Grace to you, and Peace, my sisters and brothers, in the Name of the One who gives us life and awakens us to all of the promise and hope of creation.

This is my sixth address to you as Bishop of Northern Michigan. And I begin it with this portion of the Baptismal Covenant, because this year it is the theme chosen by the Diocesan Council for our focus during this Diocesan Convention. Each year, we are using another portion of the Baptismal Covenant.

And this year, it is this series of questions and responses which affirm for us the Trinity: The One-in-Three and the Three-in-One. That great, incomprehensible Doctrine which emerged in the earliest years of our tradition amidst fierce debate and struggle about the mysterious encounter people of faith were having with a God who is known as the source of all creation, and who still is creating and calling us to share in that life-giving and life-transforming project.

And this, the same God, who is so enfleshed, so startlingly present to us through the person of One who was and is in our midst in a way we will never understand yet who demonstrates for us and, remarkably, makes possible for us a healing, saving touch, known through a smile and a physical embrace; through the encounter of a sacred friendship which does make incarnate the love of life and the life of love. One who bears our pain and shares our pain and travels through it, with us, through the long dark night of sorrow into the new birth of resurrection: new life offered every morning. Known to us still in the breaking of the bread and the water of Baptism and through the Word of God, still proclaimed in our midst, still calling us towards the Realm of God's most perfect love. And challenging us to confront the evil forces of this world and within our own hearts - which so threaten to divide us, to alienate us from that which gives us life.

And, finally, this same God, as Spirit, known to us in every breath we take granting us the precious gift of being alive and sustaining us each moment we've been given to share. The grace of life itself, which is also a grace which saves us from ourselves and from the hand of all who would do us harm; also a grace which does transform us and our daily lives into something which is sacred so that every single moment of every single day is simply teeming with magnificence, teeming with possibility vibrating with meaning and purpose simply because the God who made everything is so near to us, in the flesh and breath of our daily existence.

Holy Trinity, One God. Father-Mother-Creator. Jesus-Child-Savior-Healer-Word Incarnate. Spirit-Life Giver-Sustainer-the Inspiration of all that is. This ancient doctrine is so familiar to us, woven into the fabric of almost every prayer in our tradition, yet it is unknown (or unknowable) to us because it points towards unfathomable mystery which rests at the heart of everything that is. Beyond our understanding yet experienced in such a clear and concrete and unmistakable way: that this thing we know as Community and community life is as basic as it gets within the reality of existence. That God's own Self is a Community. And so, we are called to be together - all of us - and so many others not in this room tonight. We are called by God's own community (of Trinity) into unity with one another in faith. And that, you see, is why I find this theme to be so rich and so appropriate for us to hold before us during this Diocesan Convention. Because, I believe that if we, in this diocese, have discovered anything about God, about our world, and about ourselves, it is that we do belong together in community, just as we minister together, in community.

That is our diocesan vision statement, and many of you have heard me repeat it over and again in my preaching and speaking with you as Mary and I have traveled around the diocese over these past several years. I hold it up before us this evening as we gather to begin our annual Convention.

I need to tell you that this has not been an altogether easy year for me, and for a number of us in this diocese. We have had to deal with some difficult matters here and there, having to do with sexual misconduct and fiscal oversight and accountability, with property dispute, and in the case of St Luke's on Sugar Island, a community which has decided to become a Community Church rather than to remain as an Episcopal congregation. It's enough to get a bishop down, every now and then.

And while we have been blessed as a diocese not to be drawn into the emotional and divisive struggle experienced by many other dioceses in our national church and the world-wide, Anglican Communion this past year in the wake of decisions made at our General Convention in Minneapolis in the summer of 2003, there are certainly some in our midst who have had their loyalties tested; some who have struggled with these changes, even while others have celebrated what seems to be a clear call by the Holy Spirit to move boldly into our future And whether or not we, in our diocese, are experiencing first-hand the kind of stress and conflict being experienced by other dioceses, certainly, these are our sisters and brothers in Christ,

Of course, on the national and international political scene, this has been a troublesome year as well, with the war in Iraq stuck in its deadly quagmire and violence escalating throughout the Middle East and in other spots such as Sudan and Chechnya and Columbia, and the list goes on

And here at home, with a struggling economy a growing segment of our population falling more deeply into poverty, with increasing millions joining the ranks of the uninsured and the un- or under-employed.

