Dear Disciples, Friends,
Everyday I pray with thanksgiving for the episcopal ministry we have shared. Filled with the capacity and yearning to offer and share thanksgiving as a way of life, we have journeyed in a joyous and meaningful relationship in God, and in communion with one another and the world.
Everyday I am overwhelmed by the out-pouring of pastoral kindness and support you offer. Thank you for your generosity, kindness, and beauty. I know and feel the prayers. I cherish the messages and random meetups while shopping, at the eye doctor, etc. Thus, I live and breathe gratitude for our shared discipleship.
My placement within the Church has come to an abrupt ending, but an ending that is complete, and with infinite possibilities for today’s disciples. We are Jesus’ people and a distinct continuation of God’s people journeying through time as leaders, healers, and lovers for the world. Jesus’ people see clearly God at work in the world God created, which implies that disciples reach into the world anew everyday.
The Church as we have known it is slowly disappearing — that is to be expected by all disciples. Imagine those gathered around and devoted to the earthly Jesus, how they surely were challenged to leave behind what they had known and practiced, to embrace the exciting direction to which God had moved them. Even a cursory glance at the Hebrew and Christian testaments demonstrates how God challenges folks to continue the exciting journey for the sake of God’s world.
God shall speak to you through one another, if you listen. God shall empower you to call one disciple to be re-placed into the ministry of episcopal leadership. While this call happens, all of you continue to share the Church’s episcope in the world, that is to actively listen and engage as Jesus did for all people. God shall lead you to be courageously listening in conversations in and outside of the Church that illuminate God’s eternal presence, especially among those whom the church lost in the past.
The recent COVID crisis and the presence of fear amidst economic, social, and mental unrest that bombard us daily, I believe are also to be reckoned as God’s call for the Church to do what we have always been taught to do, and that is to reach selflessly toward the innumerable people so cruelly affected by this present era of unrest. The Church has something to say to those who are now threatened because of race, sexual identity, religious belonging, lack of economic stability, and so on, and that is “God loves you, and we know that because we love you. Come to us, you who are heavily weighed down by oppression and hatred, and we will give you shelter, rest and hope!” Not only that, we know that there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for another, and we shall indeed live that out in the face of threats upon the health of the human family, particularly that of our local community.
Your new leader must be equipped with your leadership, as God has called that leader through you. Leading lives of over-the-top gratitude will lead each of us in that purpose, and to God’s eternal new beginning(s). Love one another, greet one another with a Holy kiss, and never shy from commending the faith that is always within you. I have seen God at work and in Word through you; I shall be everthankful for that unique and particular experience.
May you be blessed in the Holy and Undivided Trinity.
In Christ’s love,
Geoffrey Woodcroft
