Gifts, tributes, gratitude, and “bumper stickers, miracles and farewells” framed the June 11, 2026, hybrid meeting of Diocesan Council, chaired a final time by Bishop John Harvey Taylor, and held both online and in-person at St. Paul’s Commons.
Council also heard positive reports from: Canon Dan Valdez, interim treasurer; Grace Wakelee-Lynch, diocesan missioner for disaster recovery and resilience; Missy Morain, diocesan missioner for Christian formation, children and youth ministries; and from Sheira Smith, co-chair of the Transitions Committee for the July 11 consecration of Bishop-elect Antonio J. Gallardo L., who joined the meeting via Zoom.
In tribute to the outgoing bishop, Canon for Common Life Bob Williams announced that the first Neighborhood Youth Association scholarship in Taylor’s name has been awarded to a young woman studying civil engineering at Cal-State Long Beach. About $40,000, or 80% of the $50,000 goal has been raised to fund the scholarship, established in perpetuity, and gifts are still welcome at www.nyayouth.org/donate.
Taylor: ‘Matthew 7:12 bumper stickers, miracles and farewells’
Taylor expressed gratitude for diocesan staff, clergy and laity “as I head into this last season of my ministry” and a desire to print bumper stickers citing Matthew 7:12, “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you” – a sermon about the Golden Rule he intends to continue to preach.
“It is the only ethic that works … and we’ve been tricked into saying that applying it to those who actually have a vast amount of practical power in the world is somehow a violation of the separation of church and state, which it is not.”
Thousands of respondents to a May 2026 Pew Research Center poll of regular church attendees said they have heard clergy address political or social issues in the last few months, Taylor said.
“The lessons they are hearing in church are opposition to reproductive rights, opposition to civil rights and opposition to marriage equity. So, politics in church is being preached all the time. It’s just not the gospel that we preach, because we’re being told that if we talk about those things, we are in violation of the separation of church and state.”
Rather, “we’re probably just in violation of the tender sensibilities of individuals who would prefer to hear a different interpretation of the gospel. Frederick Douglass famously said, between
the Christianity of this land and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference.”
Progressive Christianity is attempting to close the current divide, “but we’re just not getting any ink because it’s not fashionable.”
Much of the work of the church is led by laity, including Episcopal Church Women, the Girls Friendly Society, United Thank Offering, he said. “The energy of the church resides not principally, but significantly with visionary, progressive, loving, innovating lay people, and that’s the miracle that I want to call out.”
Saying farewell, “makes me very sad,” he added. While the church encourages a sense of family and the intimacy of familial relationships, it currently considers 72 as mandatory retirement age. Taylor will turn 72 on October 26, 2026.
“We worship together, we listen to one another, we learn about one another, we care about one another and fall in love with one another a little bit in the way that people do in families,” he said. Yet, to pave the way for a successor, church canons provide that boundaries should be in place, which prohibit contact for at least a year.
“There’s kind of a rending that occurs, and it’s Gospel, because transitions are transformational, and Jesus calls us sometimes to put values ahead of familial-type relationships, because it’s really all about the value that Jesus gives us, rather than the relationships.”
Taylor said he has looked forward “every single month to the joy of presiding at Diocesan Council, because of the miraculous way that each of you, lay and ordained, do your practical work in bringing Matthew 7:12 alive and manifesting how we’re going to be toward one another. So, that someday the world will begin to treat others the way they want to be treated. “If we just continue to manifest this, we will change our families, we will change our church, and we’ll save our country.” He invited prayers for his successor, Gallardo L., “whose wingman I will be, for anything he may need.” Finances: a positive trend
MSF assessments in April were $174,633 ahead of budget, according to Valdez. “I am grateful for the parishes and missions who were able to meet their obligations,” he reported to council. Generally, income, including Corporation of the Diocese at $75,222 and other income, at about $3,000, was also ahead of budget in April.
Giving to the One Body and One Spirit annual appeal, however, continued to lag. “Income in March was $3,543, bringing year-to-date to $8,258. It’s a very useful resource for our parishes and missions for unbudgeted expenses and the giving has been somewhat slow this year,” Valdez
reported. Annual appeal grants totaled $19,900. No income was reported for the Fire Relief Fund and year-to-date grants remain at $133,000.
