By Lisa H. Towle
In the summer of 2009 I traveled to Anaheim, CA, where the Diocese of Los Angeles was hosting the 76th General Convention of The Episcopal Church. My role as president of the Episcopal Church Women of the Diocese of North Carolina was to lead our delegation at the 46th Triennial Meeting of the ECW. It wasn’t my first rodeo; I’d done the same thing at previous Triennials. What helped make this Triennial Meeting/General Convention unique, however, was that the Rt. Rev. Michael Curry, bishop of North Carolina, was, for the first time, the keynote speaker at the United Thank Offering Sharing Dinner. His exhortations, directed primarily at the women of the church, to “go into the world on a mission of witness … in a time of absolute and unprecedented change,” had the 400 people in the room on their feet, clapping and cheering.
Seeds were planted that night.
Three years later, I became secretary of the National ECW Board and also cosponsored, with Jenny Ladefoged, a Triennial Meeting resolution about the Board forming an ad hoc committee composed of intergenerational members to review and research the function and structure of the Board as well as the mission and purpose of the ECW. The resolution was adopted.
Three more years passed. Last summer at Triennial Meeting/General Convention I was elected president of the Board, a majority of Triennial Meeting delegates accepted with enthusiasm the report and recommendations of the ad hoc committee, and the House of Bishops elected Michael Curry as the 27th Presiding
Bishop and Episcopal Church primate. And so here we are. It was Soren Kierkegaard, a Danish Christian philosopher and theologian, who famously noted, “life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” The national ECW knows where we’ve been. We strive to be fully present in the now all the while working to help move Episcopal Church Women forward. Along these lines, the joint nominating committee for the election and seating of a 27th presiding bishop offered some sage advice that speaks to the entirety of The Episcopal Church:“Delight,” said the committee, in the diversity of a “multi-national, multi-lingual, multicultural, multi-ethnic, and multi-generational church.”
At his All Saints’ Sunday installation Eucharist in Washington National Cathedral, Curry’s call for the church and its members to join what he calls the Jesus Movement echoed what had been said in Anaheim: “If you take the word ‘go’ seriously, it means you’ve got to trust the Lord.”
Episcopal Church Women do take mission seriously. It’s one of the primary reasons we were formed. It’s a reason this issue has the cover and content it does. It’s also the reason the national Board has selected “GO! Share the Word: Every Day, Comunicamos, Every Where” as the theme for the 49th Triennial Meeting, which will be held in Austin, TX in July of 2018.
Stay tuned and trust the Lord.