Video Messages
from Bishop Brown
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Video Text
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Hello, beloved of God in Delaware.
I have exciting news to announce today regarding staffing changes at the mission support office, the office that supports the great mission across this diocese. The staffing changes are based on the five-year plan that I have just recently rolled out here for the diocese. The five-year plan, which I call Renew ECD — the Episcopal Church in Delaware — looks to set our mission priorities for the years 2023 through 2027. And there are four fundamental areas where we’re focusing our priorities.
Fundamentally, we want to commit time and resources to growing the church. We want to commit to the practices that sustain us in our life of faith, and we want to commit to caring for our neighbors and for ourselves. Fourthly, we want to remember to do this collectively as one church across Delaware. The key mission areas are growth, discipleship, and service, and the changes that I’m announcing today have everything to do with providing leadership in these key areas.
First, Toni Snow, who has been on staff here at the mission support office as the special projects manager, has now been named to be our director for service. And her role will be overseeing the part of our common life where we care for our neighbors as we care for ourselves. She will be working on our ecumenical partnerships, my partnerships throughout Delaware, our disaster response, and our community partnerships. She will be my link with the Racial Justice and Reconciliation Commission and all of the outreach that we do as a diocese. She’ll also help us take care of ourselves as volunteers, and she will continue to help support our leadership networks.
Secondly, the Rev. Marianne Ell will serve as our director for discipleship, and she will be responsible for helping us deepen our relationship with Jesus Christ, because this is a lifelong journey of faith that we are on. Marianne has been serving for many years as the pastor at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Seaford, and she has for the last few years been serving as a consultant to the mission support office, supporting parishes in Southern Delaware and our Southern Delaware Collaborative. And she’s also been serving as a consultant to parishes in transition. I’m moving Marianne from a consultant role to a member of this staff. She’ll be serving for three quarter time and continuing to work at St. Luke’s in Seaford.
The third position is one that’s actually completely new. I’ve asked the Rev. Deacon Cecily Sawyer-Harmon to serve as our racial justice and reconciliation missioner. When the Racial Justice and Reconciliation Commission was formed a couple of years ago, the first of its kind in Delaware and one whose work has already made a difference in our community, it was envisioned that the commission would work alongside a missioner, and the missioner’s job is to be the person that keeps her foot on the gas, keeps our priority on this incredibly important work of racial justice.
I’m thrilled that Deacon Sawyer-Harmon, who has a long career in social work and in counseling, recently retired from the University of Delaware and ready to continue her work on racial justice, has said yes to this call. Now, it’s true that the priorities I laid out also include growth, and I haven’t mentioned someone to take that position. That’s going to take some more budget dollars, and that’s a priority that we’re going to look to grow into. Right now, the changes that we’ve laid out basically mean rearranging existing positions with the exception of our new missioner, which is being funded as a halftime position through one of the funds of our Trustees. I’m excited about this, but we also know that this work towards growth needs leadership, dedicated leadership as well.
In the coming year, I and the rest of the mission support office will flex and do our very best to see that these initiatives are supported, rolled out in some way, but we really do need dedicated leadership and growth if we are serious as a church about it. These are exciting times. This is exciting news that I have to share, and I pray that you’ll offer your prayers and support to Toni, Marianne, and Cecily even as they offer their prayers and their support to you and to the mission of your church.
It is good to do this work with you, my sisters and brothers. May the peace of Christ be with you always.
Alleluia! Christ has risen. The Lord is risen, indeed. Alleluia!
It is a joy to celebrate this feast of the resurrection with you, my brothers and sisters in Delaware. This year, we recount the resurrection of Jesus Christ through the gospel of Luke. Luke tells us that when his faithful followers came to the tomb fully expecting to find his body, fully prepared to anoint it as you do for the dead, they were stunned to find messengers there, waiting for them. The messengers asked why? Why do you look for the living among the dead? He’s not here. He has risen. And, in that moment, God placed an undeniable stamp upon the life, witness, and ministry of Jesus Christ, the very Jesus who at his baptism God said, “this is my beloved in whom I am well pleased.” Now God says, “this is the life of God. The life of Jesus is the life of me.”
