Mission Statement
for the Episcopal Community E-mail Newsletter
To build a network for Episcopal Daughters of the King and establish reliable and quick communication in order to share the Good News of Prayer, Service, and Evangelism for our King.
Vision Statement for the Episcopal Community Email Newsletter
To enrich spirituality through communication
To develop sisterhood, friendship, and methods of support as we strive to improve our relationship with our Lord, Christ the King
To celebrate the joy in being an Episcopal Daughter serving our bishops and clergy
To guide, challenge, and enable one another
To be open to hear the word of Jesus and incorporate faith, life, and work into daily life
. . . Let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual understanding.
Romans 14:19
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an online exhibition in collaboration with ECVA.org
Presented to National Council April 21, 2007
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Welcome to the Episcopal Community
This newsletter comes to you with our prayers that you find inspiration and encouragement from the messages and resources provided herein. Our e-mailings will be twice monthly, unless we have an important announcement that cannot wait.
We do hope you will share your own ideas with the wider Episcopal Community in future issues. More importantly, we hope you will share the message by encouraging your sisters to subscribe to this newsletter, and by printing it to share with those who don't "do" email. |
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Words from our Presiding Bishop
 We have just added an audio file to our web site home page and invite you to listen to the words of Katharine Jefferts Schori, our Presiding Bishop, speaking to a Province IV gathering of Daughters of the King at Kanuga, TN last Fall.
The audio file is less than four minutes in length, and you can connect to it here. |
A message from Sue Schlanbusch
Sue Schlanbusch, past National President of the Order of the Daughters of the King, shares her views in this issue. Future issues will include articles from past National Presidents Whitty Bohmer and Elizabeth Hart Mitchelson, keeping you up-to-date with the latest news about our beloved Order.
How exciting and what an honor to be the first of the past presidents to contribute to this wonderful new source of communication. We hope this will become a tool for education and spiritual growth as well. Since we have been moving through these tedious waters of trying to reclaim our Order in its fullness, we have had a chance to learn some new and important lessons we will pass on to the membership in the months ahead.
I think one of the most difficult issues for us to cope with has been realizing that we had to learn and understand that there are people in places of responsibility who are using their positions for ulterior motives. Here we are, women who believe we are members of a Christian Order, and we are called to acknowledge that our leadership has been systematically infiltrated with those who would move our membership and finances away from the Episcopal Church. I need to say it was startling and took us quite awhile and lots of conversation before we could completely accept and understand the totality of it all.
We have continued to seek God's help and guidance in how to be of help to our membership, especially to the thousands who have no idea what is happening not only to their Church but also to their Order.
First we gave our attention to try to educate the current Council about what had happened last summer at Triennial by documenting the history of the bylaws, procedures and policies found on the pages of very old issues of The Royal Cross. Using all the history we could gather we produced a power point presentation which we used when we met with the current Council. The PowerPoint presentation is available for use at a diocesan or provincial assembly, or chapter meetings. Please contact Elizabeth Hart Mitchelson for a copy.
We will be working hard with other members in preparing and updating the Procedure Manual which has not been used since 2000. Now that we understand that because the Order is incorporated in the State of Georgia, the National Council must operate as the Board of Directors and fulfill specific responsibilities, by corporate law. We must provide nominees with an education in corporate responsibility when they offer to stand for election to Council.
I have been feeling a strong pull to extend our preparation period for membership to a minimum of six months with a much deeper study of scripture, church history and pastoral care. My prayer is that we can become an Order in the true sense, forming ourselves into the Image of Christ as a process rather than an event, an Order of women who are more concerned with the quality of our spiritual life than with the quantity of members. Our lives must be transformed and become transparent before we can successfully bring anyone to the knowledge and love of Christ.
If there is one thing I have learned on this desert walk we have been on, it is that those in leadership cannot have a transformed heart for Jesus and behave as they are, causing so much pain for so many, Jesus must be weeping over this Order as He did over Jerusalem. May we emerge from this time of trial a stronger more dedicated sisterhood, focused on our call to serve in His Name and For His Sake.
Sue |
Book Review
In Having a Mary Spirit, Allowing God to Change Us from the Inside Out (WaterBrook Press), author Joanna Weaver gently leads us through sixteen chapters based on Mary the mother of Jesus, advising and encouraging us to allow God to create His life within us.
The beginning chapters look at how to prepare and keep a clean and holy place for His spirit to abide and then Weaver moves on to inspiring us with the anticipation of knowing more of His touch of eternity within ourselves. She identifies that tug-of-war within us as we sometimes demonstrate amazing love and strength of purpose (our Mary's spirit) and at other times seem not to know any heavenly graces (Flesh woman, as Weaver terms that side).
I particularly liked the many tables and listings: points to consider, steps to take, and scriptures that affirm our choices to walk in faith. Her combination of interesting and informative narrative with these additional listings makes this a good book for group study, having the potential for both personal sharing and clearly defined points for discussion.
