Many of you—and many visitors to Maine—tell me how good it feels to see those distinctive signs. They reveal one of the elements in our Strategic Vision:

IN MAINE, THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH IS EVERYWHERE AND FOR EVERYONE.

We are a missionary diocese; we have deliberately chosen to be in mission everywhere; not confining our witness to those locations of more comfortable financial circumstances, we have chosen to be about the mission of Christ where darkness begs for the Light of Christ. Because we know that ministry is centered in the life of congregations, we rejoice that our congregations minister the Gospel everywhere in Maine.

From York Harbor to Limestone, from Eastport to Rangeley, from Southwest Harbor to Waterboro, from Rumford to Houlton; another element of our Strategic Vision leaps into view—we are BECOMING ONE IN CHRIST. We are 68 year-round congregations (if we count the Bethel House Church, and we do), 18 Summer Chapels, one beautiful lakeside camp (Bishopswood), one Jubilee Center (at Trinity, Lewiston), one Mission Support Center at Loring House, one Anglican Studies program (at Bangor Theological Seminary), one historic Cathedral all limbs and members of the Body of Christ.

I wish I could take you along with me as I travel about. Then you’d know what I mean when I talk about a "SHARED EPISCOPATE" (episcopate = the ministry of the Bishop), another aspect of our Strategic Vision. You could all see first-hand the amazing faithfulness in congregations where it’s a struggle to keep their doors open, as well as those congregations that struggle to expand their ministry in areas of favorable circumstances. Every congregation in Maine is worthy of our support, our prayers, our expressions of solidarity. No branch of the Vine need be chopped off; all the branches of our Vine are bearing fruit, either in an Abundant Harvest or in the tenacious fruitfulness of the smaller scale. "Faithfulness in small things"— that is the vision of Mother Theresa of Calcutta, which well describes our diocesan vision of God’s Abundance.

How lavishly generous God is to us. When we become disoriented, fearfully clinging to what we have, God heals the despair of Scarcity-mindedness, and shows us how much we have tasted of God’s Abundance, even in our areas of greatest economic struggle. At our Diocesan Convention this fall, we will welcome a special visitor, Bishop Duracin of Haiti, who will join us as we consider becoming a Companion Diocese to Haiti, one of the poorest dioceses in the world. Bishop Duracin’s presence is God’s reminder to us that we are a people generously blessed; we have been blessed so that we may BE a blessing, both here in Maine and in the larger Church.

I find myself, each day of my ministry, reaching new heights of gratitude to God for all that we are and all that we have together here in Maine. Thank God for each of you, and for all of the ways in which our risen Lord is honored and proclaimed in the ministries of our diocesan life. May those roadside signs of welcome call us to ever-bolder proclamation and service as our ministry grows and flourishes in the wondrous Abundance of God.