Letter from Bishop Doug Regarding Reunification Discernment

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Dear Sisters, Brothers, Siblings in the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Indiana,

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

After more than a year since initial conversations with members of the Standing Committee and Diocesan Council, Diocesan Missioners and with Bishop Jennifer Baskerville-Burrows of the Episcopal Diocese of Indianapolis, I want to share with all of you via a press release and a video, news about the forming a discernment group for the purpose of exploring the possibility of reunification into one diocese and Episcopal presence in the State of Indiana.

Bishop Jennifer and I have been committed to working together since we began ministry as bishops in 2016 and 2017 respectively.  It seems right at this time, to move the conversation and discernment into a public space, inviting others into the work of discernment, to imagine what the Holy Spirit may be calling us to do as we continue to engage God’s Mission throughout the state of Indiana.

Please uphold this initiative in your prayer and know that as the discernment group is formed, Bishop Jennifer and I, along with our Missioners and Canons are committed to keeping you informed along the way.

Every blessing,

Doug

(he/him/his)

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

Read the full press release.

Final CBCP Cohort Underway!

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The fourth and final group of Episcopal Congregations participating in the Church Buildings for Collaborative Partnerships project (CBCP) is underway. Cohort 4 participating congregations are located as far south as New Harmony and as far north as Angola, and communities of all sizes in between.

CBCP helps Episcopal congregations in the state of Indiana increase vitality and service to their mission and ministry by making the most of their buildings and other assets. The project is a collaboration of the Episcopal Diocese of Indianapolis, the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Indiana and two not-for-profit agencies: Partners for Sacred Places (PSP) and Indiana Landmarks. It was funded through a Thriving Congregations Initiative grant from Lilly Endowment.

Each of the four CBCP cohorts include lay and clergy teams from congregations in both dioceses. Teams range in size from two to eight people. CBCP Teams provide leadership “on the ground” in their congregations. They participate in trainings (both online via Zoom and in person), carryout assignments and keep others at their church informed about CBCP activities. A full listing of participants in each Cohort is found in the table below.

Highlights of the CBCP experience include:

  1. Public Value Tool – Developed by PSP, the online Public Value Tool walks users through a seven step process to determine the dollar value of the contribution their congregation and its building(s) make to the community. This is a new dimension of impact many church leaders have never considered, let alone possess an easy way to determine.

  2. Site Visits - The Site Visits provide fresh perspective and insights from Partners for Sacred Places and Indiana Landmarks, and experiential learning that “connects all the dots” from training session lessons. CBCP teams have expressed joyful delight as they found, sometimes to their surprise, that community stakeholders were impressed with their story and quite willing to discuss collaborative possibilities. (See reflection section below for examples).

  3. Buildings, Mission, and Community Partnership Report (sometimes referred to as the “Parish Profile”), which compiles data and insights about each congregation as gained through CBCP activities, an overview of indoor and outdoor spaces and current space-sharing strategies. It also includes recommendations for moving forward to implement lessons and partnership opportunities gained through CBCP training and the Site Visit.
    Rose Anne Grasty, a member of the team of St. Timothy’s in Indianapolis, sums up one important CBCP insight this way:
    “Most of us are learning that the space that we have is not ‘Sunday space’ – It is space for the use of God’s children. That may mean something entirely different than what is has meant in the past. Especially us lifetime Episcopalians have to see things very differently and open ourselves up to the world around us. Think about the early churches. They had other uses besides worship. Our churches are not just sacred facilities to be used on Sunday morning or traditional uses like AA. We can provide our space for new
    uses. We just need to open up!”

    For more information, contact Linda Buskirk, CBCP Project Director at Linda@buskirksolutions.com.

