Presiding Bishop-elect tells PB&F to “put Jesus up front”

Photo by Mary Frances Schjonberg

As the Joint Standing Committee on Program Budget and Finance (PB&F) nears its July 1 budget deadline, Presiding Bishop-elect Michael Curry on June 29 asked the members to craft a plan to help the church “put Jesus up front,” share the good news and makes disciples.

“I talk of the Jesus movement, of evangelism, of making disciples and our witness through public service and public advocacy,” Curry told the committee during a brief conversation during a 7:30 a.m. meeting. “That can sound like rhetoric that has no actual consequence, but let me assure you … we are talking about the church moving forth, taking evangelism seriously – in the Episcopal way but taking them for real because there is good news to share. There really is.” Personal service and public witness and advocacy “is what we do; that’s the Jesus movement,” Curry said.

The presiding bishop-elect, who reminded the committee that his term does not begin until Nov. 1, said PB&F is doing God’s work. He likened the members’ job to that of Peter and Paul, whose feast day the church celebrates on June 29, saying that as word of Jesus spread out from Jerusalem to Rome and then to the known world at that time, the leaders had to organize themselves and decide how they would share their resources.

“They had to have their own PB&F to figure out how their distributions and their funds would be used to change the world,” Curry said. “The work they did in the first century is the work you’re doing in the 21^st century. God bless you.”

Curry said the committee has the tough job of figuring out how the Jesus movement can “translate into concrete, practical reality in terms of the budget.”

“Put Jesus up front. Put sharing that good news in front. Put forming our people as followers of Jesus – as disciples for real – at the front of it,” he suggested. “And then put inspiring and enabling them to serve in their personal lives, and for us to witness in the public square in the front. That’s the church; that’s the movement. I know full well that movements can float off into the air if they are not incarnated in reality.”