By Joe Thoma

 

Grace, growth and hope for the future marked much of Central Florida’s 39th Annual Diocesan Convention, Jan. 25 and 26 at St. James Episcopal Church, Ormond Beach, Fla.

 

New clergy, new ministries, mission growth and a fresh commitment to “take Central Florida for Christ” buoyed spirits, even while the diocese finalizes arrangements to re-staff several churches losing rectors, lay leaders and many members (see Bishop’s Address).

 

Attendees said St. James clergy and members were consummate hosts of the Convention, which started Friday evening and ended by 3 p.m. Saturday.

 

“I think it’s awesome,” said Ormond Beach Mayor Fred Costello in thanking the Rev. Stephen Morris, rector of St. James, and welcoming Bishop John W. Howe, Bishop Hugo Pina-Lopez, clergy and lay delegates.

 

“We believe Ormond Beach is about family and community, and we’re proud of St. James,” Mayor Costello said. “They’re getting ready to expand and we’re looking forward to working with them. There are about 240 students in the school here, and those are kids we expect to grow into leaders in our community.”

 

City Commissioner Lori Gillooly also welcomed the Convention, with special praises for St. James and other Volusia County Episcopal Churches for their support of Halifax Habitat for Humanity, which she serves as executive director.

 

New Mission

 

“Okahumpka” just rolls off the tongue for Deacon Jacquie Guernsey, who described to the Convention the diocese’s new mission at that rural Lake County crossroads south of Leesburg and west of Yalaha.

 

The mission, Corpus Christi Episcopal Church, is an outgrowth of Holy Trinity, Fruitland Park. Bishop Howe commissioned the church planters on Dec. 16 while he visited Holy Trinity for confirmations.

 

“We faced just one problem: we needed a place of our own,” Deacon Guernsey said.

 

The road to that place was lengthy. It started more than five years ago, with a demographic study commissioned by the diocese that showed the second-fastest expected growth rate in Central Florida to be in the area south of Leesburg.

 

Inspired by Faith Alive (www.faithalive.com) and its emphasis on small-group formation, Deacon Guernsey had been meeting with a group of mostly retirees in that area. The group dubbed themselves the “Southern Saints.”

 

As the area grew, so did the Southern Saints, “until our living rooms could no longer hold our meetings,” she said.

 

Encouraged by the Rev. Meg Ingalls, rector of Holy Trinity, they decided to form a satellite chapel of Holy Trinity, and by Jan. 1, 2005 had secured a place to gather – an abandoned restaurant on U.S. 27. It was being used as a dumping area by an adjacent hotel.

 

“It took us three months to clean it up,” Deacon Guernsey said. “Our first service was Easter Sunday. We called it All Saints’ Chapel.”

 

Paying modest rent and having the Rev. Brad Ingalls – Meg’s husband – as supply priest was a good start. Membership doubled the first year.

 

“It was a joyous time,” Deacon Guernsey said. “We felt like God was smiling on us.”

 

But in 2006 the rent doubled, Fr. Ingalls accepted a call in Maryland, and growth leveled off. Prospective members wanted a “real church,” she said.

 

Then God smiled again, and brought the Rev. Donald Gross, retired from the Diocese of Southern Virginia, as supply priest. “We realized our potential and what a viable congregation we had become,” Deacon Guernsey said.

 

When another rent hike forced the group to vacate their converted eatery by Dec. 16, spirits dipped again, then soared as another blessing was granted.

 

“The Okahumpka Baptist Church had just moved into a big new building,” Deacon Guernsey said. “That left their old building for a struggling Episcopal mission.”

 

Okahumpka is about as small a settlement there is in Florida. “Downtown” consists of a stoplight, a post office, a gas station, a big Baptist Church and a little Episcopal Church.

 

But what’s colossal in Okahumpha is that little church’s plans for growth.

 

“We’re only 15 minutes from numerous retirement communities and we’re in a real church building,” Deacon Guernsey said. “We’re looking forward to becoming contributing members of the Northwest Deanery, the Diocese of Central Florida and The Episcopal Church.”

 

Constitutional Amendment Proposed

 

The Convention also approved, on first reading, an amendment to Article III of the Central Florida Constitution that explicitly states the diocese’s membership in the Anglican Communion.

 

The passage from the constitution’s Article III is as follows, with the proposed amendment underlined:

 

The Diocese of Central Florida acknowledges its allegiance to be due to the One,

Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church of Christ; and recognizing the body known

as the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America otherwise

known as the Episcopal Church to be a true branch of said Church, having rightful

jurisdiction in this country, hereby declares its adhesion to the same and accedes to

its Constitution and Canons. The Diocese of Central Florida is a constituent

member of the Anglican Communion, a Fellowship of those duly constituted

Diocese, Provinces and regional Church in communion with the See of Canterbury,

upholding and propagating the historic Faith and Order as set forth in the Book of

Common Prayer.

 

The amendment’s wording came from discussions among Bishop Howe, the diocesan chancellors and a task force created by the Diocesan Board and the Standing Committee in June, 2007.

 

The task force had originally recommended an amendment that included, “So long as The Episcopal Church is the

constituent member Province of the Anglican Communion with rightful jurisdiction

in this country, the Diocese of Central Florida declares its adhesion to the same

and accedes to its Constitution and Canons.”
 