We too can participate in the resurrection, and that is a joy that we share as Christians, with the promise that death is not the final answer. It emboldens us to live lives that matter — to be willing to take risks for love, to be willing to stand up and speak out for those who are unable to speak on their own behalf, to stand up for justice and for mercy. We can do that. We are emboldened as Christians because we need not fear. That is the greatest truth of the resurrection. It is not proven because we say it’s true. It is proven, as Gregory the Great said centuries ago, “by the love that we express in our deeds.”
My sisters and brothers, this Easter, as much as joy fills my heart in this day, I’m reminded of our brothers and sisters in Ukraine who are at a time of great peril. Though they are celebrating Easter and the resurrection of Christ, they are worried about living their very next day. And I pray that we as Christians, remember them faithfully in our prayers, and that we continue to work for peace and pray for peace among nations — peace for the displaced, peace for those who are afraid.
Yes, it’s because we Christians are blessed, blessed by the truth of the resurrection, that we can stand up and take risks, risks to help our brothers and sisters across the globe, risks to help our sisters and brothers right here, next door.
It is a joy to celebrate this with you, my brothers and sisters. May the peace of Christ be with you always.
The below link is not a translation of the video, but rather a letter from Bishop Brown, with a similar message.
Hello, beloved of God in Delaware:
Lent is just around the corner. It’s one of the holiest seasons of the year — a time, as we all know of prayer, of self-denial, and of study. These are the three historic, traditional pillars of Lent, of this holy time.
I heard a preacher say, not too long ago, when he and I were talking about the season of Lent coming up, that to him Lent seemed to be the most underutilized tool in our Episcopal tool chest, in a Christian’s tool chest. Lent is that season where we look to see where God is headed, and to make sure that we are aligned with our Lord, and we strip away the noise and the distractions of life that may pull us off and send us in another direction. Lent helps us get in alignment with our God.
So the three pillars of Lent help us do that — to pray, to enter an intentional time of self-denial, fasting for example, and of course study. Again, this year I’m offering a book study in Lent. I find it is a good practice not only for my own discipline at this time of year, but also to share with other people of faith.
In the past couple of years, we’ve studied the faith itself, Christianity overall. Last year, we looked at simple Christian practices that bring us closer to God. This year, I’m looking to go really deep and I’m offering to study Howard Thurman’s seminal work Jesus, and the Disinherited.
I was on a pilgrimage last month to Alabama. I visited Montgomery and Selma and walked the walk with the marchers who crossed the Edmund Pettus bridge, left Selma and began their multi-day walk, their march to Montgomery. And I, with a number of other bishops and my wife, Caroline, was moved to see how the civil rights movement in this country was grounded in a place so hostile to the very people who were marching.
And you have to ask yourself, how is it that these good people could withstand the battering and the bruising that they received at the hands of authorities? How could they receive this non-violently? It’s a real testament to our Christian faith that leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr., and others insisted that to resist, the civil rights movement had to be non-violent. How did they reach that understanding?
One of the works that grounded them was Howard Thurman’s Jesus and the Disinherited, the very book that we’ll be studying. Howard Thurman makes the phenomenal point, that’s really rather impressive, that a Christian faith, for a very long time had been used to justify hurting and oppressing people of color, was the actual faith that could sustain them. How? How is it that Jesus, who is preached by one group of people to oppress, could be the same Jesus that raises up? This book was incredibly important to Dr. King, incredibly important in the history of the United States in the 20th century, and it’s important to us. So I invite you to join me.
In your spiritual journey of this Lent whether you join my book group, or read something on your own, or study scripture, or whatever you do, take advantage of this holy season and help, once again, align your soul with the working of God.
May the peace of Christ be with you always.
Beloved of God in Delaware, blessings to you this Advent season.
In the Gospel, Jesus tells the crowd around him, “Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down” (Luke 21:24). This is a typical teaching in the season of Advent, where we are reminded to be alert, to be awake, to be prepared.
Even in the moment when Jesus was present with the people around him, he still reminded them to be alert and ready for what comes next. Advent is a time of tension, as we are taught each and every year — a time when we wait, and yet we must also be ready.
I am reminded this season of the year and a half that we have spent with COVID. In so many ways, it feels as if our life has been put completely on hold, waiting to return to some kind of normalcy. However, the reality is life has not been on hold. Millions of people have died across the world from COVID, and the lives of their families have been inexorably changed. We remember this tragedy as we mourn our loss of friends and family.
