Coordinating Prayers and Outreach to Uvalde

May 27, 2022

On this past Tuesday, May 24, 2022, parents dropped off their children at Robb Elementary School. Nineteen students and two teachers would never return home.

As many of you know, I have been deeply affected by this recent school shooting. We live 1,129 miles from Uvalde Texas. This tragedy did not happen close to home, yet it should hit home to all of us. Ordinary women and children engaging in everyday activities were killed. We can just talk about it and gather information. We can complain about it. We may even feel angry and frightened. In the midst of all these emotions, we are call to comfort those who mourn and to support them. I am reminded of the words of St. Paul from 2 Corinthians,

“ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of all mercies and the God of all consolation, who consoles us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction with the consolation with which we ourselves are consoled by God.”
2 Cor.: 1:3-4.

Thoughts and prayers are needed for the community in Uvalde and action is needed to stop gun violence.

St. Thomas/ Santo Tomás is standing in solidarity with Uvalde. We are sending notes of love and prayer in English and in Spanish to the families in Uvalde who lost loved ones. We are addressing them to specific families. The list of families and victims are below this letter. Also, we are praying for them daily. If you would like to send cards, please send them to:

Episcopal Diocese of West Texas
Attn: Uvalde Response
P.O. Box 6885
San Antonio, TX 78209

I have coordinated with the Diocese of West Texas and Bishop Sparks to send monetary donations through Bishop Sparks’ Discretionary Fund. The Diocese of Northern Indiana will then send the donations on behalf of the parishes in Northern Indiana. Donations can be made online or sent to the diocesan office at 117 N. Lafayette Blvd., South Bend, IN 46601. Please write Uvalde in the memo line.

God bless the community of Uvalde and all the communities that have experienced gun violence.

Mother Bernie
The Rev. Bernadette Hartsough
Priest-in-Charge
St. Thomas/ Santo Tomás (Plymouth)

Victims of the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas

Students identifying as girls:
Layla Salazar-10
Tess Mata, 10
Alithia Ramirez, 10
Makenna Lee Elrod, 10
Jailah Nicole Silguero, 11,
Annabell Rodriguez, 10,
Jacklyn Jaylen Cazares, 10
Eliahana Cruz Torres
Amerie Jo Garza, 10
Ellie Garcia
Alexandria Aniyah Rubio
Nevaeh Bravo, 10
Miranda Mathis, 11
Maitie Rodriguez, 10

Students identifying as boys:
Uziyah Garcia
Jayce Carmelo Luevanos, 10
Rojelio Torres, 10
Xavier James Lopez, 10
Jose Flores, 10

Teachers
Eva Mireles
Irma Garcia

Shooter
Salvador Ramos

A Prayer for Uvalde
O God our Father, whose beloved Son took children into his arms and blessed them: Give us grace to entrust your beloved children of Uvalde to your everlasting care and love and bring them fully into your heavenly kingdom. Pour out your grace and loving-kindness on all who grieve; surround them with your love; and restore their trust in your goodness. We lift up to you our weary, wounded souls and ask you to send your Holy Spirit to take away the anger and violence that infects our hearts and make us instruments of your peace and children of the light. In the Name of Christ who is our hope, we pray. Amen.

“Behold, I make all things new.” Revelation 21:5

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Written by Linda Buskirk for ECF Vital Practices, Published May 12, 2022

What does it take for a community of faith to see itself in a new way, or to believe that its neighbors could find value inside old red doors?

Episcopal churches in Indiana, small and large, are finding that it takes a type of boldness rooted in knowledge of the good they have to offer: Good mission, good faith, and good space. Self-awareness about these assets is being awakened through the Church Buildings for Collaborative Partnerships project (CBCP).

Funded by a Thriving Congregations grant from Lilly Endowment, CBCP is underway through a partnership with the Episcopal dioceses of Indianapolis and Northern Indiana, along with two other organizations: Partners for Sacred Places and Indiana Landmarks. All 82 Episcopal faith communities in Indiana have the opportunity to participate, each with a team of three to seven clergy and lay leaders.

CBCP training sessions stir up conversations about what parishes value and love to do. Mentors from Partners for Sacred Places guide congregational teams to articulate their mission story so they can share it with others in their community who are invited to tour the church and discuss ideas for needs and possible partnerships.

This is new territory for many congregations. “Invite the Mayor to see our church?” they ask. Yes, if that makes sense.

