Resolution A178:Establishing the First Sunday in Lent as ERD Sunday

Good MorningE4GR Friends!

Here is the 3rd of the 3 resolutions we are actively working on at General Convention this year. As you know, there are many other legislative initiatives which E4GR wholeheartedly supports and will advocate to pass, specifically those surrounding just economy, and unsustainable debt in the developing nations. But in these last three--this is where our planning, time and efforts has gone.

Thank you, for standing with us but more importantly those who without you would not have a voice, the poor.

A178: Establishing the First Sunday in Lent as ERD Sunday
(read the resolution here)

Background
In 2008, our Presiding Bishop designated the first Sunday in Lent as ERD Sunday and advocated for an annual celebration of ERD’s role in our collective mission to seek and serve Christ in all persons.

Since that time, six dioceses have submitted resolutions to General Convention to establish this practice across the church (in the form of several “C” resolutions) and over 30 dioceses officially observe ERD Sunday on the first Sunday in Lent already. This initiative enjoys widespread support as a set-aside Sunday to recognize and celebrate ERD.

Talking Points
Our church, at General Convention 2003 and 2006, placed peace and justice as expressed through the Millennium Development Goals at the top of our programmatic and budget priority list.

ERD is our church’s relief and development agency – the “on-the-ground” ministry in far-reaching places across the globe to alleviate extreme poverty and preventable disease.
Designating a special Sunday for ERD would provide the church opportunities to:
• Celebrate the reality that when we as individuals combine our resources, prayers, and intentions through ERD we can make significant change in the world
• Learn about – and delight in – the work of ERD which is saving lives on a daily basis on our behalf as a church
• Draw attention to the needs of the “bottom billion” of the world who live in extreme poverty.
• Raise our voices together in worship through song and prayer in giving thanks for God’s abundance and reminding ourselves of our baptismal promise to “strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.” ERD Sunday can remind us that one way to be responsive to this promise is to participate in ERD’s ministry.
• Designate a “loose plate offering” on ERD Sunday for the ministry of ERD
• Lend our own organic creativity to new ways of observing this Sunday across the generations and sharing it with each other

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.