From Bishop Wolf: RI Free Clinic Needs Bilingual Spanish Volunteers

Bishop Wolf received this urgent email request for bilingual volunteers, and would like to pass the request on to you. This is a chance for you to put your God given gifts and abilities to use, to heal the sick. Just pick up a 3-4 hour clinic shift, and you will help make a difference for uninsured adults in Rhode Island.

Bilingual Spanish/English Volunteers Needed Do you speak Spanish and could spend a few hours helping uninsured adults seeking medical assistance? If yes, then we need your help at the RI Free Clinic. Rhode Island Free Clinic is a community-based non-profit organization located on Broad Street in south Providence offering free medical care, and diagnostic and specialty services to thousands of adults without health insurance. The Clinic relies on volunteer doctors, medical assistants, social workers and patient services translators and receptionists to provide comprehensive health care to uninsured patients five days and two nights a week, year round. Presently, BILINGUAL RECEPTIONISTS and INTERPRETERS are needed for 3 to 4 hour shifts throughout the summer. The majority of the Clinic's adult patients are Spanish speakers and need help communicating with the Clinic's predominately English speaking health care providers. If you speak Spanish and could lend a hand for one or more clinic shifts please click: SIGN UP TO HELP. Your help is vitally important to fulfilling health care services to hundreds of uninsured adults who suffer from poor health. Sincerely, Bernie Beaudreau Executive Director Serve Rhode Island 401.331.2298 P.S. For more info about RI Free Clinic, go to: http://www.rifreeclinic.org/

Reflections and Impressions from our Bishop-Elect

Today’s post is another in a series of reflections and impressions from people who have been participating in our transition, posted at www.episcopalrisearch.org. This post is from the Very Rev. W. Nicholas Knisely, our Bishop-Elect.

After the reality of the news of my election to come and serve among you sunk in, I’ve begun to think hard about what the next few months are going to be like. The immediate tasks – acquiring the necessary documentation for the consent hearings at General Convention, writing thank-you notes, returning phone calls – filled the first two weeks. But now the rush of the urgent is over, and I’m relishing the time I have to think and pray.

Karen and I are starting to plan our move. I think we’re going to be staying in May House in North Kingstown, at least initially, when we arrive in Rhode Island this September. We’ll be keeping our home here in Arizona, both because our daughter is staying here to continue her studies in Digital Design (she’s changed her major from Physics) and in hopes that the market will get back to a point here in Phoenix where we’ll be able to sell the house without having to take a large loss. We’re both grateful that the Diocese is willing to let us live in diocesan property. It makes the transition much easier for all of us.

Speaking of being grateful, let me say how great a debt we all owe to the Search & Nomination Committee members and me in particular to them and the Transition Committee members. Together, these groups, along with the oversight team, have done a wonderful job in helping make this one of the smoothest transitions I’ve ever witnessed. I’m grateful, too, to Bishop Wolf and her staff for working with all of us, and myself in particular in allowing the few months to be what I believe will be an important time of getting to know each other.

My hope is that, when I arrive in Rhode Island, you’ll let me visit you informally on Sundays and weekdays. I’m going to have to learn where all the congregations are, start to create relationships with the clergy and lay leadership, and start listening to what you want to share about your dreams for the future. A few of you have already invited me to participate in some formal events, and I’ve happily accepted. If there are other invitations, it would make life much easier for all of us if you’d be willing to coordinate those through Liz Crawley, the assistant to Bishop Wolf. I know there are some formal meetings that must take place, and I imagine that the office knows when those will be happening and will be able to avoid any calendar conflicts. (I’m still working on getting up to speed on a new calendar.)

Moving has been, in my experience, an excellent time to take stock, to reflect, to make decisions about what to bring and what to leave behind. I think that work, both spiritually and practically speaking, will be my focus these next few months. I’m working on leaving behind some people here in Arizona who are very dear to me and our family. I want to savor those goodbyes so that by leaving well, they are ready for the next phase of their corporate ministry.
I’m very much looking forward to savoring our hellos as well.

Please do keep us in your prayers as this time of transition begins in earnest. You are all daily in my prayers.

Nick +

Learn More About Our Bishop Elect

Originally posted by Dave Seifert at www.episcopalrisearch.org

As you likely know by now, the Episcopal Diocese of Rhode Island elected the Very Rev. W. Nicholas Knisely, dean of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Phoenix, Ariz., as its 13th bishop at a special electing convention June 2. He was elected on the first ballot.

Now you can learn more about our bishop-elect in a special booklet as well as on the bishop-elect page of www.episcopalrisearch.org . It includes information distributed at our walkabout in May as well as the text of a “letter to the people of Rhode Island” that Nick wrote in April. Watch for more information about and from our bishop-elect between now and the November ordination service.

You can read Bishop Elect Knisely's Entangled States blog and can contact him at:

nick@wnknisely.org

Trinity Episcopal Cathedral
100 W. Roosevelt St.
Phoenix, AZ 85003

Rhode Island Elects 13th Bishop on First Ballot

Around noon today at St. Paul's Episcopal church in Pawtucket RI, Clergy and elected lay representatives from the 51 churches that make up the Episcopal Diocese of Rhode Island voted to elect the Very Rev. Nicholas Knisely as the diocese’s 13th bishop.

