2026 Bishop's Address

55^th ANNUAL DIOCESAN CONVENTION BISHOP’S ADDRESS

THE EPISCOPAL DIOCESE OF THE CENTRAL GULF COAST

THE RT. REV. J. RUSSELL KENDRICK

27 February 2026

Good morning. So I was told some time ago that a homily was a short sermon. This is not going to be a homily, but I promise it will not be longer than 1 hour and 47 minutes.

This is my eleventh address as your bishop. Eleven years. Years that have included hurricanes, a global pandemic, institutional strain, and now a political climate that feels, at times, like a storm. But I can still say this without hesitation: I love Jesus. And I am proud to be an Episcopalian. I am deeply honored and humbled to be your Bishop.

Before we go any further, let us give thanks. Please join me in thanking our host parish St. Francis, Gulf Breeze.  True to the vision of their patron saint, they are in a season of rebuilding their church by means of their senior citizen community center – ask them about it.  A day does not pass that their building is not bustling with people---artists, musicians, bridge players, yoga students, and more.  The Spirit is very much alive and that spirit has also spilled over into Sunday mornings. Even raccoons, a wandering bear, and a neighborhood pig testify that all God’s critters have a place at St. Francis.

And to our clergy: Thank You. You have tethered your lives to this Church in turbulent waters. In the letters I receive from those being confirmed and received, one theme surfaces again and again in lines like this: “My priest helped me find grace. My priest taught me that doubt is OK.  My pastor helped me to put the past behind me.”  You promised at your ordination to “nourish Christ’s people from the riches of his grace.” And you do. You are doing so! Quietly. Faithfully. Relentlessly.  Thank you.

And thank you to you lay delegates, the leaders of this diocese—because that is what you are—leaders. You may not always feel like leaders, but you are. Your ministry matters. Your life matters. Your witness matters. Thank you for the light you shine in this world.

Each year our convention theme is born from prayer and what I call my sanctified imagination—listening for what the Spirit may be inviting us to notice at this time in our life together. Since we decided to locate this convention at the shoreline of the Gulf, this year’s theme began with a focus on creation – Let there be Light. Some of you remember my ordination in Mobile, when representatives from every congregation processioned carrying water in bottles and cruets that came from a natural source near their church—rivers, bays, lakes, springs, the Gulf. It was more than symbolism. It was meant as a declaration: That we belong to this ecosystem that is intimately integrated and intertwined with water.  It was also meant as a declaration of who we are spiritually---integrated in – one God – one faith – one church by the waters of baptism; adopted as the children of God, citizens of God’s kingdom, builders of heaven on earth.

Last week, something happened that expanded this theme for me. I was listening to an interview with Anglican theologian and futurist, Rachel Hatch.  A futurist is someone who studies trends, data, and signs, in order to forecast potential, probable futures. During the program, she voiced a question that has stayed with me: Whose imagination are you living in?

If “imagination” feels abstract, substitute the words narrative, ideology, or story. Ms. Hatch went on to explain that none of us live in neutral space. We inhabit constructed or imagined worlds—political, economic, technological, theological, therapeutic worlds: worlds that tell us what is real; what is; what is possible. And most of the time, we do not even realize which imagination has shaped us, or worse yet, seized us.

There is the imagination of the market. It whispers: You are what you produce or achieve. Your value is measurable. There is never enough. It categorizes us by comparison, competition, and performance.  And beneath it all is the quiet anxiety: Am I enough?

There is the political imagination: Particularly in this season in the United States – it is really loud. It is too often driven by aggression. It divides the world into us versus them. It teaches us to know ourselves by choosing sides. It even tempts the Church to confuse nationalism with holiness.

There is the therapeutic imagination: It can bring healing. But at its worst, it reduces the highest good to personal happiness and reduces truth to a focus on self alone.

And there is the technological imagination: This is the world driven by algorithms that are addicted to metrics. It is impatient with mystery. Suspicious of grace. It trains us to believe that visibility equals value, and attention equals worth.

Ambition. Anxiety. Aggression. Achievement. Algorithms. These imaginations of our world tempt us and test us daily. And if we are not careful, we can even begin shaping our congregations by these imaginations of our world rather than by the Gospel.

