Tricities Tennessee Episcopal Churches Going to Try It Again
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Please refer to this page for updates on COVID-xix, coronavirus, for the Diocese of Due east Tennessee.
August thirteen, 2021
Transcript:
Howdy, I'thousand Bishop Brian. I want to speak to you today, an update related to COVID, detail, the delta variant. I know in the leap, as many of united states of america had access to the COVID-19 vaccine, in that location was a great sense of joy, of possibility, of progress as numbers went downwardly, as people idea about a return to post-COVID life. Our parishes have experienced that. You lot and I take experienced that, too. Only we now know for the last few weeks here in Tennessee, we are seeing a huge upsurge in the number of COVID cases related to the delta variant. So I want to speak to you today almost bringing dorsum our masks.
I am grateful for our Episcopal schools beyond the Diocese of East Tennessee. All of our schools are going with full masking indoors, taking very careful precautions guided by the CDC. I applaud and assert the proficient work of our Episcopal schools right now. They're focusing on keeping kids safe, faculty, staff, students, visitors to campus, to keeping them safe. They should exist applauded for that piece of work, and I'm grateful for them, but strongly encourage in our parishes equally we assemble in doors to be masked, knowing that we have people that still tin can not be vaccinated. We have children that accept not yet had access to the vaccine. We desire to do everything we can to limit spread to allow u.s.a. to be able to gather safely in-person because at that place is so much to be said to be in person.
Here at our diocesan firm, all of our staff, nosotros are all vaccinated, but we have at present returned to masking, to limiting interaction indoors, just to keep u.s. safe, and folks who come up to this building, to go along them safety. Also, just aware correct now that that there'south an emotion that maybe many of us are feeling, maybe you lot're feeling around anger about the progress we take fabricated as a community, as a country and now to run into some of these setbacks, realizing in the country of Tennessee, we are quite low on the percentage of vaccination rates and quite high right now on hospitalization and caseload. Would encourage you to acknowledge that you're aroused merely to not permit that anger either to be turned inwards or outwards in ways that's destructive. This is a practiced fourth dimension to call up our piece of work early on in the pandemic on the four One thousand's for mental health, mindfulness, motion, meaningful connection, and mastery. This is a fourth dimension to continue to practice those and to continue to practice deep places for prayer, to allow your lament, to allow your anger, to give that upwards to God and to continue to turn towards each other, both friend, neighbor, and stranger, and see in their face, the face of the Christ, whether they are masked or not, to see them as the Christ.
Again, thank you, cheers, thank you to our Episcopal schools and the proficient work they're doing to continue our kids safe. They are doing those practices because they intendance about kids, and nosotros intendance nigh kids every bit Episcopalians. And so continue to persevere in this time, to care for this coming season of an opening to school year and a more than robust church building twelvemonth to know that God continues to piece of work in our midst in our communities and in our churches. So mask up. Go vaccinated. If you experience in any way ill, please stay dwelling. We're in this together. We desire to continue to be the people of God in Eastward Tennessee now. Cheers.
May 19, 2021
Dear Friends in the Episcopal Diocese of East Tennessee,
Greetings! Pentecost Lord's day 2021 is quickly approaching. Every bit we pray over again for the descending of the Spirit upon the people of God, we do so with encouraging news regarding our response to the COVID pandemic and updated CDC masking guidelines for fully vaccinated persons released last calendar week.
Your Diocesan COVID-19 Task Force continues to stress that decisions for regathering for in-person worship and formation are best made at the parish level. Please be in touch with me as you re-evaluate your in-person worship protocols and make adjustments to them, as yous come across fit, in calorie-free of recent CDC guidelines.
At this time, I would invite yous to reverberate on the passage from Romans 12, particularly as it relates to the gift of encouragement. This is both an encouraging fourth dimension and a time to be encouragers of others as nosotros movement forward at "the speed of trust."
As you lot re-evaluate your masking policies, remember the CDC guidelines presume persons are fully vaccinated. I would encourage you to brand sure any changes you make to your parish protocols make space both for fully vaccinated persons and for those who are not yet vaccinated. It is important to go along to encourage all who tin to get vaccinated at this time.
Also, be mindful and communicate clearly on how yous intend to keep children safe in our common spaces, as they volition be the last eligible for vaccines. As a torso of believers dedicated to welcoming all in Christ, please be sure your updated COVID protocols reflect Christian hospitality and welcome.
Even with this hopeful threshold in our response to the COVID pandemic, nosotros will be living in the aftermath of this pandemic for a long time to come. Our COVID page on the Diocesan website will exist adding resources to support grief work and those living with mental health challenges, many of which we will only begin to see as we discover ourselves more and more than in front end of each other in real fourth dimension and infinite.
My prayer is that Pentecost 2021 will be a time when the Spirit descends upon us all again and gives us new ways to tell the old story of God's abiding and hopeful and renewing presence for all of God's Cosmos.
Peace,
+ Brian
March ten, 2021
Hybrid Church building-A Fashion Forrad for Church building Leaders, by The Rev. Tim Schenck, is an splendid resource for parishes to consider when discerning how we get forward from the pandemic.
The Tennessee Medical Reserve Corps takes both medical and non-medical volunteers to aid land-led efforts. You can go to that website to sign-up to volunteer.
For a transcript of the video, click here.
December thirty, 2020
For a transcript of this video, click hither.
December 2, 2020
Dear Eastward Tennessee Friends,
"Notwithstanding, O Lord, you lot are our Male parent; nosotros are the clay, and y'all are our potter; we are all the piece of work of your manus."
