News & Messages

St. Francis House Staff Serves

While the students of UW-Madison are away, the St. Francis House staff kept busy in June serving and participating across The Episcopal Church at EpiscoWisco Camp and at the Young Adult & Campus Ministry (YACM) Conference.

EpiscoWisco Camp’s Senior Camp Session (serving high school-aged campers) took place June 10-17. As the session director, St. Francis House office coordinator and house fellow Bekah Scolare was charged with oversight of the programming for the week. Bekah assembled a daily schedule that included typical summer camp fare of food, fun, and activities, as well as daily formation programming including topics for faithful conversations along five themes: Identity, Calling, Healing, Paying Attention, and Remembering. St. Francis House chaplain, the Rev. Bobbi Kraft, served as chaplain along with Jackson as therapy dog.

After a FULL week at camp, you might think Mother Bobbi and Bekah headed back to Madison for some well-deserved rest. Instead, they headed to the YACM Conference in San Diego, California. The event brought together nearly fifty individuals from across the Church who serve alongside young adults, including fellowship, workshops, and networking. Author and Thistle Farms founder, Becca Stevens, who began her priestly vocation as a campus minister, was the keynote speaker (you may recall that Becca was our keynote speaker at last year's Diocesan Convention). Our own Bekah served on this year’s conference planning team. 

Isaiah 55:12-13 served as the guiding theme for this year’s conference. "For you shall go out in joy and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands." The staff of St Francis House returns refreshed and ready to prepare and serve students in Madison. 

The Rev. Bobbi Kraft (she/her)
Chaplain, St. Francis House Episcopal Student Center - UW Madison
Young Adult Missioner, Diocese of Milwaukee

Posted by The Rev. Bobbi Kraft

Caring for the Bats at St. Dunstan's

The people of St. Dunstan’s, Madison have known about the colony of big brown bats living on their grounds for a long, long time. Big brown bats are one of eight species of bat recorded in Wisconsin. Big brown bats are also one of the bats in great danger of being wiped out because of white-nose syndrome, a white, powdery fungus first discovered in 2006 that is causing the rapid decline of hibernating bats across North America. Bats play an essential role in pest control, pollinating plants, and dispersing seeds.

As they were becoming more aware of the threat to bat populations, Rev. Miranda Hassett, rector, and other members of St. Dunstan’s were looking to learn more about their bat colony and the threat white-nose disease might have on it. Their colony lives in a part of a building on the church grounds. Hassett noted, “Small colonies like this, where the bats overwinter instead of flying somewhere else to group with other bats, have been important in the time of white-nose disease because they’re less likely to catch it when they keep to themselves like this.”

In 2017, St. Dunstan’s started to participate in the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources bat count. Knowing the locations and approximate sizes of these colonies has helped the gather data about the statewide bat distribution and allows the DNR to track the prevalence of white-nose disease on the bats in our state. The DNR sets monitoring dates for citizens to count the number of bats in their colonies and submit their data. There’s a date in early June before the bats have had their babies to determine the prevalence and then there’s a second count weekend in July after they’ve had their babies. 

Four to ten people from St. Dunstan’s gather around dusk to do each count. “We know when they usually come out (often starting about 15 minutes after sunset), but sometimes they start coming out early, so we start watching on the early side,” Hassett said. “They come out one at a time (though sometimes several come out fast) so it’s not hard to count them. We just shout the numbers all together!” Their June count in 2022 was 53 bats and in 2023 was 52, so the colony appears to be pretty stable.

The people of St. Dunstan’s have found this activity an enjoyable way to show care for creation and are looking forward to the next count date in July!

Posted by Sara Bitner
in Information

UMC Disaffiliations in Wisconsin: What does it mean for Episcopalians?

