Introduction.
Beloved parishioners, clergy, delegates, and friends of the Diocese: welcome to the 194thAnnual Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee. We gather around the theme, “Make the most of the time,” from the fifth chapter of St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians. “Be careful then, how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time…” (Eph. 5:15-16a). I think it can be said safely that, in view of the uncertain weather forecast for the remainder of this weekend, we are making the most of the time in having a one day Convention! God is reminding us, in an elemental way, that we have our plan, and God has his, for how we spend our time.
We are grateful to St. Bartholomew’s Church, and to its rector Josh Condon, for their great hospitality this weekend as our Convention hosts. St. Bartholomew’s has hosted our diocese many times in the past, and we give thanks for the ministry of this parish, and their help this weekend. We are grateful for the many volunteers who are helping make this Convention run so smoothly.
We are also grateful to the Bishop of West Tennessee, the Rt. Rev’d Phoebe Roaf, for her ministry with us at this Convention, in agreeing to be our keynote speaker. I greatly regret that these circumstances have made it impossible for her to join us and to return in a timely fashion to Memphis to tend to her ministry. Bishop Phoebe is a great colleague in the House of Bishops, and I’m thankful for my relationship with her. We are connected by so many historic ties in our three dioceses across the State of Tennessee, and also by ties in the present: ties created in churches and at educational institutions and across family dining room tables across our state. Bishop Phoebe has kindly sent a video file of her keynote, and so we look forward to her words of encouragement in the ministry we share in the state of Tennessee.
There are other ways in which we join in common ministry. This year, mindful of the continuation of executions taking place in our state, the three bishops of our dioceses, including not only Bishop Phoebe but also Bishop Brian of East Tennessee, joined in a common statement on capital punishment issued in November. The Episcopal Church has a longstanding policy of opposition to the death penalty, and our statement was meant to remind us of the impact of these executions on the moral fabric of our nation. In the statement we argued that “In imposing this penalty, our community is demoralized and social cohesion fragments, undermining the good of society.” People of goodwill may differ on this issue, but the social good is everyone’s concern. The statement by the bishops is only the visible point of a much larger volume of work done around issues of imprisonment and capital punishment by parishioners in all three dioceses. For that, I thank you.
Transition
A different sort of Bishop’s address seems called for this year: not only because of the weather, but because this is a year of Episcopal transition, in which we will elect the Twelfth Bishop of Tennessee. Our diocese doesn’t elect bishops that often: or at least, it hasn’t elected one in almost twenty years! In June of 2025, I announced my impending resignation, in January of next year, in exactly a year’s time. In making this announcement I coordinated with the Presiding Bishop’s office, and with our own Standing Committee in the diocese. This announcement served as a call for the Diocese of Tennessee to elect a new bishop.
The long period between announcement and resignation is to accommodate the discernment and election process that will bring us our new bishop. I use the word “resignation” because that is the canonical word: I don’t have any better offers! What we have in prospect, God willing, is a seamless transition, in which on January 23, 2027, I will process into the consecration service as the Bishop of Tennessee, and then at the end of the liturgy will leave the church as (simply) the former Bishop of Tennessee.
After my announcement, the Standing Committee moved quickly and carefully to solicit nominations for a Search Committee and a Transition Committee to manage this process of discernment and election. I’m grateful to the members of all three bodies for their leadership. Public listening sessions for the diocese have been held by the Search Committee, and a survey made available to every member of the diocese for their response. We’ll commission all those who are leading us in this process at this Convention.
Next steps will include the preparation of a diocesan profile, to let interested people know who we are and who we are looking for. Nominations will be solicited, and the Search Committee will do its work of discernment to offer us a slate of candidates for election. The Transition Committee will guide us toward the Special Convention on August 22, giving us an opportunity to meet the candidates and to say our prayers, and God willing to elect a bishop. You canonically resident clergy and delegates at this convention will be the electors in August..
This is a process that involves discernment, on our part, and on the part of many others who will discern whether they are called to serve here: in other words, the question is, what is God doing in the world, and how can the Diocese of Tennessee be a part of it? We in this diocese have a mission that we have been called to by God, and now is the time to live out that mission anew. It’s a new chapter in a story that goes back to the founding of our diocese in 1829, and even earlier, to the founding of our first parish, St. Paul’s, Franklin, in 1827.
