Bart’s needs more space, is using a temporary Sunday School classroom, is considering the possibility of new space, but loves its current space and wants to be fiscally responsible. It was a lively conversation that will continue.

Our day ended sharing ice cream cones with the rector and her family.

This past week we visited with St. John’s, Bangor. St. John’s was celebrating its 175th anniversary. It was founded in 1834 along with the City of Bangor. The original Richard Upjohn church was burned in a great fire in 1911. The new stone building is a replica of the original, and a lovely, classic, Gothic Revival Church. We marked the 175th anniversary with a sung evensong service on Saturday and the dedication of a large banner that was unfurled from the tower. The choir simply outdid itself offering several beautiful and difficult pieces.

On Sunday, Rector Rita Steadman met us early at the church and introduced me to the four candidates for confirmation and one for reception. St. John’s, Brownsville, was begun as a mission of St. John’s, Bangor, so folks from Brownville and Rector Nancy Moore joined in both the 175th celebration and the Sunday service. The candidates for confirmation and reception shared stories of their journey with me. They were folks who had journeyed from several denominations and through a number of life’s upheavals. As always, I found the stories moving.

The service was wonderful, and it was a joy to share the celebration with Rita and Nancy. Following the service was a gala reception. After the reception we blessed a new Oratory of the Visitation in the parish house. The prayer space will welcome visitors to the parish house and remind them of Christ’s call to serve one another. I then joined with the Vestry for lunch and for frank conversation about finances and about marriage of same gender couples. It was a solid, honest conversation. We spoke about continuing at the table together in the midst of our diversity and our theological differences.

Although it rained all weekend, the rain let up enough for us to be outside when we needed to be. As Gretchen and I headed home, the rain came down again.

Deacons: Teaching Us to See Need

Ordination Sermon by the Rt. Rev. Stephen Lane
June 20, 2009
Cathedral of St. Luke, Portland, Maine

Jeremiah 1:4-9; Psalm 119:33-40; Acts 6:2-7; Luke 22:24-27

When I served in parish ministry one of my favorite services was the service of Maundy Thursday with its agape supper and foot-washing. There is a simplicity and directness to the service I found very appealing. The message is eat and drink and be like Jesus, and even very young children could grasp it. We held the service in the parish dining hall where spilling water wouldn’t be a problem. The children loved that part. Making a mess was part of the liturgy, and a grown up got down and washed your feet! Too cool!

The foot washing was never really popular. I think it grew to maybe 30 people over the years. There was always a particular awkwardness to the foot washing. I always found myself a little flushed afterwards. I discovered that no one thinks they have nice feet. And a lot of people actually have club toes and messed up toenails. There’s a kind of reversal of the expected social order. And then there’s the whole matter of offering personal service, of treating someone’s unlovely feet with reverence. It’s recognition of an intimate, a sacred, a holy, connection with someone I don’t usually think of in that way. After a time, I came to see the awkwardness of the foot washing as the whole point: a reminder that social conventions are simply that – matters of arbitrary status – and a reminder that the service of Christ always involves relationships of love and care with other folks – folks who are all pretty much the same under their socks.

The early church made the connection between preaching Christ and serving Christ pretty early on – in fact, almost immediately. The apostles quickly discovered that there was more work to do then they could manage by themselves. They saw their primary responsibility as preaching the good news of the Jesus Christ crucified and risen. Yet they recognized their responsibility for what their preaching produced. Everywhere they went communities of believers sprang up. And those communities needed to be supported and organized, worship needed to be conducted, instruction needed to be offered. And then, in every community, there were those members who could not really care for themselves – who were poor or sick or old. The community needed to care for them.

Indeed, care for the widows and orphans soon became a major undertaking, so important and so time-consuming that the apostles needed help. And so the first servants of the church were chosen, the Magnificent Seven, who were given responsibility to care for weaker members of the community, to visit the sick, to prepare for worship.

And so, from the very earliest days, the church was marked by worship, by preaching and teaching, and by service. We now call the icons of Christ’s service deacons. Deacons represented Christ’s own service. Deacons represented and were emissaries of the bishop. Deacons shared the gifts of the community with the wider world.

But foot washing has never been all that popular in the church. As the church grew, the deacons were soon outnumbered by the elders, the leaders of the local communities, who represented the apostles in that place and led the services of worship. And over time, as the church embraced the trappings of empire, the offices of deacon, priest and bishop became hierarchical and serial. Eventually the diaconate became a stepping stone from the offices of acolyte and sub-deacon to the office of priest.  And it has remained that way until today. We still require priests to be transitional deacons before they may be ordained priests.

