A bold vision and investment for the future

Several years Apple released its new iPhone. I waited all of a month (or maybe it was less) before deciding to replace my old cell phone with Apple's offering. My old phone encouraged this decision by dying just as I going through my own internal "should I or shouldn't I" debate.

That was less than ten years ago. Since then, the smartphone market has exploded with more capable devices offered by Apple, Samsung, and others. The Blackberry phone -- favored by many in business and government -- has all but vanished, its numbers dwindling into obscurity. Apple is ascending; Blackberry is descending.

In The Episcopal Church it sometimes feels like we are like the Blackberry of old: still retaining a certain utility yet being outpaced by far more innovative and responsive offerings. Some folks bemoan the decline in the number of people who declare themselves to be Christians and the drop in the number of people who show up Sunday after Sunday in our Episcopal churches.

Rather than respond in fear, however, The Episcopal Church -- working through the resolutions considered and adopted at General Convention -- is responding with hope and outrageous boldness. 

Let me offer just one example of this: Resolution B009: Conducting on Online Digital Evangelism Test. As proposed, this called for "a digital evangelism test consisting of several campaigns..." with budget "of no more than $1,500,000." Then it went through the committee process and something even more bold emerged. Rather than a test, the resolution calls for "a digital evangelism initiative" and doubled the budget to $3,000,000. Wow! 

The resolution passed overwhelmingly in the House of Deputies, and it will next be considered in the House of Bishops. I hope they share the Deputies' bold and financially outrageous vision.

We are living in an Apple world. All the bishops and deputies at General Convention access a virtual binder with up-to-date information on resolutions on iPads provided to us. We worship using PDF versions of worship bulletins on those same iPads. When not on our tablets, many of us are checking email and Twitter and Facebook on their iPhones or tapping away on their MacBooks. Clearly we know at least a little about living in a digital age. May our church remain grounded in our history, heritage, and traditions even as we embrace a bold future -- a future that I pray will see us reaching out to those who need to connect with God in a church that, as Jesus commends, welcomes and loves all.