St. Francis In-The-Fields in Zionsville, Indiana, invited the Mayor, the Superintendent of schools, and representatives of Boys & Girls Clubs and a neighboring United Methodist Church. All participated in a lively brainstorming discussion about how the church’s ample space might be utilized in daytime hours Monday – Saturday. St. Francis team leader Lesley MacKellar said one topic quickly rose to the top in energy: youth mental health.

The CBCP team extended this topic to others in the congregation who work in related fields. Ideas were honed around the needs of youth struggling to catch up after the isolation of the pandemic, particularly suicide prevention, tutoring, and safe space for LGBTQ youth.

The St. Francis team next invited the entire congregation to participate in small group discussions about possibilities. Now St. Francis is working on how to best determine priorities and identify partnerships to prevent the parish itself from burn-out as new opportunities for ministry develop.

Ms. MacKellar says the CBCP experience “rekindled enthusiasm within our parish” after COVID-19. “It was a catalyst for energizing conversations about who we are and where we want to go.”

A much smaller congregation, St. Paul’s in LaPorte, Indiana, found the CBCP Site Visit an uplifting experience as Partners for Sacred Places staff viewed their 100+ year old church and 50+ year old parish hall with fresh eyes. The tour was followed by a visit with guests who included the mayor and representatives of local service agencies.

“CBCP was a great success for St. Paul’s. Within 24 hours of the site visit, we agreed to welcome in a not-for-profit to use some of our space as their home base of operations,” explains Rev. Canon Michelle Walker.

She believes, “Whether big or small, new or old, any congregation can benefit from having conversations about what we can do with the people and space we have to be better integrated with the community for the glory of God.”

Through the CBCP project, God is making some “old things new” at Episcopal congregations across Indiana, helping them increase vitality and serve mission by making the most of their buildings as assets and developing new and stronger community partnerships. To learn more, visit the CBCP website.

Indiana Bishops Oppose Permitless Carry

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Last night, Governor Holcomb signed into law House Bill 1296, which eliminates the need for citizens of Indiana to obtain a license in order to carry a handgun. Last week, Bishop Jennifer and Bishop Doug Sparks of Northern Indiana sent a letter to Governor Holcomb asking him to veto the measure.

Dear Governor Holcomb:

House Bill 1296, which would eliminate the need for citizens of our state to obtain a license in order to carry a handgun, has made its way to your desk. This is an ill-considered piece of legislation that will make our state a more dangerous place to live, and we urge you to veto it.

Evidence from across our country confirms that states with stricter gun laws experience fewer gun deaths. Yet this legislation would mean that it would be even more difficult to keep guns out of the hands of people who should not have them, even as gun violence in our state is on the rise. This is, no doubt, why it is opposed by the Indiana State Police and law enforcement officials across the state.

Indiana’s rate of gun deaths increased 30 percent from 2010 to 2019, compared to a 17 percent increase nationwide, according to data gathered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The rate of gun suicides increased 19 percent during that same period, compared to a 13 percent increase nationwide, and the rate of gun homicides increased by an alarming 57 percent compared to a 26 percent increase nationwide. During the COVID-19 pandemic, gun violence continued surging: 2021 was Indianapolis’s deadliest year yet.

This escalating violence takes a particular toll on our most vulnerable communities. Gun violence is the leading cause of death among children and teens in our state. It wreaks vastly disproportionate devastation on communities of color, and during the pandemic, it posed a singular danger to domestic violence victims who were not able to flee their gun-owning abusers, and to people struggling with mental health issues.

We Hoosiers are hardy people, and we do not expect our elected officials to solve all of our problems for us. But we should be able to rely on the state legislature not to make our state more violent and not to place its people at greater risk.

We are participants in Bishops United Against Gun Violence, a network of more than 100 Episcopal bishops working to curtail the epidemic of gun violence in the United States. We acknowledge the importance of Second Amendment rights, but we object when those rights are understood so broadly that vulnerable people are put at risk. The current handgun licensing law does not present an undue burden on gun ownership, and our state will be safer if we keep it on the books.

We strongly urge you to oppose this legislation.

Faithfully,

The Rt. Rev. Jennifer Baskerville-Burrows       The Rt. Rev. Dr. Douglas E. Sparks
Bishop of Indianapolis                                        Bishop of Northern Indiana

Episcopal churches in Indiana participate in program to use buildings to catalyze community connections

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The Episcopal Church of Christ the King, Huntington, in the Diocese of Northern Indiana, is part of the first cohort of the Church Buildings for Collaborative Partnerships project.

