![]() Bishop Ruth Woodliff-Stanley has called Ann Fleming as Canon for Congregational Development in the Diocese of South Carolina, beginning on June 1. Fleming currently serves as Vice President for Development and Operations at the Episcopal Church Building Fund (ECBF), where she has worked in several capacities since 2020. At ECBF, Fleming has consulted with a number of congregations in our diocese as they strategize and plan for future building. Since 2023, she has been a key consultant to Messiah, Myrtle Beach, skillfully guiding church leadership through the process to create a visioning report and building plan as they work toward building a new church home. As Canon for Congregational Development, Fleming will oversee mission strategy for the diocese, including the development and implementation of resources to raise up and equip clergy and lay leaders for transformative congregational life. Bishop Woodliff-Stanley is excited to welcome Fleming to her staff. “I am absolutely thrilled Ann is joining our team!” said Bishop Woodliff-Stanley. “The work she has already done with congregations in our diocese as an ECBF consultant has led to much demand for her to be present more among us. Her broad and deep experience in congregational and leadership development will help us manage the rapid growth we are experiencing in our diocese. She has an infectious positive approach to challenges combined with impressive skill and a team spirit. I look forward to welcoming her to the Lowcountry.” In this new role, Fleming will primarily focus on supporting and guiding individual congregations in their growth and development, often by facilitating leadership training, strategic planning, revitalization efforts, and connecting churches with necessary resources to address specific needs within their communities. In addition to her time with ECBF, Fleming brings a wealth of work experience at the diocesan level, having served as Missioner for Transition and Congregational Development, as well as Regional Missioner, for The Episcopal Church in Colorado. While Fleming was not looking for a new job, she felt a special call to this opportunity to work with Bishop Ruth and the people of the Diocese of South Carolina. “Sometimes I’m not sure what God wants me to do next,” said Fleming. “And sometimes I can feel a hand in my back and a voice in my ear saying, ‘Trust me. Go.’ This is one of those times. All the doors are swinging open and I am ready to step through and into this new season with Bishop Ruth and all of you in The Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina. It is simply a gift of the Holy Spirit, and I am profoundly grateful to be able to say, ‘Here I am, God. Send me.’” Fleming currently lives in Colorado, but is looking forward to moving to South Carolina in the coming months. She enjoys traveling and good food and is open to recommendations for great places to eat in our diocese! She has two adult children, of whom she is quite proud, particularly “all the ways they are living into their best and most authentic selves,” said Fleming. While this role is a new full-time position on diocesan staff, she will assume the responsibility for congregational development and church planting that previously was assigned to Andrea McKellar as Canon for Strategy and Vitality. As was announced at the end of February, Canon McKellar plans to step back from her role on diocesan staff later this summer. She will work with Fleming for a period of transition once she joins the staff on June 1. View an album of photos from the trip on Facebook at this link. Last week, 45 pilgrims from our diocese traveled together on the “Bending the Arc Racial Justice Pilgrimage” first envisioned by the rectors of the three historic African American congregations on the Charleston Peninsula—Calvary, St. Mark’s, and St. Stephen’s—known between the churches as "Three Churches United." Their journey took them first to Atlanta, Georgia and then on to Alabama with stops in Montgomery and Selma. In addition to pilgrims from the three churches, there were members of the Racial Justice and Reconciliation Commission and other friends from across the diocese. The transformative pilgrimage would not have been possible without the collective efforts of the three priests who lead "Three Churches United": the Rev. Ricardo Bailey, rector of Calvary, Charleston; the Very Rev. Michael Shaffer, interim rector of St. Mark's, Charleston; and the Rev. Adam Shoemaker, rector of St. Stephen’s, Charleston. The pilgrimage was thoughtfully planned and expertly managed by the Rev. Laura Rezac, executive director of St. Christopher Camp and Conference Center. “Her outstanding work created a crucible that allowed participants to become immersed in a rhythm of taking in sites, worship, and thoughtful small group reflection time,” said Bishop Ruth Woodliff-Stanley. “She managed every detail of the trip, taking great care of the pilgrims.” She was provided with invaluable assistance by Shawan Gillians, a seminarian in our diocese who has been interning with St. Stephen's, Charleston, but is a member of St. Mark's. Key stops along the journey were:
Reflections from Church Leaders and Bishop Ruth We will share the reflection of the Very Rev. Michael Shaffer in the next issue, as he led the effort to plan this amazing journey, but here are reflections offered by Father Bailey and Father Shoemaker, as well as Bishop Ruth. From Father Ricardo Bailey: "I feel that this pilgrimage alongside with the Diocese showed all of us the possibilities that are available when we go beyond our parochial boundaries and work at what we can tangibly do for the greater glory of God and for the good of the people of God in our Diocese. I think that the work of racial reconciliation and justice is always in need especially in our world and in our local communities when so many of our siblings in Christ are still marginalized and forgotten as a whole. The challenge that we have is to courageously learn and listen to one another so that we do not set ourselves or our children up to repeat the unjust treatment and atrocities of the past. We must be serious about our Baptismal Covenant and how that Covenant equips and challenges us to "do the work" of transformation and liberation within every structure of our society - BEGINNING with the Church. This is not a ministry to alienate anyone, it is a ministry of cooperative incorporation of everyone because we all are created in the image and likeliness of our God. Like Sly from the 70's Group, "Sly & the Family Stone" said in "Everyday People," "...we got to live together!" From Father Adam Shoemaker: "This was a powerful collective experience visiting some key civil rights sites and culminating in the 60th anniversary march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. We joined with tens of thousands of others who had traveled to walk the bridge together not only to honor the saints of Selma but to advocate for a restoration of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that has been gutted in recent years. Our time at the Legacy Museum and the Peace and Justice Memorial in Montgomery, founded by Bryan Stevenson’s Equal Justice Initiative, offered us stark reminders not only of the legacy of slavery but it’s links to Jim Crow and our present era of mass incarceration. Our pilgrims returned inspired and energized to continue the work of justice in our own diocese and to further the Three Churches United partnership between St. Stephen’s, Historic Calvary, and St. Mark’s." From Bishop Ruth Woodliff-Stanley: Bishop Woodliff-Stanley was part of the pilgrimage and offered these reflections of her experience. “We were 45 pilgrims. This pilgrimage culminated with our worship at Historic Brown Chapel, a stop made possible by the skillful efforts of Ms. Vermelle Simmons, co-chair of the Racial Justice and Reconciliation Commission and Vice President of the Standing Committee. At Brown, we heard Bryan Stevenson bring us a riveting call to our work now, before we then joined thousands in the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge to mark the anniversary of the courageous march 60 years ago to secure voter rights.” Bryan Steveson is the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, a human rights organization in Montgomery, Alabama. He is a public interest lawyer who has dedicated his career to helping the poor, the incarcerated, and the condemned. The bishop said that the pilgrimage was transformative, and quoted one member of the pilgrimage, Antoinette Bennett (Calvary, Charleston), who said the journey helped her “dump the funk” about the mounting concerns she has about “the threats to the fabric of justice in this country, a fabric that has been woven by the blood of the martyrs.” “As another pilgrim, Patrina Daniels (also Calvary, Charleston) noted, speaking of African American people in this country, Hope is our superpower,’ which is a phrase she first heard from Bryan Stevenson,” said Bishop Woodliff-Stanley. “That made an impression on me, too. That can be true for all of us. We can anchor in the practice of hope. This hope is not a sentiment, but rather it is the practice that seeds and grows God’s true beloved community. This beloved community shines brighter than any deeds born of fear, of greed, of mean spiritedness and ignorance; it shines through the most horrific acts of violence and evil. Hope cannot be defeated. When we anchor in hope, as we saw over and over through the lives of the saints from the Middle Passage through enslavement and lynchings to Jim Crow and mass incarceration, when we anchor in hope, mercy and grace, then compassion and truth prevail. And when these gifts from God prevail, we will at last experience true liberation for everyone.” The bishop continued: “Our lives truly are bound one to another. In our work to bring justice and mercy, if we stand together and stay the course, we can and we will prevail. Indeed, the arc of the universe is long and bends toward justice. We must, as Bryan Stevenson called us to do, be proximate to those whose voice, whose story, whose song we need to hear. We must not cede the narrative—we must shape it from the lives of the saints and martyrs who have brought us this far. As we sang just after sunrise crossing the bridge into Selma—'Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me around.’ Nobody. Too many have given their lives. We can be brave. We can make hope our superpower. We can get into good trouble, necessary trouble, as John Lewis still beckons us to do. Angels and archangels surround us. We can do the work. We can, and we will.” The Rev. Canon Ramelle McCall, who attended the pilgrimage as a member of Racial Justice Commission and our diocesan Canon for Justice and Future Leaders, provided the following summary of the trip, detailing the stops along the journey.