At the same time, we give thanks for our first responders, our medical personnel, and those who have been faithfully marching against this disease because they have put themselves in harm’s way to help keep us safe. We celebrate and support those who have worked so hard.
We in the church have certainly not been on hold. Our parishes have worked faithfully to adapt and respond in some of the most difficult and challenging times any of us remember.
So let’s be clear. Although this has been a time when we feel that life is on hold, we have not been idle. Waiting in the name of Jesus Christ does not mean idleness. It is an active verb, to wait. I hold the tension of this COVID moment — celebrating the good things we’ve done while we mourn our losses — as an example of the tension of Advent, of what it means to wait and yet to be ready as Christ implores us to do.
Remember in this time as we look forward to the promises and celebrations of the coming King during Christmas, Advent is ultimately a season of hope. The light is coming, and in this dark time, the light and the truth are already with us.
Blessings to you my sisters and brothers this Advent season. Hope is coming. Hope is here. May the peace of Christ be with you always.
Hello, beloved of God in Delaware.
In just a few weeks, we will gather again for our annual convention. Episcopalians in Delaware have been gathering together to meet and discuss the ministry and mission of the church since 1791. That first convention happened in Dover, and there were three priests and 11 lay people present. Our entire diocese only had 14 churches. We now have 34.
Since that time, Episcopalians have met faithfully to consider what is it that the church is about? What are our priorities for the coming year? What is it that Christ is calling us to do?
Convention this year, in 2021, will be, as last year, completely online. That is, of course, out of an abundance of caution. We are in a time of pandemic and, even as things are getting a little bit better out there, we still want to do everything we can to be as safe as possible. It just doesn’t make sense to gather a hundred plus people into the same room for many hours on end, not if we can do this safely online. We can do it safely online, and we can do it well.
The good thing about having a fully online convention is that anyone can participate. That is, anyone can watch and see what is happening in real time. So, I want to invite you, even if you’re not a priest or deacon of this diocese, even if you’re not an official delegate of your parish, I invite you to drop in. Come for the whole thing. It’s on Saturday, November the 20th. Come for part of it. However much you’d like to see and hear — join us!
You’ll find more information about our annual convention at our website, delaware.church. It has all the information you need. Look and see and come and join us! Just like the first Episcopalians did back in 1791, we do now. We gather, we pray, and we listen for the spirit to help us make the next step forward.
May Christ be with you, always.
Hello, beloved of God in Delaware
In just a few months, on November 20, our annual convention will be here. The theme this year is from Paul’s letter to the Romans — in chapter eight, the two verses that are beloved to so many Christians across the world, Paul writes, ‘nothing will separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. It’s good to be reminded that after a year and a half of pandemic and a time of turmoil and upheaval that we, as a church, are still united in Christ. Nothing will separate us from God — the love of God and the love of God in Christ Jesus. This year’s convention is being planned right now to be a hybrid convention though, as the state of the pandemic is still in flux. We know enough to realize that we can’t all get together in the same place. So, we are planning now for a hybrid convention, meaning that just a few folks will meet in person at St. Andrew’s school in Middletown, and those who will be there in person are basically the people who are certified to vote — clergy and delegates, as well as convention staff and presenters. Everyone else will be able to watch the convention online. That’s the hybrid nature of it. So put Saturday, November 20th, Saturday on your calendars.
Now, remember, too, that each delegation needs to be certified. This is in accordance with our diocesan canons. We want to make sure every parish has its delegates ready and able to vote. So don’t miss the important deadlines around certification. All information can be found on our diocesan website, at the convention webpage, www.delaware.church/convention-237/.
I also want to challenge every parish to take advantage of the ability to send a young adult delegate to convention. Look at the deadline, talk to your vestry and to your rector or priest in charge and find out who your young adult delegate is and make sure that you use every possible opportunity to have your voices heard at our annual convention.
The convention is a time of mission and a time of renewal of the church and I’m looking forward to it again this year. Please continue to pray for me and for the convention planning team as we come together and discern God’s will in this wonderful corner of the church and of the kingdom of God.
