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The Diocese hosted our annual Congregational Leadership Conference at Christ Episcopal Church in Bowling Green on Feb. 18, 2023. You can view recordings of the plenary sessions, presentations, and resource materials below, or on our website here.

Click here to view plenary session 1 with Bishop White, Chancellor Hamp Moore, and Canon Amy Coultas. Chancellor Hamp Moore, in his remarks, made reference to the art displayed in Moore hall at Christ Episcopal Church Bowling Green - click here for an image of that artwork.

Click here to view plenary session 2 with The Rev. Dr. Steve Pankey, chair of the budget committee, and Jeff Lyngas from Church Insurance.

Click here for a PDF of the plenary session powerpoint presentation.

Click here for a PDF of the Church Insurance presentation.

There is now a new lay licensing application process that will take place online instead of paper forms. All versions of lay license applications other than the online fillable form are now outdated and cannot be used. You can read about the new lay licensing process and find links to the online application here.

The Anne Braden Commemoration was postponed due to power outages caused by the Friday, March 3rd storms. Please be looking for forthcoming information about continued ways we can remember Braden's life and witness.

In announcing the 2024 funding cycle, the Mission Funding Committee seeks to invest in concrete and courageous missional partnerships responding to real human needs and concerns in our communities and neighborhoods.

Whenever appropriate, the Mission Funding Committee looks for opportunities that demonstrate a partnership between the community and a parish. These grants are not intended for ongoing operational support of a parish, except as necessary to support the missional partnership. The Committee is looking forward to hearing the amazing ideas for mission in this Diocese! The deadline for applications is June 1st. 

To simplify the application process, applications may now be completed online via Google Forms. The application for Congregations is here, and the application for Agencies & Organizations is here. These Google Forms mesh seamlessly with gmail, and we encourage you to open a gmail account to complete the application if you do not already have one. Please contact missionfunding@episcopalky.org if you would like to have an application emailed to you directly.

If you do not have access to the technology to complete this application online, please format your responses according to the appropriate application found on the Mission Funding webpage of the Diocesan website and submit your completed application to missionfunding@episcopalky.org or mail it to:

Mission Funding Committee

Episcopal Diocese of Kentucky

425 S. 2nd Street, Suite 200

Louisville, KY 40202

Thank you,

The Rev. Robert Hill

Chair, Mission Funding Committee

The Very Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas ’82, ’88, Dean of Episcopal Divinity School at Union and Bill and Judith Moyers Chair in Theology at Union, has been named the 2023 winner of the prestigious Grawemeyer Award in Religion for her book Resurrection Hope: A Future Where Black Lives Matter. In her book Resurrection Hope, Dean Douglas offers a powerful vision of hope and resilience for a world struggling with the ongoing challenges of racial equality and social justice. Click here to read more.

It is well known in the Episcopal Church and beyond: Education for Ministry (EfM) changes lives. Most of the more than 120,000 people who have participated in the four-year theological education program will agree. Many will have a tale of transformation to share. Few will have a story as heart-wrenching as Termaine Hicks’s. Framed for rape in 2001 at the age of 26, Hicks was falsely incarcerated for nearly two decades. Termaine Hicks is the keynote speaker at the 2023 Education for Ministry Conference, sponsored by the School of Theology at the University of the South. Hicks’s keynote speech will take place on June 21, 2023, at 7:00 p.m. CDT. The presentation is free and open to the public and will be livestreamed for those who cannot attend in person. Follow Sewanee's facebook here for the link. Click here to read more about Termaine's story.

The Racial Healing Commission is seeking additional trainers for the Dismantling Racism Program and recruiting persons who can assist with the technology for virtual meetings. Training for these positions will be provided. A small stipend will be offered. For more information or to apply for these positions, email Deacon Jan Scholtz, Chair, Racial Healing Commission, jan.scholtz@janscholtz.com.

Evensong is one of the great treasures of the Episcopal Tradition. It has been sung in Cathedrals and parish churches for centuries, dating back to the English Reformation, based on the earlier traditions of Vespers and Compline.

Chris Roseland, Guitar Instructor at Bellarmine University, will give a classical guitar recital, performing works by composers Claude Debussy, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, and Giulio Regondi.

The service of Choral Evensong will follow. Christ Church Cathedral Choir, directed by Dr. Mark Kano, will sing the Preces and Responses of Richard Ayleward, a Phos Hilaron by John Michael Trotta, Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis by Orlando Gibbons, and the anthem Sure on this Shining Night by Morten Lauridsen. Organist Denise Whittington will accompany the Evensong and play the Postlude.

As always, we invite everyone. There is no charge for admission. A free-will offering to support Cathedral Arts will be received.

Click here for a poster with event details.

Third Act Faith is calling on the faithful

to join its 3.21.23 Day of Action. Third Act, an organization of people at least 60 years old, is organizing a “Day of Action” that will give all of us, regardless of age, the opportunity on March 21 to join forces and pressure the “Big Four” banks (Bank of America, Citi, Chase and Wells

Fargo) to stop bankrolling the expansion of the fossil fuel industry. Click here for more information.

You have a unique opportunity to help connect American descendants of slavery with their ancestors. Join in on March 17th at 12:00pm EST for a virtual lunch and learn with Reckoning, Inc., a nonprofit whose mission is “to examine the legacy of slavery in America, and to create ways for communities to engage with this information”. The folks at Reckoning are asking antebellum congregations like many of the congregations within our diocese to transcribe baptismal records of enslaved persons to a database which, once launched, will provide a public means for American descendants of slavery to learn of their own family stories. The zoom link can be found below.

Topic: Transcribing Enslaved Baptismal Records Zoom Meeting

Time: Mar 17, 2023 12:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting

Meeting ID: 865 3139 7048

Passcode: 367850

One tap mobile

+13017158592,,86531397048#,,,,*367850# US (Washington DC)A

Please note: The state of Kentucky has expanded the services on which it collects a 6% sales tax, including summer camp tuition. We are required to collect this new tax as part of your registration. You can read about the new taxes here and contact your local representative with any concerns.

Very excited to announce Summer Camp 2023 theme is Superheroes!

Summer Camp Dates are as follows:

Senior High (incoming 9th-12th graders): June 18th-23rd

Primary (incoming 2nd-4th graders) : June 25th-29th

New Horizons (incoming 5th-6th graders) : July 9th-14th

Junior High (incoming 7th-8th graders) : July 16th-21st

The federal mileage reimbursement rate has changed. It is now .65.5 cents per mile as of January 1, 2023. Click here for details.

Congratulations to Whit Stodghill on her new position as Chaplain to the Episcopal Lutheran Ministry at the University of Louisville! Whit has worked in a variety of contexts in her ministry including parish ministry, healthcare chaplaincy, chaplain education and training, multi cultural ministries, and most recently, as a housing case manager for homeless men at St. John Center in Louisville. If you know of a student attending the University of Louisville that would benefit from connection to this ministry please contact Chaplain Whit here.

We welcome the Rev. Debbie Dehler as the new rector of St. James, Pewee Valley, beginning March 20th. 

Caroline Doyle has resigned her position as Interim Youth Coordinator. We appreciate her service to the diocese. Planning for summer camp is underway and more information will be available soon. 

Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, the Diocesan Staff continues to work remotely much of the time. We are available by email, and check the office landline phone messages periodically.

We have seen an increase in fraudulent email scams. Please know that no one on the diocesan staff will ever reach out to you for financial assistance. If you receive such an email, please report it as spam and delete it.

Submissions for materials to be considered for the April General Newsletter are due by April 4, 2023. Please send your submissions to katie@episcopalky.org.

Read online here or listen here.

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