[Episcopal News Service] The Rev. Ron Byrd Sr., The Episcopal Church’s missioner for Black Ministries, says the upcoming Nov. 10-12 International Black Clergy Conference will “get real” about transforming and empowering missional congregations, about facing common 21st-century challenges and even about the African diaspora itself.
Bishops from Cuba, Colombia, Panama and Honduras will offer prerecorded greetings and personal reflections in Spanish and English at the three-day gathering, themed “The African Diaspora United: Woke and Ready to Go.” The conference will be livestreamed each day from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., Eastern time. The deadline to register is Nov. 9.
Being “woke,” said Byrd, involves confronting “the challenges, the concerns that face our community. The second piece is what do we do about it, and what do we do about it as a community, even though our culture, background and ethnic histories are different.
“As the presiding bishop says, as part of the seven spiritual practices he has outlined for the Jesus Movement, we’ve got to move our feet and go.”
Presiding Bishop Michael B. Curry is among the featured speakers, along with Dover Bishop Rose Hudson-Wilkin, the Church of England’s first Black woman bishop, and Archbishop Julio Murray, primate of the Anglican Province of Central America and the bishop of Panama.
Other speakers include Atlanta Bishop Robert C. Wright; the Very Rev. Kelly Brown Douglas, dean of the Episcopal Divinity School at Union Theological Seminary in New York City; and Elizabeth Henry, who until recently, served as a national adviser for Minority-Ethnic Anglican Concerns in the Church of England.