Isaiah 64:viii
This past Lord's day, the First Dominicus of Advent, we read from the Book of Isaiah. It was a bully assist to me to hear that I am clay and that God is the potter. We all are a piece of work in God's hands. If equally the calendar 2020 draws to a shut, you feel similar a croaky pot, or a ruined bowl, there are many others who share that sense, that feeling with you.
This has been a difficult year. COVID and economical downturn, a stressed election season and now a failure to recognize the soundness of our election process, a renewed recognition that the work of racial justice and dismantling structural racism is still before the states—each one of those concerns would be plenty for one year, let lone all occurring in this ane. And all the struggles are upon us while it remains challenging to gather in person, to encounter each other face up to face, in order to confront this moment together.
We are clay. God is the potter. Nosotros often forget that. We frequently flip that image. We often seek to make God in our prototype, projecting our desires onto what it means to exist holy, divine, eternal, everlasting. This twelvemonth, 2020, when our lives have been out of control, it is a healing word to exist satisfied, relieved fifty-fifty, with being dirt, with trusting God to make and shape the states anew.
In jubilant Advent, we speak of waiting for the coming of the Christ child and the Second Coming of Christ, the completion of all things. Advent besides is a time to allow God to make something new of us. Information technology is good news to hear that God does not throw away sometime clay, seeking to find new people, to begin from scratch. Rather, God begins again with united states, cracked pots and ruined bowls, and makes and renews us. God the Potter delights in imperfect clay.
In this Appearance, nosotros are also trusting at that place is much encouraging news regarding COVID vaccines and improved treatments. It is not foolish to believe that 2021 could be a time when nosotros are able to get together safely in all the ways we have in the past. While we wait, we do so at the kickoff of a very hard winter, when COVID numbers are increasing and more and more of us know people who have been impacted directly by the pandemic. It is as if nosotros are climbing a hill in the Appalachian region together and before nosotros ascend to a post-pandemic summit, we withal have some frustrating false peaks to laissez passer over.
The Diocesan COVID-19 Task Force wants to remind all of you that their guidelines for gathering for in-person worship envisioned this very moment. The procedure they outlined acknowledged that steps moving frontward for in-person worship could also accept a suspension and even become backwards, every bit public health facts on the footing change. The Task Force continues to value that controlling for gathering safely for in-person worship will remain at the parish level, in consultation with me, your bishop. While still endorsing that value, please know this is a critical time to re-examine your plans for gathering for in-person worship, if you lot are doing so, and make sure your procedure is consistent with electric current CDC guidelines.
Today marks 3 years since I was ordained every bit your bishop. Susan and I continue to be blessed past you and the East Tennessee region we all call domicile. Fifty-fifty in a challenging yr, this work with you has been a joy. This work has stretched all of us this year. I hope the stretching will be i, not that overwhelms us and diminishes us, but rather one where nosotros discover new spaces in our lives where God's grace and mercy grow. I pray that a kind of Divine inventiveness and innovation volition continue to nurture us in this season.
We are chosen to be reconcilers in Christ. We are called to remain connected communities in Christ. We are called to be here and serve here now. We are the very clay that God is working with at present.
Please pray for me every bit I pray for you.
Peace,
+ Brian
November 13, 2020
Dear East Tennessee Friends,
Blessings and peace to you in the name of the Risen Christ.
I am writing to inform you the Diocesan COVID-19 Task Force has developed a Policy for Guidelines for Return to In-Person Service for Clergy and Parish Employees who accept tested positive for COVID-19. Their hope is these guidelines will be helpful in offering clear, conscientious, and compassionate steps for safely returning to church work offices. The new Policy is constitute at the stop of this letter of the alphabet.
I would ask that you go on to follow public health advice of masking, social distancing, frequent hand washing, and staying home as much as yous can. With a renewed surge in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths, we all take an of import function to play in stopping the spread. Even every bit in that location is encouraging news regarding potential vaccines and effective treatments, we have a difficult wintertime alee.
Practice not lose heart. I am proud of all the ways that our parishes and diocesan leaders have responded and worked together this past year in adapting and innovating in gild to worship, serve, study, and grow in the faith given to us in Christ Jesus.
All of you remain in my prayers. Pray for me.
Peace,
The Right Rev. Brian L. Cole
00Click here to download the Return to Work Policy.
May 31, 2020
St. John'southward Cathedral Knoxville
Acts 2:1-21
John vii:37-39
The Correct Rev. Brian L. Cole
Words.
When a people share the same language and speak to each other and listen to each other, then words tin can be a powerful instrument for healing and wholeness, for finding a identify of deeper forgiving and forgiveness. The correct words, combined with a spirit of gracious listening, well, they get more than than words.
They take on marks of the sacred and the Holy Spirit. Through my words and your words, or my listening and your listening, the Spirit makes the states 1. The Spirit heals what was cleaved or neglected and in disrepair. The Spirit is a translator and speaks all languages and gives usa the wisdom of a common tongue.
Words.
When a people exercise non share the same language, then words tin can cease to be tools for understanding and instead become weapons that simply add to the distance betwixt us. In attempting to communicate to you, I only create a greater chasm between the states. I am non getting through. My words are pushing you lot away while adding to the injure.
When you and I understand each other and can speak to each other and can listen and larn from each other, so our hearts also grow close to each other. Like Jesus' reminder this morning, the heart of the believer is an open up heart, with living water flowing from it.
