Bishop Mariann’s Diocesan Convention Address 2025

by | Jan 30, 2025

And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.
Matthew 28:20

Again, let me say that it is good to be with you. It is an honor and great responsibility to address you each year at our diocesan-wide gathering of leaders, and I welcome those joining us via live-stream. Thank you to all who took part in the Service Toward Repentance last evening. Together we looked back on some of the most painful truths of our past, and prayed for the courage to do our part to repair the breach created by past injustices and better understand how our present reality is still informed by them. We prayed for the grace and courage to nurture the seeds God has planted among us now for, in the words of our former presiding bishop Michael Curry, a more “loving, life-giving and liberating future.”1

That spiritual practice looking back in order to better understand the present and prepare for the future is courageous and holy discernment, and I am persuaded that it is time, now, to engage that same practice when considering the entirety of diocesan-level endeavors.

This address, then, is part spiritual reflection with what I pray is a word of encouragement, followed by brief remarks on our experience of the last week, and then a proposal that we engage in a process of diocesan ministry evaluation, specifically of the strategic plan that we launched in 2020.

First, a word to encourage us all.

The theme we’ve chosen for this Convention is “Christ before us.” The phrase is part of a Celtic hymn that assures us of Christ’s presence everywhere.

The Christ hymn is a source of great comfort for me personally. I love the version by Anna Hernandez that we sang a few moments ago. I also love the version embedded in the hymn, “St Patrick’s Breastplate,” which I sometimes sing to myself while driving in the car. Would you join in singing with me now?

Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.

 

Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.2

Now let’s sing again, changing the word “me” to “us.”

Christ be with us, Christ within us,
Christ behind us, Christ before us,
Christ beside, Christ to win us,
Christ to comfort and restore us,

 

Christ beneath us, Christ above us
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love us,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

Christ is our hope.

He is the source of our strength.

He will be with us, as he promised, to the end of the age.

Still, we know that Christ’s presence doesn’t spare us from the complexities, trials and suffering of being human. When the Apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans that hardship, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, or sword could not separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:35), he was also warning us that we may very well experience all those things, and more.

Moreover, the fact that we are forgiven our sins in Christ doesn’t mean that he can shield us from our self-destructive ways and the harms we cause one another. Yet in our sin and frailty, as well as through our gifts and strengths, Christ makes his presence known to us, and by grace, makes his presence know through us—not perfectly, for as Paul describes in another letter, we are like clay jars holding this great treasure, “so that it may clear for all the world that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.” (2 Corinthians 4:7)

We live in the promise that Christ is with us always, within, among, behind, and before. We live from his grace and strength, which on occasion allows us—indeed, calls us—to be his hands and feet; to speak his words of love and exhortation; to pray for, and to help realize his kingdom, the Beloved Community, on earth, as it is in heaven.

Okay, that was the spiritual pep talk. Now to the events of this week.

As they say in Minnesota, “It’s been a quiet week…”

I’ve known since my election in 2011 that there is a public dimension to our ministry, and specifically, for mine, as your bishop. The diocesan profile, written in 2010 to introduce the diocese to potential candidates, reads: “The Bishop is the voice of the Episcopal Church in the Capital, on Capitol Hill, and in many national and international conversations.” I am also aware how consuming and frankly, seductive public ministry can be—a distraction at times, from the essential work of serving our congregations and their people, serving Christ in ministry on the local level.

I am clear that my primary work as your bishop, and that of the diocesan staff, is to support and encourage you, and to do all that we can to equip our congregations as they strive to be vibrant communities of faith. We are also here to help find ways we can work together for the good of all.

Yet there are times when the public side of ministry takes center stage. Like this week.

However you and others may feel about the sermon I offered at the Prayer Service for the Nation on Tuesday and the response it evoked, please know that I did my best to stay within the parameters of my spiritual role. The theme of the service was a prayer for unity, and I wanted to explore the necessary foundations of unity through the lens of our baptismal covenant. I included a warning about the dangers of the culture of contempt that has become normalized in public discourse (if we’re honest, we all participate in it, and some of us have been on the receiving end of it this week). And I held before us all the need for dignity, honesty and humility in public speech. Disagreements are to be expected, but we can disagree respectfully. In making a plea for mercy, I was speaking on behalf of those we know and love as members of our congregations, people in our families and among our friends, and so many others who have reason to be terrified now.

