PHOTO: Courtesy of St. Stephen’s Church
Members of the youth program at St. Stephen’s Church in Lynn, which hosts Diocesan Convention on Nov. 6.
Episcopalians will get a glimpse of city ministry when they converge on St. Stephen’s Memorial Church in Lynn this Saturday.
About 650 delegates and members of the clergy are expected to attend the annual convention of the Diocese of Massachusetts on Nov. 6 to do diocesan business, celebrate the work of the past year and worship together.
“Together we pray and ponder, debate and decide, focusing on hearing and answering God’s urgent call to us,” the diocese’s bishops wrote to delegates and clergy last month. “Together, through the work of Convention carried home to our various places of ministry, we begin to answer that call, together.”
Urban, ethnic and multicultural ministry is one of the diocese’s mission priority areas, and St. Stephen’s Church, with its multicultural congregation, involvement in community organizing and multiple programs for city youth, will showcase some of that work.
Business coming before the convention includes consideration of the $6.3 million operating budget proposed for 2011, which is down 2 percent from 2010 and is balanced. Convention will also make changes to the diocese’s clergy disciplinary canons to bring them into compliance with revised Episcopal Church canons, and will elect deputies to represent the diocese at the Episcopal Church’s triennial General Convention in 2012.
In addition to the annual “state of the diocese” address given by Bishop M. Thomas Shaw, SSJE, the convention will also hear reports from Bishop Bud Cederholm on environmental stewardship and the diocese’s new Green Grants Initiative, and from Bishop Gayle E. Harris on her findings following a three-week mission in Israel and Palestine to investigate ministry and partnership opportunities with Anglican Christians there.