I am here at the Bishop’s Ranch at this year’s clergy retreat. I’ve always valued retreats as a time away from our daily, quotidian tasks and routines. As always, I enjoy the time to meet clergy colleagues from around the diocese. Over the past year, I have tried to create a network of colleagues whose skills compliment my own, and we have a wealth of experience and wisdom just around the corner. I’m also grateful for those occasional times in which I have a nugget of wisdom to share, as well!
While the Clergy Retreat has been a time to gather and renew our connections, this year’s retreat has had a particularly heavy program.
Bishop Austin has arranged this year’s retreat to be an extended listening session, very similar to the process that we hosted at St. Stephen’s a few weeks ago. There have been opportunities to share moments of joy in our shared experience of the diocese—occasions when we have been strengthened by one another’s presence as the Body of Christ.
But I have also heard a number of stories of heartache. There have been disappointments, frustrations, even betrayals named by members of the diocese. To his credit, Bishop Austin has held these stories carefully, and responded individually to these hurts which have, despite our common ties as a diocese, separated us from one another.
I am grateful for Bishop Austin’s patience. Surfacing these stories has taken courage (from both our clergy and lay leaders), and listening to them is not easy. But it is my hope that in these heartaches are the seeds of a brighter future.
When we think of Church, I often think about our wardrobe—our “Sunday Best.” We are expected to be on our best behavior, in our best clothes, when we meet one another at church. But we know all too well that churches can be just as much a site of pain as it can be a place of healing.
While I have not hosted a similar process at St. Stephen’s, I do know from listening to your stories that our diocese, and sometimes even our home parish of St. Stephen’s, have been places of disappointment. I am grateful for both the courage and the trust that has been demonstrated to share those stories.
We are not a perfect people. Let me repeat that—as Christians, we are NOT perfect. Matter of fact, every week in church we admit that we have fallen short of how God has called us to act as both individuals and as a community. But in naming those shortcomings, in sharing our reliance on God’s grace, I think we create a space where we speak the truth in loving ways.
Bishop Austin’s Listening Sessions will continue throughout the fall months, in both in-person and virtual formats. For those of you who have personally shared stories, I thank you for the trust and vulnerability you have demonstrated in sharing those stories. I would invite all of you, to consider sharing your experiences with this process. Whether they are stories of gratitude or frustration, I think that in sharing them, we make a powerful statement of who we want to be as a diocese in the future.
In the mean time, please keep the Bishop, the clergy, and the people of our diocese in your prayers.
God Bless!
Matt
