In his speech, the Bishop called the priest and the newspaper person of today “the only general practitioners left in an age of specialization.” He went on to stress the need for a curious press, for full and accurate reporting saying that the right of citizens to know the facts upon which our national decisions and the peace of the world must depend is at least as important as the right of Americans to read the love letters of a movie actress.”

It could have been written today, but instead it was written in April 1958, exactly 50 years ago, and this story was published in May of that year in The Olympia Churchman. It was speech delivered by the Third Bishop of Olympia, Stephen Bayne as he addressed the 11th Annual Seminar of Allied Daily Newspapers. He was speaking of the heightened security within the government which was creating a generation of people who, as he said, “peer suspiciously at one another and are afraid of the truth.”

The more things change, the more they stay the same. And yet, this communication took, other than those in that room that day, almost two months to get to most people who would read it. Today it could be sent around the world in seconds, even being streamed as it is being said.

Bishop Bayne started a Clergy newsletter he named PIE, as in PIE. He said this of the name "PIE", the same being not only an article of diet and a way of disarranging printer's type, but also in medieval times descriptive of the innumerable little matters having to do with the ordering of the Church's worship. It meant then a sort of preface to action; and perhaps that is as good a way as any to interpret these odds and ends which emanate weekly from this office.  If you think of a better one, let me know."

He sent this out typed, from his office, weekly to all the clergy. I have revived PIE but it is now sent out via Constant Contact, and I can do it, and send it to 400 plus households in a matter of seconds. I often, as I do it, think of the work he and his staff must have gone to, in order that their version would go out.

I want to thank you so much for visiting our wonderful city, our diocese, and for this invitation to speak. I have wondered mightily in these last seven months how your election to be bishop makes you somehow more interesting to listen to in contexts such as these. I hope I can live up to the task.

You must know how daunting it is to stand before the group of Episcopal Communicators and attempt to communicate.

There is a story I have always loved, many hope I will quit using it because I recount it every now and again. It is a story clearly about communication, and one in Michael Battle’s book on reconciliation, but I first heard it in from Judge Robert Bork, speaking after his failed confirmation hearings to the Supreme Court. I tell it because if there ever was a communication story, this is a communication story.

There was once a small town in the ancient world. It was, as so many were then, surrounded by a wall. As the town’s population grew larger, the walls could no longer contain the people. Now in this town were two groups, Catholics and Jews. The Rabbi and the Archbishop got along well and met often and decided in one such meeting that something about the overcrowding must be done. So, after much discussion, they decided to hold a public debate. Now, as you might expect, in those days there were no PA systems so most debates were seen and not heard.

So, the day came and the Rabbi and the Archbishop take the stage in the Forum, with all the town present. And it begins with the Archbishop raising three fingers, and the Rabbie raising one. The Archbishop then made a sweeping motion across the crowd, and the Rabbi pointed to the floor. The Archbishop took a piece of bread and took a bite out of it, and the Rabbi took a bite out of an apple, and they left the stage.

On one end of the Forum people were running after the Archbishop and they asked him, “Archbishop, that was a great debate but what did it all mean?” And the Archbishop said, well, I raised three fingers to signify the Trinity we believe in, and the Rabbi held up one finger to remind me that God is one. I said God is everywhere, and the Rabbi said God is right here too. I then picked up a piece of bread to signify the sacraments we believe in and the Rabbi took a bit out of an apple to remind me of original sin.

On the other end of the Forum all the Jews were running after the Rabbi and they asked, “Rabbi, that was a great debate but what did it all mean?” and he answered.

The Archbishop says we have three days to get out of town. I said we are taking one year. He said get out now, I said we are staying right here……and then we broke for lunch!

What are we saying, or trying to? In a sense, right now, we have two churches, not Roman Catholic and Jewish but right within Christianity, the emerging church, and the establishment church. They are on that stage together, trying desperately to speak to one another. This is our challenge for the future.

Some would say the church has always had this challenge, and I can agree with that, but I would say the Church has never had this challenge coupled with the distractions, and even more, with the incredible means for instantaneous and rapid communication. We have no time to reflect before we post the story, or more often than not are responding to it.

I have a 12 year old son, and I am more amazed at how easy it would be for him to sit in front of a TV, or a computer screen for days on end, never bringing his blood pressure up to the level of a brisk walk, and all the while, living in another world.

It is easier today to have a relationship with someone around the world than it is to know your next door neighbor; even worse to me, relationships with some entity created by pixels on a screen than real flesh and blood. That is fraught with good and ill.

