Our Courageous Witness: Proclaiming a Christianity Worth Believing

On October 19, the Executive Council of The Episcopal Church adopted a fifteen-year strategic plan called Our Courageous Witness. Its first priority carries a compelling phrase: “A Christianity Worth Proclaiming.” The plan describes that Christianity as authentic, expansive, beautiful, unafraid, rooted in the sacraments, and grounded in our tradition.¹

That phrase deserves more than a campaign slogan. It asks a theological question:

What makes Christianity worth proclaiming when many people have encountered Christian faith as control, exclusion, or protection of institutional power?

My answer is that Christian witness becomes credible when the church’s words, worship, public action, and use of resources tell the same truth about Jesus. The gospel we proclaim is a love that serves, tells the truth, honors human dignity, and gives itself for the flourishing of others. Visibility can carry that witness farther. It cannot create credibility on its own.

The Church Proclaims Jesus

Paul gives the church a necessary discipline: “For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord” (2 Corinthians 4:5, NRSVue). Christian witness loses its center when the church becomes the subject of its own proclamation. We can begin to treat membership, visibility, budgets, buildings, or denominational survival as the good news we are offering.

The church can invite people into its life with confidence. We have gifts worth sharing: common prayer, sacramental worship, a tradition of theological breadth, and a covenant that joins faith to the dignity of every human being. Yet these gifts point beyond the institution. They help people encounter Jesus Christ and participate in his life of reconciling love.

This distinction changes how we think about evangelism. Evangelism is more than persuading someone that our church is reasonable, welcoming, or socially useful. It is bearing witness to the love of God revealed in Jesus and inviting people into a community learning to live that love. The church’s task is to make the life of Jesus visible, even when that visibility exposes our need for repentance.

Our Structures Also Preach

The strategic plan connects witness with support and sustainability. That connection matters. Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe has framed decisions about buildings, endowments, staff, and structures as spiritual work because institutions are instruments through which the body of Christ carries out its mission. The plan pairs its public-witness goals with proposals to support dioceses, invest in congregational vitality, reform governance, and redirect resources.²

Every budget teaches. Every property decision reveals priorities. Every disciplinary process says something about whose safety matters. Every leadership structure shows whether shared ministry is a conviction or a pleasant phrase.

A church can speak eloquently about love while arranging its life around fear, secrecy, or self-preservation. People notice the contradiction. They also notice when a congregation shares authority, responds honestly to harm, makes its buildings accessible, pays workers fairly, and directs money toward neighbors who carry the heaviest burdens. Those choices are part of proclamation because they show what the church believes love requires.

Dignity Is a Public Witness

The Executive Council’s message linked “a Christianity worth proclaiming” to the Baptismal Covenant: seeking and serving Christ in all people and respecting the dignity of every human being.³ These promises give Episcopal public witness a clear measure. We cannot defend human dignity only when it is popular, inexpensive, or directed toward people who resemble us.

The covenant asks whether LGBTQ people can belong without hiding, whether disabled people can participate and lead, whether people harmed by churches can tell the truth without being managed, and whether neighbors facing racism, poverty, displacement, or violence encounter us as allies. It also asks whether those commitments shape our calendars, buildings, budgets, and leadership.

At baptism, the answer to each promise is “I will, with God’s help.” That response holds conviction and humility together. We commit ourselves to a way of life while admitting that we cannot practice it through resolve alone. We need grace, community, correction, and the Holy Spirit. She keeps drawing the church beyond the limits of its courage and imagination.⁴

Love Makes Witness Recognizable

Jesus gives his disciples a test for recognition: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35, NRSVue). In John’s Gospel, Jesus speaks these words after washing his disciples’ feet. The love that identifies Christian community takes the form of service. It kneels. It tends bodies. It gives status away.

This kind of love is expansive because it refuses to ration dignity. It is beautiful because it helps wounded lives become whole. It is unafraid because it can face truth, repent, and change. It is authentic because people can see it embodied before they are asked to believe our claims about it.

A churchwide visibility campaign may help people discover an Episcopal congregation they did not know existed. That would be valuable. Its deepest promise will be fulfilled when the congregation they find bears the same witness as the message that brought them through the door.

Questions for a Courageous Church

The new strategic plan will lead to debates about property, governance, staffing, money, and the public voice of The Episcopal Church. Those debates need practical expertise. They also need sustained theological attention. The governing question should remain the one Bishop Rowe has named: How does this serve God’s mission in the world today?

Congregations can begin that discernment now. Where does our common life make the love of Jesus visible? Where do our practices contradict what we proclaim? Who experiences dignity and shared authority here? Who remains unheard? What resources could be released so that ministry and relationship can grow?

A Christianity worth proclaiming will ask something of us. It will call us to risk comfort for truth, control for relationship, and institutional prestige for faithful service. With God’s help, the church can become more transparent to the love it announces. Then our public witness will invite people to follow Jesus.

References

1
The Episcopal Church. (2026, October 19). Episcopal Church Executive Council adopts presiding bishop’s strategic plan, authorizes sale of Manhattan headquarters. https://www.episcopalchurch.org/news-types/featured-news-announcements/episcopal-church-executive-council-adopts-presiding-bishops-strategic-plan-authorizes-sale-of-manhattan-headquarters/ ↩︎
2
Paulsen, D. (2026, October 19). Executive Council backs presiding bishop’s strategic vision for The Episcopal Church. Episcopal News Service. https://episcopalnewsservice.org/2026/10/19/executive-council-backs-presiding-bishops-strategic-vision-for-the-episcopal-church/ ↩︎
3
Executive Council of The Episcopal Church. (2026, October 21). A message to The Episcopal Church from Executive Council: October 2026. The Episcopal Church. https://www.episcopalchurch.org/uncategorized/a-message-to-the-episcopal-church-from-executive-council-october-2026/ ↩︎
4
The Episcopal Church. (1979). The Book of Common Prayer (pp. 304–305). Church Hymnal Corporation. ↩︎