These are broad brushstrokes, without a great deal of detail, and additional information can be found on our diocesan website. Following the election, there will be a process of confirmation of the election by the other dioceses of the Episcopal Church. As I mentioned, the service of consecration is scheduled for January 23, 2027, and we will be joined for that by our Presiding Bishop, who takes order for episcopal consecrations.
I have confidence in our diocesan leadership, on the Standing, Search, and Transition Committees, in leading this process. It’s understandable that the process of selection of the next bishop is not driven by the current bishop. It’s undoubtably the most significant thing happening in the diocese. At the same time, we have a full year of ministry ahead, with Visitations scheduled through the end of 2026.
The Life of the Diocese
So much has been accomplished in our parishes this year. New leadership and new energy characterize so many of our communities of faith. For a moment, I want to lift up and celebrate the successful completion of major capital campaigns and recent building projects at St. Paul’s, Franklin, and Christ Church Cathedral in Nashville. The opening of the completed new spaces in each case took place in the last quarter of 2025, and they are both beautiful! These have both been long term projects that have been in prospect for a while, but clergy and parish leadership were able to bring them finally to term. The Church of our Saviour, Gallatin, also completed a renovation project in its parish hall that has given them more useful and gracious space.
These are only the latest in a series of capital improvements that have taken place over the last twenty years in our parishes. Bricks and mortar projects like this provide tools for our ministry. Raising the funds to make them possible helps expand the stewardship of our members. If it has been a while since your parish had a capital campaign, start considering it. You may be surprised at the needs that bubble to the surface.
National Life
This has been the most difficult part of this address to prepare, though I think pastoral teaching from the bishop is required by our situation. Since 2021, and the extraordinary events of January 6th of that year, I’ve returned regularly to this subject. Not because I am especially equipped to offer commentary on national life or world affairs, but because national life is the context in which we carry forward our ministries: a context we cannot ignore. We preach, teach, and minister in these times. In this particularly fractured moment, we’re called to discern, communicate, and receive the Word of God.
Ten years ago, polarization in our political life seemed to me the chief danger to the life of the Church: the normalization of hatred of our fellow citizens and fellow parishioners with whom we disagree on issues of national life. Since 2021, I’ve also warned us about the danger of idolatry: of raising our loyalty to a cause or particular ideology or even a particular person, above our call to serve Jesus as king, and to love God and our neighbor. I’ve warned about the distortions created by siloed information sources and the embrace of alternative realities. In some cases, across the political spectrum, people seem more committed to constructing their own truths than in discovering what the truth really is. I think this is still the case, and worth warning about now.
I’ve also had occasion at our Conventions, in a way that I could not have imagined necessary just two decades ago, to re-affirm my belief in our system of government. Here’s what I felt needed to be said in 2021, after the assault on the capitol: “I have confidence in our form of constitutional government, its structures and systems. They are not perfect, but they are robust and capable of reform, and they serve us well.” Again, in 2024, with the prospect of an election year: “Our constitutional order and the rule of law in this country are positive goods, generating social capital acquired over years that must not be squandered on account of any personal or political agenda.”
The single month of January, 2026, calls for some renewed pastoral teaching. Military action in Venezuela; the shooting and killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis; and the threats against our own allies over Greenland: all have taken place in less than a matter of weeks. All raise questions, for those concerned with the rule of law, the honoring of our national commitments, and about the love of God and neighbor. Here’s what I said in my sermon last Sunday at the Church of the Holy Trinity, on the Second Sunday after Epiphany:
“These are times in the life of our nation that provide a sobering and even shocking contrast to the light of this season. The light of Christ is for all nations, including our own. What we see instead of this light is a sort of darkness made visible: a lack of charity and sympathy and an embrace of raw power on the part of public servants that runs roughshod over the rule of law. Instead of the true light that helps us to see and understand, we are confronted with a contemptuous blizzard of nonsense meant to baffle and confuse, through which no one can discern anything meaningful. Vengeance and spite cannot be a source of light and life. If we as a people embrace these deadly principles, we’ll be headed to a dead end as a nation.”
