Maryland Launches Diocesan Renewal
Episcopal News Service. October 20, 1988 [88225A]
NEW YORK (DPS, Oct. 20) -- The Diocese of Maryland, with 123 parishes and missions and over 50,000 baptized members, has launched CROSS+ROADS, a diocesan renewal program that will attempt to raise $8 million by 1992. The target date has great significance to the diocese, as it is the 300th anniversary of the Anglican Communion's presence in Maryland, and the 200th anniversary of the consecration of Thomas John Claggett, the first Bishop of Maryland and the first Episcopal Bishop consecrated on American soil.
Of the $8 million dollar goal, $4 million will be allocated to endow funds for congregational renewal and development, ordained ministry, lay ministry, and social ministry; to fund grants to local parishes for specific programs; to finance the first phase of renovation to the Bishop Claggett Center, which will become headquarters for a diocesan lay academy; to endow the Nehemiah Fund; and to fund local ministry and mission initiatives. The other $4 million has been designated to fund a new diocesan center at the Cathedral. For the first time in the history of the Episcopal Church in Maryland, the bishop's desk and the bishop's official chair will be in the same place.
The CROSS+ROADS programs will be developed so that the four priorities for the diocese as established by Bishop A. Theodore Eastman -- lay ministry, ordained ministry, social ministry, and congregational development -- will be intertwined with the four commitments of the diocese lifted up by the parishes in a 1987 survey: spiritual formation, Christian education, Christian outreach, and evangelism.