Diocesan News

Aja Jackson has joined the diocesan staff in the position of accountant in the Treasurer's Office.

After a 30-year postulancy that may well be among the longest on record, and with a vocational commitment "long in the making and long in the testing," as a seminary advisor once described it, the Rev. Gayle Pershouse Vaughan was at last ordained a transitional deacon on Nov. 10 of this year at the Parish of the Epiphany in Winchester, her home parish for the past 15 years.

A group of 22 pilgrims from the Diocese of Massachusetts embarked on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land Nov. 3-15, led by Bishop Gayle E. Harris and the Rev. Debbie Phillips, the rector of Grace Church in Salem. This was the eighth trip to the Holy Land that Harris has taken since 2009, and the third for Phillips. In addition to visiting holy sites such as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, and renewing baptismal bows at the Jordan River, the group had the chance to meet and learn from those in the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem that Phillips calls "living stones" of the Christian faith.

The diocesan staff will be saying goodbye to two colleagues in upcoming weeks.

The Office of the Bishop has issued the following notice:

This year's Diocesan Convention got a nudge toward reimagining the church--one of the diocesan mission strategy's three thematic planks--from young adults who have been working together as a task force over the past year to formulate recommendations to help the church more fully engage them and their peers.