At present I realize in the linguistic communication of modern medicine, a leaky heart valve is not a practiced thing and you should telephone call your doctor now. Merely as believers who follow in the Fashion of Jesus, our hearts, our open hearts, are also leaking hearts, with water that overflows from my personal life into the communal life of our neighborhoods and parishes and country and world.
Y'all and I are to be leaking center Christians.
This past week has been a hard week.
At the beginning of the week, we passed the threshold of 100,000 deaths in the The states from COVID19. We have seen video images of the final minutes of George Floyd's life and are faced once again with the cognition that we alive both with the invisible virus of COVID 19 and the enduring virus of racism in a country that all the same says information technology believes in freedom and liberty and justice for all.
We pray for those seeking to find a vaccine for COVID 19. Nosotros badly hope they will discover that vaccine in record time.
Nosotros should besides pray for the vaccine to cure racism. For centuries in this land, nosotros have had moments when we believed nosotros institute it and we were all cured. So, racism spikes once again, and we realize we accept simply treated the symptoms and not truly found the healing medicine that would let us to go deeper into the wound of racism and clean out all the infection and repair all that is distorted by the illness.
This past week has been a hard week.
At the cease of the calendar week, the news was not global or national. The news was local. The St. John's community received word of the death of Dr. Frank Grey. So, those hearts hither which are chosen to be open and flowing with living water, well, they are also broken open up this solar day, grieving and shedding tears of sorrow and loss.
This past week has been a hard week.
So, thank God it is Sunday. Give thanks God information technology is Pentecost.
Thank God Jesus is the Word that tin can translate and create a new place where all of usa who speak different languages and live in dissimilar worlds, through the Spirit, can detect a mutual ground and acquire and heed and speak with a new tongue.
Speaking a new linguistic communication and being able to empathize a new language, well, in the Acts of the Apostles that power came to the people present in an instant. In record fourth dimension, a various people possessed a mastery of languages and found common ground. The Spirit made them one.
The disciples were not filled with breakfast beer. The disciples had been given the gift of many tongues in society to communicate God'southward story, which is i story for all people. Information technology is a story for the sons and the daughters. It is a story for the old and the young. Information technology is a story for the free and the enslaved.
It is a story, finally, of healing comfort, but a comfort that only arrives with alter. Deep change.
How deep? The kind of deep that causes the lord's day to plow dark, the moon to become bloody and a smoky mist upon the land. That is an unnerving image. It is an paradigm of a changing, disrupted world.
Only the vision of the prophet Joel is not intended to brand u.s.a. afraid. It is intended to get our attention. At that place are things we need to nourish to. We need to find common basis and learn a common linguistic communication. We need to heed. To listen more securely.
As a bishop, I have many opportunities to speak, to preach, to share a give-and-take. In this fourth dimension, I notwithstanding need to do that. Merely I also need to mind, specially to those who have no help, who take no abet. Jesus cries out to those who are thirsty and offers them a drink. He can see, when nosotros so often practice not, those who have no aid.
When nosotros tell the story of Pentecost, we tell a story of divided tongues, as flames, descending upon our heads. This year, perhaps, the more important image of Pentecost is of living waters offered to the thirsty, to those who accept lost hope, whose hearts have grown cold and hard and fix confronting each other. This is non a fourth dimension for simulated hope. This is a fourth dimension to realize, for many of us, hope has dried up and is withering. The waters of Pentecost are arriving simply in time, to bring back hope from the brink.
As a follower of Jesus, as a believer, every bit i whose heart is more open up than airtight, I remain an optimist virtually the American experiment. I remain an optimist that God'due south Spirit has not brought us here, simply to abandon us at present.
If the lord's day turns dark and the moon goes bloody, nosotros do not have to consider that this might be the End. Rather, we know what that sign means. God is still moving through the country.
God has non left u.s.. God, however, does plan to modify us, to take us from a divided place to a common place. The Spirit is to teach us a new language, to give us a new natural language, to be patient with us as we learn a deeper way of listening, as we acquire how to tell and hear the whole truth and aught but truth.
This by week has been a hard week. Nosotros need help. We cannot do this without assist.
Dissimilar the Pentecost of Acts, this transformation we need as the people of God will non take place in an instant. Information technology will take time for us to learn this new language. It volition have fourth dimension to learn to listen more deeply. Information technology will take time to make amends and set things right.
So, thank God it is Sunday. Give thanks God information technology is Pentecost. The Spirit is still here, nevertheless descending upon us. And we are in a business firm. A house of prayer for all people.
All people. There is room in this business firm for more. There is e'er room for more than.
Today, we can begin with words. Words of lament. Words from the ancient psalms, asking God to heal what remains broken in our land. We inquire the Spirit to breathe upon us, to change us, to move us, to stay with us until all who have a vocalization accept been heard.
The miracle of Pentecost was that all who were present heard God'southward story in their native tongue. And in hearing that story, they saw that they were included in that story.
God's story is not for i tribe. God'due south story is for all that God has made. God has fabricated u.s.a. all.
Come up Holy Spirit and heal us and give u.s. the courage and the humility to sit down together and listen, with hearts open, turned towards each other. May living waters renew our country.
Allow us exist establish worthy of the ideals of this nation. And let the Church be a firm of prayer for all, all, all people.
Rising Twenty-four hour period 2020
Acts ane:one-11
Luke 24:44-53
The Correct Rev. Brian 50. Cole
Andrei Rublev is arguably the most famous Russian icon painter e'er. An Orthodox monk, he lived during the tardily 14th and early on xvth centuries. His well-nigh famous icon, the Hospitality of Abraham, depicts iii individuals seated around an altar. We think of it as an paradigm of the Trinity, while as well aware it depicts the strangers who visited Abraham and Sarah.
