Last week The Episcopal Church held a giant revival in Baltimore, Maryland.  The gathering brought people across all the dioceses to learn, worship, and invite the Holy Spirit to set us on fire, particularly around these three areas:  Racial Reconciliation, Evangelism, and Creation Care. Though the event is over you can still “participate” by viewing content from the festival.  Carla Robinson, our Canon for Multicultural Ministries & Community Transformation, participated in this event and she and her team strongly encourage you to check out these worship & plenary sessions:

• Opening Revival on Evangelism w/Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, 7/9 – His address begins at the 1:18:44 time mark.
• Morning Plenary on Racial Justice w/Dr. Kwok Pui-lan, 7/10 – Her presentation begins at the 27:50 time mark.
• Evening Worship on Creation Care w/Rev. Mariama White-Hammond, 7/10 – Her presentation begins at the 1:22:30 time mark.
• Morning Plenary on Creation Care w/Young Voices for Climate (including Adrienne!), 7/11 – Their presentation begins at the 35:50 time mark.
• Evening Worship on Racial Justice w/Sarah Augustine and the Shared Episcopal Gospel Choir of Baltimore, 7/11 – Her presentation begins at the 1:28 time mark.
• Closing Plenary and Worship on Evangelism w/Jerusalem Greer and Brian McLaren; featuring Julia Ayala Harris and Bishop Gene Robinson, 7/13 – The conversation between Jerusalem Greer and Brian McLaren starts at 43:25 and the talk by Julia Ayala Harris starts at the 1:54 time mark.

You can learn more about the presenters featured above on this site:  https://www.episcopalchurch.org/its-all-about-love/presenters/.

At one point in his sermon Presiding Bishop Michael Curry told a story about preaching at a certain royal wedding and naming love as the central call of Christianity. After that event, wherever he traveled, people would come up to him and express surprise that Christianity had something to do with love. He then offered these words, referencing anxiety in The Episcopal Church about the future given our annual (parochial) reports on church membership:

“It dawned on me that Christianity needs a revival. Christianity itself needs a revival to the teachings of this Jesus for whom love was at the very center of those teachings. And it dawned on me that maybe this Episcopal Church – don’t worry about the parochial statistics, all the facts and figures – if we love God, love our neighbor, and love ourselves, we will work our way even out of our misery. Don’t you worry about it now. It’s all about love.  All about it.” 

Click the link above to hear his whole sermon.

I wonder, what you think:  Where is love beckoning us to lean in and be even more faithful in our loving attention to God, our neighbor, and ourselves? What might happen if we found a way to be even more faithful to that calling?  Where could we start?