    Church Buildings for Collaborative Partnerships Project Participation by Cohort
    69 faith communities
    332 team members
    Cohort 1

    1. Good Shepherd, West Lafayette
    2. Holy Family, Fishers
    3. St. Alban’s, Indianapolis
    4. St. Francis In-the-Fields, Zionsville
    5. St. John’s, Mount Vernon
    6. St. Matthew’s, Indianapolis
    7. St. Stephen’s, Terre Haute
    8. St. Thomas, Franklin
    9. Christ the King, Huntington
    10. St. Andrew, Kokomo
    11. St. John the Evangelist, Elkhart
    12. St. Paul’s, LaPorte

    Cohort 2

    1. Trinity, Anderson
    2. Trinity, Bloomington
    3. Canterbury House, Bloomington (I.U. campus)
    4. St. Philip’s, Indianapolis
    5. St. Timothy’s, Indianapolis
    6. St. Peter’s, Lebanon
    7. St. James, New Castle
    8. St. Michael’s, Noblesville
    9. St. Paul’s, Richmond
    10. St. James, Vincennes
    11. St. Alban’s, Fort Wayne
    12. Trinity, Fort Wayne
    13. Gethsemane, Marion
    14. Trinity, Michigan City
    15. St. James Goshen
    16. All Saints, Syracuse

    Cohort 3

    1. St. John’s, Bedford
    2. St. Paul’s, Evansville
    3. St. Andrew’s, Greencastle
    4. Church of the Nativity, Indianapolis
    5. St. Paul’s, Indianapolis
    6. Christ Church, Madison
    7. Grace, Muncie
    8. St. Mark’s, Plainfield
    9. St. Augustine’s, Gary;
    10. St. Barnabas-in-the-Dunes, Gary;
    11. St. Christopher's, Crown Point;
    12. St. Paul, Munster;
    13. St. Stephen's Hobart;
    14. St. Timothy's, Griffith.
    15. St. John of the Cross, Bristol
    16. St. Francis, Chesterton
    17. Grace, Fort Wayne
    18. Cathedral St. James, South Bend
    19. St. Anne’s, Warsaw

    Cohort 4 (Recruited in 2022; Orientation Held Nov. 30, 2022; training begins January 2023)
    1. St. David’s, Bean Blossom
    2. St. Christopher’s, Carmel
    3. St. Paul’s, Columbus
    4. St. John’s Crawfordsville
    5. St. Augustine, Danville
    6. All Saints, Indianapolis
    7. Christ Church Cathedral, Indianapolis
    8. Trinity, Indianapolis
    9. St. Paul’s, Jeffersonville
    10. St. John’s, Lafayette
    11. Trinity, Lawrenceburg
    12. St. Mary’s, Martinsville
    13. St. Paul’s, New Albany
    14. St. Stephen’s, New Harmony
    15. St. Luke’s, Shelbyville
    16. Holy Family, Angola
    17. St. David’s, Elkhart
    18. Trinity, Logansport
    19. St. Paul’s, Mishawaka
    20. St. Thomas/Santo Tomás, Plymouth
    21. St. Michael & All Angels, South Bend
    22. St. Andrew’s, Valparaiso

Living Sacramentally: Finding God’s Grace in Our Buildings 

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Church Buildings for Collaborative Partnerships
A Project of the Episcopal Dioceses of Indianapolis and Northern Indiana,
Partners for Sacred Places, and Indiana Landmarks,
funded by a Thriving Congregations Initiative grant from Lilly Endowment

The Church Buildings for Collaborative Partnerships (CBCP) project is blessed by prayer and theological reflections that help frame our learning in faith and root it in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. At the third online training session for CBCP Cohort 3 (the session that occurs prior to CBCP Site Visits), Brendan O'Sullivan- Hale, Canon to the Ordinary for Administration and Evangelism for the Episcopal Diocese of Indianapolis, offered this thought-provoking and inspirational message.

October 19, 2022 - This past weekend I had the pleasure of going to Christ Church in Madison, in the southern part of this diocese on the Ohio River. One of the things I was asked to do there was some teaching on the Daily Office, specifically Morning Prayer. In many of our congregations there isn’t a priest every Sunday, or even most Sundays, so Morning Prayer is what we do. And I expect that many of us gathered here tonight have a personal practice of the daily office, or another form of prayer that helps us to draw near to God.

One of the things that is important to understand about Morning Prayer is that it’s not a Holy Eucharist junior, some sort of inferior service, but one that has a distinct spirituality, and even a sacramental quality. Now what I mean when I speak of a sacramental quality is what is taught in our catechism: that a sacrament is an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.

