Tennessee Defers Division Decision, Adopts Venture Goal
Episcopal News Service. February 8, 1979 [79032]
Isabel Baumgartner
Knoxville, Tenn. -- The Episcopal Church in Tennessee will remain a single diocese at least until 1983.
Its Diocesan Convention, meeting here Jan. 25-27, postponed for one year action on a proposal to create a new diocese in the western third of the state. That means General Convention's consent cannot be asked until 1982. Robert E. McNeilly of Kingsport chaired the structure committee whose two-year study resulted in the proposals.
A series of straw votes showed that, although 70 percent of Tennessee's lay and clergy delegates favor making the change now, only 56 percent of those from West Tennessee voted in the affirmative. Bishop William E. Sanders stated that, while he enthusiastically supports the plan, he will approve it only if and when a large majority of west Tennesseans concur.
The convention registered, by voice vote, overwhelming approval of the ultimate goal: three dioceses within Tennessee, their borders parallelling those of the state's political grand divisions.
It was 150 years ago that the Diocese of Tennessee was formed. A sesquicentennial theme dominated the convention's opening choral Eucharist; historical highlights, described live by Bishop Sanders and pictured in a taped documentary, formed a 30-minute telecast carried across the state via the Public Broadcasting System. St. John's Church, where the service took place, owns and operates a fully equipped television studio which originates programs daily on local Cable Channel 20.
This first-time use of TV by the diocese will not be its last. The convention voted to raise $3,300,000 over the coming three years for the Episcopal Church's renewal/ fund raising effort, Venture in Mission. One component of the Venture fund will be the investment of $450,000 in creative uses of the media (chiefly TV) to set forth across Tennessee the Christian faith and tradition as the Episcopal Church has received them.
Tennessee's Venture focus will extend to the French-speaking dioceses in central Africa, and include the hoped-for establishment of a Companion Diocese relationship with Costa Rica.
The extra-budgetary dollars will also forward work in Appalachia and other rural areas, expand urban ministries within Tennessee, and provide a $1,200,000 opportunity fund to be invested during the next 10 years in evangelism, the founding of new congregations, and new response to social ministry challenges as they emerge.
A $400,000 appropriation will build overnight accommodations for 40 people at St. Columba's budding conference center in Memphis.
The sum of $200,000 is to be invested in development work, designed to strengthen the diocese's endowment as a foundation for the Church's second 150 years.
Of the Venture goal of $3,300,000, the sum of $900,000 is designated for programs chosen from those nationally approved.
The fiscal health of the diocese revealed itself dramatically when Suffragan Bishop Fred Gates, Jr., announced that its 113 churches have committed a record $1,021,206 to diocesan budget purposes for 1979 -- an increase of $85,124 over last year, by far the largest annual increase in diocesan history. The $1,247,619 budget, a portion of which is funded from endowment income, was oversubscribed by more than $11,000. The congregations also pledged $31,172 -- almost precisely $1 per communicant -- to the 1979 support of the University of the South at Sewanee.
Delegates faced for the second consecutive year the difficult question of Prayer Book revision. Ten resolutions asked that, after the 1976 Book becomes standard, the General Convention authorize also the "continued use" of the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. Chief proponent was the Rev. Logan Jackson of Manchester, president of the Nashville-based Society for the Preservation of the Book of Common Prayer. By a two-to-one margin the Tennesseans voted down this move, as they had in 1978, on grounds that concurrent use of two sets of worship rites for an indeterminate period could prove divisive.
It adopted, by a close voice vote, an alternative resolution whose chief proponent was the Rev. Larry Gipson of Knoxville, chairman of the diocesan liturgical commission. It supports the adoption of the 1976 Book, then asks General Convention to give bishops authority to permit the use of the 1928 Book during a time of transition "in congregations where the Bishop of the Diocese judges that such use is necessary for pastoral reasons."
In other actions, the convention:
- accepted as a mission the congregation of St. Michael and All Angels on Knoxville's University of Tennessee campus; gave parish status to St. Anne's, Millington; and approved a new Crossville church, St. Raphael's, as a parochial mission of nearby St. Michael's, Cookeville;
- directed increased response to world hunger via diocesan and area task forces and representatives in each congregation;
- decided to expand Episcopal ministry on the Chattanooga campus of the University of Tennessee;
- agreed to meet Jan. 24-26, 1980, in Chattanooga.
The Rev. Daniel P. Matthews and James A. Haslam II, both of St. John's Knoxville, will co-chair the Venture fund raising, with professional help from Ward, Dreshman, and Reinhardt.
Officers were elected: to the Standing Committee for 1979, incumbents the Rev. Eric S. Greenwood, Nashville; the Very Rev. C. Edwards Reeves, Memphis; the Rev. Daniel P. Matthews, Knoxville; Mrs. Richard Cureton, Chattanooga; and Theodore N. Barth, Jr., Maryville. To the Bishop & Council for four years, Thomas M. Tucker, Knoxville; Charles W. Cook, Jr., Nashville; and Frank B. Caldwell, Jr., Jackson. To complete a three-year unexpired Bishop & Council term, the Rev. John F. Rice, Nashville.
The convention honored by resolution J. Ernest Walker, Jr., for 21 years executive director of DuBose Conference Center, who died Jan. 15 in Chattanooga following a lengthy illness. Walker had been a deputy to the last five General Conventions, a three-term trustee of the University of the South, and mayor of Monteagle where the conference center is located.
Convention sessions took place at Knoxville's Hyatt Regency; William T. Sergeant of Oak Ridge was chairman, with all area churches as hosts.