How do we reach them? Mike Hayes in his book Googling God say that “They come to church with specific longings for mystery or vibrancy in ritual. (I can’t tell you how missing that is in some of the churches I visit) They are looking for a personal relationship with God through experiences that makes God a clear entity. They are not necessarily looking for the definitive answer on God, like Google provides them on a regular basis. Faith is not a spectator sport for young adults, they long to integrate it with every fiber of their life, and live that faith unapologetically.

And so, in the tradition of the three point sermon and a prayer, let me start with these three.

1. Authenticity versus Loyalty

 We have a lot to compete with but I think this continues to be the churches’ problem, in that we so lack creativity, that we continually try to emulate what we see working in the world, rather than delving into our own tradition to mine it for all it has to offer. In a sense, we have forgotten how to be ourselves.

I think it was Brian McLaren, who is in town this week also, who said we Anglicans have all we need to meet the new generations, but we just don’t do it very well anymore, we have forgotten how to be ourselves.

We are trying to invent something new, when in fact, we may just need to rediscover who we were.

 During my recent vacation I got to go to a birthday party for a five year old I have known all of his life. I sat there in my chair watching him.

 He had a superman cape on, a spiderman mask, a policeman’s hat, and a pair of handcuffs. He was ready to fight crime wherever and however he found it. His mother told me about the superman cape. It had been sent to him by one of his godfathers who had worn it when he was a child. His godfather is now in medical school and I said to the five year old, “When he gets out of medical school he may need the cape back, to wear into surgery, and other things.” And the five year old looked at me and said, “Why, this isn’t magic.”

 So I asked, then why do you wear it?” and he said, “Because it looks good, …and because it just might be.”

 He says it well, the Church needs to find itself somewhere between, because it looks good, and because it just might be, because in between those poles is where mystery lives.

 We, in our enlightenment mentality have gotten to the point of wringing mystery completely out of our existence. It is either true because the Bible says it is, or because science has proved or disproved it, and there is nothing in between.

 The generations preceeding were loyal to one or the other. It was not OK to be unsure or to appear to not have an allegiance. Although I sense this was often the case, it was not wise to articulate it, to go against tradition and the establishment.

 The new generations need more, want more, expect more, and crave the authenticity of “maybe” and “I don’t know,” while at the same time being drawn to people and places who can authentically say, I think do! They don’t mind delving into, “it just might be.”

 Generations before came to church because you were supposed to, loyalty to institutions was expected and revered. Not so now. In fact, we are again suspicious of institutions, but I think we should wake up to the fact that I don’t see the younger generations throwing institutions out simply because they are institutions, like in some former generations. No, they realize there is a good place for such things, but they loathe the propping up of institutions without self reflection and criticism and creativity. I must tell you I visit some churches and walk out wondering if I were not the Bishop, would I go back?

 9:30 pm Compline at St. Mark’s Cathedral is an example for me. The first time, after moving here and becoming Bishop that I was actually able to visit Compline; I had listened many times online, but there I was, dressed like a bishop, sitting in the midst of this mass of 500 to 600 people, mostly very young people, some of them laying in the pews, some up under the altar, their coats strewn around like this was their living room. I was moved, but I was absolutely shocked, when the Creed came around, without a word of prompting, the whole crowd stood, came to their feet for the Creed, and as soon as it ended they resumed their prior positions. It was one of the holiest, mysterious moments I have ever been privileged to be part of.

Let me give you a difficult example of how easy we make our conversations compared with where we might need to take them. Inclusion may be one area where it has been easier to pose the idea and the dream, without the reality of what it means. This is not, in any way, to “dis” the work done on inclusion, but to be realistic about its power. Miraslov Volf in his wonderfully challenging book, Exclusion and Embrace, says that “A consistent pursuit of inclusion places one before the impossible choice between a chaos without boundaries, and oppression with them. “ The authentic reality is how difficult inclusion is, as we have found out, and how much we avoid the discussion, which I would say is a built in truth, and enough for three other lectures, that we all exclude finally, we all have a line in the sand.

When I would ask in my seminary classes on this topic, who do you exclude? These were the most difficult discussions but the one that the younger generations entered into much more readily and realistically. Our lines are different but we all have them.

This presents us with the huge challenge of changing systems that have existed for quite a while and for which there is so much inertia, human and institutional, to change. I am becoming more and more convinced, and there are some experiments going on in our communion, that we will need to run parallel structures in some places, maybe even Commissions on Ministry, Budgeting, and many others in order for us to ever break free from the lock down of enlightenment and establishment.

I feel more and more our seminaries are equally trapped by this. I am just not certain they are systems capable of making the shift, so much engrained, invested, and structured for a model that has run its course.

