Bishop’s Search Committee: A Member’s Reflection

Hello everyone. My name is Susan Woods. I’m a members of the Bishop’s Search Committee from Good Shepherd, Buffalo and of the WNY and NWPA Commission to Dismantle Racism and Discrimination. I was part of the Profile information gathering group. Thank you all for sharing your ideas at the Convention conversations, in the many listening sessions and through the Holy Cow survey. What we learned about us as a Dioceses has provided important information for understanding who we as a Diocese are at this point, who we want to become and what is important for us to discern in the next Bishop.

I wanted to share an insight from the Holy Cow survey results that has stayed with me. This is my perspective; others may share it or may not.

We’ve all heard the phrase: The sum is greater than the parts. The whole of us can be more than any part of us acting in isolation. I believe our Diocese is like that. The Holy Cow Survey results presented one illustrative data analysis that compares our sense of high or low energy with our sense of high or low satisfaction. We don’t come our very well – our profile identifies us as perceiving neither high energy nor high satisfaction in the way things are now. This is true for all of us taken as a whole and for most groups, for example active priests, retired priests, convention delegates, diocesan staff. Only the deacons responded in the high energy range but with low satisfaction. Vestry responded with slightly higher energy than most but with low satisfaction. This makes sense if we’re experiencing a world where our whole is not greater that the sum of our parts.

Anyone reading this I suspect can come up with reasons that contribute to this outcome. I suspect it reflects more than the familiar complaints about a shortage of clergy, buildings in need of repair, dwindling endowments etc. To me it says we are very much in need of leadership to pull us together, build trust, strengthen Diocesan identity and unleash potential. We need a new bishop who will inspire and unite and spiritually guide us so the Diocese as a whole is greater than the sum of our parts. In the words of The Episcopal Church’s Racial Reconciliation, so that we might live more fully into the “spiritual practice of seeking loving, liberating and life-giving relationship with God and one another, and striving to heal and transform injustice and brokenness in ourselves, our communities, institutions and society.”

Today, as a nation, we are being driven more deeply toward violence, cruelty and inhumanity, where every human life is not treated as sacred. I am inspired by the leadership of the Episcopal Bishops. In the Joint Letter from 154 Bishops of The Episcopal Church: Who’s Dignity Matters?, which carries The Rt. Rev. Stephen T. Lane, Bishop Provisional of Western New York’s signature, we are called to share commitment rooted in our faith values, to promise to keep showing up, to choose hope in the place of fear. We are called to be Christians. Across our church, Episcopalians are showing up out of love to confront injustice, to be more than the sum of our parts.
What I’ve learned from the search process is we have been missing leadership to inspire and coordinate our potential from many levels within the Diocese. Stay tuned. Holy Cow! With empowering, inclusive, attentive leadership, we’ll see our Diocese forward toward higher energy with higher satisfaction, toward a whole that is greater than the sum of our parts.