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ECW readies for fall gathering

All women in the Diocese of Kansas are invited to the annual gathering of Kansas Episcopal Church Women. The two-day event will be Oct. 28-29 at St. Thomas’ Church, Overland Park. The gathering begins on Friday with a Eucharist at 6:00 p.m. and continues through Saturday afternoon.

The highlight of Saturday’s workshop time will be a presentation by Mary Hockersmith on the Enneagram system, a unique tool for discerning personality types. Participants in this introductory workshop will learn about the Enneagram system and begin to discover their own personality type.

Hockersmith said, “The use of Enneagram is not for labeling or pigeonholing but for in-depth understanding, opening the potential for change and transformation.”

She said that learning to understand oneself and others through Enneagram may be an important step in Christian formation. Knowledge of Enneagram can help people deal with people in everyday situations, whether at home, work, school or church, she said.

Hockersmith is a certified Enneagram teacher. She is a member of the Association of Enneagram Teachers in the Narrative Tradition and a former board member of the organization. She holds degrees in education and English literature from the University of Kansas. She is a member of St. Michael’s, Mission and has completed four years of Education for Ministry and two years of training as a spiritual director. She is an Oblate of the Order of St. Benedict through Mount St. Scholastica convent in Atchison.

Episcopal Community Services creates Anti-Hunger Network

Episcopal Community Services has established an anti-hunger network to bring together programs in the greater Kansas City area that serve 200,000 meals yearly to the homeless and working poor in the city.

ECS has hired Deacon Allen Ohlstein to serve as the network’s director, beginning on Sept. 1. Ohlstein was ordained a deacon on June 11 and also serves the congregation of St. Paul’s, Leavenworth.

Ohlstein said the network will work to increase the effectiveness of the 10 hunger-related Episcopal ministries that already exist in the area. He said those programs are seeing an increasing number of people coming for assistance with food.

Community Kitchen as flagship

ECS plans to make the Kansas City Community Kitchen the flagship of this network. That agency is the largest meal program in the city and serves lunch to more than 500 people daily. It is located at Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral near downtown Kansas City, Mo.

ECS also will be providing administrative and fund-raising assistance to the kitchen to help it meet its growing ministry. Ohlstein will oversee that administration, also.

Ohlstein said the ECS board also hopes to reestablish a program at the kitchen that offers training in culinary arts to prepare people for careers in the restaurant or food service industries.

He said the network also plans to expand support for area Meals on Wheels programs and help Kansas City-area parishes in the dioceses of Kansas and West Missouri establish anti-hunger programs in their own congregations.

Ohlstein brings to this new position extensive experience in operational management and food service operations. He retired from a career in the U.S. Army in 1992 with the rank of lieutenant colonel.

He said he is looking forward to the chance not only to exercise servant ministry in this position but also to help empower people to serve those in need through their local congregations.

Servin’ Up Jazz

The 11th annual “Servin’ Up Jazz” fundraising event for Episcopal Community Services this year will benefit the Community Kitchen and other programs supported by the Episcopal Anti-Hunger Network. It will take place Saturday, Sept. 24 at Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral at 4 p.m., with entertainment provided by the Danny Embry Quintet and the Wild Women of Kansas City. After the concert, refreshments will be provided in the cathedral’s Founders Hall by several Kansas City jazz venues.

Tickets are $30 each and may be purchased by calling the ECS office, 816-561-8920.

Episcopal Social Servcies receives $55,000 grant to help juvenile offenders

Episcopal Social Services in Wichita has received a $55,000 grant from Sedgwick County and the Kansas Juvenile Justice Authority to provide a new program for juvenile offenders.

The program will deal with first-time juvenile offenders who have committed crimes that are eligible for diversion under state law. The district attorney and local juvenile court will refer young people to the program. Up to 100 youth will be served during the grant year.

Volunteer facilitators will moderate a meeting between the offender, the victim, their families and other persons impacted by the crime. Through discussions and meetings, the offender will be given the opportunity to make amends for the crime, learn how their actions have impacted the victim and the community, and develop a written agreement on how to repair the harm they have done and how to prevent future unlawful actions.

In addition, the meeting will identify people who will offer support to the youth in keeping this behavior agreement.

Under the terms of the grant, ESS will train 10 volunteers as facilitators, using a model of “balanced and restorative justice” developed by Florida Atlantic University.  The volunteers will oversee the meetings and will supervise the agreement made as a result. They will report their findings to the district attorney.

This program, called “Family Group Conferencing,” will operate under the auspices of ESS’s Teen Intervention Program. That program uses adult mentors to assist young people caught shoplifting or committing other such crimes and helps them make restitution and create a plan for improvement in their life.