Icons are more than common in the Eastern Church than in the West and are visual representations of the Christ, the Virgin Mary and the saints. These images are intended to be doorways into prayer.
Once the icon image is completed, you have a flat wooden surface with a visual depiction of a saint, the Christ, the Virgin or a biblical scene. Simply, don't be fooled. It is not a flat image. There are layers upon layers of story found in the visual and those images "say" more than nosotros can depict with words.
So, information technology is fitting that Andrei Rublev took a vow of silence upon becoming a monk and remained more often than not silent the residue of his life. He did non speak with words. Instead, he confessed his belief in the Word, the Christ, through paint and brush stroke, through holy and eternal scenes captured on the ordinary and temporal surface.
In 1408, Andrei Rublev was sent to a Russian cathedral in club to make new icons for the holy spaces there. Ane of the icons completed at that time was an icon of the Rising. The Ascension, a story from the life of the Risen Jesus, mentioned in our creeds and in our Eucharistic prayers—this story of the Risen Jesus ascending into sky was given to the monk equally the latest image to depict.
Now, for a moment, let's say it is non 1408 in Russian federation, only rather here and at present and yous are the monk, the silent one with the castor and the paints and the empty wooden surface before you. At the summit of the work order is the task earlier y'all—Rising OF JESUS. You tin utilize any colors y'all wish, just when you are washed, the folks are expecting to see the Ascension.
So, what exercise you create? What scene comes to you, with the paint and the prayerful gaze? How many are present with Jesus? Has he launched yet? Are in that location clouds encircling him? Is the crowd left behind one given to shouts of alleluia or is it an angry mob feeling abandoned by the Risen Teacher?
Andrei Rublev took a vow of silence. He did not leave his witness to us in words. He left his witness with paint, with a confessing epitome. And he left no written commentary about his icons. Simply we remember him still, over 600 years by, because of the prayerful images he left.
Rublev'due south icon of the Rising has a few things you would expect. Jesus is at the top of the icon, lifted in a higher place the world. He is surrounded by a sacred circle, known equally a mandorla, and heavenly beings attend to him.
At the bottom of the icon, the apostles are present. That is to be expected. Most of them are looking up, with easily raised, reaching upward towards Jesus. It is not possible to determine if their easily are raised upwards in order to grasp the ascending Jesus or just to give thanks, to cry out, to bid goodbye to the One who promises to send the Spirit upon them.
What is remarkable, and possibly unexpected, nigh Rublev's Rise icon is what you lot detect in the centre of the icon. In the center of the icon is a woman. It is Mary, the mother of Jesus. She is in the center of the painted epitome, with apostles continuing on either side of her. About of the apostles are staring up towards Jesus. But a few of those apostles are not looking upwardly but rather are looking at Mary.
At present, to be honest, there is no specific reference to Mary's presence at the Ascension, neither in the account given in the Acts of the Apostles or from St. Luke'due south Gospel. Somewhere, a radio preacher might be thinking, "That ain't Bible and I ain't listening…"
Rublev, however, does non simply identify Mary in the Rise icon, sneaking her in on the side, as a face in the crowd, lost in a body of water of apostles and the Resurrection community. He places her in the heart of the icon. She is not looking up to sky, acknowledging Jesus' ascension into the clouds. Rather, she is looking at Rublev, looking at the 1 who will await upon the icon. If you want to comprehend the Ascension, information technology might exist wise, so, to study Mary's presence for a fourth dimension.
It is worth recalling Mary's presence throughout the story of Jesus given to us in the Gospel accounts. She is the immature girl, nowadays for the Announcing Angel. Within of Mary, God's beloved and reconciliation for all will grow.
She will requite nascence to Jesus, surrounded by the lowly and the forgotten. She volition be present at his first phenomenon, calling out for his first sign and inviting all to listen to her son.
She will be present at the cantankerous, when others accept abandoned her son. She will be found in the community that gathers in the Resurrection, desiring to hold her son again, no longer dead, made alive once more, fulfilling the promise for which Mary once sang in the company of her cousin, Elizabeth.
And so, it makes sense, it makes Gospel sense, that Mary would exist present for the Ascension. Every bit her son goes to reign in celebrity, Mary, who has been faithful throughout the story of Jesus, is faithful now. In her faithfulness, she teaches us how to alive now, how to heed and reply to this Ascension image.
She stands in the middle of Rublev'southward icon and she is in a prayerful posture, a posture of waiting, a posture of anticipation.
While she waits, do not misfile her waiting with passivity. She waits with anticipation that the Spirit which descended upon her at the Annunciation, will now descend upon all in the days alee.
The woman who first carried the Incarnation alone in her body at present stands in the center of a community called to carry the Incarnation together. The alone woman stands at the center of an apostolic community that will one 24-hour interval be endless in its number.
The customs of the Incarnation, of the teachings of Jesus, of the cross of nonviolent love, of the empty tomb, of the Resurrected Body, of the Ascended One, volition shortly be transformed into the Spirited Church building. Mary, who kickoff held the Incarnation inside of her body, will now invite the Church building to hold the Incarnation inside of our bodies.
At the hymeneals at Cana, Mary tells the gathered crowd to listen to her son. If we listen to Jesus at the time of his ascension, we hear an invitation to return to the city, to the place where we live, to wait for the Spirit that is to come, to exist prepared to receive the blessing of the Ascended Christ upon our lives, hither and now, now and forever.
