The Vocations and Communications team worked together this year to make our discernment resources easier to navigate online! If you’ve been thinking about discernment for ordination or know someone who is send them over to: www.diocal.org/resource/discernment/
Photo credits: Alina Dennis
Dear friends
“History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.” – Maya Angelou, ‘On the Pulse of Morning’
These words are written on the side of the Legacy Museum, the first site our youth group visited on their Racial Justice pilgrimage, and became the defining mantra of our journey.
The Legacy Museum, and other sites we visited during our week-long journey, presented us with a multitude of wrenching truths about this country’s history of racism and racial injustice.
Our group of youth and adults, traveling from Grace Cathedral, were called repeatedly to engage with this history and its modern legacy, to try to comprehend images of lynchings, footage of mobs attacking students at lunch counters, modern day photos of incarcerated children too small to fit into the prison jumpsuits swaddled about them like blankets.
Our youth group, on every occasion, responded to the challenge of facing history with the courage Maya Angelou calls on us all to summon. They sat quietly and listened when the moment required them simply to listen, to hear the truths of others. Other times they asked question after question, undaunted in their desire to understand, to know what they could do to stop such histories being lived again. Their courage and determination gave their adult chaperones the courage to keep going, to continue through this troubled history that defines our present.
We sensed we were not alone in this journey. Many guides and angels welcomed us. These guides pointed to the great courage of those who fought against near impossible odds to change the lives of others, from the enslaved people who built the First African Baptist Church in Savannah at nighttime to the many heroes of the Civil Rights Movement immortalized in the mural at the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church.
We found ourselves in constant communion with the souls and saints who changed the world. And everywhere, everything we saw pointed us to God, through whom all things are possible, and all wrongs, eventually, righted.
Our youth group made many friends and had many guardians and advocates. Special thanks must be given to our remarkable adult chaperones, Grace Cathedral staff members Alina Dennis and Dan Chiapelone. Their witness, courage and care profoundly shaped our journey and the outlook of our youth.
Our youth group shared this journey with each other. They sang and prayed together, laughed in joyful moments, and sat close together in the times when history presented them with a particularly wrenching truth, posed a question about humanity that only the Spirit can answer. They served as great ambassadors to our cathedral and to their generation.
I saw, to my great joy, how our young people’s constancy, grace and openness had such an effect on many that we met. Last Sunday, we had the opportunity to worship at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Savannah.
Each member of our youth group served in some capacity during the service.
The clergy and many congregants shared afterwards with us how moved they had been to worship with our youth group. I am so grateful to the Rev. David Wantland and Ministry Coordinator for Children and Families Betsey Bass for welcoming us.
I am overjoyed to share with you that the youth group of Grace Cathedral has fulfilled the commission given to them, undertaking this pilgrimage with grace, compassion, and courage. I know they would be delighted to share with you their experiences and reflections, and I invite you to speak with them when you see them! We also look forward to sharing further images and footage at Congregation Sunday on September 10, following the 11 am Choral Eucharist.
We are already planning our next pilgrimage, which will take place from July 9 to 16, 2024. We’d love to make this journey with pilgrims and chaperones from fellow youth groups! If you’d like more information, I’d love to hear from you: my email is stephm@gracecathedral.org.
With gratitude,
Steph McNally
Formation Programs Manager for Children, Youth, Families, and Adults
Canon Davey Gerhard
The Diocese of California is uniquely positioned to face post-pandemic realities by providing resources that address critical issues, especially among congregations and the wider community of the San Francisco Bay Area. Through extensive fundraising, Bishop Marc Handley Andrus, working closely with Canon for Stewardship Davey Gerhard, secured an unprecedented amount of funding that will equip the Diocese of California to face the future with confidence. Important institutions such as the Bishop’s Ranch and Episcopal Impact Fund, among many others, were the beneficiaries of the Expanding Horizons campaign.
The Bishop’s Ranch in Healdsburg, one of the beneficiaries of the Expanding Horizons campaign.
The Diocese of California is one of only a few Episcopal dioceses with a staff role dedicated to stewardship and development. In this Q&A interview with Canon Davey he described the Expanding Horizons capital campaign, which raised more than $15 million for congregations, ministries, and diocesan institutions between 2016 to 2019.
Q: What were the origins of the Expanding Horizons Campaign?
Gerhard: One of the conversations that the bishop and I had right from the outset was that we need to run a capital campaign to increase capacity in the diocesan budget to help congregations and to shore up some diocesan institutions and give them essential help. In 2013, such was the landscape in San Francisco with the tech boom and unprecedented wealth in the Bay Area, that we thought, “This is the time to run the kind of campaign that could really ensure the diocese could operate well and serve its congregations.”
