A report from Maria Tjeltveit:
I had the privilege of attending the Synod of the Southern Province of the Moravian Church, June 1-4, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, to bring greetings from The Episcopal Church. There were also ecumenical guests from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, United Methodist Church, and the Presbyterian Church USA. As a conferential church, the Moravians did not see us just as guests, so I served on the Committee on Partnership & Collaboration. Although the synod is much smaller than General Convention, many of the issues they addressed were similar: greater inclusion of LGBTQ+ people in the church; racial reconciliation; studying the history of discrimination against Native Americans; gun violence; technology in churches; and resources for youth, emerging churches, and smaller congregations. A particular highlight was the election of the Rev. Neil Routh as the president of the Provincial Elders’ Conference (the equivalent of our presiding bishop). Neil is a member of the Moravian-Episcopal Coordinating Committee’s Racial Reconciliation Working Group, and is a pastor with deep faith, a commitment to justice and racial reconciliation, and a desire to include more and younger voices in leadership. The theme of the synod was “In the Faith We Travel By, God is in the Other Place.” The synod was one of those “other places” for me, as an Episcopalian, and it was a joy to experience God and God’s people there.
For more information about the Southern Province, Moravian Church in America, visit https://www.moravian.org/southern/