Day 1 We began our pilgrimage at the Absalom Jones Center, located among notable HBCUs such as Morehouse College, Clark Atlanta College, and Morris Brown University. The Center is renowned for its racial healing initiatives, including antiracism programs that help the broader Episcopal Church confront its privilege and address racism. Our next stop was Ebenezer Baptist Church, the home of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., followed by a visit to the King Memorial, where we paid our respects at the burial sites of Dr. King and Coretta Scott King. Afterward, we departed Atlanta and arrived in Montgomery, Alabama. Day 2 Our first stop in Montgomery was the Legacy Museum, which offers a profound narrative on the horrors of the Atlantic Slave Trade, lynchings, and their stories, along with a display of soil samples from various U.S. locations where lynchings occurred. The museum also recounts the impact of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and other civil rights movements in the city. It concludes with a mural celebrating Black heroes and leaders from across the U.S., symbolizing resilience and longevity. Day 3 We visited the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, where records of lynching are displayed on rusted metal blocks hanging from the building’s ceiling. The museum allows visitors to see the names and years of those who were lynched. Additionally, information about these lynchings is exhibited on rusted metal coffins arranged across a large grass and gravel area. Later, we explored Freedom Park, showcasing artwork representing the horrors of the Atlantic Slave Trade, as well as punitive slavery laws that justified whippings, amputations, and branding for violations. The Park features plantation houses and a large memorial wall honoring individuals impacted by slavery in the United States, culminating in a mini waterfall display inscribed with "We Shall Overcome." Day 4 We journeyed to Selma, Alabama, on the 60th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday,” attending a service at Brown Memorial AME Chapel. The service included speakers from the Congressional Black Caucus, such as Congresswoman Terri Sewell (Alabama), Hakeem Jeffries (New York), and Senator Angela Alsobrooks (Maryland). Bryan Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative, who is also the creator of the Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, delivered the sermon. After the service, our group gathered and walked to the iconic Edmund Pettus Bridge. The atmosphere was celebratory, humbling, and impactful as hundreds marched together for voting rights. Canon McCall shared his thoughts on the journey as one of the 45 pilgrims: “This pilgrimage impacted me deeply in multiple ways,” he said. “My emotions surged when I entered the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. I was overwhelmed by gratitude to be in a place where Dr. King's sermons inspired countless individuals. This experience reinforced my belief in the power of words and their ability to offer hope in a world filled with challenges.” The group was surprised to have the opportunity to meet the Rev. Jesse Jackson, a true pioneer of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, who happened to be staying at the same hotel in Selma. “We felt starstruck by this civil rights leader whose work has profoundly impacted both our country and my life,” said Canon McCall. “It felt like a significant affirmation of our efforts during this meaningful pilgrimage.” The final event, walking across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where 60 years before, Black citizens had been met by extreme violence at the hands of police officers when they were only trying to gain the right to vote. The day that came to be known as “Bloody Sunday,” was a key turning point before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 finally became the law of the land. “I felt immense gratitude for this unique experience, knowing it would inspire us to continue our work toward justice and healing,” said Canon McCall. We hope to share more reflections on the pilgrimage in the coming weeks. Please view an album of photos from the trip on Facebook at this link. A transcript of the message is below:
Greetings, beloved Episcopalians of the Diocese of South Carolina. As we prepare to begin the season of Lent, I wanted to offer some reflections to you about our call in the season in which we find ourselves in our country. As I've traveled the diocese, particularly since the New Year, I've had an opportunity to listen and to talk with many of you. And I've heard a lot of concerns about the things we've seen unfolding. Many of you have asked questions about what we ought to be doing. I've heard others express a desire to learn more about what has led to this moment in our country, which for some of us is experienced as an unprecedented moment and for others, seems all too familiar with notes from the past. I've talked with people of different political persuasions and people who voted differently, and people who have different thoughts about policies. I've had some conversations with folks who wonder if we ought to remain completely apolitical as a church. So I thought it would be helpful if I would simply, tell you about where I am in this discernment. You know, as I think about first and the question of, ought we be speaking at all about the events that are unfolding in our country? I'm reminded that the scriptures are set inside of stories from start to finish of political struggle. The stories that we hear in the Bible are not in a vacuum. You can begin by looking at the bondage of the Israelites in Egypt and then, their wandering in their sojourn in the wilderness, having escaped that bondage. You can look at all of the prophets of the Old Testament set inside of, various conquests by different nation states and oppression of one people against or by another. And the question and the longings and the desire for liberation at the heart of those stories, the prophet's cry for reform, particularly, performed for the poor economic reform and the treatment of those who are most at risk is always, always the