You are here: Home > Bishop's Pages > 2007 Diocesan Convention Address

Address by the Right Reverend Dean E. Wolfe
To the convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Kansas
Oct. 19, 2007 – Topeka, Kan.

It i s my joy and privilege to welcome you to the 148th Diocesan Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Kansas. On behalf of the people of this diocese, allow me to extend a warm welcome to the clergy and lay delegates, and to our visitors, guests, volunteers and the members of the diocesan staff.

For the 148th time in our history, the laity and clergy of the parishes of the Episcopal Diocese of Kansas have gathered together with their bishop to discuss the mission we believe we were called by God to accomplish together. It’s just great to see all of you here, and I must say, I’ve been waiting for this event ever since last year’s Convention ended. I guess I just love it when Episcopalians get together. Let us pray.

Almighty and ever living God, source of all wisdom and understanding, be present with those who take counsel in the Diocesan Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Kansas for the renewal and mission of your Church. Teach us in all things to seek first your honor and glory. Guide us to perceive what is right, and grant us both the courage to pursue it and the grace to accomplish it; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Last year I wrote these words, and I thought it might be worthwhile to share them with you again. I was trying to explain why it is that we gather annually for a diocesan convention. This event requires no small amount of resource, and no small amount of time, I suppose I was trying to justify why it is that we go to such efforts year after year. I wrote:

“We gather, because periodically we need to see one another face to face and be reminded the church is larger than our own faith or even our own parish. We gather, because breaking bread together reminds us of who we are and to whom we belong. We gather, because we need to rekindle old friendships and make new ones. We gather in order to listen for the still, small voice of the Spirit that, to our constant amazement, often comes out of the mouths of our brothers and sisters in Christ!

"We gather to hear a word from the Lord, and in order to truly hear that word, we gather to carefully listen for it. We gather, sometimes with shaking knees, to stand and speak the Word that God has given us. We gather to discern our collective mission and to determine prayerfully, thoughtfully, creatively, boldly how we can best use our precious time, tithe and talents.

"We gather so we can be the Body of Christ. Individually, we may fall. Alone, we are frail. But together, by the grace and power of God, we are a force with which to be reckoned; some 46 communities of faith, with a total of more than 12,000 confirmed members. Smaller, perhaps, than some dioceses; 12 men our Lord Jesus Christ began his ministry by the Sea of Galilee! And when we remember what those 12 men did in their day, we can only imagine what 12 THOUSAND men and women working together for God might do in our day!”

So let us begin. John Cassian, an early desert mystic, wrote this prayer some 1600 years ago. Would you pray it with me?

O God, be all my love, all my hope, all my striving: let my thoughts and words flow from you, my daily life be in you, and every breath I take be for you. Amen.

Our theme for this year’s convention is “Casting into Deep Waters,” which comes from the fifth chapter of the Gospel according to Luke.

“Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fisherman had gone out of them and were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, ‘Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.’ Simon answered, ‘Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet, if you say so, I will let down the nets.’ When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus knees saying, ‘Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!’ For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, ‘Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.’ When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.” (Luke 5:1-11, NRSV)

The carpenter's son and the fishermen
I’ve always been captivated by this gospel lesson, because it paints such a vivid picture of the calling of the disciples. I can easily imagine the carpenter’s son, the itinerant rabbi, telling the tired, experienced fishermen, “C’mon. Give it one more try!” And it isn’t hard to imagine Simon wanting to be patient, trying to be patient, but being a little exasperated as well. After all, the nets had already been cleaned and laid to dry. “Master,” he respectfully explains, “we have worked all night and have caught nothing.”

He might as well have said, “Master, if you knew anything about fishing you would know that now is not the time. For whatever reason, the fishing is poor and that’s all there is to it. Rabbi, you know what you know, but when it comes to fishing, we are the experts, and the experts are telling you that now is not the time!”

But the story doesn’t end there. It could end there, but it doesn’t end there. There is this unexpected bit of hopefulness, some tiny piece of expectation remains in Simon Peter, because he adds, “Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” Simon’s willingness to suspend his disbelief makes for the entire experience.

Now, I have always enjoyed fishing, and I still go fly fishing with a group of friends each summer, but many of my early fishing experiences were, how shall we say, less than productive.

When I was about 12 or 13 years old, my parents took me on a trip to visit my cousin, who was serving in the Air Force at a SAC base in Oscoda Bay, Michigan. The base was located on the shore of Lake Huron, and my father and my cousin promised me that we would go fishing on that Great Lake the next morning.

