You know that plans are moving forward for Triennial next year. Between now and then, you can follow the Virtual Torch and the Virtual Prayer Walk on the National website. Each Diocese is encouraged to have photos of ‘shining the light’ and ‘carrying the torch’ to submit to the National office for the week that the torch is in their Diocese. We will be featured in October. (Photos at the Aug. 1-2 Assembly in Santa Fe, perhaps?)
Denise
Rox, Provincial Prayer Chair, shared the idea of ‘Save a Penny a Day’ to get to Triennial.
This is to put aside 1 cent on day 1, 2 cents on day 2, 3 on day 3 and so forth
until at the end of 365 days you put in $3.65. However, the cumulative total
will be $667.95! And if you continue that to the time of Triennial, you should
have a tidy sum to help toward expenses. Also, chapters are urged to ask their
parish priests and vestries for assistance in attending this important event. EVERY chapter can send a voting delegate to Triennial and all Daughters can attend!
At
the business meeting the Grace Camp at Stoney was awarded a $275 as our
designated ministry for this year. (Each diocese can name a ministry to support each year.) The speakers were inspiring this year.
Samari
Izadi, formerly a refugee from Iran, and now an Episcopal priest, spoke about
her journey of faith from Muslim to Christian and from Baptist to Episcopal
priest. She now has a ministry called Gateway of Grace, based in Dallas, that
helps refugees in that area get housing and other assistance. It is supported
by donations and several churches. They give $1800/month to a family for 6
months and also provide a furnished apartment. The Gospel is shared through the
loving ministry and not by proselyting. People can adopt a family to help or
even just one person.
Fr. Clayton
Elder spoke on Evangelism. His talk was based on The Logic of Evangelism by
Bill Abraham who says there are 4 agents involved in evangelism:
The Triune God who created,
liberated, empowered us
The Church
The Evangelist
The Person being Evangelized
Fr.
Elder stressed the importance of prayer all the time, before anything we
do-even shopping or working at our job. He said, "Evangelism happens every day, all
the time" and explained the 4 components:
·
Starts with God: who created,
liberated, empowers, and is known
·
Evangelism must be within the church as
we support one another in ministry, welcome, community-one way is surrounding
one another, including your priest in prayer. Remember Evangelism is 'stirring
people up for God)
·
You and me as Evangelist take God into
the world WHERE WE ARE-in line at grocery, walking in neighborhood, etc. PRAY
before you enter any activity-even driving or shopping and be open to
opportunities to pray with/for people.
·
The final agent of Evangelism is the
person being Evangelized-and our responsibility is to follow up, whenever
possible, with whoever we have prayed for and esp. for our priest,
parishioners, visitors, ministry leaders, friends. This helps those evangelized
become stronger.
We, as Daughters of the King,
whether we acknowledge it or not, are Evangelists-not just because it's in our vows
of Prayer, Service (and Evangelism), but because we wear our cross daily as a
silent witness of our commitment. Our prayer says we "bear the cross through the battles of our earthly life." Evangelism takes God into the world wherever
you are and whatever you are doing with another person. All interaction is
evangelism. Fr. Elder closed by reminding us to start everything with God-before we get out of the car, before we go into a meeting, before we open our mouth. When we allow the Triune God to open and strengthen the opportunities, we will be agents of creation of new Christians.
The final speaker was Fr. Mike, the Prov. 7 Chaplain. His talk on evangelism can be found here.
Assembly opened with Eucharist and closed with a moving service of Taize. Next year's Provincial Assembly will be in conjunction with Triennial-in other words in Utah. Please do consider attending as a delegate from your chapter!