The recovery of baptism and the renewal of the diaconate both began in the Vatican II era in the mid 20th century. It’s probably no surprise that they’re linked because both movements are rooted in the conviction that the church is the body: the church is the body of Christ whose members carry the ministry of Christ to the world. And because that’s so, what happens outside the church is every bit as important as what happens inside the church. The renewal of the diaconate is helping us to recover our balance as a church, to rediscover the ancient balance of worship and service.

And perhaps, even more important, the diaconate is helping us recover our theological conviction that the purpose of the church is to help us grow up into Christ, to be like Jesus, to be like the one washing the feet. “The greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves. I am among you as one who serves.”

To make direct, intimate human service the goal of the Christian life is awkward. It means to forego our usual notions of status and power. It means to recognize our essential equality as human beings and the need we all have or will have for such personal care. It means to acknowledge that someplace close to the heart of our faith is the necessity of putting the neighbor in first place. It means being like Jesus with all the risks he once faced.

The world desperately needs this humble service. We are confronted by so many intractable problems in the 21st century – global warming, religious fundamentalism, declining standards of living, poverty, air and water pollution – you make your own list. None of these problems will be solved unless we are willing to humbly wash our neighbor’s feet.

We in Maine have done a good job with the renewal of the diaconate. We have deacons serving in many communities. But we have much more to do because the goal is not to make a lot of deacons. The goal is to help the people of God be like Jesus. Deacons can be for us persons whose own ministries serve as examples of the ministries to which we are all called as servants of Christ. Deacons bring the needs of the world into the life of the church so that we can see and respond in the name of Christ. Deacons help us pray for the world, recruit and train us for service, organize us to do Christ’s work. There is no limit to the need and no limit to the possibilities for service.

These ordinations this morning give me hope… not because I think these deacons are a source of cheap labor for the church – I’ve given them specific instructions to resist that – not because I think they will help us solve our financial problems as an institution, but because I think they will call us to wash feet. The heart of our baptismal promise is to live a life that is faithful to the one who calls us, the one who sees us all as children of one family, the one who understands that we all have the same needs and the same hopes, the one who died for us that we might live for him and one another.

My prayer for you, my friends and colleagues, is that you will simply get on with it. That with our support you will plunge into the work that lies before you, that you will show us the opportunities for our own service and help us claim them, that you will makes us feel a little awkward, help us to see the world as it really is – help us to see all those feet out there in need of a good washing.

God grant you the will and the grace to accomplish the ministry God sets before you.

Amen.

Delighting in journeys of faith at St. George’s, Sanford

One of the things I like best about a parish visit is the chance I get to hear people speak about their journeys in faith. I usually ask candidates for confirmation or reception why they have chosen to make their reaffirmation of faith today, how they got to this moment. I inevitably hear stories about God’s action in people’s lives, about a series of events – often over many years – that made today the right day. Sometimes a spouse or a child has brought them to this moment. Sometimes a quiet voice that kept prodding has caused them to give the life of faith a second look. Sometimes a tragedy or an experience of ministry has made them eager to recommit their lives to Christ. Whatever the particulars, individual journeys have joined with the journey of a faith community giving everyone the opportunity to consider again what it means to live a baptized life. I always find myself moved and grateful for stories people tell and the moment their journeys have created for the community.

Such was the case this Pentecost at St. George’s, Sanford. Rector Susan Murphy presented a class of eight for confirmation, reaffirmation and reception. Gretchen and I arrived by 8 a.m.for a meeting with the candidates. After a too short time of conversation, we joined for a gala celebration of the birthday of the church which featured fine music by the choir.

The service was followed by a memorable lunch during which the parish made a couple of presentations. One was a presentation by the Sunday School of a “jeweled” box of St. George’s Treasures – written offerings by the children of the things they loved about St. George’s. That was followed by a comic presentation (think Marden’s) by the Wardens of the comments of many parishioners expressing why they came to St. George’s and why they stayed. It was to great hear directly from so many parishioners about the warm fellowship and strong ministry of St. George’s.

A very upbeat vestry spoke with me about the positive changes and increased stewardship that have occurred in the rector’s first year at St. George’s. They also asked questions about the upcoming General Convention and the impact of the new civil marriage law on the church. A conversation with the rector concluded our visit. (As it happens, Susan’s first service at St. George’s was Pentecost 2008).

Thunderstorms were popping up all around as we headed home. But in my heart, everything was sunshine.

+Steve

Vitality and Growth at St. Peter’s, Bridgton and St. Ann’s, Windham

This past week brought my first “twofer” – two visitations in a single week. Both took place along the 302 corridor, north and west of Portland, in congregations that are experiencing growth.