There was a late start to the balloting process due to technical difficulties setting up the audio visual equipment in the front of the church after the Eucharist, but in the end the delay was of no consequence. Knisely was elected on the very first ballot, from a slate of five nominees.

Knisely, 51, is dean of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Phoenix, Ariz. (Diocese of Arizona).  On the first ballot he received 64 votes of 111 cast in the lay order and 47 of 88 cast in the clergy order, which gave him the majority in both orders. Read more below about Bishop-Elect Knisely or go to the transition blog where the Nominee Profile booklet and a letter from Knisely to the diocese are posted.

First-Ballot Results

Nominee	Clergy	Lay
The Rev. Kurt Dunkle	9	15
The Rev. Cathy George	1	6
The Very Rev. Nicholas Knisely	47	64
The Rev. Ledlie Laughlin	27	20
The Rev. Jennifer Pedrick	4	6

There was much joy in the announcement of Knisely's election, the applause and cheering were raucous. Knisely then spoke a few words to RI from a cell phone held to the Honorable Scott Avedesian's microphone, and before he hung up the attendees of the election all sang Knisely's favorite hymn back to him, a joyous congratulation and welcome.

Before Bishop Elect Knisely officially becomes the Bishop of Rhode Island, he must receive consent from representatives of other dioceses in the wider church and must be ordained by the presiding bishop. Because the election occurred close in time to the 77th meeting of the General Convention in July, Episcopal Church canons provide for the required consents to be sought from the bishops and deputies at that convention.

Assuming that consent is received, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori is scheduled to ordain Knisely as bishop Nov. 17 at St. George’s School in Middletown. The current bishop, the Rt. Rev. Geralyn Wolf, will retire at that time.

Prior to becoming dean of the cathedral in Phoenix, Knisely was rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Bethlehem, PA. During his tenure there, he also served as an adjunct instructor in physics and astronomy at Lehigh University. Knisely had previously served as rector of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Brackenridge, PA, and curate at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Wilmington, DE.

Knisely is a 1982 graduate of Franklin & Marshall College, where he received a Bachelor of Arts in Physics with an emphasis in Astronomy. In 1987, he earned a Master of Science in Theoretical Physics from the University of Delaware; he has completed “all but dissertation” for a doctoral degree in Experimental Chemical Physics from that same institution. He completed a Certificate of Anglican Studies at Berkeley Divinity School at Yale and a Master of Divinity degree in 1991 from Yale Divinity School.

He is married to Karen McTigue Knisely, who works as a database manager for a non-profit Hospice. They have a daughter who is 18 and one who died at the age of two. He enjoys spending as much time as possible outdoors, walking and hiking, bicycling, playing golf and occasionally cross-country skiing or sailing. He is an avid reader.

Electing Convention: Bishop Wolf's Sermon

June 2nd, 2012

In the fullness of God’s grace, we gather together this first Saturday in June, to elect the thirteenth bishop of the Diocese of Rhode Island.

With sincere and deep gratitude to the untiring efforts of the Search Committee, and the ongoing work of the Transition Committee, we have five highly capable and well-qualified nominees. There is a wonderful sense of energy

of excitement and expectation in the air, and I pray that you will vote with confidence for the person you believe will best lead our diocese in the years ahead.  I know that Jesus is with us now, praying for us, and deeply present in the heart of each of our nominees.

As stated in the profile, the challenges to this diocese demand visionary leadership. However, visionary leadership demands a visionary community, filled with people willing to answer with boldness Jesus’ enduring invitation: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” (Mark 8:34) Visionary leadership requires passionate, committed, and Spirit-filled followers willing to let go of self-interest in the service of the Good News.

Indeed, all of our nominees possess the gifts to grow into Episcopal ministry, but they will need the support of everyone in the diocese. Today’s election is only the beginning, for it us up to every person to take part in the development and implementation of the mission and ministry that you claim together.

The Church is at a wonderful crossroads:  just enough tension to inspire taking some risks; just enough financial insecurity to be creative; just enough healthy anxiety for something new and unexpected to emerge.

Within the wider Church the Diocese of Rhode Island is on the threshold of an exciting future. Why? Because we are well on our way to right-sizing, and we have a wonderful cadre of younger priests who with our more seasoned clergy bring the vitality and creative imagination that are the ingredients for new life. I am equally convinced that many of our church members are read to discover and live out their Christian calling with greater intensity and commitment. The next bishop will share with you in the challenges, and rejoice with you in the new life that is sure to come.

In a few hours, we will know the name of the bishop-elect. He or she will need a generous amount of time to get to know you, our churches, and the workings and ministry of our diocese.

The bishop-elect, will be ordained to the Episcopate on November 17^th of this year. In the course of the liturgy, I will place in his or her hands the crozier, one of the great symbols of the Episcopal office, and we will have a new diocesan bishop.

Take a few deep breaths, my friends, surrender to the power of God’s Holy Wisdom guiding your hearts and minds for the good of the diocese and the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. Let the Holy Spirit reveal to you your bishop and companion in Christ’s ministry, someone with whom you will grow in trust, someone you are willing to make a great bishop and an even stronger diocese.