These disturbing events and threatened actions raise issues of the common good and common decency. The chief issue for us as Christians and citizens is our own moral character: what kind of people we are, and the way we live together and with others. We live in the world, but not by worldly standards. In these days, please continue to pray for the President and the leaders of the nations; for the Congress and the Courts. May God bring us to a good result, in these fractured times in which the Church continues to minister and to serve.
Vision
Let me remind you once again of four words that describe the mission and ministry of the Diocese of Tennessee: that ministry we’ve been engaged in for 197 years. We’ve been working on the witness to unity and mission for a long time, in some difficult circumstances, long before our society discovered its own pressing challenges and its own divisions. This is only our 194th convention because we missed a few years on account of the Civil War: a little reminder of the challenges facing Christians who live in the world.
First word, “Open.” In the Diocese of Tennessee, we are open to the power of God. When we gather, we’re expecting God to show up, and to do marvelous works. “Be transformed by the renewing of your minds” (Rom. 12:2), St. Paul wrote to the Romans, which is the goal of all pastoral teaching. God does this work of transformation through grace, God’s power and presence in our lives, given as a free gift.
Second word, “Obedient.” In our diocese we are obedient to Jesus’ command to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing and teaching; and indeed, proclaiming the Good News of Jesus’ death and resurrection to the whole creation. In the decade before my arrival the Diocese of Tennessee planted many new communities of faith, and in the past two decades we have continued to sustain that work, and to support our parishes. The mission field begins right out our front doors and at the end of the driveway.
Third, “Responsive.” In the Diocese of Tennessee, we are responsive to the needs of the world, because it is the world that God created and for which Jesus gave his life on the cross. Once again, the world is our context for ministry: what we are “in” but not “of.” The world is in need of healing and reconciliation, in countless ways: more and more each day, in fact. As Jesus’ disciples, those who are striving to follow in his footsteps, this work falls to us.
Fourth, “Committed”. In this diocese we are committed to our life together as a community of faith, for the sake of the life of the world. A time of episcopal election is precisely the time for us to draw together.
Conclusion
I’d like to recognize the members of the bishop’s staff who support and encourage me in my work: first, Canon Jody Howard, the Canon to the Ordinary, who has worked tirelessly on the many matters that fall into his brief, especially helping congregations through difficult transitions, as well as turning on a dime to turn this into a one day convention; Canon Chad Jones, Canon for Congregational Development, and leader of our Small Church Alliance, who will work with any congregation to sharpen their ministry and presence in the community; the Venerable Betty Carpenter, newly appointed Archdeacon of the diocese, who supports our deacons in their vital ministries; Sandra Beld, our Diocesan Administrator, who works with clergy and congregations on Safe Church, background checks, the ordination process, as well as keeping me sorted out; Susan Abington, who serves as our Financial Administrator, who gathers and encourages our parishioners who do the vital work of administration; and Kaye Howry, our Administrative Assistant, who helps me with correspondence and helps to greet all of us when we contact Diocesan House. We are well served by these faithful folk.
I’m grateful to my wife Caroline, as well, for her encouragement and support. You are aware of the tremendous ministry Caroline has, joining me for visitations to churches and supporting our clergy spouses, as well as taking a leadership role in the Third Phase of the Lambeth Conference process, as well as the Anglican Communion’s Spouses Network. I am so thankful for her, not just for this past year but, mindful of our wedding anniversary earlier this month, for 40 years of married life!
Some of you have kindly asked whether we will continue in Tennessee after retirement. We’ve now lived in Tennessee twice as long as we have lived anyplace together, so it feels like home. We plan, God willing, to remain in our house in Nashville for the foreseeable future.
Finally, I’d like to thank the clergy and lay leaders of our Diocese. As I prepare next week to begin my twentieth year of ministry with you, I am grateful to you for your support and encouragement. No one is bishop on his own, and this ministry would be impossible without you. It’s been the outstanding privilege of my life to serve you in this diocese as bishop, and I give thanks to God for this opportunity, and for what we have accomplished together. I’m grateful to you and I love you all. These are great days for the Diocese of Tennessee, and the next chapter is yet to unfold! Let’s make the most of the time and continue the work of witness and proclamation that God has called us to in Middle Tennessee.