Weaver wrote an earlier book too, Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World, also well worth the time to read, as it balances the valuable but driving get-it-done aspects of our character with the responsive life-receiver and life-giver, lover and worshipper sides of the person each of us is, as a follower of Christ.
I can't recommend one over the other, so you might just read them both.
Gaye McWade
Province VIII Vice-President, Diocese of Northern California |
Resources: Anglican Rosary
 The tradition of praying with beads or knots cuts across many religious and ethnic boundaries, including non-Christian faiths. Since ancient times, people of many cultures have used pebbles or a string of knots or beads to keep track of prayers. The use of prayer beads engages the body, mind, and spirit to foster contemplative prayer. Fingering each successive bead helps to keep the mind from wandering. The rhythm of the prayer leads one more readily into stillness and concentration.
More history and directions to make a Chaplet (an abbreviated version of our Anglican Rosary) may be found HERE
A DAUGHTER'S ROSARY
(based on the Prayer of the Order)
Cross: In the Name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit and Comforter, Amen.
Invitatory Bead: As Daughters of the King, we are women of courage who have made a commitment to serve God our King. We wear crosses as an outward and visible sign that we cannot live a day without Christ in our lives. We see our Order as a community of nurturing women, accepting all people, bridging differences and cherishing traditions.
Empowered by the Holy Spirit, our vision is to encourage and enable all to be reflections of God's love, reaching out through prayer, service and evangelism to spread His Kingdom.
Cruciform Bead: With heart, mind and spirit, uphold and bear the cross, For His Sake.
First Week: O eternal Father, you have sent us your son to teach us things pertaining to your heavenly Kingdom. Give your blessing to our Order wherever it may be throughout the world. [Repeat this phrase on each week bead.)
Cruciform Bead: With heart, mind and spirit, uphold and bear the cross, For His Sake.
Second Week: Grant that we your Daughters ever may discern your truth and bear the cross through the battles of our earthly life.
Cruciform Bead: With heart, mind and spirit, uphold and bear the cross, For His Sake.
Third Week: Give us strength to overcome temptation and the grace to work to spread your Kingdom and to gather your scattered sheep within your fold.
Cruciform Bead: With heart, mind and spirit, uphold and bear the cross, For His Sake.
Fourth Week: Pour out upon us the sevenfold gift of the Holy Spirit, that we may always remember it is your work we are called to do; that all we think, do or say may be pleasing in your sight. We ask it all For His Sake, our King and Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.
Cruciform Bead: With heart, mind and spirit, uphold and bear the cross, For His Sake.
Invitatory Bead: For His Sake, I am but one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. What I can do, I ought to do. What I ought to do, by the grace of God I will do. Lord, what will you have me do?
Cross: Glory to the Father, Glory to the Son, and Glory to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the Beginning, is now and will be forever, world without end, Amen. Wendy Standiford,
Province V, Bishop's Chapter, Indianapolis, IN |
Clergy Corner
 A message from a member of our clergy Daughters will appear in this space. If you are would like to submit an article for consideration, please send it to webmaster@dokepiscopal.org. |
PowerPoint Presentation UpdateThe PowerPoint Presentation given to the National Council on April 21, 2007 has been shown to members of the Order of the Daughters of the King in the following dioceses:
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Northern California
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Tennessee
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East Tennessee
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Los Angeles
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Prayer Requests
Please pray for Elizabeth Hart Mitchelson, Witty Bohmer, and Sue Schlanbusch as they continue working with a growing number of women to voice concerns for the future of the Order of the Daughters of the King in the Episcopal Church.
Devotion - Being Right
I have lost friends and acquaintances with my need to be right. Perhaps you have too? What is it about having to be right that makes relationships sour? What can be right with discounting others in order to feel satisfied or justified? The Old Testament is filled with words of righteousness and judgment, but Jesus lived and taught that it is the relationship that is important - that right being is much more acceptable, satisfying and wholesome than being right.
Keep us always mindful, Lord, of our need for right being, to be loving of God, our families and friends, and ourselves, and let us shake any need for being right. Help us to uphold one another when we are unsure, to respect one another when we disagree, and to always love one another as we journey on the path you have set before us. Amen.
For His Sake,
Kathleen Nyhuis
Daughter at Large
St. Mark's Cathedral
Seattle, Washington |
For His Sake
Please remember to share this newsletter with other Episcopal Daughters and friends, and encourage those who have email to subscribe themselves. |
The Episcopal Community Newsletter
June 2007
Editorial Daughters: Christine Budzowski, Flo Krejci, Gaye McWade, Karen Potts This newsletter is published monthly. Contributions of articles for future issues are welcome if submitted prior to the 15th day of the month - please send to webmaster@dokepiscopal.org |
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