Blessed be God who has gathered us here together to strengthen our common mission and our bonds with each other.

As I begin my first address to this wonderful Diocese, I cannot but first say how happy and excited both my wife, Diana, and I are at being here with you. I give thanks to God and to you for allowing me to stand here in front of you as the third Bishop of the Diocese of Southeast Florida.

I would like to try to share with you some of the ideas, or shall we say the vision, of what I see as the future of our Diocese.

I think it will be very appropriate at this time to recall that great classic of English literature that reminds me somehow of my present situation. I am referring to Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll--more particularly to the sixth chapter of that book, entitled, "Pig and Pepper." When Alice was finding her way around Wonderland, and she wanted to know where to go, she encountered the Cheshire cat and asked the cat for directions. I will quote:

For many days before, during, and after my election as Third Bishop of Southeast Florida, I have been asking, like Alice, but praying to our God--not the Cheshire cat--and saying "Lord, will you tell me please, which way I ought to go from here?"

God’s answer has been pretty much like, "Well good Bishop, that depends a good deal on where you want to get to."

I sincerely believe that as Bishop and as a leader, I am called to challenge this diocese to greatness--challenge us to respond to Christ’s command of going to every creature and proclaiming the message of salvation, making disciples of all and teaching them to follow the commandments of our Lord and Savior. Nothing else will make us as great.

I have been quoted to say that I want to evangelize everyone between the sharks and the alligators. Be assured that I mean that literally, but I am hoping to do it together with you. I believe that our church must find the ways and the means to fulfill the command of our Lord and Savior, Christ.

This morning I want to challenge all of us to make a stronger and concerted effort to evangelism in our communities and to seriously look to the way that we have been doing business in the past. Many of you well know the diocesan profile that was shared throughout the Church in the search for a new Bishop. In it you share the figures of negative growth in our Diocese in the past 30 years. You have owned that reality, and you expressed the desire to move on and make our Church grow. But we must also own the reality that if we continue doing business the same old way, 10 years from now we’re going to find ourselves with the same old negative results.

I believe that church growth is a result and not the reason for evangelism. We grow because Christ wants us to be missionaries, to share our beliefs with every person that we meet. Let’s remember that those first converts in the New Testament times were converted not because of what they read in the Bible--actually in their day there was no New Testament. The first converts of the New Testament times became Christians because of what they experienced in that early Christian community. They were able to experience the awesome power of the love of God that was expressed through the many believers that had been transformed by the power of God in their lives. People were converted because they saw and felt the wonderful power of God. They felt first hand what it meant to be loved by God, and how God could transform their lives. We must be able to share that experience with the secular society around us. The early Christians had each other and we likewise must show that love and commitment in our lives and actions.

Our diocese must become a missionary diocese. Each of our congregations and the Diocesan office must stop thinking of themselves as separate entities. We must all become missionary outposts that have a common task of making believers of the world that finds no time for belief.

Each one of us must renew our commitment to make disciples. This may be a little embarrassing, and even hard for some in this post-Christian age--or better said-- Apostolic Age.

As Bishop of the diocese, I am called to be a chief missionary and the symbol of the unity of the church. But each layperson, deacon, and priest is also to be a missionary and proclaimer of Christ’s message.

Yes, I am asking us all of us to start looking at our diocese in a new way--to imagine it in a new way. We must begin to think of ourselves not as 81 different congregations that come to meet with the Bishop and staff in the Diocesan Office. No, instead, I ask all of us to begin to perceive ourselves as one huge congregation. This concept will allow us to be able to envision a closer cooperation with our sisters and brothers in the other missionary outposts. It would allow the smaller congregation to see themselves as part of the much larger body. It would allow better use of our talents and permit greater sharing of our resources.

Just a few weeks ago, I met with the clergy of the Diocese and shared with them that one of my goals was, within the next decade, to duplicate the number of communicants in our church, and to make sure that we would have surpassed a hundred congregations. For some, maybe that would be an exaggeration. But I was challenged by a priest in the Diocese who pointed out that I was insane. After thinking about it, I had to agree with him. He challenged me and called me insane, because he thought that with our potential, we could do much better than double our membership, and reach more than the 100 churches mark. He was right.

