The impetus for THRIVE, the task force appointed by Bishop Shannon last summer, was an impending diocesan financial crisis. But in the last few months, the group of lay and clergy leaders has dug deeper than the immediate problem, strategizing about ways that the diocese can help congregations become more vital and connected in their …
If participants in the Diocese of Vermont’s 2021 convention did not know the diocese was entering a period of turbulent change before the online sessions last Thursday and Saturday, they certainly knew it afterwards. The convention—conducted over Zoom—was the first since Bishop Shannon MacVean-Brown announced that a recent financial analysis indicated that the diocese would …
When Bishop Shannon announced in July that the diocese faces a financial cliff, she appointed a task force of clergy and lay leaders to consider “how new models of ministry and new collaborative relationships might offer our diocese ways to discern our future.” The group, which named itself THRIVE (Taskforce for Hope, Revitalization, Innovation, Vision, …
Dear People of God in the Diocese of Vermont: In 2018, the search committee for the 11th Bishop of Vermont wrote that in calling a full-time bishop, the diocese was taking a leap of faith “in the hopes that s/he would help us continue to discern and explore how God is speaking to us in …