wfn.org | Telecast of investiture brings the church together

[ENS.parti@ecunet.org (ENS)]

by Nan Cobbey
January 15, 1998
Episcopal News Service
Jim Solheim, Director
212-922-5385
ens@ecunet.org

98-2064
Telecast of investiture brings the church together

by Nan Cobbey
     "It was just as if we were in a side chapel on the other side of a
wall from where it was happening. We stood. We sat. We listened. We
received grace."
     Thom Jensen of St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Newark,
Delaware, was one of more than 7,000 people at more than 215 locations
across the continent -- at least one in every state including Alaska and
Hawaii -- who participated in Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold's
installation by satellite downlink on January 10. Cable and local access
stations broadcast the service in 10 additional locations. 
     "There could have been over 20,000 to 25,000 people who saw
this," says Julie Zietlow, project coordinator for Episcopal Cathedral
Teleconferencing Network. 

A new era
     "The service was wonderful... we have truly moved into a new
era," said Jensen, who only days earlier had been cynical about
"pretending" to be present. 
     "I joined in the hymns, prayed strongly and really for our new PB
[presiding bishop] and received communion... Mea culpa for my
negativity earlier. I have been reborn."
     Others felt the same. "Good show, good show!" boomed the Rev.
Don Belcher, rector of St. Luke's in Libby, Montana. He facilitated a
downlink site for several parishes at his hunting-lodge-turned-retreat
center in Yaak. Fourteen brave souls drove 40 miles through a blizzard
to get there, some of them arriving the night before. They praised the
quality of the telecast. 
     "It was as if we were next door to you," said an enthusiastic
Belcher. "We could see everything perfectly. We could  practically count
the freckles on Phoebe Griswold's face... When Episcopalians do it, they
do it right!"
     At many sites, celebrants consecrated bread and wine, distributed
communion and conducted the same sprinkling of baptismal font waters
after participants renewed their vows.That was the case in rural
Stanardsville, Virginia, where 11 gathered in Grace Church. Their vicar,
the Rev. Gary Barker, thought he was entirely prepared.
     "I knew there was going to be a baptismal component so I
brought water," he said. "I didn't know they were going to use boxwood
[to sprinkle the congregation] so I didn't have that, but we all got wet."

Funeral homes, bars and clubs
     In Albuquerque, New Mexico,  at Sandia Funeral Care auditorium
where the Rev. Canon Byron D. McDougall had arranged a downlink
site, 76 folks gathered "in a proper Episcopal setting," with proper altar
and proper Eucharistic candles, he said. 
     "We even transported a font to enhance the event." 
     In a northern suburb of Chicago, 70 folks showed up for breakfast
and telecast at the Glencoe Golf Club. Joan Sholten, local representative
of the National Cathedral Association, served fresh fruit, bagels, coffee
and tea to guests from several parishes along the North Shore and
western suburbs. 
     "Everybody signed a great big card and we are sending it to
Frank and Phoebe to let them know that we worshiped and celebrated
this time with them," said Sholten, who has donated the offering to a
fund for struggling parishes in the Diocese of Chicago. 

Still out of touch
       With phone lines still down in northern New York state after
January's ice storm, it was impossible to determine whether the Rev.
Nancy Betz was finally able to downlink the installation at Caddyshack, a
sports bar in Clayton where she'd found an agreeable dish-owner. 
     Parishioners from half a dozen small parishes near the Canadian
border had been planning to participate in a simultaneous Eucharist
before the icestorm of the century pulled down trees and powerlines.
     In neighboring Vermont, only 30 people were able to make it
through ice and shattered trees to St. Paul Cathedral in Burlington. 
     But June Schulte said it was worth the effort. "During the
chanting of the Lord's Prayer, the sun broke through the gloomy skies
and flooded the cathedral with sunlight. It felt warm. It was the first
sunshine we had seen in the greater part of a treacherous week. I expect
I wasn't the only one smiling through tears." 
     At St. Paul's Cathedral in Detroit, 140 people participated in a
concelebrated Eucharist at an altar before a seven-foot screen. "We
processed in at the point of the introit," said the Rev. Saundra
Richardson. Celebrants conducted a healing service and invited
participants to a reception afterwards as well. 
     "It was an exciting day. People really felt they were there, not
just watching." 
     In Hartford, Connecticut, the 35 people participating at Christ
Cathedral passed the peace and then gathered around the 30-inch monitor
to look for others they knew in the service.
     In Minneapolis, the Rev. Don Nesheim brought his combined
confirmation classes to the Cathedral Church of St. Mark as a means of
kicking off their instruction. 

E-mailed accolades
     Praise for the telecast traveled quickly through cyberspace. 
     "Fabulous!!!!! When can we get a copy of the tape?" Diocese of
Texas communications director Carol Barnwell wanted to know. 
     "WOW! How did you do that?" e-mailed Catherine T. Boyd,
editor of the Episcopal Church Women's "Communique," from
Lexington, Kentucky. 
     "An incredible job of transmission. We all felt very involved,"
wrote Sarah Moore, director of church communications at the School of
Theology, Sewanee, Tennessee, where 40 showed at the campus
downlink site. 
     Vicar Gary Barker of Stanardsville, Virginia, probably spoke for
many of those moved by the truly national service. 
     "It was neat to be celebrating communion together, crossing
barriers. Communion is always supposed to be beyond time and space."

--Nan Cobbey is features editor of Episcopal Life, the national newspaper
for Episcopalians.