To the Delegates, Clergy, and People of
The Episcopal Diocese of Western Michigan:
In accordance with the Canons of the Diocese of Western Michigan (Title I, Canon 3, Section 3) you are hereby notified of the 146th Annual Convention of the Diocese of Western Michigan to take place on Saturday, October 31, 2020.
This year’s convention will be held jointly with our partner diocese, the Episcopal Diocese of Eastern Michigan, and, due to the ongoing pandemic, will take place in an online format.
For information, please read below and visit the convention page of our diocesan website, www.edwm.org/convention.
This notice is being emailed to all clergy, senior wardens, and convention delegates and alternates that we have emails for, as well as all those on our subscriber list. If there are delegates from your congregation that may not have received this notice, please share this information with them.
Peace,
The Rev. Canon William Spaid
Secretary of Convention
Canon Missioner, The Episcopal Diocese of Western Michigan
The Most Rev. Michael B. Curry is the 27th Presiding Bishop and Primate of the Episcopal Church. A graduate of Yale Divinity School, Presiding Bishop Curry served congregations in North Carolina, Ohio, and Maryland before his consecration as the XI Bishop of North Carolina in 2000. Throughout his ministry, the Presiding Bishop has been a justice and reconciliation seeker, speaking out on immigration policy and marriage equality.
Presiding Bishop Curry is a world-renowned preacher and teacher, having been invited to speak at churches, cathedrals, and conferences around the United States and well beyond, including the 2018 wedding of Prince Harry of Wales and Megan Markle. In 2018, he was named the Religion Newsmaker of the Year by the Religion News Association.
In addition to numerous articles and essays, he has authored four books: The Power of Love (2018); Following the Way of Jesus: Church’s Teachings in a Changing World (2017); Songs My Grandma Sang (2015); and Crazy Christians: A Call to Follow Jesus (2013).
He and his wife, Sharon Clement, live in North Carolina.
As people who follow Jesus, we are called to build bridges beyond ourselves – to one another, to our communities, and to God. Our bridges are built through invitation, justice seeking, and love sharing.
In this time of rapid change and transition, and as we live more deeply into our period of shared ministry between our two dioceses, we consider our call to be bridge builders – to invite one another into relationship and knowledge of God’s love, across parishes, across dioceses, across denominations, and beyond.
Overview & Preparing
Due to the ongoing pandemic, the joint convention will take place in a secure and private online format. This presents a handful of opportunities and challenges compared to our experiences of in-person gatherings.
We recommend the following to the parishes:
As available, identify a point person who might serve as local tech support for your delegation. You will be asked to provide contact information for this optional point person during the registration process.
As requirements allow, consider gathering in-person as a parish delegation during the online convention for mutual support and discussion. Each person will still need access to an internet-connected device and their email for voting.
If unable to gather together, consider how you might remove barriers to entry to participate in an online gathering. This may include access to space with an internet connection and access to a computer, tablet, or smartphone.
If an elected delegate is unable or unwilling to participate in an online gathering, consider inviting an alternative delegate to serve this year.
We acknowledge that online gathering is not optimal for the relationship building and collaboration that takes place at convention and that would have been especially possible in our first joint convention between our two partnering dioceses. Please join us in praying for an end to this pandemic, for wise and careful lawmaking, for smart and dedicated medical research, that we may move through this time with safety and compassion in mind, and that next year, should circumstances allow, we might greet one another in person once more.
Voting Online
After extensive research and conversation amongst many Episcopal dioceses, we have identified a secure online software to enable us to conduct a canonically appropriate election procedure. All delegates and clergy are invited to participate in a training session to test the software and get experience using it before the convention takes place.
To ensure fair and secure voting, each delegate and clergy person will be registered as a verified user. This requires each person to provide a unique email address for registration within the voting system. You will be asked to provide this for each person during the registration process. All voters will need access to their email during the course of the convention as polls open.
To put this requirement in context, consider the following examples:
Delegate Dave has an existing personal email address that only Dave uses. Delegate Dave is good to go!
Delegate Diane shares an email address with her spouse, Sam. Sam is not a delegate. Delegate Diane is good to go!
Delegate Dolly shares an email address with her spouse, Delegate Dan. They will not be able to vote without providing separate email addresses.
St. Swithen’s Church set up a common email address for all their delegates, delegates@stswithens.org. They will not be able to vote unless each person provides a separate email address.
Tech Support & Trainings
During the course of the meeting, a special Zoom “Tech Support” room will be set up to help address technological needs of individuals as they arise. We are in need of volunteers to staff this resource. If you would like to volunteer to serve the diocese in a tech support role during this convention, please contact Canon Katie Forsyth at kforsyth@eastmich.org.
Additionally, a series of training/practice sessions have been scheduled for delegates to experience the online platform before the convention and to practice voting.
