Diocesan Convention Address 2026
Episcopal School of Knoxville
The Right Rev. Brian L. Cole
Before I begin my remarks this afternoon, let us pray.
O God, you have made of one blood all the peoples of the earth, and sent your blessed Son to preach peace to those who are far off and to those who are near: Grant that people everywhere may seek after you and find you; bring the nations into your fold; pour out your Spirit upon all flesh; and hasten the coming of your kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN.
Equip Disciples. This year’s theme for Convention is drawn from our new mission statement. Our mission is to equip disciples of Jesus Christ to grow and be grounded in the reconciling witness of the Gospel, for the love of our neighbors and all of God’s creation.
Each Sunday, I visit our parish churches throughout East Tennessee. On most of those Sundays, our worship together includes baptisms, confirmations, and receptions. So, for all those Sundays, I invite the congregation to renew our own promises made in the baptismal covenant.
Along with reciting the Apostles’ Creed, the five questions asked of the congregation are meant to encourage us to go deeper in discipleship, to appreciate that the baptized life is a lifelong journey. With God’s help, we can say yes.
This past Sunday, I visited St. Paul’s Kingsport. Four persons were baptized, eight persons were confirmed, and two were received. It was a joyous morning in Kingsport. New Christian disciples were being made, and all present were encouraged by the renewing Spirit in our midst.
At the end of the worship, Fr. Johnny offered me a small bowl with holy water and a thick brush to asperge the congregation, to sprinkle them with water, reminding us of our baptisms. I handed my crozier to Deacon Gordon and began to asperge the congregation.
The brush for asperging was a paintbrush. The bristles held a great deal of water, so as not to drench the people as I asperged, I did my best to aim the brush well over everyone’s heads, to be sure the water landed gently on them.
All was well until about halfway through asperging duties, when the metal band holding the bristles detached from the wooden handle and, thankfully, flew over the heads of everyone and bounced off the wall without striking anyone. It did, however, get everyone’s attention.
The asperges brush incident reminded me that I have heard it said baptisms are dangerous. In baptism, we die to self and are raised with the Risen Christ. Baptism does not protect us from the hurts of the world but rather returns us to the very places where brokenness is present. The Christ who meets us in our baptisms grants us the grace to be with others who need someone to be with and for them. We recognize the Christ in each other.
Those Sunday visitations give me a snapshot of one parish church gathered for worship. If I could linger in each community, spend a few days there, I am aware that the work of equipping disciples is more than a theme for our Convention. It is what, through the grace of God, you all are already doing in your cities, towns, and neighborhoods.
This past year, when SNAP benefits were halted, putting nearly 700,000 Tennesseans at even greater risk of hunger, you all responded to a diocesan appeal to redouble our support of regional food banks, recognizing that the Eucharistic feast shared from our altars sustains us as we feed those who experience physical hunger in our communities.
On my visits to our parish churches, I have also seen many of you support significant feeding programs housed in your buildings, and that when the offerings of bread and wine and money and ourselves are offered at the Eucharist, food intended to feed the hungry is also present.
Along with your direct support of feeding programs, faithful action calls us to advocate for more robust public policies which strengthen state and federal feeding efforts. Good policies support local grocery stores, farmers and growers, and the food insecure. When anyone in Tennessee is hungry, it hurts all of us.
One significant step we took last year in our efforts to equip disciples of Jesus Christ was the launching of the School for Contemplation and Discipleship, led by Canon Emily Bruner Doane.
According to Emily, “the School…is a living network of contemplative learning woven throughout our diocese. Through parish-based workshops, regional gatherings, retreats, and online resources, we create a tapestry of formation that meets people where they are while weaving them into a vibrant community of spiritual growth and discipleship—learning to follow Christ more deeply in daily life.”
From a contemplative center, what Thomas Merton called the spring of contemplation, we move into the world, where we follow the Christ. In following the Christ, we see, repeatedly, that wherever people are hurting or afraid or in need of advocates, the Christ is found there, too. Action, what we might call faithful action, is what Merton understood to be the stream that flows from the spring of contemplation.