Mary's presence in Rublev'south icon helps integrate what the Church believes about Incarnation and Resurrection and Ascension. They are non offered to usa in isolation, with an invitation to choose your favorite portion of the Jesus story.
In the Incarnation, nosotros believe the holy and divine, in humble submission, entered the human story. In the Resurrection, we believe that the divine and the human, together, overcame the matted and demonic attempts to shout down and to kill God's love for us. In the Rise, nosotros believe that the human has been given a place in God'due south life in glory.
While the apostles captured in Rublev'due south icon look in every direction, up to heaven, at each other in wonderment and doubt, over to Mary, waiting with the one who knows how to wait and to receive—the Ascendant Jesus and Mary , institute in the center, both wait ahead, at us, at the author of the icon, sitting in prayer, waiting for illumination and understanding.
It is easy to feel abandoned upon hearing the Ascension story. Who wouldn't want Jesus to stay, to continue on teaching, healing?
But he has not abandoned us in the Ascension. The minds of the apostolic customs have been opened by Jesus. They remember his hope to be nowadays with them, now and e'er. What they take seen and heard and touched in his life, volition now be true in theirs, too.
At the middle of that customs, Mary remains. The immature girl who first carried the Incarnation in her body, will at present teach the apostles how to carry Jesus in theirs.
Information technology volition not be easy. I take heard it said that the best jazz is always on the verge of falling apart. So much of the early church'southward life together will be like the all-time jazz, with a simple melody that goes on and on, with musicians learning to trust each other and improvise with each other and to flesh out this believing in the I who was and is and is to come, together.
Like the best jazz, in that location will still be moments when it will feel every bit if it is falling apart. In this time of COVID 19, it feels equally all we accept known is falling apart. Nonetheless, even in this time, the Ascending Christ has not abased united states of america. The Spirit will descend upon united states of america again.
And the center will concur. Christ is the center. And in this Ascension story, Christ has non left us. His mother stands in the middle, too. She will teach united states how to await, how to heed, how to lead.
She remains a door. We are all invited in.
May 8, 2020
Dear East Tennessee Friends,
In St. Matthew's Gospel, Jesus declares that loving God fully and loving our neighbors as ourselves are the two dandy commandments. Everything else nosotros practice as followers of Jesus builds on these calls to love.
The Diocesan COVID-xix Task Forcefulness is releasing today Guidelines and Questions that will aid all of united states of america in discerning when and how best to return to some form of in-person, public worship. Every bit you read and written report their work, please do so prayerfully, remembering that the phone call to love God and neighbour is always our start priority.
For some time going forward, how we assemble will require creativity, imagination, and flexibility. Whether online or in-person, we gather not simply for ourselves. Nosotros gather as a schoolhouse of prayer, to learn to live differently. We live for others, non for ourselves.
I remain grateful for the COVID-19 Task Force and their good work.
Peace,
+ Brian
May 6, 2020
"The darkness deepens, Lord, with me abide
When other helpers fail and comforts flee
Aid of the helpless, oh, bide with me…"
Abide with Me, Henry Francis Lyte
Beloved Due east Tennessee Friends,
I am writing to yous on the Wednesday afterwards the fourth Sunday of Easter. I write to you every bit we all go on to alive in the midst of changes and chances of the COVID xix pandemic.
In writing to yous now, I practise so enlightened that the new reality of life in the midst of a pandemic is how we will live for the foreseeable hereafter. Until we discover a vaccine and share it widely, we volition all accept to learn new and creative means to exist the people of God together.
I have heard many speak of how long this year's Lenten flavor felt as the pandemic arrived in the middle of it. Even though information technology is at present Easter, a lingering kind of Lenten discipline will be with the states for some time. We will take to be creative and imaginative as we care for each other and for self, as we continue to treat the least amongst usa.
In this moment, I am taking real condolement with the image of Jesus every bit the One who abides with us. Constant, lingering, remaining, keeping faith with the states in the midst of the storm. As someone who loves to believe the illusion that I am in control, COVID 19 has exposed the falsehood of that.
However, Jesus abides with me. The Good Shepherd cares for sheep, leading us through skilful pastures and the valley of the shadow of death. I am not in control. While, that knowledge might cause me to fear, if I can go deeper into that knowledge, information technology can as well teach me to stay close to the One who abides.
Jesus abides. In this moment, when all of u.s. may feel helpless, he remains the help. We will find our way together through this season of pandemic, if we stay together and continue to stay close to the Risen Christ who abides with u.s. and remains with usa.
The COVID 19 Task Forcefulness will be releasing guidelines later this week for clergy and parish leaders to consider as we make plans for some kind of in-person public worship. We practice so, enlightened that this plague season is requiring all of us to go beyond sometime limits of creativity and imagination.
My prayer is that this plague season volition non undo the states or cause united states of america to remain in despair. My prayer is that this flavour volition teach us again that Jesus abides with us. If we believe that, nosotros volition have enough to run into this moment.
You lot all remain in my prayers. Pray for me.
Peace,
+ Brian
Apr 22, 2020
"When it was evening on that day, the first solar day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear…Jesus came and stood among them and said, 'Peace be with you.'" -John 20:19
Dear Eastward Tennessee Friends,
I am writing to you lot on Wed after the 2nd Sunday of Easter. I am writing to you in a season when many of us are spending countless hours inside our homes, keeping social altitude in guild to limit the community spread of COVID xix.
After the very first Easter, in the aftermath of the Resurrection, Jesus' closest friends are in a business firm together. The door is locked. They are afraid.
