Residents, clergy and elected officials gathered Monday at St. Vincent’s House for the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Unity Prayer Circle, offering songs and prayers for a better Galveston and a better nation.
In his annual meeting report, Bishop Doyle gives insight of the Diocese’s plans for 2019.
Each summer at Camp Allen these experiences come to life in the many great programs offered by the Episcopal Diocese of Texas. In focus are the ones offered by Jerusalem Peacebuilders (JPB), a unique nonprofit ministry that works to promote peace by cultivating understanding and mutual respect among young American, Israeli, and Palestinian teenagers.
St. Vincent’s House will host its annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Unity Prayer Circle from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Monday, Jan. 21, in the SVH courtyard at 2817 Alfreda Houston Place (Postoffice Street) in Galveston. In case of inclement weather, the event will be held indoors, downstairs at SVH.
Captain Rebecca Sparks radiates the spirit of her great-grandparents, who were some of the original 19th-century settlers of the Texas Panhandle. One of Southwest Airlines’ first female pilots, Sparks began her journey in high school to the captain’s seat of a 737 and, by a more circuitous route, she was ordained a deacon in June 2018.
She served at All Saints, Austin; St. James’, LaGrange ; and St. James’, Conroe before her election in 2006. Bishop Harrison helped develop Safeguarding training for the Diocese after it was mandated by the Church’s General Convention in 2003 and helped set the standard for the rest of the Episcopal Church. She also chaired the boards of a number of diocesan institutions: El Buen Samaritano, a social service agency for immigrants in Austin; Seminary of the Southwest, Austin; St. Stephen’s Episcopal School, Austin; and St. Luke’s Episcopal Health System, Houston.
A lesbian couple in Tyler received a certified letter from their pastor telling them not to come back to church when he learned they were married. It was this kind of response to the LGBTQ community that led Rob Jerger, a member of St. Francis’, Tyler to establish Just As I Am. It is one of three diverse missional communities Jerger has started. Just As I Am welcomes gay and lesbian people and their allies at weekly gatherings for a meal and worship, an alternative to traditional “church.”
Anthony Chapple has served on St. David’s vestry for many years and had a major role in the Church’s 2018 General Convention planning committee, held last summer just a few blocks from St. David’s at the Austin Convention Center. Chapple also serves on the committee planning events around the new bishop suffragan election to be held in February.
At the end of 2018, thousands continue to live in mold-filled, unsafe homes, many with no basic utilities. “There are families still living in flooded homes that have not been mucked out,” said Debbie Allensworth, associate at St. Andrew’s, Pearland. Without the Church’s bold leadership and service, most will never get the chance for restoration.
Ministry in the Diocese of Texas has benefited from the generosity and foresight of many people. In 1950, when Bishop Clinton Quin first sought funding for St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital in the Texas Medical Center, he went to Houston oilman Roy Cullen and asked for a million dollars. Cullen faithfully wrote out the check that day. No one could have imagined that 63 years later, the expanded health system that grew from an initial tertiary care facility would yield the Episcopal Health Foundation (EHF) as well as another dedicated to planting new churches. EHF makes grants from the interest on the billion dollar corpus, and the Great Commission Foundation‚—with a corpus of $126 million‚—provides funding for new church plants.
There is much to give thanks for as we look back at 2018 and much to be excited about as we look ahead to 2019. We are a part of a story that stretches into the many contacts of the 57 counties and the lives around us. This is all in turn part of a wider community of dioceses within the Episcopal Church, our global Anglican family … all of us working to tell one story, actually, The Story.
When I accepted the call to Good Shepherd in 2009, I covenanted to model a healthy leadership transition – that, one day, our season together would complete while ministry is vibrant and with the parish in better condition than when I arrived. With intentions to keep that promise, I write to share that last Thursday I accepted the call to serve as rector of Trinity Church in Boston. As bittersweet as all of us Allens find the prospect of leaving you, we also believe that God has never called us to what is comfortable, safe, or easy, and we believe God now calls us into the blessings and challenges of this new opportunity. We sense in Trinity the same spark that drew us to Austin, and we look forward to sharing with them all that we have learned from you.
Celebrating 175 years of mission in Christ, we are a diverse community of believers following the Episcopal tradition across our 81-county diocese spanning nearly 70,000 square miles in the central, eastern, and northern regions of Texas. Founded in 1838, we are more than 450 active clergy-strong with 174 congregations, approximately 70 missional communities, 27 campus missions, chaplaincies, foundations, institutions, and over 77,000 parishioners.
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