The Rev. Debbie Shew

Why do you feel called to serve the Church as a Deputy to General Convention?

The last time we elected deputies to General Convention, I was honored to be chosen to serve. In the ensuing years (which turned out to be more years than we expected!), I came to greatly respect and admire the members of the Colorado deputation. It was obvious that they took this ministry very seriously, felt it was a privilege to serve you, and were very much aware of the responsibility the people of The Episcopal Church in CO had given them. You should be proud of how well you are represented on important committees and boards, and of the leadership that CO has given the larger Church. As someone fairly new to the diocese at the time, I had no idea! And as a first time deputy, I couldn’t have had better tutors. Though we were limited to meeting (nearly always) via Zoom, we grew close as a team, looking forward to the work in Baltimore.

As you know, the shape of General Convention 2022 had to change greatly because of Covid-19. I still planned to go and had plane tickets in hand; the only change I’d made was moving a visit to my elderly dad to before GC, so there’d be less risk of my hanging out with that many Episcopalians and taking it with me to GA. Very disappointingly, however, just a few weeks before departure day, my doctor said that with no hybrid option, she really didn’t want me to go. After lots of prayer, and conversation with my deputation colleagues, I made the hard decision to step down.

The Church is still facing important decisions that will affect our shared future, and I’d liked to be a part of helping shape them. If you will trust me again with the task, I’d like very much to put what I’ve already learned to use, and be part of your deputation again in 2024.

What life experiences and/or training can you offer as a resource to the Church?

I bring experience as a trained therapist, but I’ve also learned about mental health because of persistent mental illness in people close to me, have lived overseas (Kenya), have raised a family (including being a stepmom) and had an active life of ministry in the church as a lay person, long before I began to wonder about ordination. (Since first, I had to change my mind about women being ordained to begin with!). I’ve hung out with the Evangelical parts of the church through Young Life and InterVarsity, valuing deeply many of the things I learned there. In some ways, I’m an Anglo-Catholic at heart, in what I hope encompasses the best parts of that tradition – a love of beauty and of liturgy done well, alongside embodied social justice work. I was formed in Lutheran, Methodist and Presbyterian churches before stumbling into the Episcopal Church as a young adult. I have long experience in multi-issue, faith-based community organizing, and through it learned lots about how others worship and see God. The same is true from my experience in Jewish-Christian dialogues, and later, (and very intentionally after 9/11) with interfaith efforts aimed at helping Christians understand their faith-neighbors more fully. In short, I can translate well between lots of different ways of honoring God in daily and corporate life! I believe all of that would enable me to be in deep conversation with parishes and people across the diocese.

In more specific, Episcopal Church terms, I’m a trainer for Safe-Guarding God’s Children, was the Episcopal Relief and Development point-person in my former diocese, served on the board of Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation in its most active years (my best experience of church, ever!), began Stephen Ministry in a large parish, am a trained interim (serving parishes in CT and GA) and in the Diocese of Atlanta, helped establish the Environmental Stewardship Task Force, coordinated Jubilee Ministries and was part of the Anti-Racism Task Force. In our own diocese, I’ve served twice on the SW Region Exec Committee, currently serving as the region’s clergy rep to the Standing Committee, and loved being part of a group of clergy and lay people helping discern the future work of Cathedral Ridge.

Describe your ministries, participation and experience in the Episcopal Church.

I have served in small town single-clergy parishes, large multi-clergy suburban parishes, on a bishop’s staff as the Canon for Community Ministries (coordinating poverty-related, social justice, and global mission ministries, and heading The Episcopal Charities Foundation of The Diocese of Atlanta as part of the job). I also served as the Vicar and Director of “settlement house” type of ministry in a very underserved neighborhood in Atlanta, where my family and I lived among the people we worshipped and served with, learning much about being “white” through the experience of living in a largely “black” community. It’s there where I began to understand my white privilege in more than an intellectual way. As a Volunteer for Mission in the Church of the Province of Kenya, and as a SCOM grant recipient living in South Africa, I saw how “being church” looks in other provinces of our Anglican Communion. Since moving to SW CO and beginning relationships in the Episcopal Church in Navajoland, I’ve seen the ravages of white supremacy in new ways. I believe these experiences can give me a helpfully-wid(er) perspective when I look at our own Episcopal Church and consider our life together.

What aspects of our corporate life or issues facing the Church today hold particular interest or importance to you?

The Episcopal Church has so much to offer as a place where people can find a spiritual home anchored in the love of God in Jesus Christ. We have an open-hearted, generous theology, a rich liturgical life that enables many to find grounding in ways of worship and daily spiritual practice that feed them deeply, and call them closer to God. Especially in recent years, we’ve more consciously engaged our baptismal covenant, learning in new ways to honor “the dignity of every human being” and “strive for justice and peace”.

But we still have much that stands in the way of welcoming the people who need to hear this deep welcome of God. Some of our ways of structuring ourselves get in the way, keep newer people out of the circle, and others no longer fit the way we actually go about “being church”. Our ways of worshipping sometimes keep us from “drawing the circle wide”. We need to continue taking a courageous and open-minded, open-hearted look at everything we do. We cannot shy away from facing racism in our structures or in ourselves, and I want us to quit talking and start the hard work of changing. I want the seeds planted in Baltimore on that topic to take root, deeply. The experience of leading a parish in the midst of the pandemic, has helped me, as it has all of us, learn how to change course quickly, let go of things we loved, and experiment with new ways of doing things – some days with more grace and courage than on others!

I love the Epsicopal Church. As a young adult, I found a spiritual home that fed me as nothing before had done. I want to help preserve the best of her, while making certain we have courage enough, and trust God enough, to see where changes are needed.

How will your participation as part of the deputation enhance the life, mission and ministry of our diocese?

It is sometimes difficult to feel “connected” to General Convention when you aren’t there in person. This was true for me until I attended in 2003 and 2006 as a volunteer in the Exhibit Hall with Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation. I began to realize in a deeply felt way that The Episcopal Church truly was one body, a group of Christians in multiple countries and from many different cultures who have chosen to follow Jesus in the Anglican part of God’s household. I saw our great strength as a church that listens to the voices of its lay AND clergy members; saw that both houses actively worked to discern God’s voice as they listened to one another. I began to understand why people say General Convention is “part revival, part business meeting, part family reunion and part county fair”! Decisions are made thoughtfully and prayerfully and with great consideration and discernment. And those decisions impact every facet of our life as a church.
But all of that can pretty distant, separated from daily life in our particular parishes. The current deputation spent a lot of time asking how we could make General Convention feel more “real” to all of you, precisely because its work and decisions can feel distant to people who aren’t there in person. I’d like to be part of continuing the work of sharing the reality that is General Convention, because the joy of seeing and experiencing the faces, and hearing about the remarkable, creative ministries that are happening across our Church, give me great hope – and I want to be part of sharing that hope, because we all need it these days!