And when I say enlightenment, there are several really, a scientific and intellectual enlightenment which some post modern thinkers say we are leaving behind, while heading into another one that might be equally fraught with problems of its own, an informational enlightenment. We are just learning about that one.

2. Authority versus Leadership

In short, Authority is keeping the organization within the predetermined boundaries set up by the past and the present structure. Leadership is when one is willing to call to task that structure and to even attempt to move beyond it, but that is dangerous. Leadership is dangerous. In that sense the new generations are tremendous leaders. They are questioning and moving us beyond the boundaries of where we have been and questioning even what we have called sacred.

Bandy and Easum said years ago in their great book, Sacred Cows Make Gourmet Burgers, the established church must cease worshiping at the altar of control, or perish. We may be seeing this come true. Authority is needed but at its worse it becomes oppressive control, and stifling to the growth and power of the church.

3. Establishment Versus Intentionality

Diana Butler-Bass speaks to this better than anyone and so I have heard her say it many times, she says it better than me; we cannot win the new generations with our establishment, but balanced with some intentionality we may have a shot at it.

Barbara Brown Taylor in her recent book entitled Leaving Church may say this the best in a quick way, when she talks about how much of an outsider she found herself to be when she finally left the active priesthood. She comments about being in this wilderness and writes, “If my time in the wilderness taught me anything, it is that faith in God has both a center and an edge and that each is necessary for the soul’s health. If I developed a complaint during my time in the wilderness, it was that Mother Church lavished so much more attention on those at the center, than those at the edge. “ The Emerging church is at the edge. They have so much to teach us, and it is where we are called to put at least as much energy and focus as the center.

Finally, remember, three points and a prayer, here is the prayer. I pray today, with you, the Episcopal Communicators, that you will be the prophets you can be.

You are not simply workers with a task to perform, you have much to teach the Church, from a perspective that is not often heard. If I can leave you with anything today it is this, you do have a ministry, a vocation that is so needed in this Church. It is deeply related to all you are going to be discussing today, and in the days ahead.

I pray that you will not be mere spectators, do not simply prepare the press release or the story, or the layout, but be part of the team. Teach us, teach the church.

Some suggestions, I am still amazed how our language within our churches fails to match the reality of the world we live in.

We still spend countless time on bulletin boards, when they no longer work. We show too little attention to our websites, when that has become the front door to the church and the very first contact most have with us. When they do walk through our doors we continue to persist in using words like “family breakfasts’ or even “family chapel” which serves to exclude half the population.

We continue to use our code, ECW, EYC, Narthex, Nave, 815, ( I heard a story the other day about an ordained person who came to the Episcopal Church from another denomination who was told something was to happen at 815 and he showed up two hours early for the Eucharist the next day!) even Eucharist. I want to teach them what Eucharist means, but we can’t do it at 60 miles an hour on our outdoor signs.

Our “Episcopal Church Welcomes you Sign” was developed in the 1940s. This was when cars moved at half the speed they do now. The signs are code for insiders but do nothing for outsiders. And even the word unchurched. Someone suggested in my old congregation that we at least make it a bit more positive and call them pre-churched. And most of all, teach us how to listen. We have forgotten how to do it!

You can teach too. Please do. My prayer is that you will soak up all of this offered to you in these next days, continue to learn after leaving this place about all that is emerging in our Church, and than push your way into the conversation so that we might say what needs to be said about and to those without a church, to hold the hand of someone who is part of the next generation and bring them along with you, and through that journey together help us change our language, our behavior, our being. The Church needs to travel to the edges, it needs to listen more than speak, learn as much as or more than it teaches.

Bishop Bayne was also 44 years old when he became Bishop, my age right now.

He said this in TIME Magazine, March 23, 1953

The new bishop brought one basic premise to his diocese. "Religious convictions," he said, "belong in the market place. I'd like to see more clergymen down at the Boeing plant, off in the lumber camps, at sea, building bridges." As he analyzed the problem: "I know good and powerful men in the Northwest, Christian men, who see no use in the clergy at all. They can't see why we aren't out selling soup or plywood. They see us as marginal necessities."

The more things change, the more they stay the same. I think Bishop Bayne may well have been correct. I look at the church today, focused on the center, on our own internal unrest, mired in our discontent, and I think he may have pegged it.

We have become a generation that peers suspiciously at one another and is afrai d of the truth and that generation has become the Church, it has become the center. We must travel to the edges. You can take us there, you can help us hear it and see it. You have done that, keep doing that. It is far more important than any of you may realize.