Jesus, who had been placed in a tomb, is now risen. His friends, who are live, have locked themselves in a house, with great fright. That locked and fearful firm had become a kind of tomb.
Jesus enters that house. He enters without unlocking the door.
He does not require his disciples to gather up their courage before he enters. Upon entering, he does not offer words of rebuke or shame or disappointment.
Rather, he offers them peace. He breathes on them. The Spirit makes more space and opens up what had been locked downwards and agape.
This time of a global virus is a time when beingness afraid makes sense. Along with the potential for grave affliction, we are living in the midst of economical upheaval. We are not in control on whatsoever front.
If you are at dwelling and you are afraid, Jesus is not about to enter your dwelling and offer words of rebuke or shame or thwarting. Jesus desires to bring peace and breathe upon you. The Resurrection flavour is a fourth dimension when fearfulness is met with peace, when locked spaces are met with Spirit-filled jiff.
At this time, the facts on the ground regarding COVID-19 yet necessitate our need to do all we can to combat customs spread. I would ask that you continue to engage worship, pastoral intendance, and Christian formation every bit a dispersed torso, still refraining from gathering in person.
The Diocesan COVID-19 Job Forcefulness is working on several fronts. One thing relates to what it will look like for us to exist able to assemble again in person, safely, for worship and ministry. Nosotros are developing guidelines to aid parish churches when that season arrives. The Christian ethic of care for the other, the weak, and the least amid u.s.a. will guide our thinking with these next steps. Until that time arrives, I am thankful for your willingness to behave the many burdens of this extraordinary time together.
You all remain in my prayers. Pray for me.
Peace,
+Brian
Apr 8, 2020
"Hear my prayer, O God;
do not hide yourself from my petition.
Heed to me and answer me;
I have no peace, because of my cares."
Psalm 55:1-two
Dear East Tennessee Friends,
I am writing to you on Midweek in Holy Week. Psalm 55 is the Psalm appointed for Morn Prayer today. Like you lot, I have been praying fervently these last several weeks for God to hear and listen equally the COVID-19 pandemic continues to upend our daily lives. This is a time when the cares we are conveying, both for ourselves and others, might overwhelm any sense of peace we know now.
At this fourth dimension, the facts on the basis regarding COVID-19 still necessitate our need to do all we can to combat customs spread. I would inquire that y'all continue to appoint in worship, pastoral care, and Christian formation as a dispersed body, still refraining from gathering in person. In continuing to abide by public health and community guidelines to shelter at home, we all are learning a new way to honey the neighbor and care for the common skilful.
I desire to continue to commend all the ways by which parish clergy and lay leaders are staying connected to the parish churches where they serve. I am also gladdened to hear the lengths being taken to call, write, and continue all the Trunk together in this time. While this is non a trial whatever of us would seek, I am aware that some parish communities are experiencing a deeper sense of knowing each other, even as that interaction has come up at a physical distance.
Since I final wrote you, a COVID-19 Diocesan Task Force has been established. This group is assisting me in leading through this virus season and reflecting on how we will rebuild and exist renewed in the aftermath. The Task Strength is focusing on matters related to the following: pastoral intendance, legal, financial, diaconal, liturgical, and communications. We are meeting weekly. The members are George Arrants, Dianne Britton, Ronda Redden Reitz, Howard Vogel, The Rev. Howard Hess, The Rev. Josh Weaver, The Rev. Lee Ragsdale, Mary Embler, John Hicks, The Rev. Joe Woodfin, McKenna Cox, John Bellamy, and The Very Rev. Doug McCaleb. Please continue these persons in your prayers.
In John'southward Gospel, when Mary Magdalene recognizes Jesus in the garden, she runs to him in order to embrace the Resurrected life in her midst. Notwithstanding, Jesus asks her non to touch him, non to concur on to him.
I accept never understood that request.
If your friend and your teacher, the Resurrected Jesus stands earlier you, information technology makes sense to run towards new life and cover. Jesus asks Mary to keep a distance from her. Granted, he is not practicing social distancing.
However, this year I will reverberate on his asking. In that location is Resurrection Life in our midst, but for now, go along prophylactic distance from each other so that all life might flourish. Keep distance from each other, and then that those health intendance workers and doctors and nurses who are disposed to the sick will not be overwhelmed past more virus cases.
Keep distance from the Resurrected One, so as to remember he is non your ain private savior. He does not belong to united states alone. The Resurrection belongs to the globe, to witness to reconciled life where any are suffering or agape or alone or holding besides many cares.
This year we will practice a new kind of Easter. This will not be an Easter of crowded church and fanfare and fragrance. This volition be an Easter of standing at a distance, looking out to the horizon, seeing and assertive that the Resurrection is drawing about to us. The Resurrected I will enter our locked rooms and exhale peace on the states. It is that Peace which will behave us into a new kind of Easter flavor.
You all remain in my prayers. Pray for me.
Peace,
+ Brian
FINANCIAL RELIEF FOR CONGREGATIONS DURING THE COVID-xix PANDEMIC
As the fiscal affect of the coronavirus pandemic continues, congregations can seek financial relief from the federal government. Here are details nearly relief currently available:
PAYROLL PROTECTION PROGRAM – WHAT CHURCHES NEED TO DO NOW
**The Payroll Protection Program has been endorsed by the Standing Committee. You do not need their prior blessing to use. We but ask that you follow the guidelines to ensure that the loan is used for forgivable purposes. We also inquire that you make the Standing Committee aware that you have made awarding to the Payroll Protection Program.**
Go along reading here…
March 31, 2020
"Batter my centre, three-personed God; for, y'all
As nevertheless but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand up, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your forcefulness, to break, accident, burn, and make me new."
