Moravian Bishops of the Southern Province Reveal Commitment to the Future
By Kathryn Woestendiek ScepanskiWhen you've been around as long as the Moravian Church has, it would be easy to get set in your ways. Yet conversations with each of seven bishops who reside in the Southern Province of the Moravian Church of North America reflect much more of a desire to share those ways with others than to set those ways in stone. (In the Moravian Church, a bishop has been described as a leader in matters spiritual and doctrinal, a symbol of the continuity of the church’s ministry, a pastor to pastors and an intercessor for the church.)
Bishop Wayne Burkette, currently president of the province, values the denomination's past and present emphasis on fellowship and outreach rather than discussion and analysis of finer points of doctrine. "I trust we will continue to practice outreach and fellowship as we work to create and nurture community," he said."
Burkette thinks the Moravian focus on building strong relationships instead of building doctrinal statements could appeal to many people today who are not interested in polarization and fragmentation, which have become so common to religious thought processes. "We've always been a church that has tried to hold people together, not pull people apart. Yet the plain truth is that's not always a popular position to take. Ours is not an age of moderation, although moderation is what we have to share. The end result of polarization is always conflict and division. Jesus said 'Blessed are the peacemakers.'"
Bishop James (Jay) Hughes is grateful for the denomination's ancient commitment to unity. "We have always highlighted unity, not only in our church but also in Christendom," he said. "This is evidenced even by the name we first called ourselves in 1457 (Unitas Fratrum or Unity of the Brethren) and still retain today."
Hughes hopes the concept of heart religion he considers essential to Moravian theology will one day be more broadly shared. "We recognize our relationship with Jesus Christ and our relationships with each other to be the central focus of our faith and witness. Jesus binds us together as brothers and sisters, not only with our fellow members, but also with others outside our own walls."
Bishop Graham Rights longs for the general public to be more aware of the worldwide membership of the Moravian Church. "When people think about us, they often think about a quaint religious group with remnants in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, yet the character of our church worldwide is 80 percent people of color. Most of our members are in Africa. There is a lot of vitality in our church around the world, and this needs to be more broadly known."
Rights believes today's Moravian Church needs to recover its zeal and love for unity. "Jesus prayed fervently for the unity of his followers and linked unity with effectiveness in carrying out his mission. That says to me that we can't separate unity and mission. Sometimes our interests can get lost in one and we forget to care about the other. Sometimes our ministers can regard other churches as competition. When we're fighting for members, we tend to develop a competitive mentality that can zap our zeal.
"I think what's required of all of us is to ask ourselves who the neglected people in our world today are – realizing that these are who we're required to minister to – and then ask ourselves if there are other Christian groups we should join hands with in that work."
Bishop John Wilson, a native of Nicaragua and current resident of Miami, Florida, wrote a book in the 70s about Moravian work in Nicaragua which included a brief history of the Moravian Church. "Back then," he said, "our people longed to know more about Moravians." Today, watches many of his fellow immigrants struggle to reconcile a longing to return to their homeland with the fact that most of their children now call America home. "We live in two worlds," he said.
Wilson wants the Moravian Church to share its services like Lovefeasts and Holy Week with other churches. "We could so easily encourage our friends to come to a Lovefeast and encourage them to share this same experience with their friends," he said. "Maybe we have come to accept these things as our own traditions and take them for granted. Maybe we are doing too much sitting back, when we really need to share. If these services have – at one time or another – really meant so much to us, then we should share this love."
The oldest of the Southern Province bishops, Bishop Robert Iobst, is not about to claim to be the wisest. But there are a few things about which he is sure.
"Our liturgies and litanies are full of conversations with God that others so often appreciate," he said. "Sometimes we can take them for granted."
Iobst is also sure that the Moravian Church of North America is in the midst of reclaiming its passion for mission. "I'm happy to see us responding to the needs of people right here in our own country.
Bishop Lane Sapp, senior pastor of Calvary Moravian in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, is the youngest of the seven. He appreciates the way Moravians seek unity in diversity. "I've always found the Moravian Church to be a place where we could disagree theologically, yet can still be brothers and sisters in Christ. Relationships were never destroyed because we disagreed. We have such polarization in our society today. The redness and blueness of the political spectrum has affected all churches, and there can be times when this makes it more challenging for us today."
Sapp confesses his own love and appreciation for many of the customs and traditions that many people believe have made Moravians who they are. But he also expresses concern that those same traditions could hinder the church when – or if – they become more important than sharing the gospel. "Then the question becomes how do we keep our core values while changing to meet the needs of future generations? I think the Lord is asking us to risk and think outside the box."
Bishop Sam Gray is the most recently elected bishop in the province. Director of Intercultural Ministries and Communication for the Board of World Mission of the Moravian Church, Gray is familiar with many of the cultures in the 19 provinces of the worldwide church.
He notices in individual provinces that Moravians can tend to view their own territory as if it were the entire Moravian Church. "This is reflected in the way people outside the church in an individual province see Moravians as a denomination," he said. "If you approach non-Moravians on the streets of Winston-Salem, there is a good chance that what they know about Moravians is not the work done with HIV/AIDS in Tanzania or the 50+ Moravian teams that have responded to Katrina in Mississippi, or the fact that the majority of Moravians live in Africa. They are likely to know more about the Christmas Lovefeast and Candle Service, which are wonderful traditions, but only a small part of who we are in the world.
"Many Moravians in the Southern Province are very surprised to discover that the number of members here is only 2.2 percent of our worldwide membership. The Northern Province (which includes Canada) comes in at 2.5 percent, which means the entire membership of the Moravian Church of North America consists of 4.7 percent of the number of Moravians in the world today. I don't mean to downplay who we are here, but we do need to recognize that our own province is just a part of a global tapestry. Our tendency toward an inward focus can often keep us from sharing what's beautiful about this tapestry with others or even fully appreciating it ourselves.”
The diverse global membership of today's Moravian Church prompts a variety of worship styles and musical traditions, yet Gray has witnessed the ways the universal language of music and worship from the heart can bind people together in love time and time again.
"The North American and European styles of worship that many of us take for granted may no longer be the norm for the worldwide membership, yet we are at liberty to share a tradition of song and worship from our hearts," he said. "Liberty doesn't only mean there's room for others. It can also mean there is room for us!"
The current composition of the Moravian Church – or Unity as it is also known today – is the result of what has been called the first organized Protestant missionary effort 275 years ago by a church that already 275 years old at that time. What the 550-year-old church turns into in the future could depend on the mission work that is done today and in the near future.
Gray wonders if what might be required of the Southern Province in the near future is to be as willing to go next door or across town as across the world.
"We need to be as willing to be in community with East Winston and Northeast Miami as we are with East Africa and Northeast Honduras," he said. Isn’t that the heart of being Moravian today?"
The Southern Province of the Moravian Church consists of 67 congregations in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia, with fellowships in Florida, North Carolina, and South Carolina.