And yet, there is an imagination in this world that is not of this world, the sanctified imagination of God that we witness in the beginning when God said, “Let there be light.”  And there was light, not merely illumination or energy, but I would argue the very imagination of God made tangible and visible.  God’s glory imbued into creation itself.  An imagination of harmony and peace. No ambition.  No ambition, no aggression, No fear. No us versus them.

Scholars tell us that the story of creation that we know in Genesis 1, was passed down from generation to generation among the Israelites.  But it took its final form during the Babylonian exile. Think about it. The story of creation took on significance as people were living in absolute chaos. Israel had lost everything – land, temple, king – everything that grounded their identity. They were conquered by the Babylonian army, their Temple was demolished, and they were deported from their land and homes and forced to live in Babylon, and thus, within the Babylonian imagination, an imagination that centered on their creation story – it is antithetical to that found in Genesis. 

It is called: Enuma Eh-lish, and in it, the world is born from violence.  Creation is the collateral damage of a heavenly conflict. Order comes through conquest, and humanity is created from the blood of a defeated god to serve the superior God. Now imagine being an exiled people, who were told and tempted by that story.  Whose imagination are you living in?

And yet, Israel, in exile, immersed in that story, dared to proclaim something radical: That the world is not born from violence. It is spoken into being by love. Creation is a gift. Everything is grace, blessed by God, “It is very good.”   Human beings are not slaves – they are image-bearers. 

Please hear the implications. Genesis is not merely cosmology. It is resistance to the empire.  It is theological defiance to the Babylonian imagination.  It is Israel refusing to let Babylon tell them who they are.

We hear this refusal in our first reading from Isaiah. It too comes from the time of the exile. Imagine that. God is still present, still creating: “Thus says God, the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people upon it. See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth, I tell you of them.”

There it is, the imagination of God still at work in the chaos. Still creating – Let there be light. 

God’s imagination keeps unfolding, we know that when we see most clearly and know most fully the way and truth of God’s imagination in the incarnation of Jesus the Christ. “In the beginning was the Word and the word was with God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things came into being through him… What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.”

In today’s Gospel, we are invited to join in the ongoing imagination of God. “You are the light of the world. So let your light shine.” Let there be light – In you. We may not live in exile, but there are many who feel like they are exiled. People living in darkness, chaos – afraid and hopeless, who desperately need the light.

I was at an event in Mobile not long ago and sat next to an incredible woman from Puerto Rico, who wore a badge that says: Leader of the Latino people in Mobile.  I asked her how people are doing.  She replied with three words: “They are afraid.” 

I was then talking to a friend of mine who is about my age. We are similar in many ways, except for the color of our skin. We got in his car and he pulled out a folder. He took his license and registration and put them in the folder and placed it on the dashboard. I was curious and asked about it.  He said I do that because I am afraid of what can happen if I am stopped by the police. 

And what of creation itself? I am the only Bishop in this diocese who lives in the house in which I was raised – on the shoreline of a bayou. I wake up to the sounds of dolphins’ breath and the cry of the ospreys every day.  But for all its beauty, there is change that worries me.

I can show you pictures of a boy playing on a beach that no longer exists. In the name of property protection, seawalls went up along the shore. And slowly the bayou became a bowl. The water now stands just below the steps that once descended to sand. What was once playground is now a warning for an old man.  I am afraid. 

The world can be like a stormy sea whose name is chaos. And the waves of chaos pound at the church too.

We talk so often about decline. We too often talk about money. We worry about our survival. Those are real challenges. But I am becoming convinced that our deeper crisis is not about statistics or survival, it is a crisis of imagination. 

We have been tempted and tricked like Adam and Eve. We too often live in the imagination of the church of yesterday and wonder why we cannot recapture that glory. Or we allow those worldly imaginations to disciple us instead of Jesus. We measure vitality by market logic. We adopt the culture’s anxieties. We baptize competition. We mirror outrage. We confuse screen time for light. 

But the Church was born from light – for light. Remember, every time we pour water and mark a forehead with the cross, we are declaring whose imagination that person belongs to. Not Babylon’s or any other nation for that matter, not the markets, not any particular politic, but the imagination of God – from God and for God in this world.

