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"To find suitable persons for the Episcopal ministry and
aid them in acquiring a thorough education"
SIM's founding purpose on October 2, 1857;
our ministry ever since.
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"Suitable persons for the
ministry of the Word"
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Greetings!,
We affectionately and respectfully call recipients of SIM grants, SIMinarians. Our founding purpose in 1857 was "to find suitable persons for the Episcopal ministry and aid them in acquiring a thorough education." We believe our SIMinarians to be "suitable" investments for the future of The Episcopal Church who will provide meaningful returns for growing the Church in the 21st century, as our ministry has done since the mid-19th century, when SIM was founded. However, when one hears current perspectives of "suitable persons for the Episcopal ministry," today's words such as "effective entrepreneur," "effective builder," and "effective leader" were not so common to our 155 years of ministry. How would you define "suitable for the Episcopal ministry" today?
Building on its successful Missional Development Consultation at Trinity Wall Street in May, the Episcopal Evangelism Network (EEN) has organized an ensuing three day "Missional Development Conference" September 20-September 22, 2012 hosted at General Theological Seminary in New York City. This conference, at General, has been designed by seminarians in partnership with some of the most dynamic and experienced missional practitioners in our church today. SIMinarian Matthew Lukens, the current Cunningham Scholar, and recent SIM alumnus, Otis Gaddis III, the Episcopal Chaplain at the University of Maryland and the Executive Coordinator of the EEN, together with a diverse EEN team have organized an exciting interactive program. The conference will emphasize progressive evangelism, contextual liturgy exploration, and the empowerment of missional leaders and program development for growing "the various kinds of Episcopal spiritual communities that can effectively engage the people in our different missional contexts." The conference will feature several people with experience in starting Episcopal spiritual communities from the ground up or substantially rebuilding and expanding them:
- Simon Bautista, Planter of several Spanish-speaking congregations;
- Randy Kimmler, the co-founder of Church of the Holy Spirit;
- Donald Schell, the co-founder of Saint Gregory of Nyssa;
- Stephanie Spellers, the founder of the Crossing;
- Karen Ward, the founder Church of the Apostles;
- Bishop-elect Robert Wright of Atlanta, who led the substantial rebuilding and expansion of the traditionally African-American parish of Saint Paul's Atlanta.
Click here to see a full list of facilitators.
EEN's progressive evangelism mission work was recently featured in an Episcopal Life article on lay evangelists. Progressive evangelism training and other hands-on workshops led by lay and ordained church leaders and entrepreneurial-missioners from different walks of Episcopal life will be available. Click here to learn more about what will be presented or use the link below:
http://episcopalevangelismnetwork.org/conferences.html
I plan to attend to learn more for SIM's ministry about what is "suitable" for leaders of The Episcopal Church today. One can find conference information and how to register here. Housing for seminarians is provided and travel aid is available.
Faithfully,
Tom Moore
Executive Director
SIM
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