our new presiding bishop

As part of my appreciation of all of the marvelous happenings of last week in yesterday’s blog, I briefly mentioned the election of the new presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church. This event deserves more than just a passing mention however, not only because it happens only once every nine years, but because of a couple of a couple of firsts in the election.

On Saturday 27 June, the Episcopal Church’s 78th General Convention chose Bishop Michael Curry of the Diocese of North Carolina to be its 27th presiding bishop. In the first ballot Bishop Curry received 121 of 174 votes cast. The other three nominees received a combined 53 votes. Never before has the Episcopal Church elected a presiding bishop on the first ballot. Curry is also the first African American elected to that position.

Since the House of Bishops makes the selection, with the House of Deputies simply concurring with the choice, I have to believe that the bishops know their own. And the vote says we must truly have the right person for the job.

Curry’s words suggest to me that he is indeed the right person for the job:

There’s a lot of suffering in this world. There’s a lot of heartache, there’s a lot of nightmare. We are people who believe that God has a dream and a vision for this world, and that Jesus has shown us how to follow him in the direction of that and how to help this world live into God’s dream and vision for us now.
Our work is actually the work of participating in the Jesus movement, which seeks to realize God’s dream and seeks to accomplish God’s mission in this world.

You may want to read the entire Episcopal News Service story.

As Bishop of the Diocese of North Carolina Bishop Curry recorded a powerful and pastoral video about the Eucharist, which I share with you here. Thanks to Ann Fontaine for posting that to Facebook.

His term starts on All Saints’ Day, 1 November. I am looking forward to that.

Episcopal worship

I learned Episcopal worship the traditional way at All Saints’ in Palo Alto: juggling the worship folder, the prayer book, and the hymnal. That’s what we did at St. Stephen’s in-the-field as well.

Things were different during my ten-year sojourn in the Lutheran church. The liturgy and hymns were together in one book, so juggling was not an issue.

At St. John the Divine in Morgan Hill the entire service was printed in the worship folder: the hymns, the creed, the Prayers of the People, the confession, the Eucharist prayer, everything. That makes things simpler and avoids the need to do any juggling. It also makes things easier for people new to Episcopal liturgical worship. Not that we had many of those. Most newcomers knew exactly what Episcopal worship was like. (One Sunday a well-dressed older woman whom I hadn’t seen before very primly pulled out both the prayer book and the hymnal in preparation for worship, not realizing that she wouldn’t need either.)

Here in Hemet at Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd we use the hymnal and the prayer book. We also use the supplemental hymnal Renew! with some regularity. So there is plenty of juggling.

I like that. I prefer it. I love holding the Book of Common Prayer in my hands. It gives me a feeling of connection with the Episcopal tradition and other Episcopal worshippers.

Then there is something else. In the St. John’s worship folder the Nicene creed and the confession are all scrunched together in block paragraphs. In the prayer book they are spread out in verse form, so I get a feel for their rhythm and cadence.

For me, it is Episcopal worship as it is meant to be.