Jodee Bock will serve as director for the Family Group Conferencing program. She already is recruiting volunteers to serve as facilitators, with a three-day training program to be provided in mid-October. Bock said anyone interested in serving as a volunteer facilitator also has to undergo a background check, so people should apply early. She may be reached at fgc@esswichita.org or 316-269-4160.

Workers' compensation coverage for volunteers no longer is offered by Church Insurance Company

Effective Aug. 1, people who volunteer in parishes in the diocese no longer will be covered under workers’ compensation policies. Liberty Mutual Insurance, the carrier that underwrites the workers’ comp provisions of coverage through the Church Insurance Agency Corporation, has stopped offering that provision of the policy.

Paul Stephens, Church Insurance’s vice president of client services in the Midwest region, said Liberty Mutual took this action because states have begun to change laws governing workers’ comp policies. He said that covering volunteers under insurance designed to protect employees who are injured on the job was unique to the Episcopal Church.

“That coverage wasn’t provided in the market place,” he said. “Workers’ comp policies are based on payrolls. States don’t want volunteers in the pool of workers’ comp claims because it muddies their rate structure.”

Stephens said this policy change will not affect parishes. “Churches continue to be covered, but volunteers aren’t,” he said. He said volunteers usually will be covered under their own medical insurance policies provided by employers. Those who aren’t may wish to reassess in what activities they want to participate.

There still is some coverage for injuries sustained by parishioners while volunteering at church, Stephens said. Up to $15,000 in medical expenses can be paid through a parish’s comprehensive package policy. “And that’s no fault,” he said.

If a parish was negligent and more money was needed to pay medical claims to an injured volunteer, parishioners could seek damages under the parish’s liability coverage, up to $1 million per incident. Some parishes have additional liability insurance through umbrella policies they have purchased, Stephens said.

Anyone with questions about this change in coverage can contact the diocese’s insurance representative, Andrea Johnson, at 800-293-3525.

The Holy Trinity Regional Ministry in the southeast convocation has disbanded

A combined ministry of parishes in the southeast convocation has ended, but the reason is a good one — the strength of the congregations involved. And three of the churches involved intend to keep alive the sense of community that has evolved from their association.

The Holy Trinity Regional Ministry ceased on June 1, ending an 11-year association that had at one time included Grace, Chanute; St. Timothy’s, Iola; St. John’s, Parsons and Calvary, Yates Center.

In the past the clergy of the regional ministry had served each of the congregations on a rotating basis, under the direction of a regional ministry pastor.

The Chanute parish left the regional ministry in December 2003 to call its own rector, the Rev. Nancy Shank. St. John’s, Parsons withdrew in June 2005 and Calvary and St. Timothy’s followed soon after.

In early 2004 Bishop Dean Wolfe assigned the three remaining priests of the regional ministry to her own parish, establishing them as vicars in those locations. Those priests, the Rev. Jan Chubb in Iola, the Rev. Sharon Billman in Parsons and the Rev. Helen Hoch in Yates Center, had been ordained under the old Canon 9 or “local priest” provision.

Chubb said the Iola parish she serves is stronger by having her there every Sunday. The old system, she said, relied heavily on lay leadership as clergy moved between churches, and in those small congregations people had begun to burn out. “It has been a joy to get to know these parishioners and to begin or resurrect some programs so the community knows the Episcopal Church is still alive,” she said.

Billman said the Parsons congregation has seen a similar revival with her regular presence. She has been able to add weekly services and activities that previously weren’t possible without someone in charge locally to make those things happen.

The people of Iola, Parsons and Yates Center intend to keep alive the bonds of friendship forged through years of joint ministry with three “community Sundays” a year. On those days the three parishes will come together to worship and share food, fun, fellowship and friendships.

The diocesan canon to the ordinary and the rector of Grace, Ottawa are married

The Canon to the Ordinary for the Diocese of Kansas, the Rev. Jo Ann T. Smith, and the rector of Grace, Ottawa, the Rev. Denis Ford, were married during the main service on Sunday, July 3 at the Ottawa parish.

Celebrant for the service was the Very Rev. Steve Lipscomb, dean of Grace Cathedral, Topeka and a seminary classmate of the bride. Preaching the sermon was the Rev. John Paddock of Dayton, Ohio, a seminary classmate of the groom.

The canon is using the name Jo Ann T. Ford following the couple’s marriage. They are living on the Ford ranch outside Ottawa, and the canon is commuting to the diocesan office in Topeka.