Somehow I felt like if the women had come back from that empty tomb in Jerusalem to share the Good News of the resurrection with the disciples, and instead of saying, "Our Lord is alive!" they would have come back saying, "Our Lord is feeling much better…he looks much better today, and will probably get well soon." Yes my brothers and sisters. That was not the way it was and we must not proclaim the Good News that way. We can do better. I challenge us to go forward from here with a commitment to triplicate, quadruplicate--whatever may satisfy Father Kessler so he won’t call me insane. But more importantly, to do whatever would satisfy our living God who has chosen us to be proclaimers.

Next month, around 50 lay and clergy persons from this Diocese will attend the "Clear Vision Conference" in the Diocese of Texas to learn more and to be inspired by the challenge that have been taking place throughout our church. Unfortunately we hear a lot about some of the negatives and some of the quarrels that the press loves to print about religious groups. But, believe me, our church is growing and is energized in many areas of this country. We must face our challenge and face our time to become a Missionary Diocese: To move away from maintenance models; to start making disciples non-stop; to welcome people from many cultures and many languages, and many persuasions into our church; to be daring; to move forward with energy in our proclamation and to also plant churches where people are moving.

Both the Bishop Suffragan and I will be attending this conference with the lay and clergy of this diocese. I ask for your prayers the Sunday, Monday and Tuesday before Thanksgiving, that we all pray in this diocese, pray for us attending this conference so that we will come back empowered by a stronger commitment to be a missionary diocese in a secular world that needs and hungers for Christ.

I also want to touch into other related issues. One of them is Youth Ministry. I want to commend the Rev. Reggie Payne-Wiens for his work, and also to many of you who have a strong youth ministry. I want to make sure that in every missionary outpost of our diocese, that is an active youth ministry program. It is my hope that in each church of the diocese, regardless of its size, we will have in the near future, either a full time youth director or a part time youth director or a volunteer youth director. What we do today in our ministry to youth does empower our church today and in the future. I also want to commend the youth ministry of this diocese for their Happening movement that, I hope and pray, can be even strengthened and expanded to all the young people of our Diocese, including those of different languages.

I also want to commend the work of our ECW that carries the commitment of women that goes all the way back to that first gathering of women at the foot of the cross. It is my commitment to work closely with ECW, and to be sure that there is an ECW chapter in each Church of our Diocese. And let me also say that connected with the ECW, we also have those blue boxes from UTO around our Diocese--I hope full of money for the work of the United Thank Offering.

I have come to you as a foreign missionary, and I have seen the money of those blue boxes being transformed into Church buildings, hospitals, orphanages and schools. I am sure that you know of many other miracles that God has done through the UTO.

I would also praise the work of the Daughters of the King that are praying for us even during this Diocesan Convention. I thank them and pledge my support to them to make a reality that there is a Chapter of the Daughters of the King in each of our congregations.

The Brotherhood of St. Andrew cannot be left out, because they are also a group that is committed to evangelism in our diocese and can help us to make it a Missionary Diocese. There is hope for us men. And I think that the Brotherhood of St. Andrew is an outlet for those who want to make a stronger commitment to the work of parishes and the diocese.

And of course, what can I say about Cursillo, except that I strongly believe in Cursillo. Not only did it bless my life and ministry, but I have seen it as a way to share the joy of Christ in the world, as a powerful way to change our environment.

I know that some of you could be turned off by Cursillo. I will be the first one to admit that the Cursillistas do a lot of crazy things, and sometimes Cursillo gets a little wild. Hey, what do you expect? Cursillo is brought to you by the same people that love to run in front of bulls, and think it is perfectly normal. But Cursillo can continue energizing the Episcopalians that are dormant and need a jolt of 220 volts of spiritual current.

Of course there are many other methods that we could use, like Alpha, to reach the unchurched. But more important, I think that we must have a frame of mind, a strong desire that would allow us to open our churches so that others would want to come in.

During this address I want to bring our attention to a blessing that we have in our diocese. We have a member of our diocese who is one of the appointed foreign missionaries of the National Church. I am referring to the Rev. Todd McGregor. He and his wife are missionaries in the Diocese of Madagascar, and I had the distinct opportunity of meeting him at our last General Convention in Denver. He shared with me the work that he is doing in Christ’s name in that remote diocese.

