Resolution D019: Recommit to MDGs as Mission Priority

OK - Here is the second of three installments--getting to know the resolutions E4GR is working on for General Convention. Do you feel called to testify? The Virtual Booth for E4GR is OPEN! Find out more about who to talk to and how to testify at the Virtual Booth--and in Anaheim, in the Convention Hall in the E4GR Booth.

D019: Recommit to MDGs as Mission Priority
Ready for you to download, click here.

Issue
Reinstate the 0.7% for MDGs into the 2010-2012 budget and increase it to 1% as a “cost-of-giving” adjustment.

Background
Resolution D022 from 2006 General Convention established “achieving the MDGs as a stated mission priority of the Episcopal Church” and urged each diocese, congregation and parishioner to give 0.7% of their annual income toward the goals. The resolution also called for a line item equal to 0.7% in the Episcopal Church’s 2007-2009 budget for work supporting the MDGs. The 2007-2009 budget DID pass with 0.7%. In those years about $924,000 was dedicated to the MDGs through ERD. Since that time 82 of the 110 dioceses in the Episcopal Church have designed a 0.7% line item in their annual diocesan budgets as have hundreds of congregations and countless individuals.

The draft 2010-2012 budget submitted by Executive Council at its January 2009 meeting suggested – as a cost-saving measure in the current economic climate – eliminating the 0.7% line item for MDGs.

The good news: the budget going to General Convention is a draft, and General Convention will have the final say. We have a huge opportunity to affect the final decision.

Talking Points

We must not back away from our commitment to MDGs as a church, but rather reaffirm our promises and deepen our commitment.

• Promises made to the poor are particularly sacred.

• We have promised ourselves, God, the world, and particularly our brothers and sisters in the Anglican Communion that we will join with the global community to end extreme poverty through 0.7% giving.

• We have reiterated these promises in the House of Bishops over the past three years and at Lambeth last year.

• As a church we have identified the MDGs as our #1 budget and programmatic priority.

• We have covered a lot of ground, but we are far from finished! The MDG movement is through 2015 and there is much to do.

• Dioceses, congregations, individuals are still learning about the MDGs and looking for ways to connect themselves and their faith lives to MDGs and make them concrete within the life of the parish.

• This is the time to intensify our efforts, mobilize people in deeper, intentional, effective ways – not move on to something else!

We need the 0.7% line item (with the 1% cost of giving adjustment) as a powerful symbol of our commitment to ending the world’s misery.
• Symbols are very important. They are one way we communicate our stories, deepest-held values, and passion.

• A separate, 0.7% line item is the Episcopal Church’s symbol – its clear declaration -- of its commitment and intent to play a serious and significant role in eradicating global poverty. It signals our intentions and faithfulness. It reflects what is most important to us.

• The fact that the Episcopal Church has taken the leadership step of committing 0.7% is powerful leadership by example.

• 82 out of the 110 dioceses in the Episcopal Church have followed the example of the Episcopal Church by committing 0.7% of their annual budgets toward MDGs.

• A budget reflects what is in our hearts as a church. The world’s extreme poor are in the center of our hearts as a Gospel people. A budget is also a moral document, in that it illustrates what we most believe by where we place our resources.

• If we erode or eliminate the symbol it signals that we are backing away from our promises.

In these tough financial times, this decision is a defining moment for our church.

• God’s call to us has not changed: we are to be the Body of Christ in bold and powerful ways in worship, praise, and service – particularly among those who have the least.

• In this defining moment, God gives us the opportunity to proclaim our faith to the world at a moment in history when it is particularly challenging to do so.

• In its March Pastoral Letter, the House of Bishops called us to repentance, claiming that we have “too often been preoccupied as a Church with internal affairs…to the exclusion of concern for the crisis of suffering both at home and abroad,” and “our commitment to the eradication of extreme poverty through the MDGs moves us toward the standard of Christ’s teaching…”

• Our wealth is determined by what we give rather than what we own.

• In a time of economic scarcity the Holy Spirit invites us to hope. We are Gospel people, called to break through barriers of fear and anxiety. Call to share how Christ has reshaped our hearts and lives through the increased engagement with each other in ministries of compassion across the communion that our MDG work has fostered.

• We want to be that church that even in the midst of a global economic crisis we were able to stay faithful in our commitment to the poorest of the poor.

Resolution D018: Addressing the Global Economic Crisis

Over the next few days in the lead up to General Convention, we want to equip YOU--our best allies and friends--to help us lead the church in to not only keeping and renewing promises made to the worlds poor, but taking it a step further and leading in new bold ways. Please join with us.