The proposed amendment was referred to the Committee on Constitution and

Canons, where four of the five members Committee recommended that the original proposed amendment be ruled out of order or not be adopted. One concern was that the amendment could be interpreted as a challenge to the "unqualified accession clause" of the diocesan constitution, by which a diocese affirms its status as part of The Episcopal Church.

 

As Bishop Howe wrote to Central Florida clergy in July, 2007: "To remove our accession to the Constitution and Canons of The Episcopal Church would be -- in my understanding, that of our Chancellors, and that of the Executive Council -- a matter of abandoning one of the requirements for being a Diocese in The Episcopal Church."

 

On December 13, Bishop Howe suggested to the Diocesan Board that it propose the current amendment as a substitute for the original one.

 

The Committee on Constitution and Canons’ report stated the view, through four of the five members, that, “if the Diocese simply wants to state that it is a member of the Anglican Communion, as a Diocese and as recognized by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the proposed amendment could be modified to reflect the Bishop’s Proposed Amendment. The action by the Diocesan Board on December 13, 2007, had this effect.”

 

“Since the language added to the Constitution contained in the Bishop’s Proposed

Amendment comes directly from the Constitution of the Episcopal Church, the

Committee finds no inconsistency between this proposed amendment and the

National Canons or Constitution,” the report said. “The added language does not affect the provision in the Diocesan Constitution whereby the Diocese declares its

adhesion to The Episcopal Church and accedes to its Constitution and Canons.

Since the substitute amendment proposed by the Diocesan Board does not

conflict with the National Canons or Constitution, the Committee believes the

substitute amendment (the Bishop’s Proposed Amendment) is in order and may

be considered by the Diocesan Convention.”

 

On January 26, the Rev. Eric Turner, Diocesan Board member, rector of St. John’s, Melbourne, and head of the Task Force, presented the proposed amendment to the Convention.

 

“In times of turmoil, it is essential to return to our roots and sometimes to clarify what is there for a new context,” Fr. Turner said. “I do not see this amendment as changing what is already in our constitution, but rather clarifying what originally needed no clarification.

 

“When the Diocese of Central Florida was formed in 1969, I suspect no one conceived of a day when there might be significant tension between our identity as Episcopalians and our identity as Anglicans. To be in the Episcopal Church was to be fully and unquestioningly Anglican. While I pray that we a far from schism, it is undeniable that our ties to the Anglican Communion are strained,” Fr. Turner said.

 

He pointed out that several provinces of the Anglican Communion have declared themselves to be “out of communion” with The Episcopal Church, and at least one U.S. bishop has not been invited to the Communion’s once-a-decade Lambeth Conference.

 

The Diocese of Central Florida is in conformity with the majority of provinces by its adherence to the Communion’s “Windsor Report,” Fr. Turner pointed out.

 

“As a Windsor Diocese, our position in the Communion is secure, regardless of the Episcopal Church’s,” he said.

 

The amendment would not weaken the diocese’s commitment to The Episcopal Church,” he said. “It simply adds an explicit expression of our place in the Anglican Communion. Far from divisive, this enshrines our twin loyalty to The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion.”

 

Several delegates spoke for and against the measure.

 

Speaking for the proposal, the Rev. Tom Seitz, outgoing Diocesan Board member and rector of Church of the Good Shepherd, Lake Wales, called the amendment “appropriate and prudent.”

 

“We have the authority and indeed the responsibility to do so,” Fr Seitz said. “Even before the critical decisions of the past two General Conventions (see sidebar), I believe we were a diocese that … provided both for what we judged to be a fair response to our national, official, corporate claim on our individual parochial and diocesan resources, but also our voluntary, deliberate and generous support of the life of our wider Anglican communion.”

 

Orman Kimbrough, a lay delegate from All Saints, Winter Park, spoke against the proposed amendment.

 

Arguments for the measure “suggest that if we do not pass this amendment, we are no longer professing the Gospel, we are no longer Anglican, we have gone astray,” Kimbrough said.

 

It was generally understood by the framers of the Constitution of the Diocese of Central Florida that the diocese is part of the Anglican Communion, and that understanding needs no specific amendment, he said.

 

“Other dioceses that have started to pull away from The Episcopal Church have been altering their canons, their original documents,” and the amendment could be seen as a step toward that, Kimbrough said. “It is not something that is necessary and I ask the chair to not support this.”

 

The Rev. Don Lyon, Diocesan Board member and rector of St. Barnabas, DeLand, also spoke against the proposal.

 

“The current wording of Article III already endorses the meaning of the amendment: that of inclusion in the Anglican Communion,” Fr. Lyon said. “I’m kind of a constitutional conservative. You have to have a very good reason for modifying our constitution, and when you do, you have to be aware of why you’re doing it, and what potential outcomes come from that. I think it’s redundant.”

 

The proposed amendment passed on first reading by a majority of votes by order. Clergy delegates approved it by a vote of 89 to 66 (57.4 percent for; 43.6 percent against). Lay delegates approved it 140 to 90 (60.9 percent for; 39.1 percent against).

 

In order for the proposed amendment to be adopted, it must pass by a two-thirds majority vote by orders at the next Diocesan Convention.

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