I know that some of you, including Father Steve Zimmerman, have visited him in Madagascar. I want to ask our diocese to acknowledge this blessing that God has given us to have this couple proclaiming Christ in a foreign land, and ask you to make a commitment and take a special offering around Thanksgiving of this year, either before, during or after Thanksgiving--but do it! I will ask that this offering be sent to the Diocesan Office Missionary Outpost so that we, as one people, are able as sisters and brothers in Christ to recognize and acknowledge the McGregors’ work in Madagascar.

I have communicated with Todd by E-mail and he will use this money to help construct a building that will be used for theological education, to train native ministers. I pray that you could respond to this Thanksgiving offering.

I also want to make a comment about our Communication Department. If we are seriously committed to reach those around us, the first thing that we must do is to commit ourselves to communication. Scratch telepathy. We have been trying that for some time, but believe me, it’s not working. If we don’t open our mouth, if we don’t put it in print, TV, radio, and the internet, if we don’t shout it from the mountain top, we will not be able to be heard, and we will be just a group of well-wishers.

Yes, our communication department is evolving. We are making inroads into the internet. I hope that you have seen our web page: www.diosef.org. I am hoping that by Monday you can read about this convention, and you can let others know about what went on here. We need to strengthen what we are doing. The Net and the "Grapevine" have increased their circulation, and are reaching those who still read from a paper. That, of course, includes me because I am of that older generation that still remembers when there was no TV.

But, many of the younger clergy here should not laugh because some day they will be pointed at and the next younger generation will tell them that, "hah, they lived in an age when there was no computer, and no internet." We must look at the reality of what is going on in the world today. As I speak, we must prepare ourselves and prepare this Diocese for the new millennium. This goes not only for communication, but for everything we do. We must be ready not only to have the Book of Common Prayer but also a CD and DVD of Common Prayer. We must become relevant to a society that demands relevancy.

I am sure that, at the dawn of the age of the printing press, those who insisted in communicating with parchments became quite irrelevant after a few years. We must move on with the times, and make ourselves known in any way possible to a world that hungers for the message of Christ. Yes, there is room out there for the Episcopal Church, but we must make our Church known to the world in order for them to make room for us.

I also want us to look at another area and explore how can we become more effective. I am referring to the area of Theological Education and the preparation for ministry, both lay and ordained. I believe that to respond to the need of our church in this present age, we must make room for alternative ways for preparing people in theological education--maybe ways in which we do not uproot those who have received their calling, and want to be ordained to be either deacons or priests, men and women that can serve our churches, both as non-stipend or stipend ministries, full or part-time ministries.

I am calling us to explore alternate ways for the creation of a viable solution in which a person can be trained for the priesthood without leaving his community.

The other thing that we need to seriously look at is the fact that we have neglected to actively seek vocations of young people. If we look at the ages of the clergy of our Diocese, we find very few that are under 40 years old. And believe me, THAT will be reflected in the fact that we are not going to have many people calling themselves Episcopalians who are under 40 years old. I want to proclaim today that there is room in our theological educational programs in our seminaries for young people. As far as I can have my say so, we will not be turning down young people that are graduating from college. We must rejuvenate our clergy within the next decade.

For those of you who are a little older, like me, please don’t worry--I for one don’t want to be put out to pasture, and I hope that there will always be enough space for us. But we must make space for the young people and clergy that are missing from our church. In a few weeks we will be missing one of the few clergy we have under 35 years old. He is moving to another diocese and we will have only 3 priests under that age.

As I look at the challenge ahead of us, I can see that we must open churches to the west of the Turnpike throughout our Diocese. I can see that we must strengthen our ministries in the changing population in both east and west of I-95. We also must look at the many different ways in which the church may be invigorated and strengthened. We must be encouraged and trained in new forms of evangelism that are relevant to this new century, and this goes for any of our ethnic groups.

I propose that in the near future a new position be created for a person that can work full time in Evangelism, Church Growth, and Church Planting. These are not the same, but they are indeed interrelated. We must have the tools to do the task that I believe must be done very quickly. I am hoping that the Executive Board and the Diocese will be open to such an idea.

