Summary Comments by President of the House of Deputies, Bonnie Anderson made at the Mutual Responsibility in Mission Conference, San Jose, Costa Rica, February 25, 2009

March 04, 2009 The joyous task that we all have is to love our neighbors as ourselves. To do this as people in Christian community, we constantly balance the "two sisters" whom I call "maintenance" and  "mission".

These sisters are very close, and, like all of us, mutually interdependent upon each other. In fact, they are so close, one cannot exist without the other.

Let me explain.
If our communities of faith are not fed and maintained, there will be no passion for God’s mission.  The passion for mission grows out of the understanding of God’s call to us. We are called to be in Christian community together, in prayer and thanksgiving that results in action, in response. Our Christian communities, our churches, need to be creative in determining how they are Church.  we need to  maintain our Christian Communities. In the churches where the people understand their baptismal ministry the people have a passion for mission and the maintenance of the church becomes important for that purpose and the church flourishes.

On the other hand, if the people are not maintained by the spiritual sustenance, we cannot hear God’s call to action if we do not hear the urgency in God’s voice when we are called to mission, and the sister called mission is forgotten.  if we are not purposeful in fulfilling the commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves, our communities of faith will become diminished. The beloved sister called mission, will wither and die and, along with her, the spark that ignites our communities of faith will dim.

I think that the Episcopal Church is working hard to become a people of mission. We want mission to be as close to us as our heartbeat. We are so pleased to be here to learn from you and to explore our mutual responsibility in mission and to keep the sisters of maintenance and mission in proper balance so we can more fully respond to God’s call to us.