In my address to convention last month, I invited all Minnesota Episcopalians to spend this next year deepening our discipleship. In a time of great change and uncertainty, I believe the Holy Spirit is inviting us to set aside our anxiety about building the institution for a season, rediscover our vocation to be gardeners, and tend to our root system: deepening our relationship with Jesus through ancient practices and new experiments, through daily prayer and dwelling in scripture, through cultivating closer relationships with one another and with those closest to God’s heart, the poor, marginalized, and suffering of the world.

I’ve heard from a number of you that you’re excited to say yes to this invitation and are eager to begin this deepening journey. To help us with this, in the weeks and months to come, we’ll be offering a number of resources to help all of us dig more deeply into discipleship: we’ll share stories from around the diocese about ways your fellow Episcopalians are deepening their prayer lives or experimenting with ways to get to know and serve their neighbors; we’ll offer sacred practices for you and your community to try; we’ll continue to hold space for you to connect with one another.

In his address, Bishop Loya asked all Minnesota Episcopalians to

He recommended a new resource from the Episcopal Church called Centered, which offers a simple way for disciples to gather in small groups to support and share with one another as we tend to our root system.

If you're able, please join us on Thursday, December 8 at 12pm to hear more about Centered and the transformative power of practicing discipleship in a small group. Register for that gathering here. If you cannot attend, it will be recorded so you can watch it later.

Centered certainly isn't the only way one can structure small groups, and you're welcome to gather in whatever way works for you and your community. Click the image above to watch a video about how small groups might transform your discipleship, whether through Centered or any other structure.

Register here.

A major facet of our shared life as a diocese, in this season, is experimentation. Throughout the last couple of years, we've experimented with several different forms for virtual gatherings, from Leading Beyond the Blizzard at the beginning of the pandemic to the BISHOPx Forums last year to the "monthly leaders' gatherings" we've held for the last three months.

All Minnesota Episcopalians are invited to join the next iteration of this experiment: PercoLAYte. Beginning December 8th and running through June, 2023, we'll meet monthly to "steep" ourselves in the lay order of ministry, one of the four orders of ministry of the Episcopal Church, to which every baptized or received Episcopalian belongs. Each month, we'll explore a new aspect of what the prayer book and our baptismal vows call us to and what that ministry looks like in our faith communities and in our daily lives.

Bishop Loya has frequently said that he imagines the church in ten years to be largely "lay-led, clergy-supported." In order to prepare ourselves for that future, and to deepen your own ministry and discipleship, we encourage you to join PercoLAYte gatherings as you are able. We know that weekdays at noon don't work for everyone, so we'll also be recording these sessions and posting them on the ECMN Discipleship page, as well as sharing them here in the weekly news.

On the second day of Convention, the Rev. Canon Blair Pogue offered a three-part series on how and why we can and should center discipleship in our faith communities. As a way of introducing a year of centering discipleship in your faith community, we recommend sharing these videos over three consecutive weeks, perhaps in an adult forum, and engaging the practices that Blair recommends. The three sessions can be found here:

As you continue to consider ways to deepen your discipleship in the coming year, please find resources to explore on the ECMN Discipleship Page, including spiritual practices, meditations on discipleship, and talks you can use for Christian formation.

Holy Trinity, Elk River | Holy Trinity, St. Paul | St. Matthew's, St. Paul |

Please also pray for the Presiding Bishop's delegation to COP27, and for all leaders gathered there who are tasked with charting a path forward for the world to care for all of God's creation. Learn more about the Episcopal Church presence at COP27 here.

On Sunday, Bishop Loya will visit

All Saints, Minneapolis.