May the peace of Christ be with you always.
Beloved of God in Delaware:
Last week on the Feast of the Epiphany, one of the holiest, most sacred days of the Christian year, a group of American citizens stormed the US Capitol intent on overturning the recent election results. These people stormed in with violence and mayhem on their minds, bent on abducting our elected officials, bent on stopping them from doing their constitutional duty, bent on changing history to reflect their will. The fact is that their revolt, their riot, failed. And while we, as a country right now, are sitting in a time of increased fear and heightened anxiety because we don’t know exactly what to expect next, make no mistake — they failed. They failed because we, as American citizens, recognize and reject this kind of violence. We recognize and we reject this attempt to overthrow our elections. And we recognize as Christians that they failed because they failed in the very call of God to love. It is sadly ironic that a great many of those who stormed the Capitol prayed first to God, before they took this violent action.
Let us be clear. Work like this, actions like this, are not sanctioned by the living God, the God of love, by the Prince of Peace, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Here in the Episcopal Church in Delaware, I want to make clear that we repudiate this kind of action, not only because it stands against our democratic values as American citizens, but because it stands against our values as children of God, to love one another and to stand for what is true and good and right. In a time like now, when there is heightened anxiety and heightened concern, when we feel a kind of tempest blowing around us and the sea seems to be roiling, we can ask what is it that we are supposed to do? What do we do in a time like this? I think it’s absolutely essential in our lives, when we feel the most at loss, to remember the basics— remember who we are and remember whose we are.
We are baptized in the life and death of Jesus Christ, and we belong to him, and we were sealed as Christ’s own forever. So as you contemplate what it is that you are to do as a faithful citizen of this democracy and a faithful citizen of the Kingdom of God, remember that Christ is your Lord and to Him, to the Prince of Peace, to a God of love, you owe your deepest allegiance.
So a couple of things for us to remember, to guide us, to set our compasses north towards the living God: remember that Jesus taught us to love our neighbor. By that I hope to remind us in this very difficult moment to not look and see the very worst in what other people are doing and assume that that is the very worst in all of us. Remember that those people who stormed the Capitol, as wrong as what they did was, they do not represent the great majority, the vast majority of the American people. And if you disagree with them politically, be careful not to paint all of your political adversaries with the same brush as those who stormed the Capitol. We must be careful. Let us not take the worst in what we see and assume that that small minority applies to a great majority. That is part of loving our neighbors, seeing the good, looking for the good in one another. May we stop looking for the worst of motives in each other and start looking for the best.
Secondly, I call on us all to pray and to pray like we mean it, pray like it matters. Listen for God, and then act. Prayer is never a substitute for acting, but prayer is a prerequisite for doing, for deciding, and for knowing what to do next, because action is demanded.
As an American citizen, it is important that we stand up for fairness, for truth, and for justice — justice for all Americans. It is important as Christians that we stand up and speak out for love and for justice with mercy and compassion, and for the good of and dignity of all human beings. God is going to call on you and place something on your heart to do, and that is good and right. And as you are considering how to act, my sisters and brothers, remember to pray and listen, listen for the voice of God. God will point you where to act and will show you the way.
Remember this, that when we speak about the peace of Christ, we never are saying that we will live in a world where there is no tempest, where there is no storm. Rather the peace of Christ means that in the midst of a storm, in the midst of a tempest, we will not forget that God is with us. Remember who you are and whose you are. Look good upon your neighbor. Don’t assume the worst. Be ready to act, but first pray and look for the hand of God in what you are called to do. And remember that if you go forward, you go forward in love, then you do indeed go forward with God.
May the peace of Christ, my sisters and brothers, be with us always
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It’s a lie and it’s got to end.
Hello, my sisters and brothers in Delaware. Our nation, our state, we are in a time of profound unrest — so profound, so deep that the word unrest doesn’t begin to capture the emotion that we feel, the emotion being expressed. Unrest doesn’t capture the anger, the anger at seeing the life of a black man choked out of him on the streets of Minneapolis. The word unrest doesn’t begin to capture the sense of outrage, the sense of injustice, the sense of inhumanity, and the concern that this moment will pass and be forgotten. Unrest doesn’t capture the energy that says this moment will not pass, it will not be forgotten.