The Holy Eucharist derives its sacramental quality from an obvious source, the outward and visible signs of bread and wine, the body and blood of Jesus Christ. In receiving communion over the years, our faith teaches us, we are united to Christ in his sacrifice, and remade in his image. Morning Prayer derives its sacramental quality from Christ’s promise that wherever two or three are gathered together, he is in our midst. I would argue that the community gathered is the outward and visible sign, and the spiritual grace is the real presence of Christ, even in the absence of the Eucharist.

Repeatedly taking communion and gathering together in trust in Christ also equips us for living
sacramentally, for finding God’s grace in all the outward and visible signs that surround us. And I wonder about what happens if we think about our buildings in this way. In the neighborhoods where we’re located, our church buildings are often very visible signs, having been community landmarks, often for decades, sometimes a century or more. One of the things Partners for Sacred Places is teaching all of us is about the economic impact our church buildings bring to our communities, and that our buildings are worthy of financial support beyond our congregations, whether through rental income or philanthropy. And of course it’s wonderful for our churches to give their spaces to mission partners, too. One of my great hopes for what we’re doing here is not just learning to rent or give away space as a technical matter – though indeed it is important to be good about these things, but to be deliberate about seeing these buildings as an asset for the spread of God’s grace and love.

One of the collects towards the end of Morning Prayer reads in part, “Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace.” I imagine how much different our neighborhoods could be if we saw our buildings as open as Christ’s arms, with people who come in for whatever reason finding themselves received with hospitality, enfolded in grace.

What comes next in this project is to me the most exciting part, the site visits. I love church buildings as much as the next Episcopalian, so I’m looking forward to touring your buildings in the coming months. But I’m even more excited about the invitations you’ll be making to leaders of your communities who will help you see things you never saw before about how your buildings can be instruments of God’s grace, even if that’s not the vocabulary those folks would use.

Just weeks after the site visit at St. James in New Castle, their parking lot was being used to build wheelchair ramps for disabled veterans. A year after the site visit at St. John’s Mount Vernon, that church is preparing to open a previously vacant house to be a peaceful place to be for children in the traumatic situation of having to be separated from their families by DCS. There are more stories like this – and they come from the work we’re calling you to – to discern what mission God is uniquely calling your congregation to, and to find other people of good will in your communities to see how you can advance that mission together.

The Rev. John Denson from St. Paul’s Indy just talked about the importance of the aim of this project not just being how can we save ourselves, and I think that’s just right. We already have a savior. The question before us is how will we, as saved people, will use every gift God has entrusted to us as a means to spread the love and grace and mercy and justice and beauty of God to every person we as individuals and congregations touch. Through prayer, through the Eucharist, through a life steeped in sacrament, God’s presence in all the outward and visible signs around us, God equips us for this mission, each and every day.

Church Buildings for Collaborative Partnerships (CBCP) Announces First Round of Grants

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St. Paul’s Episcopal Church (LaPorte)

Repairing a 125-year-old iconic (and leaking) bell tower, replacing decayed privacy fencing to protect children in emergency housing provided by a congregation, improving security systems to enable multiple users of church property, and transforming a parish hall into a hybrid meeting space for the community – these are brief highlights of the projects receiving capital grant funding through the Church Buildings for Collaborative Partnerships (CBCP) project. 

CBCP is a project of the Episcopal Dioceses of Indianapolis and Northern Indiana, Partners for Sacred Places and Indiana Landmarks, funded by a Thriving Congregations grant from Lilly Endowment.  Congregations that complete the CBCP program are eligible to apply for a small matching grant to make an investment in their building that helps further or develop a ministry, program, or space-use partnership.

So far, two cohorts of congregations from both dioceses have completed their CBCP participation.  Twelve parishes were in Cohort 1 and fourteen were in Cohort 2.  Each Cohort has two grant application deadlines.  In the first round of funding, five Cohort 1 faith communities received a total of $29,085 in grants (see chart below).

“It is exciting to see what is happening in Indiana Episcopal churches as a result of CBCP participation,” said Joshua Castaño, Director of Special Initiatives at Partners for Sacred Places. “They are developing new partnerships that further their mission and make their buildings into active tools for ministry that is based on partnerships within and beyond the walls of the church.”

While CBCP capital grants are for material needs, they represent holy endeavors to expand ministry by using church buildings and property in collaboration with others in the community, as the grant applications explained:

Holy Family Episcopal Church, Fishers - Awarded $6,300 CBCP capital grant

Requested funding to expand the computer networked door lock system of the church.