The Rev. Drew Downs and the people of St. Stephen’s in Terre Haute, Indiana, are stewards of a big, old church building that can be hard to keep humming. When Bishop Jennifer Baskerville-Burrows started talking about the ways in which such buildings could be transformed into assets, “that idea instantly spoke to some of us,” he said.

Several months and a $1 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. later, St. Stephen’s and 13 other Episcopal parishes across the state are deep into a program that will help them develop the vision and skills to make better use of their buildings. The Church Buildings for Collaborative Partnerships project, funded by a three-year grant from the endowment’s Thriving Congregations Initiative, welcomed its first cohort in June and will launch its second with 12 congregations later this month.

The program will eventually encompass four cohorts and provide instruction and coaching to every Episcopal congregation in the state of Indiana. It is rooted in the simple notion that if congregations made better use of their buildings, they could serve God’s mission more effectively, foster deeper relationships in their communities, and possibly develop additional mission-supporting streams of income.

If the membership of the first cohort is any indication, that idea appeals to congregations of all sizes, in all kinds of settings, ranging from large urban churches with space to spare, such as St. Stephen’s, to rural and small-town churches ministering in tighter quarters.

“We are a very small parish with an elderly demographic, so we are naturally seeking ways that we can move into the future, and one of the things we have been kicking around at vestry meetings and among ourselves was how can we use the building in different ways,” said Meg Moss, a member of the CBCP team from Christ the King, Huntington, in the Diocese of Northern Indiana. “So when this came up it seemed like a really good fit and we were excited about that.”

Drawing on tools, training and coaching from Partners for Sacred Places and Indiana Landmarks, participants in the program—which requires a nine-to-12-month commitment—are learning a variety of skills including assessing the space-sharing potential of their buildings and grounds; cultivating relationships with potential community partners, and improving their ability to speak about the impact of their ministries on their community.

“The CBCP project helps teams from participating churches learn to describe their best attributes and tell others about them, to the end that more ministry and impact will occur,” said Linda Buskirk, the program’s director. “Confidence and optimism build as congregations gain a more positive sense of the community value of their spaces.”

Putting church buildings at the service of community needs is not a new idea. Members of the team from St. Thomas, Franklin, in the Diocese of Indianapolis knew this well when they attended the program. In the mid-1990s the Rev. Judith A. Culpepper, a priest who was also doctor, served at the church, as did the Ven. Alice Goshorn, the diocese’s former archdeacon, who was married to a doctor. The two couples and a few volunteers established a free medical clinic with drop-in hours one day a week. The St. Thomas Clinic is now in its 26th year, has a separate director and separate steering committee from the church and writes grants to support itself.

Still, the Rev. Whitney Smith, the church’s rector said, the opportunity to use their building “as an asset that could be used for community connections that didn’t exist yet” appealed to them, and that after the first training session, the team held a scavenger hunt that led them to experience their property differently.

“I went to a nursery space, which is huge, and has a jungle gym, playground and a working kitchen,” he said. “Somebody else went to the vacant deacon’s office, and we began to come up with ideas. So the process has begun.”

Other participants say the challenge of looking at familiar space with new eyes has led them to think differently, not just about their buildings, but also about their mission and ministries.

“Our outreach committee tithes 10% of our operating budget to our community,” said Susan Gooden, a member of the team from St. John’s Church, Mount Vernon, in the Diocese of Indianapolis. “But we’ve never really done anything except donate money to them. [The program] made us reevaluate that list of partnerships as to how we might provide a different kind of partnership than those just based on money.”

A similar reevaluation is underway at Christ the King. The congregation currently donates space to a daycare center but is not deeply involved in its day-to-day operation. “We would like to supplement this ministry with something that would make use of our other spaces and perhaps involve the congregation and a community collaboration in ways the daycare doesn’t,” Moss said.

In addition to classroom work and one-on-one interviews between leaders of the congregation and Partners for Sacred Places’ project staff, the CBCP program includes a three-hour site visit by members of the project staff.

Smith said the visit at St. Thomas, Franklin, consisted of three parts, including a rigorous assessment of his parish’s property; an hour-long conversation about its potential uses; and what he described as an eye-opening conversation with a community leader who had an encyclopedic command of the needs of numerous nonprofit agencies in the region.

“We haven’t made any decisions,” about potential community partners, Smith said. “But we definitely have some ideas.”

The process of preparing for the site visit can be challenging.