The following trainings will be offered for those assuming tech support lead roles for technology for your parish delegation, and will go a bit more in depth than the general training:
Thursday, October 1 at 7pm
Saturday, October 3 at 10am
The following trainings will be offered for all delegates:
Tuesday, October 13 at 2pm
Tuesday, October 13 at 7pm
Friday, October 16 at 2pm
Saturday, October 17 at 10am
Tuesday, October 20 at 2pm
Tuesday, October 20 at 7pm
Thursday, October 22 at 10am
Thursday, October 22 at 7pm
To keep the trainings as small as possible, each session is limited to 40 participants and requires signing up ahead of time.
Communications & Notices
To be faithful stewards of creation by conserving resources – both natural and financial – all communications about convention will be delivered two ways: by email and on our website.
Previous communications include:
Posting on Facebook? Tweeting? Checking-in? Use #emwm2020.
Convention Worship
The convention will open at 9:00am with morning worship with the Most Rev. Michael Curry, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, preaching. Registered participants are invited to join via Zoom. The worship service will also be live streamed to the diocesan Facebook pages for wider participation.
In Memoriam
Each year at convention, we pray for and remember those who have died in the last year. In doing so, we remember the great impact that our members of our diocese have on their local parishes and on our wider community.
Please submit the names of any deaths in your parish that occurred from October 1, 2019 to September 30, 2020. Do not complete the form until after October 1, 2020 to make sure all memorials are included.
All names received by the deadline of October 15 will be included in the Convention Booklet.
Delegates to convention are invited to join us for one of three pre-convention meetings to review the proposed diocesan budget, any upcoming resolutions, and to conduct regional elections.
The three pre-convention meetings will take place at 7pm:
Tuesday, Sept. 15 – Northern Region
Thursday, Sept. 17 – Central Region
Tuesday, Oct. 15 – Southern Region
If you are unable to attend the meeting scheduled for your region, you may attend another regions meeting but will be unable to participate in voting for the regionally elected positions.
To receive the Zoom link and password for your pre-convention meeting, you must register ahead of time.
Business for Pre-Convention Meetings
The following items are available for review at the pre-convention meetings. Following submission deadlines, this information will be compiled into our Convention Booklet.
Submitting Nominations
The following positions are up for election:
Diocesan Council
The following positions will be elected at the regional pre-convention meetings, scheduled to take place before the convention in October.
Northern: 1 person, any order
Central: 1 person, must be clergy
Southern: 1 person, any order
You may submit nominations for the Diocesan Council up until the date of your pre-convention meeting.
Standing Committee (2 Lay, 1 Clergy)
The Standing Committee serves as the council of advice to the bishop and assumes the ecclesiastical authority of the diocese when there is a bishop vacancy in addition to other duties.
Synod Deputies (1 Clergy, 2 Lay, plus alternates)
The Provincial Synod is the governing body of Province V of the Episcopal Church. It meets once every three years in the Spring preceding the General Convention. Of those elected, at least one person must be a deputy to the next General Convention.
The 2021 Synod Meeting is planned to be a virtual gathering.
To be published in the convention booklet, the deadline to submit nominations for election to the Standing Committee or Province V Synod is October 15.
Submitting Resolutions
The canonical deadline to submit a resolution was September 15.
The 2020 convention will be held jointly with our partner diocese, Eastern Michigan. Members of the two dioceses may offer a resolution that can be considered by the two conventions together. Any joint resolution approved by the conventions of both dioceses will be considered a resolution of both dioceses separately and jointly.
To comply with the canons of both dioceses, a joint resolution must be signed by four clergy members and four lay members from each diocese.
The deadline to submit a joint resolution was September 1.
Submitting Ministry Reports
If you are required or would like to submit a report on your diocesan ministry for the 146th Convention Booklet, please email Katie Forsyth at kforsyth@edwm.org for submission guidelines.
All reports must be received by October 15.
Youth Delegates
High school aged young people are invited to participate at the diocesan convention by applying to become a Youth Delegate.
There are ten youth delegates and ten alternates, some elected by the regions and some appointed at-large by the Standing Committee. There is no cost to be a youth delegate to the convention.
Change of Delegates
To change a member of your delegation, the clergy person/senior warden and the secretary of the vestry must submit a Change of Delegates form. All forms must be submitted by October 15.
Previous Conventions
Journal from the 143rd Diocesan Convention, October 2017
Journal from the 142nd Diocesan Convention, November 2016
Journal from the 141st Diocesan Convention, November 2015
There are three types of convention registration – delegations, unassigned clergy, and visitors.
DELEGATIONS – One person from the congregation (usually a parish secretary, senior warden, or clergy person) must register the entire delegation, including any clergy and all elected delegates. Unique email addresses are required for each delegate to be registered in our voting software.
The cost for convention has been reduced to $100 per parish. This fee helps us cover increased cost for our meeting and voting software as well as lost contract fees to our convention center.
UNASSIGNED CLERGY and VISITORS may register individually, regardless of congregational affiliation at no cost.
A note about visitors — Technology permitting, to widen the number of people with access to the convention and to lessen the demand on our webinar software capacity, the online convention will also be live streamed to the diocesan Facebook pages including the opening worship and keynote address. Participation in the livestream on Facebook does not require registration for the convention. We encourage visitors who would like to watch the convention, especially the Presiding Bishop’s offerings, to choose the livestream offering.
Registration must be submitted by October 15th.