Yes, there have been difficult days, to be sure, over these past twelve months since our last Convention, but I am here to witness to you that we, as a diocese, and as a people have also thrived in the face of it all. God is good. God is all powerful. We are in the Hands of One who rests above it all, and in the heart, in the midst of it all, and who still calls us towards that vision of New Creation - of Shalom. And, you see, these are precisely the days we are called back to the vision of Love which first touched our hearts as people of faith in our given generation.

I have come to be reminded over this past year, as we have tried to confront and deal with difficult matters here and there that every day as we rise from bed, we have to make a fresh choice as to whether we are going to allow ourselves to be defined by the struggles which beset us or by the mission and vision we have been offered by our faith. I choose the latter. And it is vision and mission which I want to talk about this evening, and which I pray we can stay focused upon over the months and years to come.

There has been exciting growth and advances in the arena of Ministry Development throughout our diocese. A new and expanded Ministry Support Team was Commissioned in Iron Mountain, and that congregation is thriving - even as Charlie Piper journeys on his sabbatical. There has been discernment through Discovery Processes in Marquette, in Negaunee, in Ishpeming, in Sault Ste Marie, in Calumet, and in all of these places, Covenant Groups have been started, using LifeCycles, the formation process we have developed in partnership with the dioceses of Wyoming and Nevada and LeaderResources. Other congregations are also using LifeCycles and other resources for ministry formation. In fact, at this point in time, twenty out of our twenty-seven congregations are engaged in mutual ministry development.

The Commission on Ministry is working hard, spending literally hours at each meeting, reviewing line by line the newly revised Ministry Canons of our Church and making adjustments to our ministry formation process accordingly. Newly revised policies for licensed ministries and for continuing education (ongoing learning) are being implemented.

Our Ministry Development Strategy Team has been expanded, and is renewing its primary task of reflecting upon and building consensus around basic, core issues which undergird our ministry development initiatives.

We have been growing into new expressions of shared leadership, moving beyond the local congregation, now to the diocesan-wide level. The newly gathered Core Team, which I will talk more about tomorrow, and which will be affirmed at the Convention Eucharist on Sunday morning is a bold and exciting new model towards a shared episcopate.

Just as we have come to embrace shared, non-hierarchical leadership in congregations with Ministry Support Teams now we have a diocesan-wide Core Team, which is also built upon a non-hierarchical, shared leadership paradigm. Again - more about that tomorrow.

Ministry Development does continue to be a real priority for us, and we benefit from and contribute significantly to this journey with many others beyond our diocesan borders: through the Living Stones partnership of some two dozen dioceses from throughout the United States and Canada; through the Ministry Developers Collaborative which seeks to develop resources to form new Ministry Developers (such as we call "Missioners" in this diocese); through the many Visitors who continue to come to our diocese from throughout the Anglican Communion and from other denominations this year from Scotland & England, from Mozambique and from Canada, from Tennessee, and lower Michigan, from Massachusetts and Iowa, West Virginia, Wyoming & Ohio. And a number of us have traveled to other dioceses as well to tell our story and to learn from theirs. Next weekend, in fact, is our next Visitors Weekend. I know a number of you will be helping to host our guests, and a number (I trust) will join us at St Stephen's Church in Escanaba on Saturday (from 10am until 3pm) to share our experiences with those who will have traveled here to meet you.

Our relationships with folks outside our diocesan circle, in fact, continues to be an important part of our shared ministry, and, in particular, it seems, of mine as bishop. In addition to my established responsibilities with the House of Bishops & the Province, I have served as a member of the Standing Commission on Ministry Development, working especially on the ongoing revisions of the Title III Ministry canons as well as co-chairing the Committee on Theological Education, by which we are seeking to deepen the partnership between the seminaries of our Church and local, diocesan formation programs such as our own mutual ministry process. I have now completed my work with the Abundance Committee of the Church Pension Fund. I continue on the Board of the North American Association for the Diaconate the network of Bishops of small dioceses (known as the Tiny Bishops), the coalition known as Bishops Working for a Just Society, and I co-convene (along with Don Phillips, the Bishop of Rupert's Land) a group planning for a gathering of Canadian and US Bishops with Rowan Williams, the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and Walter Brueggemann - to explore the Missionary Frontier of North America in this new millennium. That gathering will happen in Windsor, Canada, right across the river from Detroit, in the spring of 2005. We'll have 80 bishops in attendance. I also continue to serve as Bishop Protector of the Community of St Francis, the sisters based in San Francisco. I myself am entering the formation process to be a member of the Third Order of the Society of St Francis. And I've been asked to serve on the faculty of the newly re-constituted College for Bishops.

