You are cordially invited to attend the 2013 Payne Lecture and reception on February 7, 2013.
The Rev. Canon Stephanie Spellers, author and popular speaker, will give the lecture at 7:00 p.m.
“Of Babies and Bathwater: Navigating the Death of Establishment and the Rebirth of a Missional Episcopal Church”
Anglicanism, at its truest and best, stretches one arm to embrace ancient catholic traditions and the other to embrace local contexts, thus holding to its founding impulse “to keep the mean between the two extremes, of too much stiffness in refusing, and of too much easiness in admitting any variation from it.” How shall we keep these original commitments at a time of unprecedented change: mission contexts shifting overnight, the church of the establishment crumbling before our eyes? What kind of leadership, liturgical frameworks and pastoral care do we need to foster in order to keep the Anglican baby but pour in much-needed, fresh bathwater?
Please RSVP here or by contacting Stacy Morales in the Dean’s office, 512.439.0399
The Reverend Canon Stephanie Spellers serves as the new Canon for Missional Vitality in the Diocese of Long Island, catalyzing mission and ministry with the 146 Episcopal churches in Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island. She is the author of Radical Welcome: Embracing God, The Other and the Spirit of Transformation and founding priest for The Crossing community, an emergent congregation based at the Cathedral of St. Paul in Boston. A popular speaker and consultant nationwide, Canon Spellers is Chaplain to the House of Bishops and just completed a three-year term as co-chair for the Episcopal Church’s Standing Commission on Mission and Evangelism. She is a graduate of Harvard Divinity School and Episcopal Divinity School and — though she now calls Brooklyn home — she is proud to hail from a small town in Kentucky. See her work at www.churchpublishing.org/
The annual lecture series in February is hosted by the Board of Trustees of the seminary and is focused on mission, congregational leadership, evangelism, or congregational development in honor of Bishop Claude Payne, who led the Episcopal Diocese of Texas, 1995 – 2003.