To know that there is a contemplative center in all of us is to see that through our identity as children of God, the Divine has already placed in us the first teaching that any disciple needs to learn. God is with us and in us. We do not have to search for God outside of ourselves. God is out there, too. But God is also with us and in us. That is the first grace we are intended to receive.
This coming April, I will be co-leading a contemplative pilgrimage with Canon Bruner Doane to Thomas Merton’s Kentucky, to consider how a particular prayerful place can shape and deepen a contemplative spirit. For more information on that pilgrimage and to follow the emerging work of the School, please go to the website, thescd.org.
If you have never been to Gethsemani Abbey, Thomas Merton’s monastery, it is worth knowing it is situated in a rural setting, with an East Tennessee feel to it. From a rural setting, a middle of nowhere kind of place, Merton encountered deep spiritual transformation.
So, too, with us here in East Tennessee. When we enter our churches and chapels and sacred spaces, we believe the Spirit of God is with us and we treat those places as holy, because they are.
But when we leave those churches and chapels, we enter more sacred space in the natural world God has created. And if your part of East Tennessee is the kind of place someone might describe as the middle of nowhere, then know that such a place can be the very center of where you encounter God. God does not know how not to be with us.
Contemplation and faithful action belong together. We pray, centered in the presence of the Living God, who created the world. We then go into the world, rooted in prayer, fed by the Eucharist, grounded in the Word, to do justice, and love mercy and kindness, and walk humbly with God.
We equip disciples of Jesus Christ, we grow contemplatives, with the understanding that our discipleship and contemplation is for others, for the blessing of those who need us to show up to defend their dignity, to risk putting ourselves between those who would dehumanize others and those being dehumanized.
This Diocese has a long history of supporting Bridge Refugee Services. I continue to commend their work, as they continue to work with refugees already in our communities who need to know we welcome them here and are prepared to help them begin again in Tennessee. The gospels teach us that the Holy Family were refugees in Egypt. We follow a refugee when we follow Jesus.
In this moment, however, where mean-spirited public policies directed towards immigrants and refugees are more the norm, I also want to recognize the work of Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition, or TIRRC. TIRRC speaks of being an organization where they work to build a Tennessee where everyone belongs. I commend TIRRC to you.
Also, in most every community in East Tennessee, there are other local non-profits and helping efforts, some quite informal, that are present or emerging now with the intent of protecting the dignity of all our immigrant and refugee neighbors and protecting constitutional order. Wherever you find such efforts close to you, I would encourage your participation and engagement with them. In Chattanooga, La Paz is doing good work. In Knoxville, Centro Hispano is worthy of your support and in the Upper East, I commend the work of the Tri-Cities Solidarity Project.
Today’s workshop leaders for equipping disciples highlights the fact that so much of the wisdom we need is already here among us. I would ask if you, too, might have gifts to share in the equipping of disciples here and now and with us. If so, please reach out to Canon Bruner Doane to consider how your gifts might be shared with the wider diocesan community.
In equipping disciples, our work with licensed lay ministry, particularly the training of licensed lay preachers, continues to grow. The Rev. Mandy Lippe and Dr. Freida Herron serve as mentors for the formation of our lay preachers. As I have noted with you all before, we raise up lay preachers, not with the intent of only filling a gap when a clergy person cannot be present in a parish church, but because we believe lay people also have a critical role to play in proclaiming the good news from our pulpits.
Grace Point Camp and Retreat Center is a place where disciples are equipped. I am grateful for all the ways you support Grace Point, with your financial gifts and your presence there for summer camp, Happening, New Beginnings, and new Adult Retreat offerings. Under the Rev. Brad Jones’ leadership, Grace Point’s potential is increasingly becoming reality. In two weeks, Sister Egeria Mark from the Community of St. Mary in Sewanee will lead our Clergy Lenten Retreat at Grace Point. Increasingly, every generation is coming to see how Grace Point is a place that feeds the soul.