Tomorrow, and throughout this Convention, we will hear reports of a number of important ministries and initiatives being undertaken within this diocese by so many of you and others of our sisters and brothers. These reports will bring us up to date on: Developmental planning for the Page Center at Little Lake. The Earthkeepers' Covenant & other initiatives related to the stewardship and care of all Creation. Camp New Day UP. The Medical Care Access Coalition. Episcopal Relief and Development. Our Little Roses Ministries in Honduras. Margaret Sottile's ministry in South Africa for school children with AIDS. Our Spring Conference (formerly known as MSTYC) which last year brought Walter and June Wink to help us reflect upon our vocation to non-violence in a world so engulfed in warfare and conflict. Our annual conference on Baptismal Ministry and those we've had on Diaconal Ministry and Priestly Ministry as well as workshops on preaching and presiding and music and children's ministries. Ongoing Bible Study, including a session of "Phone Bible" with Michael White, a remarkable scholar from the University of Texas. Trinity Institute, experienced over the Internet.

This coming year, conferences will address Discernment (with Suzanne Farnham of Listening Hearts Ministry) and Celtic Spirituality (with Ed Leidel, the Bishop of Eastern Michigan). And at next year's Diocesan Convention, the Chaplain will be Fredrica Harris Thompsett.

The Standing Committee, along with the Crisis Response Team and the Justice & Peace Committee of the Diocese have been working hard this past year on further developing our (now canonically mandated) training programs & policies concerning sexual misconduct prevention and anti-racism. (As a matter of fact, we'll spend a significant piece of tomorrow's agenda here at this convention addressing issues related to Anti-Racism)

Our Chancellor, Pat Micklow, and I traveled to Chicago in June to meet with other Bishops & Chancellors of Province V (in the upper Mid-west). And while I'm on the subject, I want to pause to thank Pat on a personal level and also on behalf of this diocese. She has been a stalwart support and a wise counselor to me & so many others as we have tried to be faithful to the many cross-currents of relationships and responsibilities, working through the difficult issues I mentioned at the start of this address. It's the sort of low profile ministry which some of us know first-hand, but many may not fully appreciate.

Our Treasurer, Dick Graybill, another faithful cohort, recently returned from a national gathering of Diocesan Administrators. I know he'll have more to say about that gathering tomorrow, when he presents his annual financial reports to us. He will also explain how, over the coming year, we are going to need to address some nuts and bolts issues, such a regular financial audits and accountability as well as policies governing diocesan apportionment and related matters. Over the coming year, we will also be addressing long range budget planning, and that conversation will necessarily cause us to look again at our regional boundaries and the ways we have collaborated to support our regional Missioners and how individual congregations have shared resources within each region and the diocese to keep things fiscally sound. We need to look at the overall system and to ask ourselves what adjustments may need to be made for the future.

In November, as we gather for our annual goal setting workshop, all of these things, and more will be considered. Our facilitator for that goal setting will again be Cliff Crockford, who has also served an invaluable coach for me throughout the year. Cliff is also working closely with our developmental process with the Page Center.

Whatever other goals are set, we know that we will be putting extra energy over the coming year into re-gathering and re-focusing our ministry with youth & young adults - picking up on the significant planning and envisioning which was started these past several months with the help of Caroline Fairless, Jim Sims, and Linda Grenz.

We will be initiating a new Council on Diaconal Ministry, to be co-convened by Teena Maki and Gail Baravetto. There will be renewed focus upon Stewardship and Planned Giving. We will continue our efforts to make all of our church building physically accessible to everyone, as well as being increasingly inviting and welcoming to all. We will look to expand our forays into advertisements on TV and radio, which have been so well received.

We will be re-vamping our web site, drawing upon the gifts and remarkable steadfastness of our Web Servant, Barbara Susan, who now lives downstate, but stays in touch with us on an almost daily basis, and Dan Weingarten, who was the original designer of our web site, and has agreed to help us with our re-design.

Also, in this coming year, we will work to deepen our companionship with communities of other faith traditions. And we look forward to a visit this spring from David Coles, the bishop of our Companion Diocese of Christchurch in New Zealand, who will be coming with his wife, Joy, sometime after Easter.

