Most of us know the Episcopal Church in Connecticut through our own parish. Our bishops visit about every three years, and unless you serve on a committee or a vestry, you can go a long time without talking to anyone on the diocesan staff. You might never meet a parishioner from another congregation. Convention is where that changes.
Every year, clergy and lay people from across the diocese gather in one place, and this year that place is a convention center. There’s no steeple and no familiar pew, just a big room full of Episcopalians from every corner of the state, and I’ve always liked what that does to the focus. Nobody’s parish is grander than anyone else’s.
All resident clergy are required to attend, and each parish sends two lay representatives. If you’ve been asked to be one of them, you’re speaking and voting for your congregation, and you’ll have plenty of company in the room. You’ll sit at tables with people you’ve never met and find out that the parish across the state is wrestling with the same questions yours is. Most of them are hoping to make a real connection, share a success story, and they’d like to hear what your parish is up to.
The business is the part people tend to dread, but it’s how we govern ourselves. Delegates hear reports, consider the budget, take up resolutions and cast votes. The bishops and staff are in the room, so you can finally put faces to the names in your inbox.
For many of us, worship will be the heart of the weekend. Hundreds of voices singing the same hymn and confessing sins in a facility built for trade shows makes it plain what the Church is. It’s the people. The fellowship happens between the scheduled pieces of the day, over lunch, in the coffee line, or when someone from another parish leans over to ask where you’re from and what your people are doing.
Convention comes every year, and it puts the whole diocese in one room. People come for the business, and what they remember is the fellowship. Someone from Christ Church in Greenwich will be sitting near someone from Christ Church in Pomfret, and St. John’s in Salisbury will end up at a table with St. John’s in Niantic. Come, sing, vote, and eat lunch with someone from the other end of the state. Then go home and tell your parish what you saw, because the people who couldn’t be there are part of the Church too.
See you there!