After the conclusion of its meeting Oct. 20-21 at Kanuga conference center in Hendersonville, North Carolina, The Episcopal Church’s Executive Council shared the following letter to the church. Read prior council letters to the church here.

The Executive Council of the Episcopal Church met at the Kanuga Conference Center and Camp near Hendersonville in the Episcopal Diocese of Western North Carolina, which is still recovering from the disastrous flooding of Hurricane Helene last fall, and as Western Alaska is experiencing unprecedented coastal flooding caused by Typhoon Halong.

This is a time of increasingly rapid climate change, a time filled with ambient fear, rage, and tension, especially for historically marginalized people. In a time such as this, what is the response of the church? And how do we ensure that our response doesn’t harm more than it helps those most vulnerable?

How do we balance providing much needed material help with the courage to speak truth to power while also avoiding statements that might draw the attention of immigration authorities to our congregations and ministries helping those most threatened?

The Rev. Nancy Frausto, one of the chaplains to Executive Council, exhorted members to be part of a “Gospel movement” against injustice—a prophetic and nonpartisan movement, rooted in the teachings of Jesus.

Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe and President of the House Deputies Julia Ayala Harris built on Frausto’s exhortation. Rowe reflected on The Episcopal Church’s response to “the increasingly desperate political situation in the United States” and on the care leaders in the church and elsewhere must take as we work to support Latino congregations and ministry in our dioceses.

President Harris spoke of the recent statement by GAFCON (Global Anglican Future Conference) claiming to constitute a separate “Global Anglican Communion” while declaring that our call remains the same.

“We are to stay anchored to the Gospel, not to chase each organizational shift in fear, but to lead with clarity, accountability, and faithfulness,” she said. “We are called to steadiness, to model what it looks like to lead with courage, to govern with integrity, and to stay anchored in the Gospel when the ground beneath us moves.”

Bishop Rowe said that leaders must take their cues from bishops and leaders on the front lines at the southern border and in other places with large immigrant populations. He said, “One thing they often ask us is not to issue statements full of outrage and rhetoric that draws attention to their programs, even though what is happening to our communities is devastating … But all too often, shining a bright light on injustice also shines a bright light on people suffering from injustice and makes them more vulnerable to immigration enforcement raids and surveillance.” 

While it might feel cathartic to issue strong statements, those statements could be disastrous to “the very people for whom we are advocating,” he said. “We do not always understand the harm it can do to the people we most want to protect.”

Bishop Rowe also is in frequent touch with Jerusalem Archbishop Hosam Naoum, “getting his counsel both about what we can do to support him and what we can refrain from doing,” he said. One way to do that is to limit public statements about Gaza while continuing work to make “a material difference in the lives of Palestinian people in Gaza and all Palestinians.”

In a July op-ed for Religion News Service, Bishop Rowe said he wrote about “what it means for our church, which was once known as the church of the Founding Fathers and presidents, to become an engine of resistance to the rising tide of authoritarianism in the United States and around the globe.”

In that essay, he wrote, “We did not seek this predicament, but God calls us to place the most vulnerable and marginalized at the center of our common life, and we must follow that command regardless of the dictates of any political party or earthly power. We are now being faced with a series of choices between the demands of the federal government and the teachings of Jesus, and that is no choice at all.”

Following the opening addresses, the council heard from Beth-Sarah Wright of the Absalom Jones Center for Racial Healing.

In her presentation, “Authentic Leadership Through the Lens of Dignity,” Wright explained a process of deciding to learn; being willing to listen deeply; understanding that honoring differences is honoring dignity; being willing to lean into discomfort; and to act with courage. She walked council members through the differences between debate and dialogue: For instance, with dialogue, finding common ground is the goal. In debate, winning is the goal; in dialogue, one listens to understand, find meaning, and agreement. In debate, one listens to find flaws and counter arguments.

Her DIGNITY lens includes Diversity (who is here/who is missing?), Identity (our identity is our anchor), Growth (are we willing to grow and change?), Nurture (become imagineers), Integrity (are we doing what we say we’re doing?), Transparency (know the purpose, tell the story), and Yield (what do we want our work to yield?). And she centered a quote from Henry David Thoreau, “It is not what you look at that matters . . . it’s what you see.”

Wright asked the council to look again at the baptismal promises; do we hear them differently if spoken by an organization or a community? What new pathways could be opened by basing our work in the baptismal covenant? For instance, if the promise says, “I believe in God the Father, Creator of heaven and earth,” then The Episcopal Church is saying, “We affirm God as the source of life, creation, and human dignity,” and we show that by our work—Creation Care Task Force, environmental resolutions, and sustainability audits.

And what new pathway might be opened? “Could this deepen our integration of creation care and environmental justice into financial investments, resource allocation, and global mission priorities?” Wright noted in her presentation.

An integrity audit for Executive Council might ask, “What does the Executive Council say about its purposes as rooted in the baptismal covenant? How it is being lived out? In what ways is it not being lived out?”

