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The House of Deputies met in General Convention in 1789 when the lay and clerical deputies established the order, governance, and first public statements of The Episcopal Church. The lay and clerical deputies elected Bishop William White its president, and among other early acts, provided for the keeping and publication of the journals and other papers of the Convention. The House of Deputies has been called the "senior house" for its early organization and its swift undertaking of the task of Church unity and oversight of the corporal affairs of the new body. It established what is today the oldest continuing body of The Episcopal Church, the State of the Church Committee, which annually implements the parochial and diocesan reports that render a reliable statistical profile of the population and health of The Episcopal Church. The House of Deputies operates between General Convention sessions through its special appointed bodies and the joint committees, commissions, boards and agencies. The ministry of the President and presiding officer of the House embodies the mutual ministry leadership of lay and clerical members of the Church in matters of governance, polity, and mission.

The House of Bishops (HoB) was established in 1789, four years after the election of The Episcopal Church’s first Bishop, Samuel Seabury. All bishops of The Episcopal Church, active or retired, make up the House of Bishops, with the Presiding Bishop as president. With nearly 300 active members, the HoB comprises half of the Church’s governing body. Eligible members include all diocesan and assisting bishops elected or canonically appointed from the dioceses, area missions, and special jurisdictions of the United States and nineteen other countries, including a number of churches in Europe, Latin America, Taiwan, and Haiti.

Along with the House of Deputies (the other governing body of The Episcopal Church), the HoB meets every three years to adopt legislation. Between conventions, they meet twice a year in a non-legislative capacity and, acting in their pastoral and teaching mode, may explore issues of theological, social or mission concern.

In October of 1942, National Council created the Home Department, which inherited the work of the pre-existing Department of Domestic Missions and combined that work with four other pre-existing divisions of the National Council: Christian Social Relations, Christian Education, College Work, and the Youth Division. In December of 1945 the Army and Navy Division was added, and in December of 1948 the Town and Country Work Division was created.

Because it oversaw the entire domestic missionary program of the Church, the work of the Home Department was wide-ranging. Ethnic ministries were led by secretaries for Native American, African American, and Japanese mission work. It also focused on providing financial support and competent clergy for African American and Native American parishes, which were often neglected or underfunded by their dioceses.

Rural work was carried out by the Town and Country Division until 1962, when the work was returned to the oversight of the newly-formed Division of Domestic Mission. The Army and Navy Division (later renamed the Armed Forces Division) primarily supported chaplains in the Armed Forces. Other domestic work included Braille books for the blind and support for clergy serving deaf Episcopalians. The Home Department also sent women workers out into the field in various capacities. In the 1960s, most of the department’s resources was directed towards urban ministries.

In 1968, a complete restructuring of Executive Council dissolved the Home Department. The work formerly grouped under the Home Department umbrella evolved into a series of “Program” groupings, under the direction of the Deputy for Program and the Presiding Bishop.

English by birth, the Rev. Augustus Reginald Hoare went to Alaska during the Klondike gold rush of 1898. He began working as a missionary for the Rt. Rev. Peter T. Rowe in 1902 and was ordained to the diaconate. In 1903 he was ordained to the priesthood and, by 1904, was simultaneously directing four missionary stations in Alaska due to a shortage of missionaries in the area. He assumed rectorship of the Point Hope Mission in Alaska in 1907, but left ten years later as a result of illness. After a period of convalescence in California, he returned in 1920 only to be murdered by the man whom he had taken on as an assistant.