Diocesan News

I am off this morning to the annual Martin Luther King Jr. memorial breakfast sponsored by St. Cyprian's Episcopal Church and the Union United Methodist Church.  This day, whether we attend an event like the breakfast or not, is our yearly opportunity to give thanks for the life and…

Episcopal City Mission on Jan. 11 gathered a roomful of community organizers representing some of the state’s most ethnically diverse and economically hardest-hit cities—Lawrence, Lowell, Lynn, Fall River, Brockton—and gave out 17 checks totaling $200,000 to fuel their efforts against social…

In the quiet of the snowstorm I have been thinking and praying about the terrible events in Arizona last weekend.  Like many of you I have been listening to talk radio programs, reading newspaper editorials and watching news commentary on television concerning the murders and woundings in…

This year’s annual diocesan Spring Learning Event on Saturday, March 5 will be part of a larger local “Episcopal Village Mission Event” focusing on reaching new communities and sharing the Gospel in new ways.  A five-part Epiphany study is available to help everyone get ready.  Find…

I love children's Christmas pageants.  I love the chaos, the crowns, the halos and the angel wings.  I love watching the littlest kids, the ones who are almost always the sheep or the shepherds of the multitude of heavenly hosts.Maybe I've seen a hundred Christmas pageants in my ministry,…

Bishop M. Thomas Shaw, SSJE has announced that the diocese will not elect a second bishop suffragan when Bishop Bud Cederholm retires in November 2011. “We will instead reallocate resources in order to hire in 2011 an archdeacon to oversee congregational development, strategic ministries that are…

I recently attended a worship service where the preacher took as his text I Thessalonians 5:18, in which St. Paul is ending his letter to the Christians in the strategically located city of Thessalonica.  Paul is encouraging them to maintain…

Bishop Suffragan Bud Cederholm has announced his retirement, effective in early November of next year, when he will be marking 40 years of full-time ordained ministry, 10 of them as a bishop.The full text of Bishop Cederholm’s announcement follows. Nov. 17, 2010Dear Friends,Greetings and peace…