As you know, the reaction has been intense, directed not only at me, but also the diocesan and cathedral staff, and many of you, as the clergy and congregations of the diocese. Let me hasten to express gratitude to all of you, and my awareness of the cost of being on the receiving end of that energy. In the messages we’re receiving, there hasn’t been a lot of middle ground—and that is a symptom of who and where we are as a nation. Some of the responses have been of profound gratitude; others of deep disagreement and anger. I know that we are all doing our best to treat every respondent with dignity and to embody a way of following Jesus rooted in dignity, honesty, humility and compassion. This is our witness, not mine alone.

We must also be mindful of what’s happening now. Some members of our community are in danger, and do not have the support afforded me. In particular, our immigrant siblings, those who are new to our communities and those who have been for years, are living with great uncertainty, including our clergy. Similarly our LGBTQ siblings are facing a resurgence of prejudice reflected in public speech and policy. Many people in our congregations have already or may soon lose their livelihoods. And sadly, this week has made clear that we need to establish a comprehensive security plan across the diocese. We will do it. On this, you have my word. In the meantime, take care of yourselves and one another, and keep your eyes on Jesus.

Dramatic as they are, these waves of intense public attention are generally short-lived. As they subside, we go back to our essential work. With that in mind, let’s turn our attention there.

As planned, 2025 is the year we will undertake a comprehensive evaluation of the strategic plan that we launched in 2020, with a particular focus on the fruitfulness of strategic initiatives in our congregations and collective witness to the love of Christ.

As a quick reminder, the three overarching goals of the strategic plan are to:

  • Revitalize our churches to grow the Jesus Movement
  • Inspire every person to grow in faith & equip our leaders to lead well
  • Partner in ministries of equity & justice for greater impact in our communities

You can thank me later for not reviewing here every initiative of the past five years. But we will begin an evaluation process of the fruits of our investments: what have we learned? What has been helpful and what hasn’t? Which initiatives need more time; which ones do we stop or modify? What has changed in the past five years? What have we missed? We need to prayerfully ask what Christ is calling us toward now and how are we to walk faithfully as the wondrously complex diocese that we are, in faith that Christ is indeed before us, as well as behind, within and among us now.

Between now and the day-long working retreat for diocesan leadership bodies in mid-February, the senior staff and I will begin considering ways to go about the evaluation process and the objective, outside help we need to accomplish it.

Since we’ll be talking quite a lot today about financial resources as we take up the resolutions on reparations, consider the proposed operating budget for this year, and hear the first report from the Committee on Congregational Stewardship and Diocesan Support, I’d like to talk briefly about the money that has supported many our strategic efforts. When we get to the financial resolution on reparations, I’ve asked our treasurer to tell us which are possible funds from which that money would come.

For now, I’d like to focus on the operating budget and specific strategic plan goals.

The Committee on Congregational Stewardship and Diocesan Support will address us later today and its written report can be found in the Convention booklet. A sentence of that report caught my eye: it says that the committee doesn’t consider part of its purview to evaluate the size of our diocesan budget, but committee members believe that it is a worthy topic of discussion.

I agree. If we’re going to talk about congregational support for diocesan leadership and ministry, we need both an understanding and consensus on what the size and scope of diocesan ministry should be. We also need clarity about how to invest other resources that have been entrusted to us. We also need to remember that we may desire, or even need, more than our resources will allow. That’s the reality of congregational life and it’s true for us as a diocese.

Looking at the operating budget, at first glance there seems to be a disconnect in the relationship between resources and expenditures, for since the beginning of Covid-19 pandemic, which coincided with the launch of the strategic plan, congregational support for the diocese has gone down. At the same time, diocesan spending has increased, which perhaps is a cause for concern. It certainly concerns me.