This year, also, Leon Jarvis, our Chaplain at Marquette General Hospital, will be ordained Priest. Incidentally, this past year Leon and I have worked with the national church office of the Bishop Suffragan of Chaplaincies, George Packard, to develop a formation and accreditation process for chaplains being trained in the settings in which they minister.

Also, this past year, Tom and Peg Lippart have served as our Chaplains to retired clergy and surviving spouses of clergy retired from this diocese. Throughout the year in the midst of their travels they have made visits all over the country to help and support a good number of women and men who have served this diocese so faithfully in years gone by. What an important ministry this has been, and continues to be.

And, of course, I could hardly fail to mention one great highlight of this past year: the ECW Provincial Annual Meeting, hosted by our own ECW at Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island last spring. What a bash that was!

Now, there are a number of transitions and personal developments which ought to be mentioned: On Sunday morning, we'll be remembering in prayer those who have died and those who have been baptized since we last gathered in Convention.

Let me also make note that Ted Durst and Mark Britt have left Trinity Church here in Houghton, having been called to serve two congregations in the Diocese of Chicago. Trinity Church is now in a time of discernment, preparing to extend a call for new leadership.

Manuel Padilla received his Doctorate of Ministry from Seabury-Western Seminary. Anita Wingert got married! (to Hal Martin) Jane Cisluycis (our new Diocesan Operations Coordinator) graduated last spring from Northern Michigan University with a degree in Communications. Kevin Thew Forrester received Buddhist "lay ordination" - so now he walking the path of Christianity and Zen Buddhism together. Arlene Gordanier retired, after many years of teaching in Munising. Ben and Leila Johns celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary.

In December, our own Gloria Price (who recently became a grandmother for the first time) will celebrate her 20th anniversary as our Diocesan Office Administrator. Holy Moses! What would we do without her!

The list goes on and on. Forgive me for leaving out your favorite life transition! My point in mentioning these few specifics as examples of a much longer list that must go unspoken is that life indeed does go on, for all of us. And in the midst of it, with all of the daily joys and sorrows we carry the torch of our faith having received it from those who have gone before and preparing to hand it along to the generations which will follow us here.

Now, before I conclude (and I do thank you for your patience and your endurance) I want to say a little bit about a matter which is bound to claim attention of the public media over the coming days. I am referring to the release of the so-called Windsor Report by the Lambeth Commission. That report will be made public this coming Monday, October 18th when it is presented to the Primate's Steering Committee, meeting in England. You can expect to hear a lot about it. And I don't know what it will say. None of us do. And I don't think it would help for me to speculate about it. But I do think it's important for us to understand, as fully as possible, what it is about - and what it is, and what it is not intended to do.

Let me back up and put this all into context. The Lambeth Commission is a seventeen member international panel, appointed in 2003 by Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury to explore the nature of the interrelationships, or "communion," among the world's 77 million Anglicans and their 38 autonomous provinces (spanning 164 nations). It was appointed in the wake of actions taken by our General Convention in Minneapolis and actions taken in dioceses in Canada which caused dismay amongst some other provinces around the world.

Some mistakenly believe that the Commission will make a determination concerning homosexuality throughout the Anglican Communion. Such is not the case. Each Province of the Anglican Communion is autonomous. The Archbishop of Canterbury is our spiritual head, but is no pope. He has the authority to recognize other bishops and provinces as being in Communion with him, and he has the authority to invite them to attend the Lambeth Conference of world-wide Bishops which gathers every 10 years, but he has no jurisdiction in any Province other than that of England itself. Each of the 38 Provinces has a Primate (ours is Frank Griswold, our Presiding Bishop) and those 38 Primates gather at least once a year for mutual support and collegiality but their gathering has no authority over any of the provinces.