If that is the imagination in which we choose to live, it changes everything, doesn’t it? It changes how we see one another: our neighbors and our enemies; how we understand power; how we measure success.

So here is my challenge for you – it’s a lofty one – I get that: How might we be recaptured and be renewed by God’s imagination? What would it mean for this diocese to not simply react to problems (I’m looking in the mirror when I say this), but to make God’s imagination tangible and visible?

What if our congregations became workshops of holy imagination?  Places where people are inspired to be the image-bearers of God. Places where we learn to openly discuss our disagreements, seeking respectful understanding. What might we talk about? Places where generosity takes hold of our resources rather than being a barometer of how good the preacher is. Places where baptismal identity precedes every other loyalty in this world, and we do not apologize for who we are: a people who faithfully strive for justice and peace among all peoples and respect the dignity of every human being.

Can we still dream and struggle for a church that is created, called, and centered on God’s imagination?  And here is the truth of my conviction and question. I believe you are already forming your answers to this question. I say that because the really cool thing about being the bishop is I get to see what’s going on. One of the gifts of being your bishop is that I see the light shining all over this diocese.

I see light in the way you took up my challenge in last year’s convention to actually grow.  Sunday attendance in our churches in this diocese grew by 8.3%. That is the 6^th highest increase growth in all dioceses in the entire church.  Don’t stop y’all, keep at it, it’s called evangelism: https://extranet.generalconvention.org/staff/files/download/32887?_gl=1*1vmrugp*_ga*MTkzMzc0NzQ3LjE3NjU0NzM3ODg.*_ga_8C0Q9J2J2F*czE3NzE5NjQyMDQkbzIkZzEkdDE3NzE5NjQ1NTgkajYwJGwwJGgw

Statistics can be useful, but they fade when compared to the stories of what you are doing as the children of light.

I saw this light when more than twenty congregations packed 20,000 meals that were eventually sent to Africa by way of the group Rise Against Hunger.

I saw it in the people of St. Andrew’s, Destin who let go of their building and turned that sacrifice into a three-million-dollar endowment for our diocese, so that new ministries can be imagined and realized. That gift will bear their name: The Saint Andrews Development Fund. 

I saw the light at Holy Trinity, Pensacola where the parking lot became an assembly line building twenty-five beds for children in need. And too, the light at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Mobile – offering five weeks of summer art classes for neighbors aged seven to ninety-nine. In my last visit, one of the neighborhood children was so moved by their light of compassion that he started going to church there. And the light shone at St. Luke’s, Marianna, where their Threads of Hope ministry stitched over 1,700 hats for children.

I saw the light in the fiery eyes of a woman from Trinity Apalachicola who has mustered her friends to commit their energy to stand up and speak out for the rights of refugees and immigrants in their small town called Apalachicola.  I saw the light in the hopeful, passionate eyes of a very curious young adults group at Christ Church in Pensacola. I see the light in every single person I confirm.

And then there is George. George showed up one evening to help his parish open their doors as a county-sponsored shelter on a very frigid night.  As he explained it, he was shocked and moved by the people who showed up. So, George started asking simple questions: Who are they? What do they need? His curiosity became a cause, and the cause became a nonprofit group, to which I actually got my discretionary fund direct toward on that visit. A year later, George leads a group that cooks and serves a hot meal every week to some 60-70 people.

When George could easily retire, he doesn't. And George has shone the light while he’s been undergoing some significant health issues in his life. Still, he would not let the imagination of the world define his life.  When I asked him why he did all of this, he simply said: “I saw a need.” That is how the light of God’s imagination works.  George points us onward.  We need light so that we too can see and respond to the needs in our towns and our world. 

Some of those needs are right here in our diocese. This year we crossed a sobering threshold, one that many dioceses have crossed before us. Over 50 % of our churches are no longer served by a full-time priest.  Consequently, many communities no longer have weekly access to the Eucharist. What do we say to those who hunger for the sacrament that we cherish and perhaps take for granted? Do we tell our friends to drive somewhere else, to find another town? To be grateful for morning prayer alone – good luck-? Or do we imagine differently?    

