Extensive Speaking Tours Held
Diocesan Press Service. December 10, 1964 [XXVII-7]
From California to New York, from Minnesota to Florida, word of the missionary work of the Episcopal Church is being disseminated. Because of the planning of the Executive Council's Speakers Division, some 24 persons visited 44 different dioceses between General Convention and mid-December.
Working with these dioceses, the Speakers Division made available the talents and varied experiences of overseas deputies to General Convention, both clerical and lay, official guests to Convention, and Executive Council appointed missionaries on furlough. These persons spent from one week to over a month telling of their countries and the program of the church there, and of Convention. They spoke of a literacy program in Colombia, S.A.; or of the relationship between the Philippine Episcopal Church and the Philippine Independent Church; or of the struggle of Christians to maintain or establish religious liberty under a dictatorial government.
Among these speakers were several teams from missionary districts who were visiting dioceses here in connection with the "companion diocese" program or in order to inform American congregations in concrete terms of the programs, needs and hopes of their particular district.
These visits often stir congregations to organize special services or programs. In Massachusetts, for example, where the two Mexican Suffragan Bishops and the clerical deputy to Convention were speaking, a youth rally, with both a liturgical and a missionary emphasis was held. Over 2,000 young people gathered in Emmanuel Church, Boston, to participate in a celebration of the Eucharist using the American Folk Mass by the Rev. Ian Douglas Mitchell. As the Boston Globe reported the following day, "...fill the aisles they did. They stood six deep along the sides of the sanctuary and overflowed into Leslie Memorial Chapel... They missed their cues sometimes; they missed the notes sometimes, but they came back in stronger a few beats later in a manner not unlike a revival meeting. " Later they listened to the Mexican bishops tell of the problems their country faces as it enters the space age.