Report to Convention 2021

Peace and Justice

Compiled by Deann Rios, Missioner for Peace & Justice, and Troy Elder, Missioner for Migration Ministry

There has been significant activity this year within the Diocese – both in efforts across the Diocese and at individual churches - related to peace and justice issues. A new Missioner was hired with the goal of increasing the Diocese’s focus and capacity related to justice work. Deann Rios began a part-time position as a Co-Missioner for Peace & Justice in January of 2021, and The Rev. Rebecca Dinovo assumed the same title as a volunteer Co-Missioner. Each worked an average of 8 hours per week this year to support and connect existing work and create new peace and justice opportunities within our churches, Diocese, and communities. As a means of better loving our neighbors, the goals of this work included engaging groups and individuals of all ages in spiritual, educational, and action-oriented efforts in the areas of racial justice, creation care, food justice, affordable housing, inter-faith work, gun safety, civil discourse, and border and refugee ministry. All of this work is being done under the leadership of Diocesan staff and the Advocacy Committee and in partnership with the Service & Justice Coalition, a group comprised of representatives from churches focused on outreach and justice.

One of the major ways this work was launched this past year was through the creation of task forces focused on five of the justice issues listed above. A survey was also created, and Diocesan churches were asked to complete it, sharing what they are already doing related to these issues and what they would like to be doing and/or that they could use resources or partners to be more successful. For any churches that have not yet completed this survey, it would still be very helpful to hear from you, and it can be completed here.

Below is a summary of the work that has taken place this year in each of the justice areas of focus, including information about our new task forces. If you or others from your church would like to learn more about any of them, would like to get involved, or would like support to do similar work within your congregation or community, please contact Deann Rios at drios@edsd.org, and she will connect you with the relevant groups.

Racial Justice
In February of 2020, Sacred Ground, the faith-based dialogue series on race offered by The Episcopal Church, was highlighted at the Leadership Academy, and then the Advocacy Committee worked to promote it with the churches. About a year later, early in 2021, over 600 people at approximately 20 churches had completed the Sacred Ground program. This work resulted in significant energy and interest in creating on-going opportunities for education and action so individuals, churches, and communities could continue growing in anti-racism. To help focus and provide leadership for this work at the Diocesan level in support of our churches, a Racial Justice Task Force was formed with approximately 15 members representing 10 churches and started meeting in February of 2021. The task force has a strong Education Work Group and is currently re-organizing its other work groups. This year the team has supported additional churches to offer the Sacred Ground program; has hosted film screenings; is vetting curriculum and trainings to create a resource list for churches; worked with the Advocacy Committee to create two resolutions for convention; is exploring options for using theater and the arts to engage people in anti-racism work; and is helping to foster partnerships among churches, across the Diocese, and in our broader community.

Creation Care
In this critical moment for God’s Creation, the Episcopal Diocese of San Diego has shown faith and foresight by creating an EDSD Creation Care Task Force (CCTF) to inform and inspire our congregations on climate justice. This group is led by Diane Lopez Hughes from St. Paul’s Cathedral and John Pick from St. Margaret’s, Palm Desert. It has about eight members from different churches who began meeting in February of 2021 to harness their passion for working to repair and restore our local and global environment. They meet monthly to pray, plan, and provide resources and opportunities related to creation care so that our communities may take an active role in fulfilling their sacred baptismal covenant to “…strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of the Earth and of every human being."

The CCTF’s mission and vision are as follows:
Mission - As followers of Jesus Christ, we empower individuals and churches in the Episcopal Diocese of San Diego to love the Earth and all God’s creation; to promote environmental justice for all as part of our spiritual life and practice through education, advocacy, and action; and to reduce our footprint by living more humbly upon our common home.

ision - The San Diego Episcopal Diocese is a leader in collaborative efforts throughout the country and beyond to heal our Earth for the benefit of all people and all of God’s creation.

The CCTF has small work groups focused on church engagement, education, advocacy, action, community partnerships, and action. This year, in partnership with multiple Diocesan churches, they have led book studies on Climate Church, Climate World: How People of Faith Must Work for Change by Jim Antal and Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Kimmerer, partnered with Faiths for Climate Justice to participate in a day of global action, supported churches to offer film screenings of Kiss the Ground and partnered with SanDiego350 Youth4Climate to host a screening of I Am Greta, offered resources for the Season of Creation, and created a resolution focused on creation care to be voted on at this convention. St. Paul’s Cathedral; St. Bartholomew’s, Poway; and St. Margaret’s, Palm Desert have been strong leaders in this work and have hosted events at their churches including Earth Month forums and Creation Care Sunday at the Cathedral and a Be the Change Festival focused on electric cars and energy for homes at St. Bart’s. Other churches in the Diocese are doing great work around creation care, and we look forward to more collaborative work moving forward. We are also excited about the work of the “Future Bound Solar Initiative” to guide additional churches in exploring and, where it makes sense, converting to solar energy on their properties.

Food Justice
In response to the reality that one out of three San Diegans is food insecure, and as a way to love our neighbors by attending to one of the most basic of human needs, the EDSD Food Justice Task Force (FJTF), in partnership with the Creation Care Task Force, was formed. The FJTF is a network of church representatives from across the Diocese focused on tackling food insecurity together. They are working to initiate and support collaboration, new projects, the sharing of models and ideas, education about food justice, and more.