Gooden said she spoke with the directors of a variety of local social service providers in the public and private sectors, the leaders of local schools, and a township trustee. Then just when she thought she had made a survey of community needs, the local homeless shelter closed.

“We are very concerned about poverty here,” she said. “It is a very poor county. There is no place for children, for the elderly and the homeless. But we can’t do all of that. We have to focus.”

St Stephen’s in Terre Haute has both significant space to offer in its old building and a focus of ministry suggested by its location on the edge of the Indiana State University campus in the city’s arts corridor. But Downs said the church’s aging physical plant presents problems of its own.

“There is part of me that is kind of embarrassed on our behalf that some of these rooms, we don’t have any use for them. … We have an old nursery that has essentially become a closet and a couple of families did some work on it, but there is a leak and it smells bad,” Downs said.

“My first thought was that [during the site visit] I am going to be embarrassed to show this space. Then I had to take a step back and realize that it was important to say what is actually here. To say, it’s used as a closet, but we want it to be a room again. If you can envision something here. We would love to see what we can make here. That became a different image, more collaborative, not me trying to sell you something.”

Not every site visit provokes a deep reckoning with a parish’s capabilities and limitations, but the process of convening community leaders both brings local congregations to their attention and begins the process of narrowing down the kinds of initiatives a congregation might consider hosting.

Christ the King invited the head of senior services in Huntington County, the head of Love, Inc., which works among those living in poverty and isolation, and the director of the Parkview Huntington Foundation.

“We discussed community needs, gaps that we might consider filling, and areas of collaboration to explore,” Moss said. “We fielded such possibilities as a monthly [at first] adult day care afternoon with a healing service and hymn or song singalong, providing transportation to hospital appointments, and launching a program to help users of the food pantry at Love Inc. to use and cook unfamiliar ingredients in one-pot meals using our daycare kitchen.

“Everyone left feeling connected and enthusiastic,” she said. “At the very least we have surfaced in the community as a congregation with the will and desire to fill a need.”

In the coming months, when their projects have come into focus, congregations in each cohort will be eligible to apply for planning and capital grants to make key investments to their buildings.  Congregations that complete the program will be included in a statewide, web-based inventory listing the spaces congregations have to offer.

Press release written by Canticle Communications and published by Episcopal News Service.

Pastoral Letter Regarding Updated COVID-19 Guidelines

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December 29, 2021

Dear Siblings in the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Indiana,

Grace and peace be with you in Jesus, the Light for all people!

As we face a rise in COVID-19 cases and hospitalization rates in our area and the arrival of the new Omicron variant to Indiana, it is important that we revisit our diocesan COVID-19 guiding principles. As you may know, the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Indiana is spread across 31 counties. The Indiana COVID-19 Dashboard and Map advisory level graphic was updated this afternoon. It currently reports that 19 of the 31 counties within our diocese are currently in the red advisory level. Those counties are Lake, Newton, Porter, Jasper, LaPorte, Starke, Marshall, Elkhart, Kosciusko, Wabash, Whitley, Noble, LaGrange, Steuben, DeKalb, Carroll, Howard, Grant, and Jay. The remaining 12 counties are currently in the orange advisory level. 

You may recall that in May 2020, nearly two months after closing all our physical spaces due to the outbreak of COVID-19, I released a pastoral plan, in collaboration with clergy and lay leaders from across the diocese, for how we could begin to regather in-person for worship. Together, we lived into those guidelines for several months. As we have learned more about COVID-19 and vaccines became widely available, we revised and updated our diocesan guidelines. In May 2021, we released guiding principles for each faith community to consider given their particular context. Each faith community has chosen to implement these guidelines differently based on what their clergy and lay leadership felt was right for their situation. 

The missioners and I met last week and discussed any revisions that may need to be made to our plan given our current situation. Therefore,effective January 1, I am requiring that proper masks be worn inside the buildings of our faith communities if the county in which your building is located and/or the county(s) where a significant number of parishioners live are in the red advisory level as shown by advisory level graphic on the Indiana COVID-19 Dashboard and Map. Clergy, readers, and choirs, can continue to remove their mask while speaking or singing if they are fully vaccinated, including having received a booster shot, and are speaking or singing in a location significantly distanced from the congregation as we know being able to read lips helps those with hearing difficulties. In addition, I strongly encourage each faith community to review their current operating procedures and to tighten up their COVID guidelines where they may have gotten a bit lax. Examples could include returning to tracking who is attending each service, reinforcing physical distancing in pews and during hospitality, and ensuring access to hand sanitizer and masks. Please also continue to provide services and formation opportunities in a hybrid format whenever possible.