We will present to you the pieces of legislation that we will be focusing our attention on, equipping you with the resolution itself and some talking points for you to use when talking to your deputation or if you feel called--to testify!

As always, please email us with any questions. We are so thrilled to have such an amazing group of leaders who are mobilizing our church to heal the world.


D018: Address the Global Economic Crisis

Resolution D018: The full resolution and text, here.
Issue

To equip our church to begin to engage the global economic crisis as faithful, gospel-centered Christians.

Background

This resolution has four parts:

1. Makes the claim that we in the Episcopal Church are complicity in the financial crisis because we have embraced an unrestrained free-market form of capitalism that results in predatory practices of lending and income generation divorced of accountability,

2. Thanks the Archbishop of Canterbury for his leadership and teaching around Christian response to economic crisis,

3. Invites dioceses and congregations to focus on Lent 2010 as a time of penitential reflection on the brokenness of the global economic order

4. Urges diocesan deputations to address the global economic crisis in their own contexts using Public Narrative and community organizing models.

Talking Points

• This resolution asks Episcopalians to understand and confront our complicity in the current global economic crisis and to be converted anew through prayer, study, giving, advocacy, acts of mercy and ACTION.
  
• The global economic crisis is as much as spiritual, moral and ethical crisis as it is a financial crisis.
• Given the household of the world, we are threatened in our future existence because of an unsustainable economy and environmental practice that requires a turning around and a realignment of our values with God’s vision for the wholeness of creation.
  
• We do this by opening ourselves to God’s vision of unity for the world and how, as people of faith, both at home and to the ends of the earth – we can participate in a just, equitable, sustainable economy.
  
• God’s mission is to restore all people to unity.
  
• It’s not about the church.
  
• The question as Christians is – how have we participated or not participated in the economy of God?
  
• We are calling the church to a season of reflection, repentance, and amendment of life. This amendment of life would understand study, repentance and prayer as a foundation that leads to ACTION.
  
• We are calling on congregations, dioceses, individuals to seek models that assist in mobilizing people to act (Public Narrative being one such model) for a just economy.
  
• Utilize PN methodology to come together in their parish and dioceses to tell their stories in God’s economy, discover who we are together, and what we are called together to do given that we are on the brink of peril.
  
• We are asking that Lent 2010 be set aside by the church as a season of study, reflection, repentance, and action concerning the global economic crisis.

Re-Commit to 0.7%

Dear EGR Board Members, Deputy Friends, and EGR Leadership:



The 76th General Convention will be a defining moment for the Episcopal Church. In it we can recommit ourselves as a church to the MDGs. We will have the opportunity to choose to deepen our partnership with the world's bottom billion-those that live on less than a dollar a day-or we can choose to back away from them.


At General Convention we can reaffirm, with renewed resolve, the promises we have made as a church to the world's poorest people. Simply, we can lead this effort anew, calling on all dioceses, congregations and individuals to stand with us. Despite progress we have made, we are not finished.

The world needs us--actually, YOU--more than ever.

EGR is embracing General Convention's opportunity with anticipation and joyfulness. Please join with us, inviting our church to face this moment with courage and confidence in the abundance of God.

Put MDGs back in the budget-and back in our hearts

Recommit

Although the MDGs have been our church's number one budget and programmatic priority since 2006, the draft budget coming to General Convention actually cut the MDGs line item. Our highest legislative priority is to reinstate the 0.7% line item for MDGs in the budget for the Episcopal Church. More than this, EGR proposes that this line item be increased to 1% as a cost-of-giving adjustment. EGR will work to reinstate the MGDs line item through two venues: the budget process and resolution D019.

Two other priorities are to:

1. Encourage all levels of our church to address the global economic crisis by dedicating Lent 2010 to prayer, study and action on the MDGs (D018).

2. Establish the first Sunday in Lent as ERD Sunday (A178).

You can view all these resolutions here: http://gc2009.org/ViewLegislation/

Please help! Give your heart to this mission through some simple actions.

Contact your diocesan deputation TODAY!

* Get their commitments to support these initiatives through their votes and testimonies.
* Ask members of your diocesan MDG network and other justice networks contact deputies, too.
* Let us know you've contacted your diocesan deputation and networks. Contact us at e4gred@gmail.com so we can continue to build on your work.

Testify on behalf of the MDGs at General Convention!

