Resolution C056, entitled Liturgies for Blessings, calls on the Church to gather theological and liturgical resources to help explore how we might serve and support the growing numbers of partnered same-sex couples in our congregations and communities. To meet that call I will appoint a task force to gather such resources from our congregations, clergy, and communicants, in order that the Diocese of Ohio might play a constructive and leadership role in the larger Church’s carrying out of this endeavor. So now, I ask you and your prayer partner each in turn to pray aloud for The Episcopal Church and its leadership, for our commitment and witness to the
Anglican Communion, and for fidelity to our vocation to serve and be served by all of God’s beloved. Ask God to lead us into new ways that offer the world models of living together with difference. Ask God to bring our church growth in mission and lead us into all truth.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • TEC Diocesan Conventions/Diocesan Councils

1. Statmann wrote: From 2002 through 2008, the diocese lost about 18 percent of Members, 21 percent of ASA, and Plate & Pledge declined by 13 percent in real (adjusted for inflation) dollars. Using a composite of these three data, i would rank Ohio as 78 out of 95 considered. (And this does not reflect the irritating practice of continuing to count about 2,300 Members of parishes that have left TEC. See TEC Charts for Holy Spirit in Akron, St Barnabas in Bay Village, St Anne in Madison, St Luke in Akron, and Transfiguration in Cleveland). And a statement about the future is that there were 319 Infant Baptisms and 469 Burials in 2008. That works out to be ONE Baptism for each 83 Members which may well win the PB’s birth control award. I would not expect much of a response to the bishop’s call for growth.  Statmann November 19, 1:56 am | [comment link]

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