What Does the Standing Committee Do?
At the conclusion of our Diocesan Convention this October, I will complete my second four-year term on the Standing Committee and my second year as its president. Because our diocesan canons require a break between terms, my eight years of service have been interrupted by a one-year absence from November 2021 through October 2022. During that time, I have served alongside three bishops and through a year in which our diocese had no bishop at all.
That experience has taught me something important: the role of the Standing Committee remains constant in canon law, but the way it exercises that role changes considerably depending upon the circumstances and leadership of the diocese.
So, what exactly is a Standing Committee?
Every Episcopal diocese has one. In some respects, the Standing Committee functions rather like a board of trustees, charged with safeguarding the governance and institutional life of the diocese. It has particular canonical responsibilities involving church property, the ordination process, and various consents required by the wider Episcopal Church. It also serves as a council of advice to the bishop.
Most of the time, much of this work happens quietly in the background. When a diocese has a sitting bishop, the Standing Committee works alongside that bishop—providing counsel, exercising its own canonical responsibilities, and helping ensure the healthy governance of the diocese.
But when there is no bishop, its role changes dramatically.
Following Bishop Sean Rowe’s resignation as Bishop of Western New York in October 2024, our Standing Committee became the Ecclesiastical Authority of the diocese. Suddenly, responsibilities ordinarily centered in the episcopate rested with a committee of clergy and lay leaders elected by Diocesan Convention.
As president, I discovered that this did not mean becoming a substitute bishop. Quite the opposite. The president of the Standing Committee has no individual ecclesiastical authority. The authority belongs to the Standing Committee collectively. My responsibility was to help that body exercise its authority faithfully: convening meetings, ensuring that canonical and governance responsibilities were addressed, coordinating with diocesan leaders, and helping us discern which decisions we could make and which decisions should properly await episcopal leadership.
That distinction became increasingly important. Leadership during a transition is not simply about keeping an institution running. It is also about preserving space for what comes next.
For a year, our task was simultaneously to maintain continuity and to prepare for change. We had to address immediate needs while asking larger questions about the future of the Diocese of Western New York: What kind of episcopal leadership do we need? What structures best serve our congregations? What must be preserved, and what might God be inviting us to release or reimagine?
With the arrival of Bishop Steve Lane as our Provisional Bishop in October 2025, the role shifted again. The Standing Committee ceased being the Ecclesiastical Authority and returned to its more familiar role as a council of advice and a guardian of diocesan governance. Yet the work of discernment has continued as Bishop Steve, the Standing Committee, Diocesan Council, clergy, lay leaders, and congregations work together to imagine the next chapter of our common life.
Perhaps that is what I have come to appreciate most about the Standing Committee. Its purpose is not to accumulate authority but to steward it. At different moments that stewardship may require offering counsel, asking difficult questions, granting canonical consent, providing continuity during a transition, or temporarily carrying responsibilities that ordinarily belong elsewhere.
The president’s role is similarly less about being “in charge” than about helping the committee fulfill its responsibility together.
After eight years on the Standing Committee, serving alongside three bishops and through one remarkable year without one, I leave with a deeper appreciation for the wisdom of this sometimes obscure institution of our Church. The Standing Committee exists so that authority is shared, governance continues through seasons of change, and the life of a diocese never depends upon a single individual.
It is, at its best, a guardian of continuity—not for continuity’s own sake, but so that the Church remains free to discern faithfully where God is calling us next.
Faithfully,
Luke
| 
