Father Jim’s Reflections, November 2024
Our Diocesan Convention is being held this weekend, October 25 and 26. By the time you read this, it may be in the past, but I thought I would write a bit about conventions in any case. The history of conventions, gatherings of clergy, bishops and lay people to debate issues relevant to the life of the church, begins after the American Revolution. The Episcopal Church in the United States needed to find a way to govern itself after having its ties with the Anglican Church broken by the Revolutionary War. Efforts at organization began in Maryland in 1780 with small gatherings of people that led to the formal establishment of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Maryland.