Council Considers '77-'79 Goals
Diocesan Press Service. September 23, 1975 [75323]
GREENWICH, Conn. -- The Executive Council of the Episcopal Church, meeting here Sept. 16-18, spent the morning of its second day in small groups, working toward ways to evoke from the church's 1976 General Convention new or renewed responses to God's call to mission and ministry.
The Rt. Rev. John M. Allin, Presiding Bishop and chairman of the 41-member Council, set forth the task in his second Message from the Chair. He likened the Convention to a "graduation" in the word's literal sense: "an advancing step for Christian disciples in the course of mission. " Bishop Allin declared that "we can't stand still. And we can't return to the past. How do we proceed into the future?"
In a post script to his prepared remarks, the Presiding Bishop stressed the need for Christians to "share life" -- to grow in the ability to convey to one another and to the world at large their God-given gifts.
Council members reviewed a full-scale projection of 1977-79 goals and objectives prepared for their consideration by staff. Small-group reports expressed general endorsement of the document's principles, but some misgivings about its length and tone.
The Rev. Robert R. Parks of New York urged that the detailed 24-page document become a "program guide," and that a "concise and vibrant" challenge be placed, in its stead, before the Convention.
[For the attached Message from the Chair, please contact the Archives. -- Ed.]