“A Memorial to the Church” and BLOGFORCE SCRAMBLE!

Group calls for The Episcopal Church
“To act with boldness to proclaim the gospel”

A group of General Convention deputies, bishops, and others have released , calling for The Episcopal Church to “act with boldness to proclaim the gospel.” One member of the group, the Rev. Adam Trambley, deputy from the Northwest Pennsylvania said, “We hope this letter to the church will jumpstart significant action both at General Convention and among Episcopalians across the church.”

Inspired by the conversation begun by the Task Force to Reimagine the Episcopal Church, the memorial calls for the church “to recommit itself to the spiritual disciplines at the core of our common life, to go into our neighborhoods boldly with church planters and church revitalizers, and to restructure our church for the mission God is laying before us today.”

General Convention typically considers resolutions, but The Episcopal Church’s canons and rules of order also provide for memorials, which are written in the form of letters to the church. of 1853 is perhaps the most famous of the the memorials, and while its immediate effect was slight, it changed the conversation inside the church in a way that later led to liturgical change and other shifts to meet the needs of that time. The hope is that this memorial will lead to change within our church to promote evangelism and discipleship.

The Rev. Susan Brown Snook, deputy from Arizona, said, “In addition to the memorial, our group is offering several resolutions to enable the call to discipleship and transformation.” She added that signers to the memorial do not necessarily support any or all of the nine resolutions.

The package of resolutions includes action
— Encouraging a significant commitment to church planting
— Promoting revitalization of existing congregations
— Amending the Constitution & Canons to permit more structural flexibility
— Clarifying roles of churchwide officers
— Creating a task force to look at episcopal elections
— Eliminating the provincial structure within The Episcopal Church

The text of the memorial and all nine resolutions, along with explanatory material is available at www.episcopalresurrection.org. Those who wish to add their names as signatories should email and include their full name and whether they are a bishop, deputy, alternate deputy, or other. Those who endorse the memorial may not necessarily agree with the nine resolutions proposed by the drafting committee.

These materials were written by a drafting committee consisting of Trambley and Brown Snook, along with the Rev. Tom Ferguson; the Rev. Canon Scott Gunn, deputy from Southern Ohio; the Rev. Canon Frank Logue, deputy from Georgia; Brendan O’Sullivan-Hale, deputy from Indianapolis; and the Rev. Steve Pankey, deputy from Central Gulf Coast.

As a result of the release of this memorial and its accompanying resolutions, there will be a BLOGFORCE Scramble in order to gather responses.

This BLOGFORCE scramble will end Monday, May 18th at 5PM.

David Simmons
BLOGFORCE Wing Commander


How do I participate in the BLOGFORCE Scramble?

Simply blog your answer on your own site, then:

1. Paste the code you can find at the bottom of your post – note that it is code so you will probably need to switch to HTML view in your blog editor. It should look like this on your blog when posted or previewed:

2. Send the permanent link and a 120 word or less abstract to [email protected].  This should be done by no later than 5PM on Monday, May the 18th.  After that, the abstracts will be re-posted with links.  At that point, the provided code will point to the round-up page instead of here.

The editorial board of Acts8 reserves the right to decline submissions that are deemed offensive or do not uphold the .

2 thoughts on ““A Memorial to the Church” and BLOGFORCE SCRAMBLE!”

  1. Hello, what is the question we are blogging the answer to? Very exciting by the way. As a lay delegate from Delaware, these recommendations are more like what I thought TREC would be.

  2. Welcome Lee Ann! This Blogforce Ready 5 does not have a set question. The goal is to gather reactions to the Memorial. What do you think about it? This is intentionally not narrowly defined. Post your reaction to your blog. Add the Blogforce Ready 5 logo if you like and send a note to let us know where it is and our dedicated Blogforce Wing Commander David Simmons will include it in the roundup.
    -Frank
    Frank Logue, Diocese of Georgia

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