Lastly, I want to reiterate the importance of getting vaccinated and receiving the booster shot. Doing this lessens your chances of getting sick with COVID-19 and requiring hospitalization. In addition, getting vaccinated and boosted helps to protect those around you who may not be able to receive the vaccine due to their age or other health concerns. Please consult with your doctor and do this at your earliest opportunity. 

As of the 28th of December 2021, 54,144,941 cases of COVID-19 have been reported in the United States and 841,984 persons have died. Let’s continue praying for the healing of those who are infected with COVID. Pray for the health care professionals who are taking care of those infected. And pray for all who mourn those who have died. May those who have died, rest in Christ’s peace and rise in Christ’s glory.

Doug (he/him/his)

The Rt. Rev. Dr. Douglas E. Sparks
VIII Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Indiana

Photo credit: Indiana COVID-19 Dashboard and Map website

The Rev. Matthew Cowden Elected Bishop Coadjutor in Diocese of West Virginia

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25 September 2021

Dear Sisters, Brothers, Siblings,

Grace and peace be with you in Jesus, God’s Word made flesh!

I want to share some wonderful news with you. Today, our brother, the Rev. Matthew Cowden (pictured), was elected by the Episcopal Diocese of West Virginia to serve as their Bishop Coadjutor for a period of time before becoming the Eighth Bishop of the diocese. This is great news for the whole church and especially those who are part of the Episcopal Church in West Virginia.

Fr. Matthew began serving as the Rector of St. Michael and All Angels in 2009. He has many gifts that have enhanced the mission, ministry, and management of St. Michael’s. He has also served in positions of leadership in our diocese, the province and was most recently elected to serve on the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church. Let us pray for Matthew and Melissa, their children Meghan, Nicholas, and Joshua, as they prepare for this new ministry.

There is also a bitter sweetness to this news, especially for our sisters, brothers, siblings of St. Michael and All Angels in South Bend. I know full well how happy and sad they are, given the news of this election. Let us uphold them in our prayer as well as they prepare to give thanks for Fr. Matthew and his family and begin a time of transition.

It is our blessing to support all those whose lives are changed by this election.

Glory to God whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine: Glory to God from generation to generation in the Church, and in Christ Jesus for ever and ever. Amen!

Every blessing!
Doug

The Rt. Rev. Douglas E. Sparks
VIII Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Indiana

You can watch the 144th Annual Convention of the Diocese of West Virginia and the Election of the Bishop Coadjutor here or by clicking on the image below.

2022 Assessment Reduction Requests

Dear Parish Leadership – Clergy, Senior Wardens, and Treasurers,

Each year when the parochial reporting process for the previous year is complete, parochial assessments for the coming year, in this case 2022, are calculated. This was done at the end of May and posted to our Diocesan website both at Resources/Documents and Forms (https://ednin.org/docs) and News and Events/Diocesan Convention (https://ednin.org/conv). You may always find this information at either of these two locations.

Please take some time to review your 2022 parochial assessment and make a determination whether it is feasible. If your projections indicate you are likely unable to pay the full amount, the parish may apply for a Diocesan Assessment Reduction. The application is available at the Documents and Forms link above. Application must be complete and submitted to Missioner Michelle (missioner.walker@ednin.org) by Monday, September 13 at 12 p.m. EDT so that it may be reviewed for completeness and presented to Diocesan Council for consideration on Saturday, September 18. As indicated in the form, it is requested that the priest, senior warden, and treasurer be available for this meeting (likely via Zoom). This means you need to make at least a cursory review of your proposed 2022 budget, ahead of your stewardship campaign, in order to make this determination.

If you do decide to apply, note that page two of the application form contains a series of questions that are looking to better understand the context of your faith community. Please don’t get hung up on the particulars of the questions. We know this form needs to be revised and plan to do so before next year. It’s important to focus on what necessitates the reduction request and what is being done to strengthen the financial stability of the congregation. Consider the questions offered as prompts that encourage the sharing of the “rest of the story” behind the request. The necessary financial documents will tell most of the story. Your narrative will explain the rest.

If you have questions about process, timing, documentation or otherwise, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me. You are welcome to send your applications in early as there are often missing pieces that need to be coordinated in the last days. Please also know that each faith community remains in our prayers. We know how difficult the last year+ has been and are here to support you in any way we can.

Blessings,
Missioner Michelle

The Rev. Canon Michelle I. Walker
Missioner for Administration and Communications