During General Convention, bishops’ spouses traditionally gather for a few field trips and share some fellowship time. This year, for the first time, spouses also will spend June 14 as a day in service to St. John’s, Town Street, an urban congregation in a struggling community.
The idea arose during the House of Bishops gathering last fall in Puerto Rico. “We heard these devastating reports about the damage from Hurricane Katrina,” said Mariann Price, wife of Southern Ohio’s bishop, Kenneth Price. “Everyone was energized to take some action when we met again in Columbus.”
Price teamed up with the Rev. Lee Anne Reat, vicar of St. John’s, to map out a day that would benefit the community and use the varied skills of the bishops’ spouses. Some spouses will join a noonday Bible study at St. John’s. Others will help set up a Bible Times Fun Time carnival for the children in the neighborhood. Using Bible stories as the theme, the carnival will include crafts, food and games such as “Go fish in the Sea of Galilee” or knocking down the walls of Jericho.
Spouses also have signed up to do minor maintenance projects for some of the elderly folks in the community. “We’re calling those spouses ‘the order of the carpenter,’” said Price. In addition, every bishop spouse was asked to bring a new children’s book to give to the children who attend the carnival.
The day will end with a 6 p.m. worship service and His Place dinner, where spouses will help cook and serve about 120 homeless or impoverished people.
More than 50 women and men – about a third of the spouses – have signed up to participate, Price said. She’s also inviting spouses of visiting international bishops to get involved. “This is what the church is all about,” Price said. “This is fulfilling our baptismal covenant of respecting the dignity of every human being and going out into the world and doing the work God has given us to do.”
Bishop spouses always get together for fellowship events but the service projects “give us a chance to get to know each other better and in a different way as we work side by side,” Price said. “This group is good about putting our theological differences aside and not letting those interfere with our relationships.”
Reat said she hopes the service projects can bring the attention of the larger church to urban poverty, and in St. John’s case, urban Appalachian poverty.
“I think it’s a great idea. It’s hands-on ministry. And that’s what the church is,” Reat said. “The church is what we do. It’s not the places where we worship. It’s not the theological discussions in which we get mired. But it’s what we do in the community, our face of Christ in the community. I hope that’s not lost on the convention – that we are being the church as we reach out into the community.”