The task force defines food justice as the belief that healthy food is a human right, and it is co-led by Kathy Wilder, Executive Director of Camp Stevens, and Susan Algert from St. Andrew’s Encinitas. They have spent much of this year identifying and learning about the churches who are providing access to healthy food through feeding programs, food pantries, or community gardens and farms. They are also exploring the possibility of launching a small-scale hydroponics project to benefit churches in food deserts and churches with feeding programs and/or churches interested in being a community hub for households interested in growing lettuce in their homes. If your church is doing work related to food insecurity and justice and is not yet connected to this task force, they would love to hear from you!

Affordable Housing
To address the need for affordable housing in the communities of our Diocese, an Affordable Housing Task Force was formed and started meeting monthly in April of 2021 with about five members. Led by Jessica Ripper from Good Samaritan, University City, this team now has approximately nine members including Diocesan staff and representatives with expertise in affordable housing from seven churches. This group is tasked with working with churches interested in exploring the possibility of building affordable housing on their church property as a way to increase affordable housing in San Diego and love our neighbors in a very practical and much needed way.

Migration Ministries
At the beginning of this past ministry year, in October of 2020, EDSD hosted a virtual Border Ministry Summit, an event that is typically attended by representatives from the dioceses along the US-Mexico border and dioceses in Mexico and Central America. This year participation was a bit expanded due to accessibility via Zoom. We partnered with Global Immersion Project and other individuals and organizations to present the sessions, and it was a very educational and enriching conference, one that helped to engage us in the realities of this important issue that has such great human impact.

In May of this year and in partnership with the Diocese of Los Angeles and the Diocese of Western Mexico, our Diocese planned and hosted Called to the Wall: Building Bridges of Healing and Reconciliation, an annual pilgrimage representing the way of the cross that brings attention to current immigration issues. This year, the virtual liturgy brought light to immigrant children, family separation, asylum seekers, and more, and since it was virtual, it provided an opportunity to pray, learn, and meet with even more people!

This year has been an unprecedented one for those forced to migrate across borders. Migrant “surges,” “swells,” and “crises” seemed to follow one another unabated. After an extraordinary increase in unaccompanied Central American migrant children seeking refuge at the southern border in the spring and summer, the plight of Afghan and Haitian refugees dominated the headlines in later months, providing fresh examples of the humanitarian tragedy of compelled displacement. And U.S. court decisions and policy positions revived and extended legal and practical obstacles to people seeking refuge.
In response, our Diocese sought to meet this current moment pastorally and proactively, both by responding to crises and by creating new structures designed to sustain us as we seek to incarnate Jesus’ hands, feet, and heart in welcoming our newest neighbors. A significant example of this was the Diocese’s leadership in helping to coordinate an inter-faith team of clergy and lay people to serve as chaplains addressing the spiritual needs of thousands of Central American youth—mostly teenage girls—who were housed in a makeshift welcome facility at the San Diego Convention Center after having crossed the border alone this past spring. Through weekly Eucharist, individual counseling, and community-building activities, Episcopalians and members of other faith groups sought to provide a meaningful sense of Christ’s presence to those whose flight from violence, extreme poverty, and climate disasters had reached a point of crisis.

As our ministry at the Convention Center wound down because the teens were moved to other places, the Diocese continued its discernment around migration ministry through the convening of an Immigration, Border, and Refugee (now Migration) Task Force, which surveyed clergy, laity, and Diocesan institutions over a several-month period to determine where Christ might next be calling us on this front. In July, thanks to a three-year grant from The Episcopal Church’s Office of Global Partnerships, we welcomed a new part-time Migration Missioner, Troy Elder. In this role, Troy coordinates ministry activities in the Diocese related to US-Mexico border and other migration issues, including the Afghan evacuee crisis. As border Diocese, this work of loving our neighbors across cultures and borders is especially important and fills a gap in our ministry as followers of Christ.

Most recently, the Task Force finalized and has now begun to disseminate a set of ministry priorities and projects for the upcoming program year. Through service, advocacy, worship, peer education, and stewardship, the Task Force extends an invitation to those throughout the Diocese who seek to demonstrate Christ’s risen-ness by welcoming, healing, and empowering our newest neighbors. The existing and planned ministries include: supporting migrants’ spiritual and material needs in a shelter in Mexicali, Mexico; working with our counterparts at the Diocese of Western Mexico to investigate the possibility of a new ministry of accompaniment in a yet-to-be identified part of greater Tijuana; advocacy for policies that promote the humane treatment of migrants at various levels of government and within The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion; providing ongoing short- and long-term advocacy and service opportunities in support of Afghan refugees; and discerning the possible establishment of a refugee resettlement affiliate of Episcopal Migration Ministries within the Diocese of San Diego.

The Migration Task Force meets monthly at various locations around the Diocese, with the opportunity to participate remotely. Ministry teams meet on a schedule determined by the needs of the ministry. For more information, please contact Troy Elder at telder@edsd.org.

Inter-faith Work
This year Mtr. Rebecca Dinovo has been very involved with and led our inter-faith work, including founding an inter-faith group called Faith Leaders of SD for Peace & Justice. Over the past year this group has hosted prayer vigils and educational forums and has done organizing work in local communities. 

Of the list of issues above, Gun Safety and Civil Discourse are two for which groups were not formed this year. There has been some work done to connect with churches doing work in these areas and to identify curriculum and resources related to them. For example, St. Margaret’s, Palm Desert has done great work around gun safety, and we know they are a resource for this issue.  

Deann and Troy welcome questions and your involvement, so please contact us if you’d like to learn more about the teams and activities shared above and/or to let us know what you are doing and how we can support you. Our goal is to encourage, help make connections, and support meaningful engagement in these areas of justice, to help individuals and churches continue to make an impact as we love others in the name of Christ and do this important work. Again, Deann Rios can be reached at drios@edsd.org, and Troy Elder can be reached at telder@edsd.org.