Wright’s presentation gave the council a sense of the “kind of resources we are making available to dioceses and then make available to the whole church,” Bishop Rowe said. “As part of our commitment to investing in and supporting dioceses, we have launched an expanded partnership with the Absalom Jones Center.”

In his report to the council, Bishop Rowe asked, “How do we respond strategically to the needs of the church and the world?”

He shared eight strategic priorities: resisting growing authoritarianism in the United States; building capacity for ministry; undertaking structural reforms; investing in innovation; building a new website; developing leaders; strengthening resources for dispute resolution and Title IV; and realigning programmatic work.

So what is happening? The presiding bishop and his staff are reevaluating programs and conferences, silos, and funding commitments. Bishop Rowe referred to Jesus raising Lazarus, then telling the crowd that it was up to them to “unbind him and let him go.”

It is up to us in the church to do the work to unbind the potential of the church and let it out into the world.

The report of Chief Financial Officer Chris Lacovara delivered encouraging news that The Episcopal Church is in good financial shape, with a 2025 year-to-date surplus of $.7 million, $1.9 million favorable to budget; most programs expect to spend full budgeted amounts in the balance of the year, with $1.5 million of annual grants and additional program expense expected in the fourth quarter, and a 2025 forecast surplus of $219,000, $469,000 favorable to budgeted deficit.

Executive Council celebrated a piece of work finally finished after nearly 20 years—the  issue of a new location and facility for the Archives of The Episcopal Church. The new permanent home will be on a 3.5-acre site in Oakwood, Georgia, about 40 minutes from Atlanta. Larry Hitt, chair of the Archives Advisory Committee who has been working on this for years, announced it by saying, “I bring you good tidings of great joy!” If things go as planned, the new home will be open in the spring of 2027.

A report from the Committee to Reimagine General Convention laid out a vision of General Convention with mornings devoted to prayer and reflection, afternoons to legislative work, and evenings for fellowship. There is talk of a new software to help make it easier to track resolutions and see changes made as they move through the legislative process.

Becoming Beloved Community and other grants were approved, and new members were greeted and immediately pulled into the work. New council member Crystal Plummer was elected by Province V to fill the unexpired term that was created when Louisa McKellaston joined the presiding bishop’s staff on Aug. 1. Plummer is canon for networking in the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago and serves as secretary of the Episcopal Coalition for Racial Equity and Justice. We also greeted Bishop Helen Kennedy, liaison from the Anglican Church of Canada. She has served as bishop of the Diocese of Qu’Appelle in Saskatchewan since 2022 and is the first female bishop in that province.

At the back of the stage in the room in which the council met at Kanuga, a portion of the AIDS Memorial Quilt hangs in haunting sad beauty. It holds eight panels creating a 12-by-12-foot square. Longtime deputy and former president of Integrity USA Bruce Garner explained that the southeastern United States, in which Province IV of The Episcopal Church sits, has the highest HIV infection rates in the nation. He volunteers at Kanuga.

As the meeting was winding up, the council welcomed Bishop José McLoughlin’s report on the Episcopal Diocese of Western North Carolina’s ordeal in the wake of Hurricane Helene.

Three days of record-breaking rain, rivers rising 8 to 9 feet, landslides, wind damage, infrastructure loss, displacement, housing shortages, wildfires, and environmental fallout produced a total economic loss of $59.6 billion in damages and recovery needs. And that’s not even touching on the loss of human lives.

In the diocese, consisting of 28 counties in Western North Carolina, 23 churches were damaged, the Cathedral of All Souls in Asheville is uninhabitable, both diocesan conference centers were impacted, and there were millions of dollars in church and property damages and losses.

So how did they cope? They used the image of the body of Christ:

• One suffers, all suffer; one rejoices, all rejoice in this together.
• Various gifts and limitations mean collaboration is key.
• Equal concern for all parts of the body with particular attention to the most vulnerable.

The program goal, stated on the diocese’s website, was to “leverage the gifts of our congregations, donors, and partners to support the recovery of impoverished and marginalized people affected by natural disasters in our region through building relationships and stewarding resources that center dignity and quality work at a sustainable pace for long-term recovery efforts.”

Using local talents, labor, and companies on the repair work was part of the plan, offering work on a sustainable basis. They pledged to care for the caregivers, defined as anyone who offers care to another during rescue, relief or recovery. They published a Virtual Volunteer Resource Guide and make it available online as part of a Disaster Resource Hub on their diocesan website. They offer several videos—for example, “Packing your Go/Stay Prep Kit.”

Most of all, McLoughlin said, they vowed to, as a group of local artists painted on a stack of concrete bricks, “Flood Back Love.”

It is advice we can all take to heart. By flooding back love in the face of authoritarian aggression, natural disasters, and financial struggles, we can not only live out the imperatives of our baptismal promises, but we can also offer hope to a hurting world.