–From Divine Meditations xiv, by John Donne
East Tennessee Friends,
I am writing to y'all on the death day of John Donne, poet and Anglican priest from the 17th century. I am writing to you in a time when all of united states are experiencing a kind of battering, not from the Triune God, but from the upside-downward world of the COVID-19 pandemic and the shared burden all of united states are taking on to limit its spread in our world.
I am writing to allow y'all know how grateful I am for all the ways I am hearing and "seeing" the people and parishes of the Diocese stay connected to each other in common prayer and worship, though dispersed. I am grateful for the creative ways in which pastoral care and Christian formation keep to be offered past clergy and lay leaders. You all are being tested and the bonds of affection you lot all share with each other are existence strengthened. No one would ask for this exam, merely y'all all are beingness the Trunk and begetting burdens and sharing gifts with each other.
I am also writing to let y'all know of an action recommended by the Diocesan Finance Committee and affirmed by Bishop & Council regarding the Diocesan Budget and Parish Assessments. Because of generous external gifts given to the Diocese in the last ii weeks, along with the matching of those gifts by Diocesan funds, we are forgiving two months of parish assessments to every parish in the Episcopal Diocese of East Tennessee in 2020. My promise is that this decision volition create infinite in every parish budget every bit nosotros all are facing extraordinary economic uncertainty.
I am grateful for the good leadership of our Diocesan Finance Committee and Bishop & Council and their proactive approach in acting quickly and significantly. I am grateful to these generous givers who take given to support our common life at present. And I am grateful for all the past leadership of our Diocese, who have stewarded our resource wisely, which let the states to offer this relief at this time.
I would enquire that all of yous, as y'all are able, go on to requite of your fiscal resources to support the piece of work of your parish churches as we all are existence stretched—spiritually, emotionally, financially, and physically. When this COVID-19 season ends, and it volition, nosotros will need to gather again, in person, to programme and set for how we continue to renew the face of the Church building in the aftermath.
My first days with you as bishop accept included many miles in my car, traveling to be with you, to show upward for each other in flesh and blood. Now, for this season, similar many of you, I am non traveling. Still, my prayer is that nosotros volition continue to share in ministry building together, fifty-fifty as we are absent from each other in the flesh.
Despite that absenteeism, we remain a Body together. May all of united states of america be good stewards to the Body at present. It is my hope and prayer that the Torso will gather one time again, in flesh and blood, and celebrate and sing songs of how the Triune God in our midst is still making the states new.
Peace,
+ Brian
March 25, 2020
The Annunciation of the Lord
Dear East Tennessee Friends,
I am writing to yous on a most holy twenty-four hours, the Annunciation of the Lord. This is the solar day in the Church calendar when nosotros celebrate the announcing angel declaring to Mary that she is most favored by God and will conceive and bear a son, who will be named Jesus.
In the Middle Ages, this story from St. Luke's Gospel was depicted in sacred fine art with images of Mary, in her home, with a prayer volume in her lap, as the Angel Gabriel enters her habitation with surprising, world-changing news. The Holy has entered her habitation. In the daily and the mundane, the well-nigh sacred and Divine has come up to discover a resting place. The first declaration of the Good News is at home.
The recent COVID-nineteen pandemic has upended our world. Our daily and weekly rhythms have been scrambled. For those who have not lost jobs, most piece of work is happening at home. Children are learning from home and many parents are taking on new roles as instructors. Our health care workers and our public health officials are facing unprecedented challenges. Volunteers and local non-profit staff are continuing to care for the elderly, the vulnerable, and the least of these. In back up of requests from public health officials and medical experts combating COVID-19, Episcopal parish churches in the Diocese of East Tennessee are learning new means to worship and share in ministry together while nosotros are dispersed, not gathering in any traditional corporate ways that nosotros accept known.
At this fourth dimension, the facts on the ground regarding COVID-19 notwithstanding necessitate our need to do all we can to combat customs spread. I would ask that you continue to engage in worship, pastoral care, and Christian formation as a dispersed trunk, still refraining from gathering in person.
Over the last few days, I have had 5 opportunities to join in zoom conference calls with the clergy of the Diocese of Due east Tennessee. These calls have been opportunities for prayer, to hear from each other, and to learn from each other how worship and pastoral care and ministry building continues in a season of pandemic. Your clergy and lay leaders are artistic, imaginative, and true-blue people. I am thankful for their presence and their leadership in this moment.
This COVID-19 season is pushing all of us out of our comfort zones. However, like the announcing angel who enters Mary's dwelling, I do believe the Holy and the Divine are showing upwardly and revealing to us again and once more that God is present with united states wherever we are. The home I share with Susan has go a little monastery.
I invite yous to go to the Diocesan website, dioet.org, for additional updates and resources. The Diocesan website includes resources for worship from home which can be institute by clicking through the link on COVID-19 updates and scrolling to the bottom of that page.
Along with occasional video meditations and messages which I will keep sharing with you, I plan to write y'all again on Wednesday, Apr 8thursday and will continue to write you every other Wednesday until the COVID-19 pandemic season concludes. I exercise not know when the COVID-19 pandemic flavour will conclude. I do know that during this season we demand to continue to function as a community, although a dispersed one, finding new ways of being "with" one another without gathering in person.
"Practice resurrection." That is how ane of Wendell Berry's well-nigh famous poem concludes. These ii words capture the kind of Easter season that you lot and I are most to enter together. The Resurrection is the issue upon which nosotros place our faith in Christ Jesus. That event is certain.
