Talbot Association of Clergy and Laity will celebrate its 50th Anniversary during the Annual Awards Luncheon at Noon, Wednesday, June 10, 2015, in the parish hall of Trinity Cathedral, located on North Street behind the church in Easton. Guest speaker is The Right Reverend Henry Nutt Parsley, Jr., Bishop Provisional of the Easton Diocese of The Episcopal Church. Contralto Maureen Curtin, music director of the Easton Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, is the featured soloist.
The Right Reverend Henry Nutt Parsley, Jr
Two awards for exceptional service to the community will be awarded, one within TACL and the other external. The new custom of the “bridge builder” awards also is being continued this year. Recipients will be named during the luncheon.
“We have invited Bishop Parsley to speak,” said TACL Chairman Bishop Joel Marcus Johnson, “because of his friendship with one of TACL’s most formative figures, William Moultrie Moore, Bishop of Easton 1975 to 1983, who retired to Charleston SC, where then Father Parsley was his sometime pastor. So, Henry has had a vicarious relationship with Talbot County and Maryland’s Eastern Shore well before arriving. Better still is his friendship and inspiration to us all.”
A Memphis native, Bishop Parsley received his degrees from The University of The South at Sewanee TN, and from The General Theological Seminary in New York City, taking post-graduate studies at Oxford University. He went on to serve parishes in the Carolinas, including Rector of Christ Church, Charlotte SC, from 1986 to 1996. He was elected Bishop Coadjutor of Alabama in 1996 and then Bishop of Alabama, serving until 2012. He has also served as Chancellor of his alma mater, The University of The South. Elected Bishop Provisional of the Easton Diocese in May 2014, Parsley is serving as a “bridge bishop” while the clergy and laity have undertaken a period of discernment and study for its future.
TACL, now in its 50th year, originally began as an association of Christian churches with ecumenical and social activities. Over time, however, it recognized the need to become multicultural and interfaith, and so also has included Jewish and Muslim congregations who have served among its leadership. In addition to its popular, long-standing Talbot Community Interfaith Thanksgiving Service, it also has sponsored interfaith prayer services in times of mourning and national need.
Its mission statement reads, “TACL is an interfaith organization promoting the Spiritual Welfare – Compassion, Justice, Peace, Reconciliation – for the Common Good. We seek to do this through Education, Relationship Building, and our Diverse Ministries.”
“In the spirit of the mission statement,” Bishop Johnson said, “TACL members have currently taken on three initiatives. The first is an accredited continuing education unit program for its clergy. Second is a study to restore community and parish nursing, given increasing elder members in our congregations, the highest per capita in Maryland. And third is our sponsorship of a county-wide ‘Conversation on Race’, to roll-out this fall with inter-congregational ‘Sunday Suppers’, and professional panels with secondary and higher education, with law enforcement, with the medical and social service provider community, and with the business community.”
“As we work toward such initiatives,” he concluded, “we need the ideas and inspiration of such forerunners as Bishop Moore.”
The public is invited, but RSVPs must be received by Saturday, June 5 to [email protected]. For more information about TACL and about the luncheon, please write to [email protected].
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