On Wednesday, we joined with the Rt. Rev. John Smith and the people of St. Peter’s, Bridgton. It was our first visit to St. Peter’s new church. St. Peter’s worshiped for a number of years in the local Methodist Church. The congregation has experienced steady growth since it announced its intention to build four years ago. The growth has accelerated in the new church. The worship space is an open, multi-purpose room with beautiful light and views of the surrounding woods.

Gretchen and I arrived in time for a light supper and conversation with the Vestry. (Actually Gretchen was whisked a way for a quick tour of the community and supper at a local diner. Gretchen and I are fans of diners.) The Vestry and I spoke of the experience of moving to a new place and the happy problem of managing growth. St. Peter’s has just added parking and has room to expand its building if necessary. The major part of our conversation had to do with mission opportunities and expanding ministry to the community.

I then got to meet with candidates for reception and confirmation. The worship was a joyful affair punctuated by lively singing. A reception followed. Then all headed home in the fading light.

On Sunday, we went back out 302 to St. Ann’s, Windham. Rector Tim Higgins and Deacon Wendy Rozene greeted us at the door and led us through a packed morning.

The first item on the agenda was a meeting with the 19 candidates for confirmation and reception! Most were from St. Ann’s, but we were happy to welcome a couple from St. Matthew’s, Hallowell. We had a great time sharing stories about how we got to this day. Everyone told a different, and often moving, story of a journey in faith that led to the decision to seek confirmation or reception. It’s been my experience that there’s always a story to tell, that the decision to come forward is always part of a process.

We then joined for a energetic service. As each of the candidates came forward, I invited friends and family from the congregation to stand with them. That made for a very moving service, even as it required some complicated stage directions. St. Ann’s is bursting at the seams. Every space is used and filled to capacity. The Rector and Vestry are holding wide-ranging discussions about the urgent need for more space. Suggestions range from using the space more often and in different configurations to building temporary space to expanding the church. The parking lot has recently been paved and that has encouraged more participation. St. Ann’s has added 20+ households in the last year or so.

The service was followed by a standing room only reception, and then a meeting with the Vestry. Topics ranged from managing growth to issues in the Anglican Communion. The Vestry is clearly considering every option for dealing with the need for space. Our conversation was probing and wide-ranging.

As we were preparing to leave, I had an opportunity to visit the Memorial Garden. At St. Ann’s this is a large, landscaped space with a lovely view of the rolling hillsides and it offered a brief time for meditation after a very full morning.

One year in Maine: God is blessing our life and work together

Without much fanfare, my first anniversary in the diocese has come and gone. The time since my consecration on May 3, 2008 and now has marked a very good year, and Gretchen and I feel increasingly at home among you.

People often ask how I like my work or how we’re adjusting to Maine, so I thought a few reflections might be in order.

We continue to be very happy to be in Maine. We are continually discovering and rediscovering the beauty of Maine and the beauty of Maine’s people. Our churches are lively and, for the most part, happy. And even the recession has not dampened our enthusiasm for ministry. Gretchen and I love our home and are busy putting in new flower beds and a vegetable garden.

While I love the work of a bishop, the visitations are a special joy – although I miss not hearing our clergy preach. We have been warmly welcomed everywhere. Meeting with you and with your leadership never fails to deepen my appreciation for the challenges we’re facing and the creativity of our responses.

I have learned that a large part of a bishop’s job is just showing up. That leads to a very challenging schedule. Managing the schedule and the pace of my work is perhaps my greatest ongoing challenge. Saying “no” to requests for my presence is never easy.

Communication is a challenge as well. The diocese was well-adapted to the style of my predecessor. Every little change has a ripple affect. I’m learning whom I need to copy on correspondence, who needs to be informed of routine decisions, what groups need to be consulted, etc., etc. I haven’t dropped too many balls, but there have been some, and the learning can be painful.

New bishops are warned not to take too much on. I thought I was paying attention to that rubric, but I’ve taken on too much anyway. I’ve already agreed to do things that I haven’t been able to produce. And the recession, the state legislation on civil marriage, and the development needs of our congregations have all brought urgent demands. I’m trying to find the balance between thoughtful and timely responses, but that is clearly a work-in-progress. I’m deeply grateful for the dedication and hard work of my Canons, my Executive Assistant, and the Loring House staff who do a lot of heavy lifting for our diocese and for me.

It’s been a good year. The learning curve is steep, but considered all together, I am deeply grateful to God and to you for the call to this ministry. I’m having fun. I’m confident God will bless our life and work together.