Once his followers experience Christ Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, the movement of the Holy Spirit of God defines and determines the Church thereafter. With infectious passion the good news of God’s Love is broadcast farther and wider by growing numbers of Christians. They gather regularly to give thanks and praise to God, the very purpose of our own Sunday worship. In this community practice, God renews the vitality of the Holy Spirit within the Church, God’s people. From there, we move back out into the world around us, to infect it further with God’s Love for all. Thus, even as the Church celebrates cyclically the life and ministry of Jesus through the seasons of the Church year, yet the Church exists always and perpetually in the season of Pentecost, the season of the movement of the Holy Spirit.
As you likely know, this month our diocese will hold an election for our next diocesan bishop. Again as you may know, I am a nominee in this election. As the community whom I serve and lead, I want to share with you my sense of call, of the movement of the Spirit, regarding this election:
The experiences that God has given me over the last decade serving as parish clergy and as rector of a parish provide me valuable perspective on the needs of our diocese. My experience tells me that unnecessary emphasis upon our disagreements within the Church and within the diocese is discouraging many of our people, both clergy and lay. Emphasis upon our discord is leading to decline in our Church, in our diocese, and in the effectiveness of our witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ. My experience also suggests that many who are observing the Church and the diocese from outside, looking for a spiritual home, are put off by over-attention to the Church’s family fight. Continuing with business as usual and more of the same will not turn this situation around. I believe the people of our diocese deserve better. I know the people in the world around us need more.
Life on the front lines in parish ministry and with my fellow parish clergy tells me that the people of this diocese, clergy and lay, are eager to move forward. My vision for the diocese is that our collective focus shall be placed intensely upon ministry to the spiritual health and progress of the community of the diocese and upon our mission to the world around us, locally and globally. As bishop of the diocese and in the Church, I will allow nothing to distract me from these priorities, and thus ensure that the diocese also remains focused on these two core priorities of Christian faith and practice. Such clear and determined focus will renew our unity of fellowship and reinvigorate the diocese’s witness to God’s Love in the world around us.
Toward this goal, I intend, as diocesan bishop, to transform the operating culture of the diocese. I believe that a business model has for too long dominated the way our diocese functions. This model has ceased to be productive for our diocesan health and witness. Certainly, God has wonderfully blessed our diocese; therefore as a faithful steward, I will as bishop ensure that the best business practices continue to serve its ministries. However, God has not called the diocese to be first a business nor the bishop of the diocese to be first a Chief Executive Officer. I believe it is paramount that the Diocese of Texas recover an emphasis upon its identity as a religious community. Our diocese is made up of a glorious variety of brothers and sisters in Christ, as was the community of Jesus’ first disciples. As bishop I will lead and call the diocese into a greater awareness of the blessing that God has given us in this community. My episcopacy will involve constantly reminding us all that, above all else, we are people bound in baptism to one another by the Holy Spirit.
Our diocese has much to offer both to ourselves and to the world around us. I am praying around my sense of call to seek election as bishop coadjutor in order to help the diocese grow in its ministry and mission. I am enclosing a list of specific strategies for my episcopacy that will support my vision. I pray that this will be helpful for you in your discernment around the election of our bishop coadjutor. I invite your prayers, and I invite you to contact me with questions or comments as we pray together for God’s blessing upon our diocese now and into the future.” [This list is available at
Seeking the prayers of my colleagues across the diocese, I seek primarily yours, my nearest community of faith and dearest family in Christ. Please know that the potential that I describe for the Diocese of Texas is precisely the same that I perceive for us here at ECR. Our ministry is alive in the present and oriented toward the future. Please pray for me in this election that God’s will be done. Please pray also for this community of ECR, alive and well here today; and pray for the community of ECR that shall be here ten twenty, thirty, and fifty years from now, building on the movement of the Holy Spirit here at ECR today.
God’s Peace Jim +
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