And the other thing that Bishop Marc and I wanted to accomplish was to continue the work of the diocese as a thought leader in the Bay Area. So, really establishing, reminding, that we are relevant and that we have something to say about what our civic Bay Area life is and how a community should function. A lot of our work with Expanding Horizons was to raise that awareness as well.
Q: Did the campaign address essential housing?
Gerhard: Absolutely. We weren’t going to do that initially. We got feedback. What kept coming back was, if The Episcopal Church is to engage in anything meaningful, housing has to be one of the things that it does. It’s the biggest crisis that we’re facing outside of climate in the Bay Area.
Q: Who made the decision about how the campaign funds would be allocated?
Gerhard: We had a steering committee of about 25 that met in the early months of 2015. They were comprised of members from our institutions (specifically, the Bishop’s Ranch, St. Dorothy’s Rest, and the Episcopal Impact Fund), a collection of rectors and vicars who represented congregations that said they would participate or that had underrepresentation in the diocese, and also some representatives from the Executive Council and the Standing Committee.
Q: What can you say about the donors and the congregations that participated?
Gerhard: The largest gift we received, $10 million, came from the legendary, amazing philanthropist Bill Bowes, a faithful Episcopalian, a member of Grace Cathedral, the grandfather of venture capital. Just a stunning human being. He died a few years ago and the world lost a beautiful man, but his generosity continues through his foundation, the William K. Bowes Jr. Foundation, and through his wife, Ute, who is also a gift to the world.
The thing that got Bill to say, “Here’s my ten million dollars,” was the big idea. The big idea was that congregations are the hub of community action, and that the capital campaign would strengthen and support congregations to engage in the five practices, which are: invitation, diversity, collaboration, sustainability, and neighborhood embeddedness. His donation encouraged other generous donations.
We raised great money with the congregations that participated. These congregations raised lots of money for their programs, for their infrastructure, or for whatever they needed to do. Great money was raised, great work is being done.
At the end of the day, seven hundred donors made gifts to the campaign. And those gifts ranged from the tiny to the miraculous. And every one of them mattered to us. It was beautiful to get a one-time gift of $50 from someone who said they just wanted to participate, as beautiful as it was to get those really large gifts that came in to us. That says to me we are raising awareness and relevance, we have great influence, and we have great people and generosity in this diocese.
Q: Of the people who worked on the campaign, who do you think deserves credit?
Gerhard: Bishop Marc. Bishop Marc solicited almost every major donor gift himself. At the end of the day, our donors, like me, wanted to hear from the bishop what the big idea was. I also don’t want to discount Dr. Sheila’s work in this. Much of the hospitality fell on Sheila, to organize and plan and be there by his side. Also deserving much credit are the diocesan staff, our communications team, myself and the development staff at the time.
Q: What obstacles did you face?
Gerhard: One of the obstacles was convincing everyone that we weren’t going to take money away from them, but that what we were going to do was add money to them, through service, through gifts, through increased capacity. And so, we made a pledge that clergy would be involved in the solicitation of their donors and that they would be offered a chance to collaborate, make a gift both to the campaign and to the congregation.
Q: What is the most rewarding aspect of the campaign for you?
Gerhard: The one thing I most wanted to see and the thing that makes me feel best about it, is the capacity we have to give money back to congregations that need it. Investing in our congregations is the best bang for the buck that the diocese could hope for. It’s the big idea; it’s where everything is happening.
Q: Is there anything else you want to share about the campaign, or stewardship and development in general?
Gerhard: The work of the Canon for Stewardship is to bring in stewardship, planned giving, fundraising, events, and development work. Not just to do work in the diocese, but I have colleagues all around in our congregations who call on me for support at all levels. That we’re able to do that across the diocese, to support fundraising initiatives at our congregations, is a real gift. I’m proud and excited every day to engage in this work at the diocese.
El domingo 9 de septiembre de 2023, el Rev. Jason Lucas-Green, Rector de St. Ambrose en Foster City, y la Dra. Pamela Stevens, misionera para ministerios de habla hispana, presentaron el primer certificado de bautismo bilingüe inglés-español en la Diócesis de California a Manuel Morales, miembro de El Buen Pastor, una congregación misionera especializada de habla hispana de la diócesis. El Sr. Morales, que habla y lee solo español, recibió el certificado bilingüe después de que el Rev. Lucas-Green realizara un bautismo condicional.