Just this past Pentecost Sunday, I, like so many preachers took to the pulpit to decry the sin of racism, to not simply, not only to speak out about the horrors of what happened in Minneapolis and the murder of George Floyd, but to speak about how it is that our entire system, the structure of our culture and of our country, can be based upon this fiction of racism. Racism itself, the construct of race, is a lie.
It’s simply not true. And we’ve all been taught that it’s true — the idea of race, that there are meaningful biological differences, meaningful differences between people because of the color of their skin. It’s not supported by any kind of science. It’s not supported by any kind of reality whatsoever. It’s only supported by a kind of myth that we have all been taught and it’s not true, but yet it underlies so much of the way that people behave, as if intrinsically there is something different, or better, or more dangerous, about someone of a different skin color. It’s a lie, and it’s got to end.
I’m very serious about the work that this church can do around racial reconciliation. And I’ve convened a group of people — just yesterday I asked a group of people who’ve been doing this work for a long time here in Delaware, to meet with me and not simply talk about it, but to help plan out what next steps I can do as a bishop, and we can do as a church, to make a meaningful difference in this conversation. We are in a moment of unrest, but that does not mean that we rest, that we stick our heads in the sand and wait for things to pass over. It is a call to action. We are followers of Jesus Christ after all, we are people of action, of love, of hope, and faith. Not only are we living in a time of moral and social upheaval, we’re still living in a time of pandemic.
The novel coronavirus hasn’t magically gone away. COVID-19 is still here in Delaware. We’re blessed and lucky that our health trends, our public health figures, really do seem to be improving. The stay at home measures that we have been under, the new ways of living together with social distancing and masks, and all the other precautions, they seem to be working. And because they’re working, we as a church and so many other businesses and organizations are being allowed, under very limited rules but still being allowed, to consider regathering. I’m sure you’ve seen the news and heard that the church may be able to regather. I’m very thankful for the work of the New Normal Task Force, a group that I called together barely two weeks ago. And since that time, they have compiled, and reviewed, and rereviewed this document that’s being now released called All Things in Love.
It’s a guide to regathering. It’s a guide that each and every parish leader can use to help step through the theological reasons for what it is that we do, to help root the decisions for our regathering in our call to love Christ and love one another, and can help with a checklist of things that just need to be done to open safely in a time of pandemic. As you can imagine, it’s not easy. And as you might imagine, it really shouldn’t be easy when you have a pandemic alive, alive around us. I want to thank that task force for the work that they’ve done — such quality work in such a short period of time. On behalf of a thankful, grateful diocese I express my sincere appreciation.
I want to point out that this book, these guidelines, are purposefully labeled version one, and that’s simply to note that very likely it will be updated. This is a fluid situation. And, as you might hope, as we learn new things or guidelines change, we want to be able to update it as well. But know that for any parish that is considering this, I want to really emphasize that there is no rush. I am not pushing parishes. I’m not hinting. I’m not encouraging any clergy or any parish to rush out to reopen until the moment when it feels like it could be done safely, and it can be done in a way where the worship is wonderful. So please know that while the guidelines are being published now, it is not an incentive or a wink that you should be regathering anytime immediately.
Yes. It’s true that we are living in pandemic. Yes, it’s true we’re living in great social upheaval and unrest, and yes, it is true that we are people of the living God. Our hope is in Jesus Christ. I thank God for it. We’ve long known, long understood that our help is not simply in ourselves. It is not our ability or our task to save ourselves, it is to rely on the love of God which will save us and save the world. Don’t give up hope. Know that no matter how dark the storm, no matter how difficult this seems, our hope is in Christ and in the love of God that Christ showed with great sacrifice, with great humility, with open arms on the cross — a love that’s meant to encompass every single person. So don’t give up hope my brothers and sisters, lean on love.
That’s what Trinity Sunday is all about. It’s coming up soon, and it’s all about how love unites God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is love that unifies the Godhead and it is love that unifies, connects us to God. Celebrate love this Trinity Sunday. Celebrate, and don’t give up hope. Be ready for the work ahead because it’ll take a long time, but we’re up for this. We were baptized for times like this,
Go in peace, my brothers and sisters, and may the peace of Christ be with you always.
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