“CBCP helped us look with fresh vision what was possible for Holy Family’s buildings and grounds, particularly on weekdays. Consequently, we now are hosting a community tutoring program and have just entered into an agreement with a children’s literacy program for the public. The latter program has a need for many of the outdoor spaces, while the tutoring program uses one or two classrooms. Being able to have each of these programs have access directly to the spaces they need would enhance both of their efforts, and the added keypads would allow us to more easily be open to hosting additional groups weekdays.”

St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, Indianapolis - Awarded $6,300 CBCP capital grant

Requested funding for projects including new keyless entry doors with handicapped accessibility and two security cameras.

“The focused [CBCP] training, site visit and community leaders meeting were all useful in our development of our current plan to turn the lower level into Alban’s Community Workplace, which will include rented offices to community organizations and a shared workplace that individuals can drop in to use on a subscription basis.”

St. Francis In-the-Fields Episcopal Church, Zionsville - Awarded $4,800 CBCP capital grant

Requested funding for technology to transform the Parish Hall into a hybrid meeting space for community groups needing in-person and tele-conference capabilities.

“We are in discussions with existing partners and new partners about how we can better provide a safe and welcoming space for their use. [With grant funds], we will be able to purchase the necessary items to fully engage with our community partners and provide them with critical hybrid meeting space that is in short supply in our community.”

St. John’s Episcopal Church, Mount Vernon – Awarded $4,185 CBCP capital grant

Requested funding to replace existing dilapidated privacy fencing and install additional fencing to completely enclose the backyard of church property to be used by the Department of Children’s Services for an emergency shelter for children.   

“What will change for our parish is that we will go from being a financial supporter of other non-profit organizations to having our own hands-on partnership that will have a direct impact on the future of children in need of services (CHINS).”

St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, LaPorte – Awarded $7,500 CBCP capital grant

Requested funding for repair and restoration of the church bell tower to prevent further water damage.

“We cannot fully utilize our assets if we are not good stewards of them. The top priority for us must be the bell tower. The goal of the bell tower repair is to preserve St. Paul’s bell tower as a reference point for people looking to find St. Paul’s and to communicate that St. Paul’s is a welcoming, well-maintained, and easily identified location for worship, ministry, and service.”

 

The CBCP grant program is a highly competitive grant environment.  Grant amounts awarded are impacted by the volume of requests in each Cohort, the quality of the applications (all have been excellent so far) and the need to be mindful of allocating the $255,000 total grant budget so that there is funding available for all four CBCP cohorts through 2023.

For more information about the Church Buildings for Collaborative Partnerships (CBCP) project, visit its website or contact CBCP Project Director Linda Buskirk at Linda@buskirksolutions.com.

 

Letter to Indiana Episcopalians Regarding Passage of Senate Bill 1

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August 6, 2022

Dear People of God in the Episcopal Dioceses of Northern Indiana and Indianapolis:

We are here with Christian leaders from across the world in Canterbury, England, at the Lambeth Conference, a gathering of bishops from across the Anglican Communion. Together, we have been discerning our way forward on many critical issues facing our world, including how we can best support women in all of our countries and contexts. And so to hear about the passage of Senate Bill 1 is a particular heartbreak. We want to assure you that the Episcopal Church and those who follow Jesus in the Episcopal way stand with all women and pregnant people and support their right to make healthcare decisions with dignity and respect.

We want to say very clearly to Hoosier women and pregnant people: Even if it feels like the state has abandoned you, the church has not. We will continue to stand on the side of women who seek to have control over their bodies and the ability to plan their families. We will continue to create profound opportunities for lament and healing that provide safe space for all who come. No matter what, we pledge to pray, advocate, and work for a world where women have safe and available access to the healthcare they need.

The Rt. Rev. Dr. Douglas Sparks, Bishop
Episcopal Diocese of Northern Indiana

The Rt. Rev. Jennifer Baskerville-Burrows, Bishop
Episcopal Diocese of Indianapolis

The Rt. Rev. Dr. Douglas Sparks, Bishop
Episcopal Diocese of Northern Indiana

The Rt. Rev. Jennifer Baskerville-Burrows, Bishop
Episcopal Diocese of Indianapolis