The same is true of the Lambeth Conference itself, is well as the Anglican Consultative Council. The nature of the Anglican Communion is that it is made up of 38 autonomous Provinces. We live together in a unity which does not demand or attempt to achieve uniformity. So the task of the Lambeth Commission has not been to establish an Anglican-wide position on human sexuality or anything else. Its task has been to study how communion can be maintained amid differing practices among Anglicans - and in particular differences having to do with human sexuality. How can we live with our differences, and hold together in Communion with those with whom we disagree? Not an easy question, yet one that is critical for the day and age we live in. This is, of course, a tremendously complex issue, and I would be happy to speak at greater length with anyone individually or in groups at any time, and any place. But, for now, suffice it to say that there have been any number of rumors (including several misleading articles in the London Times and elsewhere) about what the report will say. There's really no benefit in trying to speculate. We do know that this Commission has worked very hard to listen to all voices on every side of the issue. We know that the report had the unanimous support of all members of the Commission (and I stress: the membership of the group was as diverse as was humanly possible) We know that the report will be released to the public media the same time it is released to the Church: at 7:30 am eastern time on Monday morning, October 18th. We also know that it will take at least a year for the report to be formally received by various groups around the Church: the Primates, the Anglican Consultative Council, the House of Bishops in each of the Province, and eventually at our own General Convention, and other church assemblies (synods, councils, and conventions) throughout the Anglican Communion.

Thus, despite whatever you read or hear in the press on Monday and the days following, I ask you to take a deep breath and wait until it settles into perspective. Here in the Episcopal Church of the USA, there will be meetings of the bishops of each of our provinces in November. Then, the Council of Advice (made up of one bishop of each Province) will meet in New York during December. Our entire House of Bishops will meet in Salt Lake City in January. In February, the Primates meet overseas. And in March, the regular Episcopal House of Bishops annual retreat will meet in Texas. So, you see, this report will be carefully received and deliberated over an extended period of time. We are taking it very seriously, but nobody is panicking.

Very truly, we are discovering, as many generations have before us, the cost of moving ahead into God's future. Those who crossed other thresholds before us, dealing with class and race and gender lived through firestorms at least as fierce as this. So let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us. Let us have patience and generosity of spirit with those who disagree with us. And let us move on with as great a measure of grace and courage as we might receive from the One who has called us into this great work of reconciliation and redemption.

Several weeks ago, we heard again the gospel passage from Luke which includes a hard saying, to be sure: "Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided: father against son and son against father, (and so on)"

This one is hard to hear, but we know it is so - that to stand for love and compassion and justice sometimes means that there will be division. You see, the point is that even then, some 2000 years ago, Jesus understood (and warned his followers) that his gospel held within it a kernel of truth which could absolutely revolutionize the world which, in fact, could transform our relationships and, in a very real sense, save us from ourselves. And, you see, not everybody agrees with these principles:

To learn and understand that our disagreements and power struggles cannot be resolved by force and domination but only by the dynamics of reconciliation and peace;

To experience the power of forgiveness (not retribution) in the face of betrayal and interpersonal failings.

To embrace the diversity of human expression not as a threat to our familiar ways of life but as a delightful chemistry which brings variety and new creation all around us and in our midst.

To respect the dignity of every human being, even those we once found easy to dismiss or to judge as unworthy.

To insist on justice in the face of preferential treatment of the powerful and those in the majority.

To discover the transforming grace of self-examination and renewal, and the honest acknowledgment, each of our own responsibility for ways we have erred and strayed from the path of health and wholeness and acknowledgment of our own need for repentance of those ways.

All of these things, and more, which are wrapped up inside the mystery of God's Word - Christ's gospel - as Jesus was saying in that lesson from Luke, these things have the power to divide us - because their truth calls us to transform our families, our friendships, our society, and not everyone is ready for such monumental change. Not everyone is prepared to redefine our relationships according to God's commandments and that is why Jesus said that his teaching would bring division. Because there is a cost to such discipleship.

Now, here, in our world today, which is swallowed up by terror, and by warfare and economic injustices and all manner of division we are called by God in Christ to rediscover what all this means for us in our own generation. We are called, to keep on moving ahead as best we can, even while knowing that our world is on the brink, and knowing that our offering is not perfect, or hardly even adequate, knowing that we are called to sing our part as best we can, as the Triune God sings along in such glorious harmony - so that this same world might be mesmerized by a sacred song of peace and justice, of hope and promise, of creation, and redemption, and inspiration.

Holy Trinity, One God; Father-Mother-Creator, Jesus-Child-Savior-Healer-Word Incarnate, Spirit-Life Giver-Sustainer-the Inspiration of all that is, we turn to you in faith at this moment in our history. We turn our hearts to you and together, this night, we re-dedicate ourselves to your service: to the service of the Spirit of Love which still has the power to transform our hearts to transform our world into Shalom - the Way of Wholeness and Peace to which we have each and all been called and to which we have given away our lives. Amen