* EGR will provide talking points, testifying tips, and connections to our two EGR Legislative Coordinators: Tim Baer and Debbie Shew. We'll also save you a place in line!
* Hearings will be held in several committees, including the Program, Budget and Finance Committee, which sets the budget.
* If you will testify with us, please contact Tim Baer, our EGR Legislation Coordinator at: tbaer@gmail.com. He'll answer questions and provide everything you need.

Follow us on EGR's General Convention Virtual Booth

* We are re-launching our Web site - www.e4gr.org - very soon. For the duration of General Convention it will be known as the "Virtual Booth." Though this site you will be easily linked to ERGs presence at General Convention.
* There you will find easy links to stay up to date on news and events through the blog, Facebook page, and Twitter.
* Participate in the new campaign "I'm Crabby for the MDGs", play virtual Bishop Bingo, or view a noonday speaker.

With your help, we can make a bold and prophetic statement to live the Gospel faithfully through the MDGs, even in this current economic climate when making faithful choices seems to cost us the most. But the bottom billion need us and we have promised them-we have promised God. Thank you for your help in this good and necessary work.


Faithfully, and in God's abundance,

Rev. Devon Anderson, Executive Director
Episcopalians for Global Reconcilliation
email: e4gred@gmail.com
web: http://www.e4gr.org

"Millenium Development Goal #6" - by John G. Miers

Millennium Development Goal #6
Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases

"Jesus went throughout Galilee,
teaching in their synagogues and
proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and
curing every disease and every sickness among the people."
- Matthew 4:23

Curing every disease and every sickness among the people……

When I read this Bible verse, I naturally thought of my career in the federal service. I worked for the National Institutes of Health for nearly forty years. Others in my family have worked there and some still do. My mother was a nurse. Health is in my family. Health is important to me.

When I read the text about “curing EVERY disease” I am stunned as to how large a task that must have been. I am continually overwhelmed by what it must be like to be a member of a medical team in a foreign country. There are so many diseases in evidence. HIV/AIDS and malaria are cited in this goal, but so are “other diseases.”

Other diseases, too. There are infectious diseases, life-threatening diseases, disfiguring diseases, childhood diseases, easily diagnosed diseases, hard-to-diagnose ones, visible ones, and invisible ones. How do we prioritize just what to treat? How are conditions different in developing countries? What can we do here in the developed world to try to assist others? I still am astounded that the Millennium Development Goals were agreed to in 2000 by 189 heads of state and government -- including the United States. This was in response to the deepest material brokenness in the world today. Poverty the likes of which we just don't see within the United States. Poverty levels that lead to a child under 5 dying every three seconds from preventable, treatable causes, and 8,000 people (more than died in the September 11 attacks) dying each day of HIV/AIDS.

When I visit doctors here in the US I always give thanks for what we have here for our medical care. But I also worry about what other people don’t have. This is why this is such a crucial MDG goal. Medical care must be made available in all parts of the world. This is not a complicated project, but it is both expensive and hard to attain. I think of invisible diseases. These are the really tricky set of those “other diseases.” These include addictions, mental illness, heart disease, diabetes, malnutrition, vitamin deficiencies, and other illnesses and disorders that often go unnoticed by both the patients and medical staff. Each can lead to long-term illness and incapacitation, but medical teams often have their hands full with the gruesome and visible disabilities. All must be addressed.

The MDGs seek to provide treatment to all people in the developing world who suffer from these diseases, both visible and invisible. Jesus healed “every disease and sickness.” We can do no less. Jesus was obviously capable of doing this; we need to provide needed resources so his example can be followed.

John Miers is from Bethesda, Maryland, where he was employed at the National Institutes of Health from 1968 to 2005. He served on the board of St. Luke’s House, a halfway house for persons recovering from mental illness and also serves as Jubilee Officer for the Diocese of Washington. He was a member of National Commission on Science, Technology and Faith for the Episcopal Church and is active in his local church, where he is in the choir, worship committee, pastoral care committee, and the prayer team, and he also visits patients in a local hospital on behalf of the Chaplain.

Goals 4 & 5: Child and Maternal Health News

An article for you from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Maternal, Child Health Lag Behind Other Millennium Development Goals, Study Finds

Despite signs of progress in the treatment of HIV/AIDS, malaria and childhood diseases, efforts to reduce maternal and newborn health as part of the U.N. Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) lag behind, according to the 2009 Report of the Global Campaign for the Health Millennium Development Goals released Monday, Inter Press Service reports.