In early 2025, Cheryl Bullis joined our diocesan staff as Canon for Finance and Administration. Shortly after her arrival, Jimmy Stewart took on the role of Treasurer for our Diocese. This past year, Canon Bullis and Jimmy have done significant work in professionalizing our financial systems, which now allows us to have a clearer picture of our financial resources available for ministry and mission in East Tennessee.
This past year has also seen a growing number of persons in discernment for Holy Orders. At present, our Commission on Ministry is working with 20 individuals who are discerning calls to ordained ministry. Our diocese has a strong history of promoting the belief that ministry begins with baptism. At the same time, a diocese can support robust lay ministry while also celebrating growing numbers of persons testing a call to ordained life.
So, I want to suggest that in 2026, we have an opportunity to create a new position of a Canon for Vocation, who would identify, form, and nurture new leaders for ordained ministry. It is my hope that a new Canon for Vocation would also help us in raising up more persons in discernment for the diaconate. This new Canon would work closely with the Commission on Ministry and Jon Humber in shepherding a growing number of persons in discernment for Holy Orders.
Along with what might emerge with a new Canon, let me thank you again for your strong support of our diocesan budget which has funded 12 curacies over the past seven years, with 2 more curacies to fund in 2026. In covering half of the total cost for a newly ordained priest’s compensation and benefits, we keep more newly ordained priests in East Tennessee.
It is worth noting that in 2025, something also came to an end. St. Columba’s Episcopal Church in Bristol held its last Eucharist on Sunday, June 8th and the consecrated church building was secularized. The Rev. Tom Day and Canon SuzeAnne Silla were helpful pastoral presences to the remaining congregation their last few months. The historic 1896 Hook and Hastings organ at St. Columba’s was gifted to First Presbyterian in Bristol.
As has become our practice here, I would ask that you remember the parish church of St. Columba’s Episcopal Church in Bristol in the prayers offered on Maundy Thursday this year.
I do not believe any of us ever enter church work with the dream of closing a parish church. However, I am increasingly convinced that giving real attention and care to the people and processes involved in a parish church closure is holy work. When we walk with those remaining church members in a time of parish closure with reverence and respect, we end up offering good pastoral care to the end.
We know, too, that parish church closure is not all loss. The redeveloped parish churches of St. Michael’s in Kingsport and Holy Cross in Hixson continue to see new signs of life. In both situations, we have not simply merged two churches. Somehow, through the grace of God, one whole community has emerged. In both settings, new persons are joining St. Michael’s and Holy Cross unaware of what had been before.
This year, 2026, will see the retirement of the Rev. Jerry Askew as our Archdeacon. For six years, Archdeacon Askew has given faithful leadership to our community of deacons. I am grateful that Jerry said yes six years ago and for all the ways that Jerry supports ministry, both diaconal and otherwise in East Tennessee. While he is stepping down as Archdeacon, he will continue to serve as a special consultant in support of Canon Woodfin’s work with small parish church development.
Your diocesan staff all play a role in the equipping of disciples. In my return last year from sabbatical, it was a great joy to see the sense of team in support of your ministries present in their work. Jesse Adkins, Canon Cheryl Bullis, Canon Emily Bruner Doane, Jon Humber, the Rev. Brad Jones, Emily Kirk, Brother Andrew Morehead, and Canon Joe Woodfin are a blessing to all of us engaged in Episcopal ministry in East Tennessee.
Being now a few days from Ash Wednesday, the reminder that we are from dust and return to dust is an invitation for us to be present to this moment, this moment given to us by God to grow more deeply into our callings now. Through the grace of God, we have what we need to grow. It is time to grow stronger in our true selves, and with time and trust to grow more connected as a healthy system of Christ-centered communities.
In closing, it is a joy to serve as your bishop, to join in this work of equipping disciples, to see where God might be calling us to next, to gather to pray for grace and courage to meet this moment in our portion of God’s Kingdom here and now.