“We have enjoyed a very positive trend for a few months, but as we lean into the transition in leadership in the bishop’s office and support staff, we are going to be incurring slightly higher expenses,” Valdez added.
Valdez, board chair of the Episcopal Community Federal Credit Union, thanked Taylor for serving as a credit union board member. “I have always felt incredibly supported by you, and I appreciate that,” said Valdez, who announced he will step down from the credit union board later this year.
Reports of interest:
Missy Morain, Christian Formation, Children, Youth and Young Adults. Eight churches are current recipients of the Diocesan Innovation Grant and the deadline to apply for a second round of grants is July 15. “We are preparing for a young adult and campus ministry gathering next month, following the consecration, to try and regather those who are engaged in campus ministries and young adult ministries,” she said. Morain invited visitors to an Instagram page for ministries with young people.
Grace Wakelee-Lynch, Disaster Recovery and Resilience, reported “meaningful progress in the execution of our programs, and the intense fatigue, emotional exhaustion, and burnout settling in for survivors.” She invited congregations to continue to support those impacted by the January 2025 wildfires with prayers, mini-note writing campaigns; donations and joining them for worship. A join program with the EFCFU will offer 16 loans of $5,000 at zero percent interest. A grant agreement with the Boys and Girls Clubs of Malibu will offer cash assistance for impacted immigrant families in Malibu and Pacific Palisades.
Corporation of the Diocese & Standing Committee, Artur Gregorian reported consents to the elections of Long Island Bishop Adam J. Shoemaker and Hawai’i Bishop Elizabeth Berman. Both entities also renewed for St. Gabriel, Monterey Park, a two-year lease agreement with Agape Bible Missions Church; and approved a ground lease for National Community Renaissance of California and St. Ambrose, Claremont for affordable housing to be located at the church.
Girls Friendly Society, Martha Watson and Klaire Harris, shared with Council about the 150-year-old organization’s history of faith formation through relationship building. Currently, GFS grants made possible “Jovenes Juntas” a dance and movement class at the Church of the Messiah, Santa Ana, and a third round of formative grants for creative programs for young neighborhood girls, will fund an upcoming
program at St. Mark’s, Van Nuys. The program “acknowledges the cultural significance and expression tradition of hair braiding … and an opportunity for economic entrepreneurship.”
Watson and Harris presented Taylor with a GFS journal. “Your journalism has transformed a lot of our views of communications, and (what) a spiritual formation gift your words have been.”
Sheira Smith and members of the Transitions Committee presented Taylor with a hard-cover book collection of photographs, recalling his penchant for taking selfies during visits to congregations and meetings, images “that we know he took because you can only see half his face.”
Both Secretary of Convention Canon Steve Nishibayashi and Council Secretary Samantha Wylie also paid tribute to Taylor’s leadership and expressed gratitude for his support. Their tenure together included moving the yearly diocesan convention back to Riverside from Ontario, facilitating electronic voting, responding to the pandemic by hosting hybrid conventions, “legacies that will continue,” Nishibayashi said.
Wylie thanked Taylor “for your wisdom and leadership and guidance” since 2018, when she began serving as diocesan convention coordinator. “It has been a remarkable journey working with you every convention. The theme is so thoughtful, the process so diligent and careful, bringing together the Committee on Arrangements as our convention cabinet, which was a new way of doing things, bringing people in, bringing the Bishop’s Commission on Liturgy and Music back to life, bringing together some powerful guest speakers, like Dolores Huerta. We celebrated the 50th anniversary of the ordination of women with the Rev. Carter Heyward. It’s been an absolutely amazing journey, and every convention has been incredibly special.”
Interim Canon to the Ordinary, the Rev. John Watson, thanked Taylor and diocesan staff for their welcome, integrity and energy as he prepares to conclude his role. “The staff here in this office are the hardest working, for mission and ministry. They’ve got great hearts, and they’re great people.”
The next meeting of Council will be announced.