The study "highlights practical ways to 'reduce the continuing and unnecessary death toll in developing countries,'" including : "increased political mobilisation; adequate financing and effective delivery; streamlined and harmonised aid operations; free services for women and children at the point of use and the removal of access barriers; skilled and motivated health workers at the right place at the right time; and accountability for results with robust monitoring and evaluation," according to IPS.

To implement these changes, the study "calls for scaling up health services to the tune of 36-45 billion dollars by 2015, over and above the current spending (and cumulatively about 114-251 billion dollars from 2009 to 2015)" – a gap the authors of the report hope can be closed during the G8 meeting in July, IPS writes (Deen, IPS, 6/15).

"Women and children are facing even graver health threats because of the global economic downturn. Even before the crisis, women made up 60 percent of the world’s poor, and maternal mortality was the worst health inequity in the world," U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro said during a luncheon ceremony to release the report. "Your influence, your individual passion and your institutional commitment can help us succeed. Together, we can achieve a long-overdue breakthrough for women and children in the developing world. The consensus outlined in this report provides a clear way forward" (ISRIA, 6/15).

"We welcome this report's timely emphasis on the need to increase investments in women's health despite the current economic crisis," Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, executive director of the UNFPA, said. Obaid added that an investment in the health of women and girls worldwide does not only improve lives, but can generate economic growth as well.

"If we balk now in our efforts to achieve the health MDGs, we will put our present and future generations at risk," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said. "But if we rise to the challenge, we can set the world on course for long-term prosperity and stability" (IPS, 6/15).

This information was reprinted from kff.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Global Health Policy Report, search the archives, and sign up for email delivery. © Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

Death in Birth

Important article about the realities of childbirth - Maternal Health - Please Read!

Death in Birth: Where Life’s Start Is a Deadly Risk
By DENISE GRADY
Published: May 24, 2009, New York Times

More than half of the 536,000 women who die each year in pregnancy and childbirth are in Africa, according to the World Health Organization.

Go to:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/health/24birth.html

Millennium Development Goal #2 - by John G. Miers

Millennium Development Goal #2
Achieve Universal Primary Education

"Jesus said to them,
'Let the little children come to me;
do not stop them;
for it is to such as these that
the Kingdom of God belongs."
- Mark 10:14

Achieving Universal Primary Education will be a long process. It will be a very long process and all-encompassing task, an extremely complicated one that has many layers of problems, kind of like an onion!

Each of those four words – “Achieving,” “Universal,” “Primary,” and “Education” – is hard and is important. Each builds on the other three. Each can be done by itself, but the whole will be much stronger than the sum of the parts, which is why this goal is made up of all four.

But it will be an investment – one that will pay off handsomely; not for many weeks or many months or even over many years, but the payoff will be seen for generations into the future.

It will not be easy….we will have to do it differently in different places, and we will have to keep at it, and keep at it, and keep on keepin’ on. That means that we also need to convince people and their leaders that it will be worth doing. There is one other piece of the provision of education that many people don’t see in their first glance: We also need to be concerned about many other aspects of education provision, too, such as food for lunches and breakfasts, facilities for schooling, and health care so that people can be schooled– this even required eyeglasses and laptop computers. There is also the need to train people to be the teachers. And to be the teacher’s teachers. Yes, a large system is required. It is both expensive and complicated, and it must be widespread.

Yes, education not just for little children, but for all people. Everyone needs it at least once. Some need to catch up, but everyone needs to be trained, both to ensure that they live well, and so that they see the value of education. Notice the second word “universal.” A parent who is educated, and has discovered the value of such education, will be much more inclined to ensure that his or her child will also be educated. An educated adult will help ensure that education is available.

Is primary education enough? Probably not, but we have to start somewhere, and, as noted above, once you get someone convinced on the value of education, they will probably do their best to go beyond merely the primary level.

The title of this MDG is “Achieve Universal Primary Education.” Is “Achieve” the right word? Probably not, but we have to start somewhere.

John Miers is from Bethesda, Maryland, where he was employed at the National Institutes of Health from 1968 to 2005. He serves on the board of St. Luke’s House, a halfway house for persons recovering from mental illness and also serves as Jubilee Officer for the Diocese of Washington. He was a member of National Commission on Science, Technology and Faith for the Episcopal Church and is active in his local church, where he is in the choir, worship committee, pastoral care committee, and the prayer team, and he also visits patients in a local hospital on behalf of the Chaplain.