I arrived early at the office today. The gate was closed, the rain coming down moderately hard, fog in the air. It is easy to miss what is beautiful in the world because of that is difficult or challengeing. Walking at a normal pace got me a bit wet and cold but it also mean I really saw the wonderful and graceful life God has placed in the world.
Dear Friends in the Diocese of Oregon:
I suspect that many of you took time in the last few weeks to review the 2011 year and to look forward to 2012. What follows are thoughts I have had as I have been reflecting on my last year and looking toward this New Year.
Last year for me was about completing the process of settling into the Diocese and especially about working toward a common vision for the diocese. In March I examined many of the vision plans from the past and I crafted a working document out of the past attempts to create a common vision for the work of the Episcopal Church in Western Oregon. I then spent the majority of the year refining that document in conversation with the leadership and congregations of the diocese. After a lot of input from others I presented a Mission Plan in November during Diocesan Convention.
The plan is framed around four strategic directions: Congregational life, Diocesan Mission, Leadership Development and Gospel Justice. Each direction has several sub-categories that define the work to be done in the program areas of the diocese. I hope that you have had a chance to review this document and to see how it might relate to the work of ministry in your own life and community. It can be found on the diocesan website at:
In the year ahead I will be focusing my work on making this document operational in the diocese as I invite the various committees and commissions to consider how their work relates to the plan. In my work as bishop I have four areas of focus for 2012. One focus for each of the four strategic directions:
1. Congregational Life: I will provide individuals and congregations with opportunities to reflect on and evaluate the liturgy and music we do in community. What we do on Sunday mornings is essential to our life as the body of Christ. We need to continue to evaluate and make changes in these areas as our circumstances suggest.
2. Diocesan Mission: I will evaluate and create new ways of working as a community on the diocesan level, reviewing and changing the management structures of the diocese so that mission and ministry is enriched in the Diocese.
3. Leadership Development: I will work with the committees and commissions of the diocese to see that excellent opportunities are available to develop an even richer lay ministry in the diocese.
4. Gospel Justice: I will work to clarify what we are doing as a diocese in local and Global mission and seek to identify a new companion diocese for Oregon.
As we move forward in ministry in 2012 I hope that you will engage with me in the work God has given us to do together as a part of the body of Christ in Western Oregon. I look forward to a year of challenge with many opportunities to meet God in the work we are called to do.
+Michael Hanley
Bishop of Oregon
Grace and Peace,
The scriptures we read in church during the Advent and Christmas seasons are surprising and challenging. They surprise us with ordinary individuals asked by God to live lives that are challenging and demand extraordinary sacrifice. Mary is invited to become the mother of the savior. Joseph is asked to be husband to this extraordinary woman and her son. Jesus himself is invited by God to lead a life of sacrifice and challenge.
We live today in a world just as complex and difficult as the one into which Jesus was born. Pain and suffering, greed, corruption, and man’s inhumanity to man is still all too often the headline news of the day. The raw material God has to work with in building the kingdom continues to be the ordinary people of the world. We are invited this Christmas to remember our calling from God to live lives that are surprising and challenging and demand extraordinary sacrifice.
Peace on Earth, good will toward all… This vision does not become reality without our prayers, our good works, and our outspoken proclamation of the Gospel to which we are heirs. I pray that as we go about our daily lives, we pray for peace, work for justice, and sacrifice for the good of the world God loves.
With every good wish for a blessed Christmas,
+Michael Hanley
Bishop of Oregon
I recently returned from a very short trip to sunny Arizona. Sounds fun, I know, but I spent most of my time in a small conference room at a Franciscan Retreat Center with the Standing Commission on Communication of The Episcopal Church! Last spring I was asked by our Presiding Bishop to serve as a member of this commission and this is the first meeting I’ve attended. The commission is made up of clergy and laity from around the church that have a passion for and expertise in communications. The task of the commission is to assist the church in examining communication issues and to suggest resolutions for General Convention on the topic of communications.
During our short meeting we heard reports from the Episcopal Church Center staff and others, we examined the work of the commission over the past three years and we proposed four resolutions for our General convention in 2012. The resolution I’d like to bring to your attention in this writing concerns website development. The commission is going to present a website challenge in 2012. We are proposing that all congregations in the Episcopal Church have an effective and up-to-date website by 2015!
The reason the commission is issuing this call is because we believe that a good web presence is vital to our evangelism efforts in the church. Today over 65% of all adults who use the web use social media, Facebook has over 500 million users, and twitter has 200 million! Most of the people looking for a church begin their search with a web search and many young people would not even consider attending a church without first checking them out on the web. If we want to live in the Kingdom of God it seems we do need to attend to websites!
A website by 2015, that does not sound like to difficult a challenge now does it? Or does it? Already most of our congregations in Oregon have a website, but of course not all do and of those who do have a site some are quite out-of-date. We do have a number of very good websites in the diocese as well.
Today it is relatively easy to create a good website and doing so can be quite inexpensive, however, the expense of a website is really related to how to maintain the site and keep it active and current. I hope that we as a diocese can take up this challenge and to look for ways to assist each other in creating good, creative and cost-effective websites in the near future. The diocesan communications staff is planning ways to assist parishes in this effort and you will be able to find out more in coming months. A good way to start will be to attend the communications conference, “Can anybody hear us?” that is being held at St. John the Baptist on February 18. I know that there will be workshops on websites and design and many other exciting things.
+Michael
For the complete text of Bishop Michael’s address to the Convention please click here: http://www.bishop.episcopaldioceseoregon.org/?page_id=102.
Mission Plan as presented at the 2011 Convention: http:/www.episcopaldioceseoregon.org/files/Mission_Plan_Document_2011.pdf