I know that there is a tremendous desire to do many programs and ministries. All are eager to use the monies that could be made available in the future. I am going to ask you to give me a chance as a new bishop to work out with you on that comprehensive ministry plan, and postpone any decisions for a year until I can have more time to study the whole picture.

We must look at the budget of the year 2002 and plan that budget, taking in consideration that some of the money available at present will not be there. I am sure that there is a certain amount of frustration, and that I am only adding to this frustration, but I want to make sure that not only do I have a proper input on this, but that we are fiscally responsible.

There is so much that must be done. So many churches that need to be planted. So many ministries that need to be improved. Take for example, the Duncan Center. There is a lot yet to be done even before starting a capital campaign to enlarge it. They have been struggling with a difficult financial situation that must be corrected before we go ahead. But be assured of my commitment to make the Duncan Center a first class retreat and conference center of our church. This must be the task of all, and we must continue energizing their Board and all in Diocese in order to find a solution to the present predicament that they are going through.

There is no question that we must start looking and exploring in the future of how we can have a successful Capital Funds Campaign in our Diocese. Not only for the Duncan Center, but for the planting of churches, buying of land, and the repairing of some of our ministries that are very effective in helping the poor, but are caught in second class, deficient structures. I am challenging us to begin to explore the real possibility of facing this challenge in the near future.

It is my sincere hope, also, to work in utilizing my calendar and schedule in such a way that will allow me to be more outside the Diocesan office rather than inside the Diocesan office. I want to make sure that people don’t only get to know me by my recent photographs they took this past week. I want to be known in person, and I want to be ‘known" in person. The only way I can do this is to make sure that the Diocesan Bishop is on the road. I am hoping to spend more time in your deaneries in order to meet with Vestries, ECWs, and the clergy of the Diocese. This will require a little adjustment. It won’t be the way you are used to, but I am sure that in the end it will be a rewarding experience for all.

I also must share with you part of my personality. I am not a person that gets caught up in issues. That means that I don’t tend to get involved, at least at this later age of my life, in some of the issues that some people get very excited about. I am also a very inclusive person with people of different ideas than mine. I have said before that I came to the Episcopal Church because it was a church where I did not have to surrender my brain to come inside. That meant that I also was going to find inside that same Church, people with different ideas than mine. I propose to you that as long as I am the Bishop, I will do my utmost to accommodate people with different ideas--of those who are within our church. But please, also know that the magic word here is, "people who are within our church."

Today there are many persons who are calling themselves Anglicans, including calling themselves bishops, who are not in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury. I want to make sure that it is very clear that regardless of how inclusive I am, I would really have a major problem with any group that tries to disrupt our doctrine, discipline, and worship. There is room to dissent from within the Episcopal Church. But, if you are a Baptist or a Congregationalist, or whatever you may call yourself, including Anglicans without the Archbishop of Canterbury, there is no room for you to come and tell us what should be our doctrine, discipline and worship.

There are a Constitution and Canons in our Church that we must abide by. I am committed to them. While you are inside of our church, we can talk about it, discuss them, and even give you time if you need it. But that is the nature of our Church, and I plan to fulfill my role, "to guard the faith, unity and discipline of the Church."

One more thing, please know that I also recognize that I stand here "surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses." I stand here as a Third Bishop of Southeast Florida. That means that there was a First and Second Bishop, and both bishops worked day and night to make this diocese what it is. Bishop James Duncan and Bishop Calvin Schofield have under very difficult times in their situation kept the church strong and alive. I know that I am not working in a void. They were faithful servants, and Calvin continues being among us, helping to invigorate our diocese. Bishop Duncan, my Bishop now in the presence of our Lord, blesses us from on high. But the task is now ours at this time.

Yes, it is a privilege to be the Third Bishop of Southeast Florida, but it is also an awesome responsibility. I know that I can only achieve it on my knees, in constant prayer to God, and I ask you together with me to, day after day, pray for our diocese. Pray for the workers that we need. Pray for the money we need, the wisdom, the strength, and forbearance that we need. Pray for this Third Bishop of Southeast Florida and his wife and family. I give thanks to God for each one of you.

May the God of love and peace be with you, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, the Communion of the Holy Spirit be with you, now and forever.