There are, however, a number of amazing things to remember.

Our first goal of the strategic plan was to craft and implement a church revitalization strategy.

Congregational Vitality

We will implement a church revitalization strategy that leads to healthy, thriving congregations throughout the diocese, reversing the trends of decline

Tending Our Soil

In support of this goal, we received a million dollar grant from the Lily Foundation, to fund a five-year revitalization initiative, known as Tending Our Soil. Participating congregations receive three years of focused resourcing and engagement. The Lily grant pays for two full-time equivalents on the diocesan staff, divided between the Canon for Congregational Vitaly, the Rev. Anne-Marie Jeffrey, the Rev. Emily Lebrecque, Missioner for Church Revitalization, and Ms. Amanda Anderson, Executive Assistant to the Missioners.

This is an evaluative year for Tending Our Soil, and there is both good news and essential learning to share. Tending Our Soil congregations learn not only about themselves, but the ministry context in which they serve. Their focus is on seven key indicators of congregational vitality, and the leveraging impact of strategic focus on one or perhaps two of those indicators. Nearly all of the participants of the first graduating class told us that they feel better equipped to plan strategically and set forward moving goals, and that they are more prepared for faithful action in the face of change. Tending Our Soil isn’t a quick fix, but a slow, steady process of moving toward greater congregational health.

Lily has invited us to apply for a follow-up grant, and the Tending Our Soil team is looking at ways to modify the resources we have gathered so that more of our congregations can benefit from them. Again, most of the resources to pay for Tending Our Soil do not come from congregational pledges, but the grant money we have applied for and received.

As part of the strategic goal for congregational vitality, we also set our sights on the audacious goal:

To launch or relaunch up to three worshiping communities focused on rising generations so that we become a spiritual home for our children and grandchildren

After extensive demographic study, consultation with existing congregations and a bit of experimentation, we made the decision to lay the foundations for a new expression of Episcopal worship, known as The Well, in Bowie, Maryland, where one of our congregations closed just prior to the pandemic and where we have a thriving Episcopal school that serves predominantly Black families in Northern Prince George’s County.

The Well

We have hired the Rev. Rondesia Jarrett-Schell, who lives in Bowie with her family, as our church planter, and she has spent the last two years establishing a presence and building relationships, forming a team, and creating spaces for spiritual conversation and prayer. She is being mentored by those with deep experience in church planting, and we’ve all learned that there is a lot of foundational work to be done before launching a new worshipping community. Our hope is for The Well to go public sometime this year. It won’t look like most of our congregations, for its focus is on the spiritual and relational needs of those who may never walk through an Episcopal church door. I daresay what we learn from The Well will inform our evangelism and congregational revitalization strategy across the diocese.

Where is the money coming from to support The Well? Not from your diocesan pledge, but rather what is known as the Closed Parish Fund, which stewards resources that have been returned to the diocese when congregations have closed. According to a policy established by Diocesan Council back in 2006, resources from the fund are primarily to be used for the planting of new congregations or expressions of Episcopal worship and community.

  • Close Parishes Fund: $3,055,358
  • The Well $130,000/Annually

As you can see, we have resources available through the Closed Parishes Fund, which can be used anywhere for new expressions of Episcopal ministry. But those funds require us to think outside our existing church walls. But it’s possible, as one example, that we could draw upon those funds to relaunch a worship and ministry center in the Anacostia neighborhood of Washington, DC. Last year, the Vestry of St. Philip the Evangelist in Anacostia made the heart-wrenching decision to close, but we still have a Child Development Center that serves families in the neighborhood. That could be an exciting part of our discernment as to where God may be calling us to invest reparations resources, should we vote in favor of funding the reparations resolutions later today.

There are other possibilities for new ministry, limited only by our creativity, collaborative planning, and a genuine desire to engage those outside our existing congregations with expressions of spiritual community that speaks to them. That’s not to say that we abandon our Episcopal identity. The Anglican tradition from which we come is highly adaptive to multiple cultural and generational expressions. The question for us is how curious, open, and creative can we be?