This need drives the work of our local school. I deeply want to thank the clergy of our diocese who have joined with our smaller congregations in order to consecrate and provide elements for people in our congregations who have no priest to do so. But there is more needed, and I hope that in the next years we will imagine more ways to cooperate and coordinate, not just for 61 churches, but out into the world.

It’s easy to see the need for clergy in such a time. So, what do we say to the faithful young mother who feels called to ordained ministry - but cannot uproot her family and move across the country? Do we tell her it must not be God? Or can we imagine a new way to form and transform clergy in our diocese? Our answer is yes. When we began to form clergy locally, we were one of a handful of about 15 to 20 dioceses in the entire Episcopal Church. Today, over 90 dioceses of the church are involved in the work of imaging new ways to educate and form clergy.

Such energy and effort to raise up leaders extends to the development of lay leaders too. Imagine a church served by a team of people, gathered each week, each trained to lead an area of ministry: worship, preaching, pastoral care, evangelism, formation – a team shepherded by a priest who is not always on site but deeply invested in their ministry. That is the imagination and the dream I’ve been wondering about for a long time. That is what shapes our work in our local school. 

There is also a need for financial help in our churches.  I was making my annual visit recently to one of our churches that can no longer fund a musician, so they use recorded music to lead their singing. On my visit, the technology “acted up.”  They began to apologize and told me the system is 30 years old and they cannot afford a new system. “How much would it cost?”, I asked. $2,500. I thought to myself, we should be able to do that.  We should want to do that. That’s why the Standing Committee shifted our 56-year-old loan fund into a grant fund.  We’ll still hold some monies back for emergencies like roofing or air conditioners, but we will no longer be a lending institution. We want to be an incubator for the imagination of our congregations by giving out small grants to support ministry and mission. 

These are not administrative tasks. They are acts of imagination in response to where we see the light revealing opportunities and challenges for all of us.   

Our work matters in this world. And it matters because it is more than work. We are those who choose to live in the imagination of God and strive and struggle to make that imagination tangible and visible in this world.  And the imagination of God actually has a name.  The name of the imagination of God is this – Shalom “Peace”.

So let me remind you of a second creation event in the Bible. (I actually have this inscribed on my crozier in Hebrew.) Imagine it with me.  It happens when the risen Jesus appears to his friends in that locked up room. There is chaos and a deep void in the sunken hearts of Jesus’ friends. There is darkness. And then Jesus shows up and speaks a word. God’s word. Only this time the word is this – Shalom “Peace”. Ushering in a new creation of light in which we are all called to live.  The Spirit moves again. Go back and read it – it’s pretty cool – and Jesus sends them forth, “as the Father has sent me, so I send you.” Go now and be bearers of light and builders of Shalom – heaven on earth.    

So here we are. A people standing between various imaginations, narratives, ideologies that tempt us and test us daily. Imaginations that speak of ambition, achievement, aggression, and algorithms. Ways of being that are slowly and subtly destroying the very creation around us and between us. The darkness is real. The Chaos is real.

And yet, even now there is the imagination of God calling to us and for us. Crying out to us “let there be light.”  Crying out to us that all this is a gift, a gift that is so very good, and one that you and I are entrusted to be stewards and the very image-bearers of God’s imagination; to be about the work of Shalom.

The future of this diocese will no longer be determined by demographics or budgets. It will be determined by which imagination we choose to live. If we believe the world is born of conflict, we will act accordingly. If we believe it is sustained by ambition and aggression, we will mirror that. But if we believe the world is spoken into being by love, then we will live as people of love. The question is not whether we have imagination. The question is, whose imagination will you live in?  And perhaps this very moment – this stormy, uncertain, anxious moment – is precisely the moment in which God speaks over chaos: Let there be light.

Friends, you are that light. You have been claimed in baptism, marked as Christ’s own forever, and sent into this world as bearers of light in order to help God build Shalom. So let us keep at it… Let’s keep at it.

Let us be workshops of holy imagination. Let us be stubborn in hope. Let us build what looks like heaven in the very places that feel like hell. For Shalom is not only God’s promise. It is our calling. And the Spirit is still at work. So again, I say to you: “Let there be light.”