I Love The Episcopal Church

Amy and I are in Heathrow Airport awaiting our plane to Washington, DC.  It will be our first time back in the States in over a year.  I’m feeling groggy from the overnight flight from Johannesburg. I am also feeling overwhelmed with gratitude for so many people and places and experiences during this past year.  I hope to share many of them in the weeks to come. But right now, as we plan to fly home, I am feeling particularly grateful for my church.

I love the Episcopal Church.  I love the people, I love our liturgy, I love our leadership. Michael Curry is an extraordinary leader and I am so grateful for his ministry as our Presiding Bishop. I love our 1979 Book of Common Prayer and its simple and stunning clarity about the centrality of the ministry of all the baptized and the eucharist in the life of the church. I love the people, who are eager and open and earnest. We may not always get things right, but the hearts of people in The Episcopal Church are usually in the right place. I love the welcome The Episcopal Church offers to all people. “There will be no outcasts” (Edmond Browning).

I am so grateful to have served as partners in mission with the Anglican Church of Southern Africa this past year. And I love that The Episcopal Church would send us to work in partnership with our Anglican brothers and sisters because that is simply what we do.  So a special thank you to Chuck Robertson, David Copley, Elizabeth Boe, Yanick Fourcand, and all the people in the Global Mission Office of The Episcopal Church who made it possible for us to serve at COT.  You make us proud to be Episcopalian.  We love you and we love the Episcopal Church.