Episcopal Diocese of Utah
May Newsletter: Second Edition
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May 21, 2020
Seventh Sunday of Easter (May 24)
Liturgical colors are white and gold
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People of the Diocese,
We have now gone more than two months without in-person worship. Unfortunately, it is uncertain when things can return to some degree of normalcy. Despite the challenging time we find ourselves in, worship continues in new and innovative ways. Churches all over our Diocese have turned to phone, Zoom, and social media driven services. Our congregations remain connected in faith and
we will get through this together.
We hope these newsletters help you stay up-to-date with the happenings in our Diocese. Please continue sending any relevant resources or stories to Nick Cockrell at
ncockrell@episcopal-ut.org
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COVID-19 Resources for Clerics and Congregations
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Clerics are continuing to stream prayers, services, and readings online. Food banks are still serving our neighbors and the clergy and congregations continue to find creative ways to serve people in this uncertain time. The Diocese continues to gather resources for churches and people linking us together. The list is updated on a regular basis on the diocesan website and is available at this link:
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St. Mark's Director of Music, Christopher Wootton, plays the processional remembering all our churches.
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The Diocese and the Cathedral Church of St. Mark continue to bring you weekly on-line Eucharist services featuring organ music, soloists, and cantors. We are also taking the occasion to offer visuals over several of the hymns reflecting who we are. In our last newsletter, we showed nostalgic and historic artifacts of Easter through the years at the Diocese including actual journal entries from Bishop Tuttle from 150 years ago.
This newsletter features the Processional Hymn from Easter VI which was the musical background for pictures of the nearly two dozen churches in the Diocese. We, of course, hope and pray for the day we be able to safely again fill our churches with our presence, prayer and music, Here is a joyous Easter Season opportunity to see the churches that you may not have seen before…and to know it really is the the people of those churches who are the Diocese.
To view this week's worship services from the Diocese and the historic Cathedral Church of St. Mark
CLICK HERE
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Bishop Announces Virtual Convention
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The Rt. Rev. Scott B. Hayashi has issued a Call to Convention for the Diocese of Utah to take place electronically via the internet September 19 and 20, 2020
While we originally hoped it would be safe to have our Diocesan Convention in the fall, it has become increasingly clear that we are unable to ensure a safe gathering due to the ever-changing COVID-19 situation. As such, the 2020 Diocesan Convention will be held virtually.
- The Convention will start September 19th at 10:00 MDT via Zoom or another similar electronic network.
- Registration will again now be open. Delegates will need to register to receive information and electronic voting credentials.
- Nominations for Diocesan Office are open again and will remain open until September 12th. Elections will be done electronically. Resolution information will be forthcoming.
"I hoped that delaying our Diocesan Convention until the Autumn would provide us the possibility of being able to meet together in person. Unfortunately, the best expert and scientific opinion is that COVID-19 will continue to be threat to the health and safety of the people until we have an effective treatment for the virus and an effective vaccine against it. Neither of these are predicted to be available by the Fall or even into 2021. Therefore, our Diocesan Convention will be held virtually in order that we continue the effort to mitigate the virus in our larger community. This Diocesan Convention takes on a greater importance than before as we strive together to shape our future as The Episcopal Diocese of Utah in a vastly different world than what we ever imagined."
-Bishop Scott B. Hayashi
This convention will include vital discussions about moving forward in our Diocese. As such, it is a priority to involve as many people as we can. Voting will be conducted electronically and
we encourage you to consider serving in a Diocesan Office.
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Diocesan Committees to use the Google Suite
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The Diocese of Utah is in the process of fully utilizing the Google Suite for diocesan committee communication, file sharing, calendaring, etc. This means we will be relying on applications such as Gmail, Google Drive, Google Groups, and Calendar.
Those on diocesan committees may receive notifications that you have been added to groups or shared folders.
At this point,
no action is needed from anyone. But if you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact Nick Cockrell (
ncockrell@episcopal-ut.org)
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Camp Tuttle 2020 Summer Updates
Updates from Karen Gleeson, Youth Director
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Dear Clergy, Parish Administrators, and Youth Leaders,
I hope you are all doing well! As I mentioned in my last email, we needed to revise our summer camp schedule. Thank you to those who took the survey and shared your concerns with us. Our results were 80% positive feedback to offer a safe camp experience for the youth. Our main goal is to keep everyone safe at camp, while we build community in our relationship with each other, nature, and God.
Update - Registration open!
We will be offering day camps for small groups of 10 campers with 2 counselors. We will also offer overnight backpacking trips for those youth going into grades 5-12. There will be 2 groups offered each day and we will be adhering to social distancing guidelines.
Revised
2020 Camp Tuttle Schedule:
*July 10 - 3/4th Grade Day Camp
July 14 & 15 - 5/6th Grade Day Camp
July 16 to 17 - 5/6th Grade Overnight Backpack Trip
July 22 & 23 - 7/8th Grade Day Camp
July 24 to 25 - 7/8th Grade Overnight Backpack Trip
July 28th - Senior Class of 2020 Evening Celebration (Registration opening soon)
*July 30 - High School Day Camp
July 31 to Aug. 1 - High School Overnight Backpack Trip
*If participation is high, we will add an additional day camp
Day Camp Details
- Check in time: Between 9:00-9:30 am
- Pick up time: 8:00 pm
- Food provided: Snacks, Lunch and Dinner
- Cost: *$75
- Limit: 2 groups of 10 campers for each day
- Activities include: hiking, frisbee golf, group games, arts and crafts, campfire, music and fellowship while enjoying nature in the mountains.
When registering, you will be offered to choose your first choice. If you are interested in requesting a 2nd day camp, you will be placed on a waiting list. We would like to make sure everyone that is interested can participate in at least 1 day. You are welcome to choose a day camp along with an overnight backpacking if you choose.
