A "Season of Great Expectations" began for the Diocese of Florida during its convention, Jan. 28-30 in Jacksonville. Addressing the delegates, the Rt. Rev. Stephen H. Jecko, Bishop of Florida, redesignated every congregation in his northeast Florida diocese, cathedral to smallest mission, as a "mission station" functioning on the frontier of the church, "not a geographical frontier, but a frontier of the human heart, a frontier where the Holy Spirit is alive and active ... at the interface of the church and secular culture." With 17 new congregations in line for funding, Bishop Jecko called the diocese to "enter a 'Season of Great Expectations' as we enter the new millennium."

In business session at a Jacksonville hotel, having examined the proposed 1999 diocesan budget at regional and pre-convention meetings, delegates approved without further discussion the $2,091,582 budget, and a 1999 pledge to the national church equal to 10 percent of the 1997 diocesan income.

At Bishop Jecko's invitation, Stephen Duggan, treasurer of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society, brought to the convention a thorough presentation of national church finances past and present, adding his personal reassurances that church finances are now in order.

Delegates adopted several resolutions, including an affirmation of the Lambeth Conference of 1998 as "an instrument of Anglican unity and vision." Lay vicars of outreach missions were granted seat and voice in diocesan convention.

A proposed new funding protocol would reconfigure the timing and percentages of congregations' pledges to the diocesan budget for common ministry. Delegates, wanting more time to consider the protocol, voted to reconvene June 19 for that purpose.

In celebration of the 75th anniversary of Camp Weed, alma mater of numerous bishops, the convention jubilantly applauded "the oldest living Camp Weed-er," Elizabeth Jackson Eberhart, who in 1924 attended the Diocese of Florida's first summer camp session.