A letter from the Executive Council

[ENS] November 4, 2004

Dear Sisters and Brothers in the Episcopal Church:

Meeting in Boise, Idaho, during the first week of November, we on Executive Council have been moved to give thanks for all the saints of God around the world. We have deliberated on many matters, including the needs of Africa and Haiti, a funding plan for the church's mission, the work of Episcopal Relief and Development and the United Thank Offering, support for indigenous ministries, recruitment of young people for ordination, and translation of church documents into Spanish and other languages. We were inspired by the ministries of the Diocese of Idaho. And we have reflected on how the USA's general election may call us to engage with public policy as a church.

As the Episcopal Church begins to receive the Windsor Report of the Lambeth Commission on Communion, we invite all congregations, dioceses and provinces of the church to take time to read and discuss the report. The church needs to explore the Commission's vision of how we are called to a deeper communion with one another as a reflection of the inner communion of the triune God. The church also needs to reflect on the Commission's recommendations about how the Anglican Communion might function amid differing views.

Our church's reception of the report will be enhanced as you share your reflections with bishops and members of this Council. The House of Bishops will meet in January, and the Council will meet in February. It is especially important that all orders of ministry, including lay people, contribute to the church's reflection. The Presiding Bishop would like to be informed by these deliberations as he meets with the Primates in February. We affirm his intention to appoint a group to respond to the Windsor Report's invitation that the Episcopal Church explain the rationale for consecrating a bishop living in a same-gender relationship.

The consultations of the coming months are just the beginning of our church's reception of the Windsor Report, for the principal response should be made by the 2006 General Convention. We believe our role as Executive Council is to help prepare deputies, bishops and the church at large for the discussions that will take place at Convention. As we considered the report, we were assisted by Bishop Mark Dyer, the Episcopal Church's representative on the Commission, and Bishop James Tengatenga of Southern Malawi, who shared perspectives as an African church leader.

The Council supports wholeheartedly the wise and articulate leadership that is being offered during this difficult time by Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold and Dean George Werner, President of the House of Deputies. We offer our prayerful affirmation to gay and lesbian Anglicans, both here and abroad, who continue to minister faithfully in a time of vulnerability in the life of the Anglican Communion. We believe that receiving the Windsor Report with humility and patience will draw us with renewed zeal and wider vision into God's mission of restoring all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.

In Christ's love,
The Executive Council