True to their word, they woke me up in the pre-dawn darkness; we got dressed and then picked up my cousin’s boat and headed for the water. Now, this was pretty big stuff, because while I had fished on the Ohio River and on smaller inland lakes, I had never gone out on such a large body of water. We were in a small boat in pretty good sized swells, and I can remember that it was a challenge just to stay in my seat, let alone to rig a line and put a hook into the water. The wind was whipping, and the white caps were gathering, and there were not many fish who thought this would be a good day to give up their life for our cause.

We tried a variety of lures with no success, and finally, after absolutely nothing had worked, I asked my dad if I could use “The Wright Brothers Answer to Fishing.” The Wright Brother’s Answer to Fishing was a lure we had bought at deep discount at the Bargain Barn, and it had never actually been used before.

It was a large, floating lure that spent most of its existence in the bottom of our tackle box. The thing we liked about it most was that it had big propellers on the front and the back of it, along with three large treble hooks. The propellers made it look like something Orville and Wilbur would have cooked up, and so that’s how the lure got its name. We always thought it would take a fairly audacious fish to even try to bite on it.

My father said the lure was worth a try, and so I put it on my line and cast it as far as I could. Then I let out some additional line just in case, and watched for any movement that might indicate a fish was interested. I watched intently for quite a while with no action, but then my dad and I noticed something ominous at about the same time. We both noticed a large seagull, turning overhead and gliding out to about where my lure was floating.

My dad immediately said, “Start reelin’ it in, son,” and I was already turning the crank on the reel as fast as my hands could move – but it was too late.

The seagull made an abrupt turn and dived steeply, picked up the lure neatly in its beak, and began to fly back to shore at full speed. The line was spinning off my reel with a high pitched whine, and then suddenly, the line went taut, the lure caught the seagull in the wing, and that giant bird went spinning down into the lake with a whumpf.

Now, as it turns out, it is much easier to net an angry seagull and get it into a small boat than it is to un-net one and get it out of a small boat, and it is surprising how much smaller a boat can get with two cursing men, a confused boy and a large desperate bird all competing for space.

Finally my father, using a pair of pliers, got the bird’s wing unhooked, and then his beak, and we were never so relieved as when that bird climbed out of the net, looked at us indignantly, and then flew away, apparently little worse for wear.

However, my father and my cousin were, as I recall, completely spent by the experience, and none of us seemed to know how to respond to my mother’s perfectly innocent question, “Well, did you boys catch anything?”

Water of baptism, rain, fire hoses, tears
Simon told Jesus, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing.”

You see, you can work really hard, you can put out a good deal of effort and still be ineffectual. As a young salesman, I once told an old sales manager how hard I was working, to which he replied, “Son, a washing machine works hard. What you’ve got to do is work smart.”

You can put forward great effort that still results in no catch. In this diocese we have often worked very hard, but we have not always landed full nets.

Simon knows what he knows. He doesn’t want to go out again. He doesn’t want to put out into the deep water. He’s experienced. He has been there, he has done that. But he finally says, “Yet, if you say so, I will let down the nets.” His openness to Christ’s purposes makes all the difference. A willingness to try something new is a crucial sign of faithfulness and obedience.

I think of all the deep waters I have known in this past year. The waters of baptism have rolled down my arms as I baptized beautiful children in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

I have felt the fresh drops of much needed rain, which too quickly turned into too much water and flooding in so many parts of Kansas. I’ve felt the water-soaked carpeting under my feet amid the broken stained glass and charred Prayer Books in the chapel at St. David’s. I’ve felt big salty tears running down my face at funerals for Deacon Sally Wilcox and Archdeacon Jim Upton, and for Council of Trustees member Dick Norman. When it rains it pours.

We are mostly water. More than 70 percent of our bodies are made of water. Most of the earth’s surface is covered in water. As infants, we spend nine months floating in the deep amniotic fluids of our mother’s womb, and when we are born, we remain evermore searching for the waters that can and save. We desire what is deep.

Theologian Paul Tillich wrote, “Eternal joy is not to be reached by living on the surface. It is rather attained by breaking through the surface, by penetrating the deep things of ourselves, or our world and of God. The moment in which we reach the last depth of our lives is the moment in which we can experience the joy that has eternity within it, the hope that cannot be destroyed, and the truth on which life and death are built. For in the depth is truth; and in the depth is hope; and in the depth is joy.”

