My vision of Christian community has been shaped by the Great Commandment of Jesus and also by the Civil Rights movement and teaching of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I grew up in Oak Park, Illinois, a then mostly-white, middle-class suburb of Chicago where as a teenager I was very active in the United Church of Christ. During those years I learned the value and cost of creative conflict as I confronted members of my own family and neighborhood over issues of human rights and justice.

After graduation from Amherst College I followed a commitment to public education and taught elementary school in a rural district in Western Massachusetts. I also served as the youth minister for a shared ministry between a UCC and an Episcopal Church, where I found my spiritual home. After ten years I left teaching to attend seminary, and received an MDiv from the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale in 1985.

Between 1985 and 1998 I served as Curate at Trinity, Torrington and as rector at Trinity, Portland. From 1998 to 2000 I served as Canon to the Ordinary in the Diocese of Connecticut. I was consecrated Bishop Suffragan in October, 2000. Since 2006 I have served as Provincial Bishop of Province I and am a member of the Presiding Bishop's Council of Advice. I am Convener of Bishops Working for a Just World, the network within the House of Bishops for advocacy and leadership on the social policy priorities of the Episcopal Church.

My spouse, Kathleen McIntosh, is Chair of the Department of World Languages at Westfield State College in Westfield, Massachusetts. Our son Patrick lives in Rocky Hill, CT with his wife Andrea and their two children, Will and Maya. Our twin daughters, Serena and Gretchen, are university students.

I envision in the Diocese of Connecticut a church formed by God's grace, shaped by the faith expressed in the Creeds, fed by Scripture and the Sacraments, and empowered by the Holy Spirit to be a community of conversion and transformation. But right now we seem to be more like the disciples in the upper room on the evening of the day of Resurrection: good people who are reeling from the events that have occurred around us. For them it was the death of their teacher and friend Jesus that caused them to huddle behind locked doors. For us it is the uncertainty of a world caught in financial crisis, the widening gap between rich and poor, war, environmental crisis, and loss of control. Many of us are fearful, judgmental of one another, and unsure what our future might be. Those disciples physically locked the doors against what they feared. We tend to withdraw into ourselves, hoard our resources, and seek scapegoats. We tend to forget that Jesus came into the locked room of fear, offered peace to his people, breathed on them the Holy Spirit, and sent them into the world to do the work of God.

My vision for this diocese is that we will reclaim our place among the disciples in the upper room when the Risen Lord came to them. Let this be our daily acclamation: Christ is Risen. Our programs, our collaboration, administration, and mutual accountabilities all must support this attitude of expectation and transformation. Christ loves us, pours forth upon us lavish gifts of his peace and Holy Spirit and calls each of us out of the places of our fears to be messengers of Good News, hope, and liberation.

A bishop, as a chief priest and pastor in a diocese, is called to encourage and support all baptized people in their gifts and ministries. Baptism incorporates us into the Body of Christ and empowers us to be ministers of Christ. I believe that a bishop has a special responsibility to nurture and sustain parishes for Christian formation, leadership development and renewal, and mission expansion.

Clergy, by virtue of our ordination, have been entrusted with positions of leadership and responsibility within the Body of Christ. Each one of us knows great joy in our calling and often great burdens as well. In recognition of this fact, as bishop suffragan I have initiated networks of peer support for clergy across this diocese. I pledge to work with you and the lay leadership of the diocese to sustain and strengthen you and your families so that you are equipped to do the work of your calling: to nourish Christ's people from the riches of his grace.

Today the church struggles with the cost of its infrastructure, with the complexity of maintaining and enhancing communities of worship, prayer, and spiritual development, and with making Christ known to new generations and a society unfamiliar with our language and our symbols. The future will require that we learn new ways of proclamation and have openness to new and leaner structures for community even as we celebrate the richness of our traditions, the diversity among us, and strive to make the transforming love of God in Christ known to the world. This future will require our commitment, collaboration, prayer, and renewal.

I am proud to be an Episcopalian and a member of this diocese. I believe that in ministry together we can build a church of strong witness and welcome. My priority is that all persons in this church will be supported to grow into the vision of the Baptismal Covenant, the Episcopal Church's framework of belief in God and commitment to mission. Eucharist will be at the center of our life, uniting us in Christ and nurturing us for action. This church will invite all people into our community and welcome all the baptized into full participation and ministry. We will form disciples for mission in daily life through excellent education programs for all ages. We will be multi-cultural, multi-generational, and multi-lingual. We will rejoice in our diversity, and celebrate our new life in Christ. Every member of this church will be equipped to study scripture and to be able to tell his or her own story of faith to others. We will honor our traditions, but we will also become a people able to adapt to changing circumstances tied more to God's future than to our past. We will have policies of fiscal responsibility and mutual accountability for mission. This church will be so grounded in thanksgiving that we will respond to one another as fellow members of the Body of Christ and to financial challenges from a perspective of abundance, not fear. We will be a diocese so knit together in mission among ourselves and beyond ourselves that the people in every town in Connecticut will know where the Episcopal Church is, what we believe, what we are doing to share the love of God, and that we want them to join us.