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Hugh A. Tilson, Social Ministry Committee Chair

A Congregational Outreach Conference was held December 3-6 at Kanuga Conference Center in Hendersonville, North Carolina. This meeting offered practical approaches and resources to start and maintain effective outreach ministries to 'convert hearts and grow churches.'

The program included several keynote addresses by the Rt. Rev. Claude E. Payne, Bishop of Texas, as well as track sessions in the mornings and workshops in the afternoons. Track sessions dealt primarily with starting or re-energizing social outreach programs in parishes, while workshops dealt with more specific examples of successful outreach programs, including providing medical care for the community, Habitat for Humanity, support for families and young children, feeding the hungry, and ministering across various races and denominations. Of particular interest was Bishop Payne's vision of using social outreach to help promote the growth of the Episcopal Church. According to him, if the Episcopal Church is to survive over the next 20 years, it must work to bring about the Kingdom of God on Earth and strive to transform lives and society. In his view, the Episcopal Church must move from a maintenance culture and shift to a missionary posture by providing the basis for transforming lives of those in the church, as well as those in the larger community. He believes that social outreach is a critical component of that transforming process.

The track sessions and workshops were filled with examples of how parishes became energized (or evangelized) by embracing various social outreach programs. Examples of outreach programs include hosting a soup kitchen in the church, providing support for an adopted family, working with Habitat for Humanity to build houses, and generating financial and volunteer support for various aid organizations within the community. One workshop dealt with the development of a sister parish relationship between an Episcopal Church and a nearby predominately African-American Baptist Church. It was interesting to note their experiences were similar to our own efforts to develop a sister parish relationship with St. Paul AME.

It was heartening to participate in so many sessions and workshops and hear about how social outreach had energized congregations to grow and transform peoples' lives. It was also heartening to realize just how much social outreach is supported at the Chapel of the Cross. Many of the examples at the sessions and workshops concerned activities that have been supported by our parish for several years. Although our parish appears to be at the forefront in terms of congregational outreach, the Great Commandment to "love our neighbor as ourselves" and the Great Commission to "go into all the world" exhorts us to do more. We can, as Christians and Episcopalians, do no less.

© 2002: Chapel of the Cross