Growth in parishes and on campuses, in youth and stewardship
You know, I think of myself as a person of deep faith, but truly, honestly, if you would have told me four years ago that we would be where we are today in terms of membership, clarity of mission, finances, enthusiasm, lay and clergy leadership, and yes, joy, I would not have believed you! It appears that the Lord is richly blessing our work and our faithfulness, and we are seeing glimpses of the first fruits of our diligent labor.

We believe our membership is growing. Over the past two years we may have gained more than 500 new members! Now let’s remember that these numbers have been accumulated by human hands, and so it isn’t time to throw the party just yet, but if this is in any way accurate, it means we have grown by as much as a parish the size of St. John’s, Wichita.

This increase in membership remains to be confirmed, and it will have to continue for several more years to be a clear trend, but I believe a sustained focus on membership and growth will result in a sustained increase in membership and growth.

It appears that this growth has happened in both large and small parishes, and it has happened primarily through the efforts of strong local leadership and good old-fashioned “elbow grease”: more contacts, more phone calls, more visits, meaningful worship, effective education for children and youth, a clear commitment to mission and outreach, and clear and intentional programs for incorporating newcomers into the life of the parish family.

Our campus ministries program is booming! You will hear more about it from the missioners themselves, but a key component of our shared ministry has finally fallen into place. Craig Loya and Susan Terry have visited 26 parishes, and we have now have 14 peer ministers working on six campuses – Johnson County Community College, Emporia State, Wichita State and Labette County Community College, along with our ongoing ministries at Kansas State and the University of Kansas.

Conversations have begun with 12 additional parish partners, and there isn’t a parish in this diocese that couldn’t establish a link with a local college, university or community college in the next year.

Our youth ministries program is booming! Our success on college campuses owes a great deal to the work being done at the junior and senior high level by Chad Senuta and a committed cadre of volunteers and young interns. Youth ministry cannot happen without faithful adults who love kids, and in the past year Chad has been working to establish an advocacy program, so that every parish has a least one adult who serves as an advocate for youth, whether that parish has any youth or not. Most of our parishes have responded, but there is still an opportunity for the few churches that still need to appoint a youth advocate.

Our stewardship and planned giving is growing! Char DeWitt and the Stewardship and Development Committee have developed a quality, “turn-key” stewardship program that any parish in the diocese can put to use, and they are in the process of developing an excellent planned giving program of the same quality. Char has conducted more than 15 vestry workshops and has made more than 100 visits with vestries, priests and stewardship chairs.

This is all great work – extraordinary, really – but I have a dream, that what we do here in this moment in time will be truly great. I have a dream that on our watch, during our period of responsibility for this church, we will set a standard that will make future generations look back at our faithfulness with the same respect and awe we now express for the faithfulness of previous generations in this diocese. I dream that we will truly put out into the deep, that we will refuse to settle for a mediocre vision, a pale imitation of the real thing.

I know the sirens of mediocrity will always put forth their alluring cry. I know they will say, “It’s good enough. We don’t have the money. We’re doing fine. Relax. Take it easy.” But I pray we will always see those voices for the seductions they are.

Six important diocesan goals
We have six goals in this diocese:

1. To support existing parishes. We have reconfigured the diocesan staff reconfiguration so we can more effectively support parishes in this diocese. We continue to look for a high candidates for clergy openings, because we know that where we have strong clergy leadership, we have church growth.

We’re looking creatively at the possibility of church mergers in different places. St. Alban’s and St. Stephen’s in Wichita have done that effectively, St. Philip’s is closing, but many of the members will be going to the Cathedral or to St. David’s, and we intend to use that property, that resource, to build another church in the Topeka area. St. Bartholomew’s and St. Christopher’s continue to engage in conversations about how they might more effectively share their ministries. The churches in Winfield and Arkansas City are now sharing a vestry and talking about the “Combined Ministries of Cowley County.” This is good news for us.

2. Plant three new churches. We are behind in this goal. We are looking to hire a church planter, and if you know of one, give me a call, because we either going to hire one or we’re going to make one. Make no mistake about it – we are going to be planting new churches in this diocese, because we know that is what God is calling us to do – to give more and more people an opportunity to know Christ and to make Christ known.

3. Support children, youth and young adult ministries. We talked a little bit about that, but there is much more to do.

4. Stewardship and development is an important part of all we do, and if we don’t have the resources, we can’t do a lot of the work we believe we have been called to do.

