One of the things I've noticed in my time as a priest is that some things come in waves.  It seems we are in the midst of a wave of deaths of people who have been very active in the life of the congregation.  We recently held the memorial service for Donna Clark Cheek.  Recently Ralph Bonds, Maggie O'Neil and Eddie Lee have died.  Ralph's service is tomorrow at 1pm, Maggie's is Saturday 9/26 at 10am and the time for Eddie's has not yet been set.  Additionally we have a few others who are now on hospice care.  This is a tender time for many and I ask your prayers for those who are dying, those who are grieving and the pastoral care team serving them.

I want to report on some of my recent activity:

Ghana:  Over the past four years, the Chicago Consultation, of which I am a co-convener, has held three consultations in Africa.  At these consultations we bring together Anglican/Episcopal clergy, scholars and LGBT activists to pray, study scripture and talk about how we may work together to make our continents safer for sexual minorities. The first, in 2011 was in South Africa.  The second in Kenya was in 2013 and the most recent was last week in Ghana.  I am pleased to report that we are noticing significant progress.  At this recent consultation, we were not only hosted by a bishop, but he was willing to be named in our official statement.  As a result of the conference, we are planning on producing a series of Bible studies and a resource for clergy offering pastoral care.  We are also asking churches in Africa to be places of sanctuary for people who are assaulted because of their gender or sexual orientation.  We are also looking at ways we can make people aware of the complicity of groups in the U.S. who have spent considerable money exporting homophobia to Africa.  You can see our official statement here.   

Burning Man:  Prior to going to Ghana I spent the week at Burning Man in northern Nevada.  The day after I returned home, and the day before flying to Ghana, I preached about the experience in what was my longest, and surprisingly my most popular sermon ever.  Like all our sermons, it was posted online.  The sermon was shared by people, mostly "Burners" and has now been seen almost 18,000 times.  I am getting emails daily from people all over the world who were touched by the sermon.  It will take a while to discern what this means but I do think it points to a spiritual hunger and an openness, or maybe even an eagerness, to engage the church. You can see the sermon here and my photos here.