Reposted from https://roodscreen.org/umc-disaffiliations-in-wisconsin-what-does-it-mean-for-episcopalians-c539769b8159

As the Ecumenical and Interfaith Officer for the Diocese of Milwaukee, I thought it might be helpful to bring Episcopalians up to date on what is happening in the Wisconsin Conference of the United Methodist Church (WCUMC). Most of you are probably aware of the extraordinarily painful moment the United Methodist Church (UMC) is in currently. While much of the conflict is couched in theological terms, the real crux is, unsurprisingly, issues of human sexuality. Despite the fact the UMC as a whole has many more openly affirming congregations than the Episcopal Church does, their Book of Discipline (think canons) currently does not allow for the celebration of Same-Sex Marriage or the ordination of members of the LGBTQIA+ community. Despite this, parts of the UMC (Which is a globe-spanning church) have acted in moral protest by carrying out such marriages and ordinations (WCUMC is one of those parts). Sometimes people will ask me why this is taking the UMC “so long.” My answer is for us to consider where we would be today if the entire Anglican Communion were voting members of our General Convention. The UMC is heading toward a General Conference in 2024, in which it is expected that the parts (Annual Conferences) of the UMC that wish to continue in a more “progressive” manner will begin that process. As a result, many conservative congregations throughout the UMC have indicated a wish to “Disaffiliate” from the UMC. 

Some will join the new Global Methodist Church (GMC), which interestingly has many of the same outside financial backers as the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA) did at the time of its formation. One difference between this split in the UMC and ours with ACNA is that the pandemic has provided “Cooling” time, and most of the overseas conferences of the UMC have discerned that the GMC is using them as leverage to make political gains in the US. Therefore, the vast majority of African and Middle/South American Conferences appear to intend to stay with the UMC, leaving it more “Global” than the GMC. Other congregations are effectively becoming congregationally-governed Methodist churches, which is almost an oxymoron, as “connection” is at the base of the Wesleyan tradition and polity.

At the Annual Conference meeting this last weekend of the WCUMC, 43 Congregations (out of about 445) in Wisconsin were given the go-ahead to disaffiliate, which means that as of June 30, they will no longer be part of the United Methodist Church. What does this mean for us as Episcopalians in Wisconsin?

  1. In response to this, ANY language about “Coming Home” or “Returning to the Mother Church” is harmful, insensitive, and historically inaccurate. American Methodism and the Episcopal Church were both novel responses to the Ecclesiastical trauma that was part of the American Revolution. American Methodists were never part of the Episcopal Church. As Christian siblings, we should want to see Methodism flourish. See my blog post “How to Deal with Methodists at your Red Church Doors” at https://bit.ly/3CsevFB for more about this.

  2. Find out how this is playing out in your local ministry context. Is your local UMC staying with the denomination or disaffiliating?  If they are disaffiliating, are they joining the GMC or doing something different?  These decisions can affect joint ministries of all kinds and can bring up issues beyond moral theology around liability and property. If you are dealing with a congregation that is no longer UMC, be aware that they may no longer have meaningful accountability structures beyond their congregational board.

  3. None of our current national ecumenical agreements with the UMC “transfer” to churches and ministers that are disaffiliating. The Interim Eucharistic Sharing Agreement that allows Episcopalians and Methodists to celebrate the Eucharist together under specific circumstances ONLY applies to UMC churches. Likewise, the full-communion agreement that is in process and will hopefully eventually allow us to exchange ordained ministry on a person-by-person basis will only apply to the UMC. (For more about this, see “Methodists and the Episcopal Willy Wonka” at https://bit.ly/3Ilj2Mu )

In short, pray for them. Reach out to your Methodist friends and buy them coffee. Be thoughtful and cautious in how you continue or form any ecumenical partnerships with Methodist churches that are disaffiliating. Most of all, continue to pray for the unity of the church in all of its beautiful and diverse forms.

The Rev. David Simmons, ObJN
Co-Chair, Standing Commission on Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations (TEC)
Ecumenical Officer, Episcopal Diocese of Milwaukee

Posted by The Rev. David Simmons

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