5. We’re going to be looking at developing Bethany Place, but the building of a parking lot adjacent to the Cathedral gave us an indication of just what kind of challenge we might be up against. Never have so many been so excited about so little. But we are undeterred. Every property in this diocese is here it be used, and we will, as the Lord is my witness, use every property to its fullest effect to build up the Kingdom of God. A camp and conference center is something we keep looking at, and we are not going to stop until we have fully exhausted every opportunity we have to develop one, because we know where Episcopalians get together, they bond, they become closer and then our work becomes that much easier.

6. All of these things are really meant to fulfill our sixth goal, which is mission to the world. The Millennium Development Goals are simply a secular expression of the 25th chapter of Matthew, when Jesus says, “Come you who are blessed by my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing. I was sick and you took care of me. I was in prison and you visited me.”

These are the mandates given to us by our Lord Jesus Christ, and these are the marks of a biblical church. We are involved in local mission – flood relief in Iola and Coffeyville, which will be continuing for some time. There is ministry to the Gulf Coast and to the victims of Katrina. My visit to the House of Bishops meeting in New Orleans reminded me again of how little work has been done in two years, since that terrible storm. And our work continues to grow in Haiti and Kenya, and the excitement around ministry in those places is palpable.

Nothing small, no shallow water
Let’s not do anything small. Let’s not cast into shallow water with weak casts and thin nets, expecting no fish. Let us put out into the deep water, because the deeper you go, the more dense, the more intense, the more substantive you will find this faith to be. The deeper you go in the circle of faith, the closer you will find yourself to everyone else.

We are a people called to go to the depths, to deep spirituality. At the core of who we are, at the very center of everything we do, is our abiding faith in the amazing grace of God.

We are a God-compelled people, and for Christians filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, there are no other options. There are no other choices for us. This is not merely what we do; this is who we are!

I make no apologies for believing with every fiber of my being that Jesus Christ is the way and the truth and the life. This is what it means to go deep. I make no apologies for believing that having a vibrant relationship with Christ is the very key to life. You can’t understand what we do if you do not know who we are, what drives us, what inspires us, what compels us. We have been captured by a divine love. We are more than heirs of him who loved us. “For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord.”

I make no apologies for believing that every single person I encounter would benefit from a relationship with the Episcopal Church, because where else will you find such complexity, such breadth, such depth, such an intense search for the very meaning of life?

We are called to deep learning. There are people who are using Holy Scripture in unholy ways, and we are not sufficiently biblically literate to challenge them. There are reasons for our practices, our worship, our interpretation of scripture, our moral imperatives, and we do not have the vocabulary to offer them. This must change. I dream that everyone in this diocese will be part of a small group Bible study, or prayer group, or mission group, or spiritual book study, where you will have the opportunity to grow closer to the word of God and closer to one another and thereby grow closer to God himself.

If you’re getting your news about the Episcopal Church from a newspaper reporter – the AP, UPI, the New York Times or from a television broadcaster – you don’t really know what’s going on in your church.

I am impatient about the superficial, and occasionally I become impossible, because I believe we have found the secret of life, and I am in a hurry for us to share this good news with the rest of the world and not be distracted by things of lesser importance.

Jesus said, “I would prefer that you were either hot or cold.” There is no half way. We can’t be just scratching the surface of spirituality. This can’t be shallow water – safe and secure, or mid-depth water – deep enough to seem authentic but not deep enough to confront or to offend or to challenge. No, we are called to go deep.

This can’t be that cheap, dime store spirituality, with easy answers and glib solutions for everything. This is why the Kansas School of Ministry is so very important. Any theology that is not humbled by war, any theology that excuses poverty by glibly quoting Jesus’ saying that “the poor will be with us always,” any theology that implies hungry and sick people somehow deserve their plight, or that sexuality is the most important thing in the Bible – that theology is not worthy of the Lord who calls us to go much, much deeper.

We won't leave anyone behind
Let’s do something great here. We’re called to deep evangelism. Deep evangelism comes out of deep spirituality. When you have a profound relationship with God, evangelism is not what you do, it is who you are. You are an evangelist through your very being. You exude Christ’s love, Christ’s compassion, Christ’s moral indignation, Christ’s exasperation. Christ’s unfailing love.

Deep evangelism is becoming involved with a life. If you care about someone, you enter into a relationship with them. Perhaps it begins as a conversation, but it ends as a friendship, and then, if we are willing to go deep enough, they become closer even than family members. This is what it means to build up the family of God. Who is my mother? Who is my brother?

We are called to deep mission. We need to quit being checkbook missionaries. I don’t mean to say that money isn’t important to the enterprise, but if you think you can write a check and make it all go away, you are just flat wrong.

