Bishop Curry: "Go!"

Photo: Beverly RuebeckPresent at the United Thank Offering Sharing Dinner Friday evening were 400 people from throughout the Anglican Communion—including bishops, priests, deacons, ECW members and diocesan UTO coordinators.

Our own Bishop Curry addressed the assembly. Using the 20th chapter of the Book of John as his frame of reference, he continually referred to the sister ministries of the United Thank Offering and Episcopal Church Women as “a mission of witness” sorely needed in “a time of absolute and unprecedented change.”

“If you remember just one word from what I say tonight, it should be this: Go. You know, you won’t find the actual word ‘mission’ in the Bible, but mission is all over the Bible. It’s there because ‘go’ is there and ‘go’ means mission,” he explained.

“And if you take the word ‘go’ seriously, it means you’ve got to trust the Lord. No more is there easy Christianity or easy religion. In a time with religious institutions finding themselves swimming upstream, remember that you don’t need to have all the answers, you just need to have a mission,” he said.

The mission of the UTO, founded and administered by women since 1889, is to further the work of the church that addresses compelling human need by promoting daily offerings of thanks in parishes throughout the Church, receiving those offerings, then distributing that money across the Anglican Communion via grants.

It is a vital ministry, said Bishop Curry. And in a closing that brought the crowd to its feet, he added, “I’m telling you, it makes a difference. You make a difference. So I ask you to continue to go and spread the good news of Jesus. Do not falter. Go and love without abandon! Go and spread his justice! Go UTO! Go ECW! Go!”