*If you need financial assistance please fill out a Scholarship Application when you register, or contact Karen at
kgleeson@episcopal-ut.org
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Overnight Backpacking Trips
- Check in time: 10:00 am
- Pick up time: 12 Noon the following day
- Food provided: Snacks, lunch, dinner and breakfast
- Cost: *$110
- Limit: 2 groups of 10 campers for each overnight
Backpacking overnight will be in the local Big Cottonwood Canyon area. We will be hiking and cooking dinner together while adhering to the social distancing guidelines.
If you need backpacking and overnight gear, that can be provided for you.
*If you need financial assistance please fill out a Scholarship Application when you register, or contact Karen at
kgleeson@episcopal-ut.org
Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Thank you,
Karen "Shine" Gleeson
Youth Ministry Coordinator/Camp Director
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BISHOP SEARCH COMMITTEE UPDATES
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Why is a Bishop Important?
Mary McEntire
St. Luke's Park City, member of the Nominating/Search Committee
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This is another is a series of communications from the Nominating/Search Committee. The articles are designed to inform and educate the Diocese about the search process. This is from committee member Mary McEntire who adapted the article from material provided by The Rev. Ron Clingenpeel, consultant to the Nominating Committee.
For Episcopalians, the bishop is the symbol of sacramental unity connecting the past with the present and ensuring unity within the church. It was not long after the resurrection of Jesus that bishops were being consecrated from various areas in the same manner that the apostles commissioned their successors. This pattern continues today (three bishops are required to lay on hands in the consecration of a new bishop) as bishops serve the Diocese in which they have been called and they serve the greater church through bodies such as the House of Bishops and the Lambeth Conference (part of the greater Anglican Communion which meets every 10 years).
Bishops in the second century were seen as the guardians of the faith and order of the church (as Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, who was martyred c. 108 CE, is often quoted, “Where the bishop is, there is the Church”). The bishop’s task was to embrace faithfulness to the truth of the Gospel and to the Great Commission (Mt 28:18-20) levied upon each of us by Jesus as his disciples. Thus, the bishop works within our church to guide each of us in our interpretation of the Gospel, helping us to base our actions on God’s guidance through the Holy Spirit, scripture, tradition and reason (Richard Hooker, an Anglican priest in the 16
th century, is said to have compared the necessity of these last three criteria to a “three-legged stool”).
Bishops in The Episcopal Church perform much of this through direct oversight of God’s people in the congregations of each Diocese. (Sometimes a nervous priest will welcome the visit of the Bishop to his/her parish as an “honored guest,” neglecting to remember that the Bishop is the overseer of each parish in the Diocese). Their task is to be strategic in their policies and actions by providing the spiritual leadership for the further development of Christians and the spreading of God’s word to the people.
Historically, there are at least two models of Episcopal leadership that we can consider as important. The first associates the bishop with the oversight of a local congregation or a group of congregations. That model has Biblical roots. The second, which is drawn from Celtic Christianity, embraces the notion of missionary bishops. Cuthbert (see
Lesser Feasts and Fasts) is a good example of this tradition. It was in this tradition that the American Episcopal Church consecrated Jackson Kemper in 1835 (who became known as “The Bishop of the Whole Northwest”). This tradition continued when Daniel Tuttle, age 30, was consecrated as a bishop in New York and sent west to the Utah Territory. He arrived by train and stagecoach in Utah in 1867. (Decades later, Daniel Tuttle served as Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church from 1903-1923).
The episcopacy in Utah seems to have fused both models of leadership. Our bishops have exercised oversight over a group of congregations. They have also led us into pastoral relationships among the indigenous people of our Diocese and with the Dioceses of Mexico and Myanmar.
In addition to spiritual matters within the Diocese, the bishop must be concerned with the application of the rules that we all have agreed upon in our democratically-based structure for governance. These rules, called canons, are the ultimate responsibility of the bishop to uphold. Occasionally, this may involve convening an Ecclesiastical Court to ensure that all parties are represented fairly and that adjudications are just.
Thus, we can see that the duties of a bishop require significant involvement in all areas of our church, both spiritually and administratively.
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A Reflection from Bishop Scott B. Hayashi
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What is Normal?
What is normal? For most people, right now, normal means two months ago. Normal, in other words, is in the past. Normal is what used to be.
One of the lessons I learned from people who had been stricken with a chronic illness or with cancer is that normal is what is. Some described it as the new normal.
When I was nineteen years old and just released from the hospital, where I had been for eight weeks recovering from a gun shot wound, whatever I had been before the incident was diminished. My doctor told me that going forward, I would have 20% less capacity than what I would have had if I had not been shot. What that meant was that physically speaking, no matter how hard I might try, there was a boundary that was closer to me than what it was before. Normal was different than what it had been eight weeks earlier. There was no getting it back.
I began the process of a long recovery. I was determined to shape my future and not let the limitation shape me.
In some ways, I believe that we all are in a similar place to where I had been all those years ago. Normal is no more. Normal is history.
I can wish that the pandemic had never happened. But it has happened. No amount of wishing will change that.
When I was a rector of a congregation and wanted to make a change, one of the statements that I and the Vestry would hear from some of the people was, "We can't do that. That's not going to work. We've always done it this way."
When I read about a restaurant owner who did not follow social distancing guidelines and opened up to admit a crowd of people, what I hear is, "We've always done it this way. We want it back."
There is a very legitimate reason for anger and grief over what we have lost.
However, I believe that the sooner we accept that "normal" is not coming back, the sooner we can be about the adaptive work of shaping what our future will be instead of being passive victims of whatever comes this way.
Remember, Jesus left the tomb. Death could not hold him. He's wild. And he calls us to follow him into the future.
Bishop Hayashi
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