We’re called to do more than that. St. David’s is such an interesting example for me. Who would have guessed that if a church was burned, the membership would grow, giving would grow, the faithfulness would deepen. Who would have thought that? And how many churches need to catch fire in this diocese? There is something to that. There’s something going on there, and it’s happening in a number of other places.

When you go deep you realize that the supplies have to meet the demands of the expedition. The resources, the supplies, aren’t the thing. The resources, the supplies, are the stuff that helps you get to the thing. Let us use our buildings and other resources as if they were holy gifts from God, and if any resource can be used more effectively to build up the body of Christ, then let us use it fully.

When you go deep you realize that you need the whole crew. If this is just a little day sail, then a couple of people who’ve done it before are all we will need. Just a few experienced sailors, that’s all.

But if you go to the deep water, you’ve going to have to bring the whole crew. My brothers and sisters, there aren’t enough Episcopalians in Kansas that we can do without a single one of them. This is a big ship, and we are going to need all hands on deck. There are no acceptable casualties in this church. Go back for your friends. Some of them left because they felt the church was moving too fast and leaving its roots. Go back for your friends. Some of them left the church because they felt it was moving too slow, and they didn’t think there was a place for people like them. Go back for your friends. Some of them thought their children’s soccer games, or a million different leisure-time options, were more important than hearing the saving words of Christ and receiving the saving sacraments of his body and blood – and Lord, forgive me for failing to have said something about all of this sooner.

This isn’t going to be a three-hour cruise. We are bringing everybody. Everybody. Every last single soul along. And why? Because that is precisely what Jesus told us to do, that’s why. Leave the 99; go after the one. We are going deep, and we will need everyone. Women and men. Young and old. Black, Asian, Hispanic, Native American and white. Gay and straight. Conservative and liberal. High church and low church. Traditionalist and innovators. I pray we will have a diocese that looks like one of the tables where Jesus dined. It should be full of Pharisees and sinners and tax collectors and outcasts, rabble rousers and seekers of every kind.

“Pick up your cross and follow me,” said Jesus, and some of the issues we continue to debate appear to be part of the cross we are called to bear. You may say you did not chose it, but does anyone, really get to choose their cross? We pick up the crosses laid before us, and we follow in the footsteps of Christ himself.

When you go deep, there comes a point where someone will inevitably say, “Aren’t we too far out? I can’t see the shore from here. This is dangerous! It was better back in port, where the water was gently lapping the hull of the boat, and we were sunning ourselves comfortably on deck. Out here, the wind is whipping and the water is cresting, and it is easy to get to wondering, ‘What in the world are we doing?’”

It’s easy to forget, as you drive across the diocese on Interstate 70, that our beautiful land was once a vast, ancient ocean. Before there were fields of corn and wheat, rolling hills dotted with cattle, towns and streets, large sea animals lumbered their way through tropical seas.

Charles Sternberg, a 19th century archeologist, wrote, “How often in imagination I have rolled back the years and pictured central Kansas now raised 2,000 feet about sea level, as a group of islands scattered about in a semi-tropical sea! There are no frosts and few insect pests to mar the foliage of the great forests that grow along its shores, and the ripe leaves fall gently into the sand, to be covered up by the incoming tide and to form impressions and counterparts of themselves as perfect as if a Divine hand had stamped them in yielding wax.” (Charles Sternberg, Life of a Fossil Hunter, New York: Henry Holt, 1909, p. 16)

One can imagine the professional fisherman, Peter, bemused by the suggestions of the carpenter/ rabbi on how to catch fish, but as usual, Jesus was trying to make more than one point. We are called to take risks, not for the sake of being edgier or foolish, but because when we take great risks, when we exhibit extraordinary faith, we are granted extraordinary rewards. God, it would seem, is constantly calling us to something deeper, something fuller, something more profound.

Let us pray the prayer of this diocese (written by Sir Francis Drake).

Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves, when our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little, when we arrive safely because we sailed too close to the shore.

 Disturb us, Lord, when with the abundance of things we possess, we have lost our thirst for the waters of life; having fallen in love with life, we have ceased to dream of eternity;, and in our efforts to build a new earth, we have allowed our vision of the new Heaven to dim.

 Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly, to venture on wider seas where storms will show your master; where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars.

 We ask you to push back the horizons of our hopes, and to push us into the future in strength, courage, hope and love.

 This we ask in the name of our Captain, who is Jesus Christ. Amen.