The annual diocesan convention is scheduled for 9 a.m., November 7 on Zoom. Below is a letter from the bishop regarding the matter. 

Dear Friends, 

Greetings in Christ. I write this letter to you at a time when the coronavirus pandemic still affects all aspects of our daily lives. For this reason I suppose that the alternative diocesan convention we are planning will not be particularly surprising. I appreciate all those who will ensure that it is well done: our tech support; our regular staff, the bishop of Honduras, Lloyd Allen; the choirs who are contributing; etc. But the closer these makes us feel, the odder it can all seem. Such is the challenge of the time in which we live. 

Our convention will begin on Zoom at 9 .m., with Morning Prayer and a sermon by the Rt. Rev. Lloyd Allen of Honduras. The business portion of the Convention will follow. I want to thank David Parsons, our chancellor, and his legal team, who have thought through what a virtual convention can look like canonical as well as logistically. While we are fully committed to returning to our regular procedures as soon as the abatement of the pandemic allows, this year we are hoping not to have any canonical changes or resolutions (other than courtesy). Voting will be by mail, with precautions taken to ensure confidentiality. We are also calling for any proposed amendments to the budget in advance. Our plan has been approved by vote of the Standing Committee. 

Before COVID, we were planning to make the celebration our 125th anniversary as a diocese with the events of Convention. We will roll the fiesta over, as with so much else, into the new year. But I do want to note that that celebration was to include an opportunity to recall the determination and the cost of the missionary efforts of our founding missionary, Bishop Alexander Garrett. I believe I have mentioned in the past how I read his journals when I first arrived and learned how he survived floods, malaria, horses dying of thirst, hail and tornado, not to mention loss in his own family. I learned how mobile he was, with his belongings, his altar, and his pump organ (still to be found at St. Luke's, Denison) loaded into his wagon. I don't know which virtue in the New Testament list equates to grit (perseverance maybe?), but that is what he had, and what his example can lend us, with the help of the Holy Spirit. 

This is a different year, and with it comes a different strategic goal, which I hope can be read between and beneath all the lines of our budget. We want every congregation, and every priest, to cross this period in the desert whole! Of course we mean for parishes to be proclaiming and serving along the way, as they are in remarkable ways. 

Our convention takes place within the octave of All Saints, and so we have transferred its sections for our service and sermon. The saints include the cloud of witnesses, such as Alexander, who hover near in encouragement. They include those who have died in the past year. It stretches across continents as well as centuries, a truth represented this Convention by our good friend Bishop Lloyd. It includes Christians who have gone through things similar to what we experience now, and worse. Still the procession, of victory in the resurrection of Jesus, of the nations gathered by Him, with deep empathy for our neighbors in this time and place, but bound for another city, goes on. May this reality too be a deep comfort and encouragement in such a time as this. 

Peace, 

The Rt. Rev. Dr. George R. Sumner 

Bishop, Diocese of Dallas