What is now asked of united states of america is to do living out the Resurrection in a new time. Together, we volition inhabit and embody our faith, in our hearts and in our homes.
Together, nosotros volition find how in this time of isolation and fear, we may be renewed as persons beloved of God.
Together, amid the swift and varied changes of this globe, we volition find new ways to fix hearts where true joys are to be found.
Together, nosotros volition lay down our individual anxieties and fears and renew our associate with God's beloved and how we reveal it.
O God of unchangeable power and eternal light: Expect favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; by the effectual working of your providence, behave out in tranquility the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are beingness raised up, and things which had grown old are beingness made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection past him through whom all things were fabricated, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for always and always. Amen.
Peace,
+ Brian
A Statement from St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Chattanooga, Tennessee
Friday, March thirteen, 2020
Father Brad Whitaker, rector of St. Paul'due south Episcopal Church, has this afternoon been diagnosed with COVID-nineteen.
Last week, Fr. Brad sent a letter of the alphabet to the members of the church sharing that he began to feel ill shortly after returning from the annual conference of the Consortium of Endowed Episcopal Parishes in Louisville in February. He was diagnosed and treated for pneumonia, which included a long period of recovery at home. Since that fourth dimension, information technology has been reported that an attendee of the conference was diagnosed with the COVID-xix coronavirus. Upon receiving this news, Brad elected to be tested every bit well. Shortly after his email to our parish this morning, Fr. Brad received discussion from the health department that he, too, has tested positive for the virus.
Before this week, St. Pauls had already begun taking steps to respond to concerns related to COVID-19: Our parish has suspended in-person Sunday worship and other gatherings, groups, and meetings for at to the lowest degree the next two weeks. Nosotros will exist continuing to sanitize the church facility during this time, and fully cooperating with the recommendations of the health department who volition begin a full investigation.
As this continues to unfold, please continue to follow the recommendations of the health section and the CDC. Hamilton County Coronavirus Hotline may be reached at (423) 209-8383. If the health section gives u.s. more detailed information, we will pass information technology forth to y'all.
The Rt. Rev. Brian Cole, Bishop of East Tennessee offers:
"Jesus said, 'Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens and I will give you remainder.' (Matthew 11:28) The news that the Rev. Brad Whitaker has tested positive for the coronavirus is a burden that Brad, his family, St. Paul's, and the people of Chattanooga do not carry alone. We are committed to bearing one another's burdens."
Delight pray for Fr. Brad's continued recovery, for the health of our customs, and for peace and courage in our faithfulness as disciples of Jesus.
March 12, 2020
Dear Due east Tennessee Friends,
When St. Paul wrote to the Christian community in Philippi, he did so with thanks even every bit he was imprisoned. I write to you today with thank you even in the midst of the storm of the COVID-19 outbreak in our land and across the globe. As the facts on the basis have changed daily and hourly, I write to you at present, hoping that this letter volition remain helpful to y'all in uncertain days alee.
As Christians, nosotros are a torso and we cannot say we have no need of each other. As the Body of Christ, we are called to care for the least of these, to assist those who have no help, to look out for the near vulnerable, to bear each other's burdens, to be for each other. Information technology is non enough to know that I am currently healthy and whole. I also am touched by anyone in my community who is suffering and broken.
With the electric current facts on the ground as nosotros know them from public health officials and medical experts working to combat the worst impacts from COVID-19, I humbly ask you lot to forego gathering for large public worship, meetings, and social events in our churches for the side by side ii weeks as an deed of keeping organized religion with those friends and neighbors in East Tennessee who are most vulnerable to this virus. I realize you may choose to assemble this Sun and then begin a two calendar week suspension after the 15th. It would be my hope and prayer that big public worship would resume on Sunday, April 5th for Palm Sunday.
As Episcopalians, our common life together in prayer is vital to who we empathise ourselves to be. The Diocesan website has a diverseness of ways for us to maintain connections of prayer. I would commend those resource to you lot, which are attached to this letter.
This besides is a time to pray for a renewed sense of creativity and imagination. In the days ahead, how the Church offers pastoral care may change for some time in gild to protect confronting the spread of the virus. So, nosotros may bring back older ways of maintaining connexion, such every bit phone copse and handwritten messages mailed to the most vulnerable and elderly. In maintaining social distance in lodge to limit the spread of COVID-19, we practise not want to create gaps in intendance and business organisation for each other.
I empathize that this potential outbreak will take impacts upon our parish communities in ways that we accept not even so anticipated. Our Diocesan leadership is now making plans to stay connected to every parish and worshipping community to hear how our communities bear this and how we tin can all-time be nowadays and for each other in this time. At the stop of this outbreak, nosotros volition want to exist able to say that during this Lent nosotros did non give up on each other fifty-fifty as our common life required us to stretch together in new and potentially painful ways.
If you discern that it remains appropriate for to hold services in your particular parish setting, I urge y'all to follow the guidelines attached to this letter.
On Ash Wednesday, we were all invited to keep a flavor of a holy Lent, which included "prayer, fasting, and self-denial…" Today, what it means to pray and fast and do cocky-deprival has a new and more profound meaning for me.
Peace,
+ Brian
Information from Prominent Sources
For information on the status of COVID-19 and statements from The Episcopal Church, please run into below.
Resources from the Diocese of Due east Tennessee
Beneath are a few resources for community members on virtual worship, online Christian formation offerings, and other topics.
Source: https://dioet.org/4266-2/
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