Livestream, watch parties planned for presiding bishop-elect’s investiture on Nov. 2

[Episcopal News Service] The Episcopal Church is preparing for a leadership transition that occurs once every nine years: This week, the Rt. Rev. Sean Rowe takes office as the church’s 28th presiding bishop. On Nov. 2, Episcopalians will celebrate the beginning of the new denominational leader’s term with a service of investiture. Livestream watch parties are planned in dioceses across the church.

This transition, however, will look a bit different from transitions past.

Rowe has arranged for a simpler, scaled-down service at 11 a.m. Eastern Nov. 2 in the Chapel of Christ the Lord at the church’s headquarters in New York. It will be a contrast to the larger, grander presiding bishop installations that typically have been hosted by Washington National Cathedral in the U.S. capital. The cathedral has served as the seat of the presiding bishop since 1941.

Rowe was partly motivated by an interest in reducing the service’s carbon footprint while increasing opportunities for churchwide virtual participation. All of the churches over 106 dioceses and missions were invited to send video greetings for a “roll call” that will precede the investiture, starting at 9:30 a.m. on the livestream. It can be viewed on the church’s Facebook page.

“In the next nine years, we will focus our energy and resources on equipping and supporting our dioceses to participate in God’s mission, and along the way, we will try out many new ideas,” the presiding bishop-elect told Episcopal News Service. “In that spirit, I am grateful to everyone who has embraced the opportunity to do a new thing with this investiture service. I look forward to celebrating with all of God’s people in The Episcopal Church on Saturday.”

Rowe was elected and confirmed in June by the 81st General Convention. He is the fourth bishop elected to serve a nine-year term as presiding bishop. Starting with 25th Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold, who was elected in 1997, the term’s duration was shortened from the office’s previous 12 years. Griswold was followed in 2006 by 26th Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. Rowe’s predecessor, Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, was elected 27th presiding bishop in 2015 and will conclude his eventful primacy on Oct. 31.

“This will be the first time in our history that we have installed a presiding bishop in this way,” Curry noted in a video invitation to Episcopalians to view Rowe’s investiture. “We learned through the pandemic how to be the church embodied physically and how to be the church embodied in cyberspace.”

The presiding bishop has a range of responsibilities, as outlined by The Episcopal Church Constitution and Canons. Those include presiding over the House of Bishops, chairing Executive Council, visiting every Episcopal diocese, participating in the ordination and consecration of bishops, receiving and responding to disciplinary complaints against bishops, making appointments to the church’s interim bodies, and “developing policies and strategies for the church and speaking for the church on the policies, strategies and programs of General Convention.”

The House of Bishops elected Rowe on the first ballot on June 26 from a slate of five bishops. The House of Deputies then voted overwhelmingly to confirm the result of the bishops’ election.

Rowe, 49, has served the past 17 years as bishop of the Diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania and the past five years as bishop provisional of the Diocese of Western New York, and he has emphasized since his election as presiding bishop that he wants to shift the church’s focus and resources to the diocesan and congregational level. He takes office on Nov. 1, the day before the investiture.

The Episcopal Church has released a series of online resources for dioceses and congregations interested in hosting watch parties for Rowe’s investiture, and many have been actively promoting festive events.

In the Diocese of Florida, for instance, St. John’s Cathedral in Jacksonville is organizing an investiture watch party for Episcopalians in the diocese. The Diocese of Louisiana, meanwhile, is planning watch parties in each of its deaneries.

The Rt. Rev. Sean Rowe was consecrated as bishop of the Diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania in 2007. Since April 2019, he also has served as bishop provisional of the Diocese of Western New York.

Students from Episcopal schools in Louisiana will join Bishop Shannon Duckworth as she gives “blessings to the Presiding Bishop-Elect Sean Rowe and thank Presiding Bishop Michael Curry for his dedicated work,” the diocese said. “It will be a significant moment to be together and celebrate the tradition and future of our church.”

Similarly, the Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast, which includes the southern half of Alabama and the Florida Panhandle, has announced that nine churches around the diocese will host gatherings to watch the investiture together.

In California, the Diocese of El Camino Real is planning a “pajama watch party” for the livestream, at Church of the Good Shepherd in Salinas. The Diocese of Los Angeles’ Daughters of the King will incorporate a viewing of the investiture into its Fall Assembly on Nov. 2 at Christ the Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in Los Angeles.

And, in the Diocese of Texas, the Seminary of the Southwest in Austin has invited its campus community and Episcopalians in the region to watch the service together in its Knapp Auditorium followed by a reception. Other watch parties are planned at congregations throughout the Houston-based diocese.

The celebration will be especially meaningful at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Franklin, Pennsylvania. That was the parish that first welcomed Rowe as its rector after he was ordained a priest in 2000 at age 25. It held a watch party last June when he was elected presiding bishop, and its members will gather again on Nov. 2 to watch his investiture.

“He has lots of friends here still,” Kaycee Reib, a longtime lay leader at St. John’s, told Episcopal News Service. She added playfully, “We would take him back if you guys don’t want to go through with this.”

Reib, however, will not be joining the St. John’s watch party. Instead, she and her husband will be among the small group of people attending Rowe’s investiture in person in New York. “We were there when he became a deacon and a priest and a bishop,” Reib said, “and now we’ll be there for this one, too.”

She has full confidence in the church’s next presiding bishop. “I think he’ll do beautifully,” she said. “We love him to pieces.”