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Email to FriendLambeth spouses will listen to each others' stories, develop personal skills
For one thing, continuing a trend begun at the 1998 conference, a small number of husbands will be among the spouses. The 1998 conference marked the first time that the Anglican Communion included female bishops, the first being Barbara Harris, who was consecrated in 1989 as a bishop suffragan in the Diocese of Massachusetts.
Overall, the two main aims of the 2008 Spouses Conference will be "to learn from each other and to resource ourselves to be God's people for God's mission," Williams said during an announcement of the program.
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams invited more than 800 bishops to the July 16-August 3 conference at the University of Kent in southeast England.
"Bishops' spouses are as varied as the spouses of people in any other profession would be, but we do have some things in common: like our faith and the pains and pleasures of living with and supporting a bishop," Jane Williams said.
She noted that many bishop spouses don't get a chance to meet with each other because of distances and a lack of resources.
"So we want to make the most of what will, for most of us, be a once-in-a-lifetime chance to equip ourselves, in the company of others who really know what we need," she said. "Our program gives time for quite a lot of telling our stories and learning how to listen to each other."
Educational experience
Philip Roskam, spouse of Diocese of New York Bishop Suffragan Catherine Roskam, called his time attending the 1998 conference at Lambeth "very educational."
Roskam said he often marveled that he was talking to spouses from all over the world, especially since he had not traveled much outside the United States and Europe at that time.
Larry Waynick, married to Diocese of Indianapolis Bishop Catherine Waynick, agreed. "The most outstanding thing was to actually see and touch the vast diversity that exists in the Anglican Communion," he said. His Bible study group in 1998 consisted of two spouses from Africa, one each from New Zealand, India and England plus himself and another spouse from the Episcopal Church.
Such time, Williams said, can deepen the spouses' "family knowledge" of each other -- knowledge that "builds our advocacy for each other, our prayer for each other, and our action for each other."
The spouses' days during the 2008 gathering will be divided between small- and large-group discussions.
Nearly every morning will include small-group Bible study based around Jesus' "I am" statements in John's Gospel.
Waynick recalled that his 1998 group really was the "gathering of a small community" in which he learned about the differing expectations placed on bishops' spouses and how other Anglicans practice their faith. He heard about varying styles of liturgies and how one of the spouses from Africa was expected, as the bishop's wife, to educate the women of the diocese and offer hospitality to all -- and that it was unthinkable that an African bishop would be unmarried.
The members of Waynick's group discussed many issues of the day, but in his group "there was never any controversy -- nothing ever got political."
"I discovered that spouses can operate on a whole different level from the clergy," he said. "We could become who we are with each other."
Happy to return
Waynick and Roskam each said he looked forward to another chance to experience the diversity of the Anglican Communion this summer. "Hopefully, I will explore some of the parts of the communion that I didn't last time," Waynick said.
Large-group discussions during the Spouses Conference will explore how to be effective in the role of bishop's spouse, how to uphold close relationships, how to respond to the leadership challenges spouses face and how to address the health and personal development issues of themselves and others.
Waynick, who keeps in touch with some of the members of his 1998 Bible group, said the previous Lambeth Conference "was very difficult" for the bishops and that he looked forward to a less-legislative gathering this summer, as the design group has planned.
The spouses, Williams said, will "look at some of the huge issues that face us all and that diminish God's people and make it harder for others to hear God's good news — for example, the effects of ecological change, the challenge of health-care projects or the way in which gender violence affects our communities.
"For some of these themes, we will be joining the bishops' conference, because these are not 'women's issues.' The whole people of God need to be challenged and have their needs heard and ministered to in these areas."
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