My point here is that there are resources available for such creativity. Funding for The Well that you see in the operating budget comes from the Closed Parishes Fund. What tremendous opportunities that Fund can help us explore, and we have a responsibility to steward it well.

Inspire every person to grow in faith & equip our leaders to lead well

A second goal of our strategic plan speaks to the need to invest in spiritual growth and leadership across the diocese.

The signature initiative of our goal has been to establish the School for Christian Faith and Leadership.

The School for Christian Faith and Leadership

The School develops both online and in-person resources for individuals and congregations. The Rev. Anna Olson serves as Director of the School.

To build and sustain such a resource is a big undertaking, and the School is evolving as we learn what is most helpful and needed. It’s a work in progress. But, over the last year, the School has offered workshops on specific topics, such as A Path of Discipleship, Financial Stewardship, and Reimagining Building Use that have been well received. The School is facilitating shared learnings between congregations. The resource for small group exploration of the Christian faith, Being With, that we introduced at last year’s Convention is now being used widely in the diocese through the work of the School, and there is also a highly adaptive, simple to use framework for creating a Path of Discipleship in a congregation of any size that focuses on three core aspects of the Christian faith: What we believe; What it means to belong in Christian community, and how we behave as followers of Jesus.

You should take a look at it. The Rev. Amanda Akes-Cardwell, Our Missioner for Faith Formation and Development, used that Path of Discipleship framework in an online offering for young adults in Advent that those who participated found very helpful. Amanda and Anna are available to help set up similar offerings in and among any of our congregations.

The funding for Amanda’s position is part of your diocesan pledge. The funding for Anna’s position comes from a bequest recently given to the diocese, known as the Corten Fund, for the sole purpose of Education. Currently the Corten Fund is in the amount of $1,250,000. We are drawing from it to fund the school. The School is entering its fourth year, and this will be a season of evaluation.

The third overarching goal of the strategic plan is to:

Partner in ministries of equity & justice for greater impact in our communities

Here we created a new full-time position, the Missioner for Equity and Justice. Michelle Dibblee currently serves as Interim Missioner for Equity and Justice, and she has been instrumental in supporting our key justice initiatives through the Committee on Diocesan Reparations, Creation Care, and the Migrant Support Ministry. She serves in an interim capacity because in the last four years, the position had two turnovers, which we took as a sign that we needed to evaluate our expectations and efficacy. Michelle is helping us to do that.

One of the questions this year will be to clarify if we need a staff position for this work and if so, what the position’s focus needs to be—and if it is high enough priority for the diocese to fund. We don’t draw from specific trust funds for this position; it comes from our annual operating budget resources.

The incredible ministry of our diocesan deacons is also in service to the ministries of compassion and justice. In the last five years, the growth of diaconal ministry and the expressed desire of every to have a deacon has resulted in the creation of a full-time Archdeacon in order to help raise up, form, and support our deacons in their service in every region of our diocese, a position that held by Venerable and indefatigable Steve Seely.

Regional Deans

A final staffing addition as the result of the Strategic Plan was the establishment of Regional Deans. We have named clergy from each of the 8 regions and one for our Episcopal School chaplains to help strengthen the connective tissue between us and to support shared ministry throughout the diocese. All serve in a very part-time capacity, roughly ten hours per month. Together their stipends are the equivalent of a full-time diocesan missioner. Deans have been so helpful in increasing collegiality among the clergy, helping congregations come together for shared services and projects such as solar panel installation, and providing counsel for us. The Regional Dean initiative is entering its fifth year, a good time to assess its value to our clergy and congregations.

Time does not allow me to highlight the good work of all on your diocesan staff. To a person, they love you and find their joy in doing whatever they can to help you thrive. Yet we realize that there is often a sense of disconnect between our work and your lives and ministry. One of the most frequently asked questions, particularly around budget time, “What does the diocese do for us?” “Where does our money go?”

These are legitimate questions, and in 2025, we will do our best to evaluate the ministry of the diocesan staff through your eyes, to help us all discern how best to invest precious human and financial resources.

A few more notes about the budget.

