This past weekend, the Episcopal Church in Minnesota had its annual convention, to which St. John’s sent three lay delegates and two clergy: Ashley Beasley, Kathryn Olson, Ben Stanerson, our deacon Rex McKee, and our rector Lisa Wiens Heinsohn. Member Peter Stebinger, who is a priest, attended with us.
This year’s theme for ECMN Convention was The Hope that is in Us (1 Peter 3:15). This letter from Peter was written to a church struggling under Roman rule. On Friday, ECMN Bishop Craig Loya reminded the lay and clergy delegates that the Church has spent much of its history in exile and that most of the Old Testament was written for a religious community in exile. He shared a message with four things he recommends we focus on to sustain us in during the exilic period we are currently in:
- Stay weird
- Put down deep roots
- Accept our limits, lay down that which is no longer working
- Live with hope
Bishop Loya reminded and challenged us to subscribe to a “bold and contagious” hope. He spoke of a hope that challenges the status quo and has the power to center our efforts on the power of love. Through love and hope we can help our world and ourselves heal. He also talked about how the world is striving for hope and good news and we meet those needs by strengthening our roots, which we do by developing a deep community that is anchored in God’s love.
Additionally, we heard from Episcopal Bishop Betsey Monnot of Iowa, who used an analogy of cornfields and prairies to challenge us to consider different ways of being the Church. For her, the standard church has been like a cornfield: regular, conforming, and predictable but also requiring much work and many resources to keep it going. She wants us to consider a model of church as native prairie, with sustainability, flexibility, and an interconnected web of diversity that sustains life. She wants us to imagine ourselves as God’s pollinators through the love of Jesus. She has been working on a framework in Iowa based on Matthew 14: 22-33 (Jesus Walks on Water), encouraging parishes to consider doing the impossible and stepping out of the boat (or cornfield, see above), trusting Jesus, and, with the hope that is in us, try new ways of being the church. She shared specific examples that congregations in Iowa are trying. She also challenged the entire group to engage in meaningful discussions about topics generated by participants. While at times the convention room took on the vibe of a classroom filled with all kinds of students and a bit of randomness, Bishop Betsey encouraged us to gravitate toward topics that we either wanted to learn more about or had information to share. From this controlled chaos emerged clear ideas, topics, and honest discussions centered on how we might consider new ways of being the Church and following Jesus’s teachings. I think each of us came away with an idea or story that can help us consider new ways of being the Church.
The business portion of the Convention involved approving the 2026 budget, adopting new Canonical Amendments, electing lay and clergy members to various ECMN committees (including our own Rev. Lisa Wiens Heinsohn to the Disciplinary Board), and choosing delegates to represent ECMN at the 2027 General Convention of the Episcopal Church.
Additionally, we considered and voted on two resolutions that we encourage you to read in their entirety, both of which focused on immigrant justice. Our very own deacon, Rev. Rex McKee, was instrumental in bringing these forward. The first resolution is entitled “Dignity: Not Hate, Not Mass Deportation, Not Silence,” and focuses on reaffirming support for Migration with Dignity (C031), the immigrant justice policy adopted in 2024 at General Convention.
The second resolution is entitled “Regarding Becoming a Sanctuary Church,” which declares The Episcopal Church in Minnesota to be a Sanctuary Church, pledging to renounce policies that are contrary to and inconsistent with C031, Migration with Dignity, and to support protections for immigrants and the dignity of every human. It calls on each faith community to prayerfully consider what being a sanctuary church means within their own context.
While the process of voting on and discussing the resolutions was often procedural and formal, it became a living example of how a civil discourse has the ability to promote ideas through collective dialogue and compromise. After meaningful and impassioned discussion, the members of the convention worked to create an amended version of the resolution that was passed with wide support.
Links:
Bishop’s Address
You can find the video and text of the Bishop’s address here.
Summary of Business
You can find here a summary of the actions taken during the business portion of convention, including those elected to various leadership bodies.
You can find a link to the resolutions passed by convention here:
Resolution: Dignity: Not Hate, Not Mass Deportation, Not Silence
Resolution Regarding Becoming a Sanctuary Church
Storyteller Videos
We were delighted by the stories we were able to hear throughout the Convention from amazing Episcopalians from across the state. If you’d like to revisit any of these stories, or the sermon from the ECMN Eucharist service, some have already been uploaded, and the rest will be uploaded soon, and will be posted here.
All of these items have also been added to the ECMN Convention page, which you can find here.
Respectfully,
Ashley Beasley
Kathryn Olson
Ben Stanerson
