June 2, 2011
Dear Friends in Christ,
Thank you for your prayers and for your many kind notes and emails. I’m so very excited about what the Lord is doing through our churches, and it will be a joy and a privilege to serve as your bishop in this new Diocese. I am praying daily for the strength and leading of the Holy Spirit, because I well know that apart from Jesus I can do nothing (John 15:5).
There are already quite a few important things to tell you. I’ll give the announcements first, then share more personally about Meg’s and my calendar and our transition.
Mark Your Calendars!
Saturday, September 10
9:00 a.m. Brief opening session of Annual Synod to take the required action to put our new Constitution and Canons into effect and to elect the members of the Standing Committee. Synod then recesses until November 18-19. Location to be announced.
11:00 a.m. Investiture of John Guernsey as first Bishop of the Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic. Archbishop Robert Duncan, presiding. Location to be announced.
Fri.-Sat., November 18-19
Annual Synod reconvenes with a focus on mission, featuring a testimony by each church and fellowship about what the Lord is doing through you. Location to be announced.
Call for Nominations
Our Synod Council is forming a Nominating Committee, which will soon be soliciting nominations for the diocesan Standing Committee, to be elected on Saturday, September 10, and for the Constitution and Canons Committee, Trial Court and Committee on Nominations for Bishops, all to be elected November 18-19. So please be praying about appropriate leaders from your church whom the Lord might be calling to serve on one of these bodies.
DOMA, the Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic
We’ll be using the acronym “DOMA” when writing about our new diocese. Doma is a Greek word found in the New Testament—actually it is two Greek words, since there are two Greek letters rendered by our English letter “o.” Using one of those letters for “o,” doma means “housetop,” as in Matthew 10:27: “What I tell you in the dark, say in the light, and what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.”
Using the other Greek letter for “o,” doma means “gift.” It is used in Ephesians 4:8: “Therefore it says, ‘When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.’” The passage goes on to say that the gifts Jesus gave were “the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry.”
Location of the Diocesan Office
All Saints’ Church in Woodbridge has generously offered—free of charge—space for the permanent office of the Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic. The Synod Council and I have accepted with gratitude! All Saints’ is building its new facility at 14851 Gideon Drive, next to Hylton Chapel, near Potomac Mills Mall, at the Dale City exit off I-95. September 18 is the anticipated date of their first service there. All Saints’ is giving to the Diocese the upper floor of the administrative wing, comprising a suite of five offices, a reception area, workroom, restroom and ample storage, plus a large conference room to be shared with the parish. We are so very thankful for this blessing in our life together.
Our Travels and Plans
It’s been a wonderful eight days since our electing Synod (at the time of this writing). My election won’t be confirmed by the ACNA College of Bishops until the end of June and I won’t actually start work until August 1, but it’s been a busy time nonetheless. The day after the election, Meg and I worshiped at our former parish, All Saints’ in Woodbridge, where my successor, the Rev. Dan Morgan welcomed us back warmly. Then we drove to Church of the Redeemer, in Camden, NC, for the ordination to the diaconate of Jessica Fulton. We returned in time to join Anglican Church of Kenya Archbishop Eliud Wabukala and retired Archbishop of Uganda Livingstone Nkoyoyo in attending a lovely dinner at Church of the Apostles in support of the new school being built at the St. Nicholas Orphanage in Nairobi, which Meg and I visited last September.
On Thursday, my executive assistant, Heather Adams, and I spent the morning in the ADV office with James Guthrie, our faithful ADV staff member, and Sara Allen, who handles ADV communications. I am beginning—just beginning!—to get brought up to speed on life among our wonderful churches. Then, on Friday, I met with our dedicated Synod Council to discuss transition into the new diocese. On Saturday, Meg and I headed for Truro Church’s annual Parish Retreat and enjoyed a weekend of amazing hospitality, great teaching and the warmest of fellowship. We also delighted in an evening of instructed swing dancing!
In the coming week, I’ll be attending a “Fresh Expressions” evangelism and church planting workshop at Truro, then Meg and I go on to Holy Spirit, Leesburg for a parish visitation. Then we’re off to Gettysburg, where I’ll be teaching at The Falls Church’s annual staff retreat. We go directly from there to the airport for travel to Texas for a parish visitation, returning home for a day of retreat and the ADV clergy luncheon, before flying to New Mexico for a parish visitation, to Long Beach, CA for ACNA Provincial meetings, back to New Mexico for two more church visits and then home at the end of June.
I’ll be having arthroscopic knee surgery on June 30 and then take vacation in July. I’ll start work for DOMA on August 1.
The Diocese of the Holy Spirit comes to an end
A number of people have asked about the ACNA’s Diocese of the Holy Spirit and what will come of it.
When the Anglican Church in North America was launched in June, 2009, the Church of Uganda immediately recognized our new Province and then fully transferred into it first me as bishop, and then its 53 U.S. congregations and 125 American clergy. About half immediately went into new ACNA dioceses, but half did not have an appropriate regional diocese to join. Since congregations must be part of a diocese in order to join the Province, we created the Diocese of the Holy Spirit as a temporary, transitional diocese for these former Church of Uganda congregations. With the formation of several new ACNA jurisdictions by the Provincial Council this June, all of the Diocese of the Holy Spirit congregations will transfer into other dioceses and the Diocese of the Holy Spirit will dissolve. I will resign as its Bishop and will serve solely as Bishop of the Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic.
Please do continue to pray earnestly for your church and its leaders and for our Diocese, that we might be faithful stewards of the Gospel, proclaiming the Good News to those who do not yet know our Savior Jesus (1 Corinthians 4:1). Please pray also for Meg and me in this time of transition.
I look forward to seeing many of you on September 10.
Faithfully yours in Christ,
The Rt. Rev. John A. M. Guernsey
http://www.anglicandistrictofvirginia.org/
The URL for this story is:
http://www.anglicandistrictofvirginia.org/pages/page.asp?page_id=111226&articleId=22701