Convention 87
Becoming Beloved Community is dependent on all people to develop and nurture our relationships within our own communities. The Episcopal Diocese of Rochester presented our Diocesan Convention this past Saturday, October 27. We are excited to have embraced our interfaith relationship with our Abrahamic faith partners, who graciously hosted the 87th Diocesan Convention at the Islamic Center of Rochester (ICR). A key objective of the ICR is to promote friendly relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in this community. It is their belief to nourish physical and spiritual needs, to care and love, and to forgive and respect others.
Bishop Singh of the Episcopal Diocese of Rochester is an instrumental leader with the Rochester Interfaith Network Alive (RINA), a network of Rochester’s Islamic, Jewish, Christian, Hindu and Sikh faith leaders. Bishop Singh is a champion of inclusion and encourages all people to be curious of others .
Bishop Prince Singh said, “What we do and where we do it matters. I am excited about the graciousness of the Islamic community of friends who hosted the 87th Diocesan Convention, our annual and most significant gathering as a Diocese, in the gym of the Islamic Center. I see this as a sign of the hospitality and friendship that we cherish as people of faith and will hopefully move us further along in our work of serving God together as we address existing and emerging needs of our community and world. All praise be to God!”
Islamic Center Trustee Mohammad Rumi, M.D. said of our interfaith relationship, “The Muslims and Episcopalians are a fraternity in the service of the same God of Abraham, Ishmael and Isaac.”
The guest Preacher at the Eucharist service was the Bishop of Alaska, The Rt. Rev.Mark A. Lattime. Bishop Lattime was elected the eight Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Alaska in 2010.
Bishop Lattime returned to his roots, growing up in a small-town in New York’s southern tier before moving with his family to Fairport, NY, a suburb within our Diocese.
He served as a member of St. Mark’s and St. John’s Episcopal Church in Rochester, where he began his vocational journey to ordained ministry. He later served as the Rector of St. Michael’s, Geneseo. Bishop Lattime loved his ministry and living in Geneseo, where he started a Canterbury Fellowship at St. Michael’s.
BUILDING BELOVED COMMUNITY
The Most Rev. Michael Curry said: “We who follow Jesus have made a choice to walk a different way: the way of disciplined, intentional, passionate, compassionate, mobilized, organized love intent on creating God’s Beloved Community on earth.”
Dr. Martin Luther King addressed the role of unconditional love, in struggling for the Beloved Community: “With every ounce of our energy we must continue to rid this nation of the incubus of segregation. But we shall not in the process relinquish our privilege and our obligation to love. While abhorring segregation, we shall love the segregationist. This is the only way to create the beloved community.”