January 2025 Reunification Discernment Committee Meeting Summary

The Reunification Discernment Committee met via Zoom on January 7, 2025. Sub-Teams met between meetings. The Committee will be posting monthly summaries as well as other updates and invitations starting in January. (View update as PDF.)

The meeting opened with prayer, following which, the Committee focus on articulating the WHY behind potential reunification (document link.) One of the most common questions asked as we work through this process and a question that we have been working toward is “Why pursue the possibility of reunification?” As we fulfill the charge given us, the Reunification Discernment Committee is discovering several reasons to be encouraged by the potential of becoming one diocese. We hope that congregations, ministries, and leadership bodies will spend time with this one page document which we posted and distributed for conversation and to help with our shared discernment.

The Committee has also been exploring enhancing collaborative efforts between our dioceses rather than reunification. Over the past few years, our dioceses have enhanced collaborative efforts and continue to do so. Our dioceses share a canonically required Disciplinary Board and are exploring sharing diaconal formation. We work together in justice and advocacy work including anti-gun violence, LGBTQ+ inclusion, and racial justice efforts. The Executive Teams of our dioceses meet together every other week and collaborate on planning efforts and possibilities. Our Communications Staff have worked together on several projects. We will host a Joint Clergy Conference in March 2025. Bishops Baskerville-Burrows and Sparks will be doing visitations in the other’s diocese this season.

As we enhance collaboration, we are asking if that is the best route for our dioceses to continue to take. What we’re discovering (and hearing from our bishops and some staff members) is that the collaborations themselves are good, but in order to pull them off, we need to run everything through two separate diocesan systems which means double the work for many who are involved. So there is a limit to how much collaboration our systems can hold, a point at which it is actually more difficult to collaborate than it would be to function as one. The work of fully integrating would be a heavy lift initially, but after the work of that transition, functioning as one would be simpler and lighter work than constantly maintaining and navigating through two separate diocesan systems in order to work together. 

The Teams of this Committee (see below) continue the work required of our remaining faithful to the charge given us. Points of note this month include from the Stewardship and Finance Team who continues working with diocesan staff on modeling a unified budget, ways to achieve salary and compensation parity across a reunified diocese, and with CPG to develop a unified model for healthcare. The Bishops and Staffing Team continues the work of modeling how staffing could be adapted to support and resource the mission and ministry of a reunified diocese.  The Constitution and Canons Team continues to develop a rough draft C&C for input through feedback sessions this Spring. They are consulting with leadership bodies within our dioceses as well as seeking best practices from throughout the Episcopal Church.

Finally, we are very grateful to all who have engaged this ongoing discernment using the Parish Engagement Packet which was distributed to all parishes in both dioceses. The packet can still be accessed on the Discernment Committee website: episcopalindiana.org. If you have not yet hosted a conversation in your congregation and submitted input, please do! 

We thank you for your prayers and participation in this work of communal discernment.

Faithfully,

Members of the Reunification Discernment Committee 

The Episcopal Diocese of Northern Indiana The Episcopal Diocese of Indianapolis

The Rt. Rev. Dr. Douglas Sparks The Rt. Rev. Jennifer Baskerville-Burrows
The Rev. Canon Clay Berkley, At-Large Ms. Joan Amati, At-Large
Mr. Evan Doyle, Council The Rev. Dr. Hilary Cooke, At-Large
Mr. Paul Kincaid, Standing Committee Mr. George Eastman, Standing Committee
The Rev. Canon Ted Neidlinger, Council Mr. Greg Seamon, Executive Council
Ms. Brenda Rigdon, Council The Rev. Allen Rutherford, Exec. Council
Ms. Stephanie Pawlowski, At-Large Ms. Katherine Tyler Scott, At-Large