Chicago Diocese Welcomes Missions, Lectures Scouts

From The Living Church-

The Episcopal Diocese of Chicago has welcomed three new missions with a collective membership of more than 800 people.

The diocese welcomed First Asian Church, Bloomingdale; Our Lady of Guadalupe, Chicago; and Sagrada Familia-Holy Family, Lake Villa, during its annual convention Nov. 20-21 in the western Chicago suburb of Lombard.

While speaking on the diocese’s mission, the Rt. Rev. Jeffrey D. Lee, Bishop of Chicago, directed delegates’ attention to Andrei Rublev’s icon of the Holy Trinity.

“Notice how there is space for others, space for you and me,” Bishop Lee said. “The figures are oriented outward, their bodies turned toward us, inviting us to the table. To engage this icon is to encounter God’s invitation to all of us to sit down and eat. A friend of mine once said that’s really what the Christian message boils down to: You’re a sinner; God loves you anyway; dinner’s ready; sit down and eat. God will not rest until every man, woman and child who lives or dies has a place at that table, and knows it.”

In their voting, convention delegates:

• Commended the Boy Scouts of America on its centennial (in February 2010), and urged the organization to “allow membership to youth and adult leaders irrespective of their sexual orientation, with all due sensitivity toward persons of nontraditional gender identity and expression.”

• Rejected the tithe as the minimum standard of giving for Episcopalians. General Convention affirmed tithing in 1982 and reaffirmed it in 2009.

• Urged President Obama and Congress to “press the State of Israel to end the blockade of the Gaza Strip, thereby permitting free and uninhibited access for all humanitarian assistance, a return to normalized trade, and the lifting of the ban on building and educational materials.”

• Authorized continuing work by a diocesan youth ministry task force.

• Appointed a task force to study “the complicity of the Diocese of Chicago and its predecessor, the Diocese of Illinois, in the institution of slavery and in the subsequent history of segregation and discrimination and the current practices of segregation and discrimination.”

http://www.livingchurch.org/news/news-updates/2009/11/25/chicago-diocese-welcomes-missions-lectures-scouts