La Dra. Stevens, quien es bilingüe y ha trabajado como misionera con la congregación El Buen Pastor desde 2020, solicitó un permiso especial para proporcionarle el certificado al Sr. Morales tanto en la versión estándar en inglés como en la traducción al español. Recibió la aprobación y preparó el certificado, trabajando con el personal diocesano que supervisa las congregaciones misioneras. “Agradezco el apoyo para proporcionar este certificado de bautismo bilingüe español-inglés como reconocimiento a nuestra comunidad diocesana multicultural”.
El Sr. Morales, radiante mientras posaba para una fotografía junto con varios adultos jóvenes de la congregación, les dijo en español: “Uno de los mejores momentos de mi vida fue cuando me senté frente al obispo Marc [Handley Andrus]. Aunque teníamos una traductora, él me miró a los ojos cuando hablé y me dijo que le importaba lo que tenía que decir. Éso es amor. Sabía que en la Iglesia Episcopal, yo no soy un inmigrante. Soy un ciudadano”.
Cuando el Sr. Morales emigró a los Estados Unidos hace décadas, dejó atrás sus registros familiares. Aunque asumió que había sido bautizado en la parroquia local de la Iglesia Romana Católica, nunca había visto un certificado de bautismo y ni él ni ninguno de los miembros vivos de su familia podían confirmar que alguna vez había sido bautizado. La iglesia en México a la que asistía su familia no ha digitalizado sus archivos y no tenía registros disponibles que indicaran que el Sr. Morales alguna vez fue bautizado. El reverendo Lucas-Green, Rector de la parroquia San Ambrosio en Foster City, quien regularmente visita la congregación El Buen Pastor para ofrecer servicios en español, acordó celebrar un bautismo condicional con el apoyo de la comunidad. “Como sacerdote latino, me emocionó ver el certificado de bautismo bilingüe, para ofrecer inclusión que une las culturas.”
On Sunday, September 9, 2023, the Rev. Jason Lucas-Green, Rector at St. Ambrose in Foster City, and Dr. Pamela Stevens, missioner for Spanish-speaking ministries, presented the first bilingual English-Spanish baptismal certificate in the Diocese of California to Manuel Morales, a member of El Buen Pastor, a Spanish-speaking specialized mission congregation of the diocese. Mr. Morales, who speaks and reads only Spanish, received the bilingual certificate after Rev. Lucas-Green performed a conditional baptism.
Dr. Stevens, who is bilingual and has worked as a missioner with the El Buen Pastor congregation since 2020, requested special permission to provide the certificate to Mr. Morales in both the standard English verbiage and also in Spanish translation. She received approval and prepared the certificate, working with diocesan staff who oversee mission congregations. “I appreciate the support we received to provide this bilingual Spanish-English baptismal certificate as an acknowledgement of our multicultural diocesan community.”
Mr. Morales, beaming as he posed for a photograph along with several young adults from the congregation, told them in Spanish, “One of the greatest moments of my life was when I sat across the table from Bishop Marc [Handley Andrus.]. Even though we had a translator, he looked me in the eye when I spoke and told me he cared about what I had to say. That is love. I knew I was home in In The Episcopal Church. Here, I am not an immigrant. I am a citizen.”
When Mr. Morales immigrated to the United States decades ago, he left behind his family records. Though he assumed he had been baptized in the local Roman Catholic parish, he had never seen a baptismal certificate and neither he nor any of his living family members could confirm that he had ever been baptized. The church in Mexico where his family attended has not digitized its archives and had no available records to indicate that Morales was ever baptized. Rev. Lucas-Green, Rector of St. Ambrose in Foster City, who regularly visits El Buen Pastor to offer services in Spanish, agreed to celebrate a conditional baptism with the support of the congregation. “As a Latino priest, I was thrilled to see the bilingual certificate, to offer inclusivity across cultures.”
The Diocese of California has a new page all about the diaconate! So if you’ve been wondering “What exactly is a deacon?” or “What does it take to become one?” You can now find out by visiting our new Deacons resource page: www.diocal.org/resource/deacons/.
Story and photos by Cannon Debbie Low-Skinner
(Via Zoom) I attended the July 9th 10am Holy Eucharist at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Redwood City. The guest celebrant/preacher was The Rev. Michael P. Barham. Today was to be the final official service of their Rector, The Rev. Iain Stanford, who is currently under hospice care for cancer. But, sadly, he felt too ill and weak to be able to attend.
The Senior Warden, Nancy Oliver, said that cards, gifts, and flowers brought today for Rev. Iain will be dropped off later at his home.
Note the lovely words of the final hymn, “God, Bless the Hands” sung to the tune “Eternal Father, Strong to Save.”
May we also be inspired by the message of Rev. Michael’s homily that we, who follow the loving Christ, are “prisoners of hope, ” who are to follow Christ’s example of lovingly ministering to one another by walking, crying, praying, and even dancing for joy with one another.