Church House Operations

While the running of the diocesan office is not cheap, I’d like us to keep in mind that, as a diocese, we pay no rent for Church House itself, which belongs to Washington National Cathedral. You may not know that Church House was once the official residence of the bishop, but that changed years ago. The Cathedral is a gracious and generous landlord. We pay only for our expenses and upkeep. Everything else is gifted to us, and we owe the Cathedral our thanks. In addition, the Cathedral is among the top financial supporters of our ministry.

The Bishop’s Compensation Package

One final note about additional resources coming into the operating budget, which is personal, and that is the compensation package for the bishop.

As you can see in the budget my position is highly compensated, relative to the rest of diocesan staff and the majority of clergy serving in this diocese, for which my family and I are grateful.

Two things that you may not know.

First, apart from cost of living increases that I have only accepted in two of the thirteen years I have served you as bishop, my compensation package is the same as what was offered to me when I first came. For the first ten years, I accepted no increase, nor in the tightest years since then, because I am so well compensated relative to others. There is provision for a cost of living increase this year.

Second, one quarter of the bishop’s annual compensation, about $70,000/year, is paid for by the Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Foundation, which stewards the resources of Washington National Cathedral and its schools. That’s because I work for the Foundation as Chair of the Board and of the Management Committee, which consists of the Dean, School Heads, and Senior Foundation Staff. It’s a big part of my work, which is one reason that this particular bishop’s position is as demanding as it is. I love working with the Foundation and have learned so much that has informed my overall leadership. I simply want you to know one reason why the bishop’s position is compensated as it is.

The diocese no longer owns a home for the bishop, and so as for many clergy, part of my package is a housing allowance. When Paul and I moved to Washington, the diocese generously loaned us money for the down payment of our home. When we sell our home, we will pay back the amount given to us, along with any appreciation in value, that the diocese can then use for my successor.

As I mentioned at the beginning, I believe that this is the year for evaluating the fruitfulness of diocesan ministry. Obviously, such evaluation must include the work of the bishop—not to determine whether or not you like me, or agree with everything I say and do, but rather how well I fulfill the leadership needs of the diocese. It’s all about the fruitfulness of diocesan-level ministry in support of the Episcopal Church witness in our neighborhoods, towns, cities, and rural areas, and how diocesan resources can best support the mission of Christ through you. There are more years behind me as your bishop than ahead of me, and it’s a good time to take stock. This assessment will be helpful for me now, but also for the future, when it’s time to call for the election of your tenth bishop.

I think it’s also time for the diocese to determine an agreed upon baseline of congregational support. Given our other resources and the financial pressures congregations face, it doesn’t have to be overwhelmingly burdensome, but it should be equitable, and, most important, universally accepted. That would be a great gift to my successor, as would our best collective understanding of diocesan-level ministry and how to measure its fruitfulness.

Let me close this address as I began, with a word of assurance, that as we look toward the future, Christ is before us. That phrase has a double meaning. Firstly, it means that Christ is ahead of us, making a way, beckoning us to all. It also means that he is before us, in all things. That is to say, it’s not our vision or what we want for or from our church. It’s not our church—it’s his. The church exists for the hope of the world. We are about his teachings, his compassion, his sacrificial love. Let our mantra be like that of John the Baptist, “He must increase, and we must decrease,” so that whatever we say or do isn’t about us. We are here to embody, as best we can, the living Christ within and among us. Yes, we are clay jars—imperfect vessels—so that it may be clear for all the world to see that this tremendous power belongs to God and does not come from us. Flawed clay jars that we are, we are God’s beloved. And you are beloved to me. Serving Christ as your bishop is one of the great blessings of my life.

Will you sing with me one more time:

Christ be with us, Christ within us,
Christ behind us, Christ before us,
Christ beside, Christ to win us,
Christ to comfort and restore us,

 

Christ beneath us, Christ above us
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love us,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

1To quote our former Presiding Bishop Michael Curry
2“St. Patrick’s Breastplate,” The Hymnal, 1982 (Church Hymnal Corporation), 370.