Shaping Our Imaginations to God's Love

Beloved in Christ,

With a new program year upon us, this issue of the Weekly News includes a lot of information about new and emerging diocesan events and initiatives. I encourage you to look it over carefully so you don’t miss any of the important ways we are hoping to share our life together in the coming months. 

One of the most important things I want to call your attention to is my invitation to dwell in scripture together as a diocesan household throughout the coming year. We have selected a text for each season beginning now through the Day of Pentecost, 2022. I’m asking that every meeting or other gathering in the diocese begin with either Dwelling in the Word or Gospel-Based Discipleship, using the text for that season. 

The Holy Scriptures tell the story of how God pursues us with a love that will stop at nothing as God seeks to embrace us, restore us, and heal us. By dwelling in that story, and returning over and over again to the same texts together, our imaginations become shaped by the Spirit’s power and we come to see our unique stories as part of God’s larger project of healing the world with love. When I look at the challenges and the call before us as Minnesota Episcopalians, there is nothing more foundational or important than so deeply rooting ourselves in the scriptures that everything we do together flows from our deep immersion in the power of God’s love. 

We’ll start every diocesan event or meeting with this practice, and I hope you’ll make a commitment in your vestry meetings, youth groups, church committees, and other gatherings to doing the same. Please see here for the scriptures we are invited to dwell in together, as well as instructions for how to engage Dwelling in the Word and Gospel-Based Discipleship.

As we move through this year of dwelling in scripture together, may God form us more fully into the image of God’s son Jesus, so that everything we do together might point to God’s dream of Beloved Community, and so that we might witness boldly that that there is no greater force for change and healing in the heavens or earth than the fountain of God’s endless love. 

Grace and Peace,

The Right Reverend Craig Loya