central question that's raised in the prophets of the Old Testament, coming in to the New Testament. You can see that the story of Jesus life is set against the oppression of the Roman Empire, and is set against questions of religious authority and the right use of that authority with respect to the Jewish leadership of his time. So the scriptures do not suggest to us that our call is ever to be a political. Those notions are much more, recent, and come to us from a spiritualized concept of Christianity that doesn't take into account the full context of the biblical narrative. We have always been called as the people of God to speak into political times, not from a partisan point of view, but from the point of view of the justice and the mercy, the righteousness, the love, the forgiveness, the compassion of our God and the biblical witness. There's this out more than any other topic. The one topic that is most frequently raised in the scriptures is the treatment of those who are poor, the treatment of those who are oppressed. So in these days, I do believe that we have a calling to bear witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ in the context of our political landscape. This is not a Partisan statement. People from both of our political parties, as well as independents, can come together around principles that we know to be central to the life of a Christian. The challenging thing about that is that we find ourselves in a landscape in which the term Christian is bandied about and at times co-opted and used in ways that do not align with the values we see so pervasive in the Christian narrative. And the scriptures do not align with the values that we see in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. So I think part of our call in these days is indeed to become conversant with the context that has led to this current moment. To that end, I am working my way through several books and I want to commend them to you. And I have begun conversations with two authors of these books who I think can be a great resource to us in this diocese. The first book I want to commend to you is. The 7 Deadly Sins of White Christian Nationalism by Carter Heyward. Many of you will remember Carter Heyward as one of the Philadelphia 11 first ordained women to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church. She is a feminist theologian and an activist, our neighbor to the North in North Carolina, and she has recently published this book, which explores the background, the fabric, and the history of a constellation of ideas and concepts that we have come to refer to as white Christian nationalism, which truly is a set of principles that neither reflects Christ nor the strongest ideals of our country. However, this constellation of ideas has a grip on this country that is dangerous and important for us to understand. In her book, Carter Heyward identifies seven interlocking or related principles that she identifies as the sins of white Christian nationalism, and then seven Calls to action for us. It's challenging. There are parts of the book with which you likely will take issue or want to argue. That's good. That's part of what we're about as Episcopalians. I invite you to take up this book and engage it. The second is a book also on the same topic, Christians Against Christianity by Obery Hendricks, who is an African Methodist Episcopal ordained elder, a scholar, a former seminary president, and who currently teaches at Columbia University and is a visiting professor at the Union Theological Seminary. And then thirdly, I called your attention a book which would have us engage in spiritual practices that will help us continue the work we've identified as core to us building beloved community. This book is called Hope Is Here, and it is by Luther Smith, who is a professor emeritus of Church and community at Candler School of Theology at Emory University, author of many books and scholar on Howard Thurman. I have begun conversation with both Carter Heyward and Luther Smith about how we might deepen our practices here in this diocese to be a people capable and engaging the challenging times in which we find ourselves. I know you may have already chosen reading material for Lent at this point in time, but I wanted to offer these to you. Now, in case you haven't, or in case you'd like to pick these up, in addition to other works you might be reading presently, and knowing that we are beginning a long arc which will span, I anticipate. Through Lent and Easter and beyond through this year, as we work together to take counsel, to learn about the moment we are in, and then in all of the local context in which we find ourselves to take right action, to stand for those who are most marginalized, who are most oppressed. In this moment, particularly, I call our attention to those who are new to our land, those immigrants who need us to stand with them. Particularly, I call our attention to our transgender siblings, whose rights are being stripped even as we speak. And particularly, I call our attention to all of those who continue to experience the violence and the disrespect of systemic and structural racism in all of its myriad of forms. We must walk alongside. We must be with those who are the most vulnerable, the most oppressed among us. For, as our Presiding Bishop recently reminded us, they are not at the margins of our lives. They are in the center of our life and of the story of Jesus working among us. So I call us as Bishop Mariann Budde called us all recently to courage, to be brave and to be a people of mercy. I thank you for the work you are doing and all of the various places where you are. And I want to invite conversation that is courageous, that honors our real differences where we are not afraid to explore those, but always centering the lives of those who are most vulnerable and always understanding our responsibility to be true to the deepest part of the gospel. The love of Jesus for all people, and the lifting up of those who have the greatest need among us. God bless you. I look forward to being with you in the days to come. Blessed Lent. |
News BlogThe Diocese of SC Archives
March 2025
Categories
All
|