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The Joint Commission on Renewal was formed as the result of a call for Church renewal from the House of Bishops during its 1966 meeting. The group of 18 members was appointed by Presiding Bishop Hines in January 1967 and initially called the Committee to Develop a Council. Its task was to prepare a report for the House of Bishops meeting in September of that year.

The group presented a document that was frank in describing the immense difficulty of navigating the deep tensions in the Church, but that argued for the absolute necessity of continuing the work of renewal. The committee felt that the process of renewal would have to be developed ecumenically and requested the creation of a successor committee, which was approved by the 1967 General Convention. As a result, the Joint Commission on Renewal was formed, answerable not only to the House of Bishops but to the entire General Convention.

The Commission’s main task was to report to the Special General Convention in 1969. At that session, the Commission’s resolution declaring the Church’s readiness to participate ecumenically in a process of renewal was passed by both Houses. The Commission also set up a “gathering space” for attendees to participate in discussion after sessions in a casual setting, fostering openness and dialogue. At the 1970 General Convention in Houston, the Commission reported that its main task had been accomplished and, by its own recommendation, was dissolved.

At the 1937 General Convention, the Joint Commission on Revision of the Hymnal (JCRH) was formed and authorized to undertake a revision of The Hymnal 1916 with the goal of presenting its proposed changes to the General Convention in 1940 for approval. It was renewed in 1943, 1946, and 1949 to continue work on a companion handbook to The Hymnal 1940 that would contain authoritative information about the words, music, and authors of the hymns. After the publication of the companion book, the Joint Commission was discharged by the 1952 General Convention.

The Joint Nominating Committee for the Election of the Presiding Bishop, which first met in 1982, was chosen at that year’s General Convention, in accordance with Title I, Canon 2, Sections (b) and (c). The House of Deputies elected one clerical and one Lay Deputy from each Province and the House of Bishops elected one Bishop from each Province as members of the committee. The Joint Nominating Committee’s canonical mandate was the selection of no fewer than three members of the House of Bishops to be considered by General Convention for the position of Presiding Bishop.

This marked the first time when a Joint Nominating Committee was composed of elected members of both Houses. Previously, both bishops and deputies were appointed to the Nominating Committee by the presiding officers of their respective Houses.

Currently, the Committee elects members in person at the meeting of General Convention three years before the new presiding bishop is to be elected. The Committee is composed of 20 people. Five bishops were elected by the House of Bishops, and five clergy and five lay people were elected by the House of Deputies (Canon I.2.1.a). Two members between ages 16-21 were appointed by the president of the House of Deputies (Canon I.2.1.a). Three members were jointly appointed by the presiding bishop and House of Deputies president “to ensure the cultural and geographic diversity of the church” (Canon I.2.1.c).

Everett Holland Jones was born on June 9, 1902, in San Antonio, Texas. After studying journalism at the University of Texas, from where he received a BA in 1922, Jones pursued studies in theology at Virginia Theological Seminary (VTS). In 1926, he was ordained a deacon at the same church in which he had been baptized and confirmed, St. Mark’s Church in San Antonio. He would become the rector there in 1938 and serve until his ordination as Bishop of West Texas in 1943.

Deeply committed to the well-being of his native town of San Antonio, Jones established the first chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous in San Antonio in 1945. In 1967, he and others founded San Antonio’s Ecumenical Center for Religion and Health (now called the Ecumenical Center for Education, Counseling, and Health). Jones described the Center’s purpose: “It is to bring together the best resources of religion (in all its varied expressions) and of medical science (including psychology and psychiatry) for the healing and fullest development of persons. The goal is what the Bible calls wholeness of life. We seek to help the forces of religion and medicine to understand each other and to work together as a team.” Jones’ vision became a successful community resource that has since expanded and serves the community in a variety of ways through education, counseling, health, and pastoral services.

A writer from his college days, Jones wrote a weekly newspaper column that ran in many Texas newspapers from 1959 to 1984. The column, A Bishop Looks at Life, which he also called the “sermonettes,” were his “...effort to look on life around [him] and comment upon it from a Christian perspective.” Sixty of these sermonettes were published in 1967 by the Anglican Press in a book also entitled A Bishop Looks at Life. Jones authored two other books as well: Getting Life Into Perspective (1983) and Finding God (1943).

Jones retired from the church in 1969, although he remained active as a speaker and writer as well as continuing to work with Alcoholics Anonymous and the Ecumenical Center. He died on November 18, 1995 at the age of 93.

Daisuke Kitagawa was born on October 23, 1910 in Taihoku, Japan. Prior to emigrating to the United States in 1937, he attended St. Paul’s University (Rikkyo) and the Central Theological College in Tokyo.

In the United States, he received his Bachelor of Sacred Theology degree from the General Theological Seminary in New York. Kitagawa was ordained a deacon in 1939, a priest in 1940, and served from 1939 to 1942 as Priest-in-Charge at St. Peter’s Mission in Seattle and St. Paul’s Mission in Kent, Washington. Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he was interned with other Japanese Americans at the Tule Lake relocation center in Newell, California. There he served as the Minister at the Tule Lake Union Church and as the Field Secretary for the Federal Council of Churches’ Committee on Japanese-American Resettlement.

After the war, Kitagawa moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota where he continued his work with Japanese Americans in the Minneapolis and St. Paul area. Additionally, he ministered to other minorities, founding the Rainbow Club in 1947 to encourage social interaction, friendship and understanding among the different racial, cultural, and religious backgrounds of the city.

In 1956 he began working with the World Council of Churches (WCC), first as Associate Secretary to the Department of Church and Society and then, in 1960, as the Secretary for the first Programme on Race Relations. After leaving in 1962 to serve on the Episcopal Church’s National Council and then on the Executive Council (1965), he returned to the WCC in 1968 to join the Division of World Mission and Evangelism, where he was in charge of a program for Urban and Industrial Mission in 48 countries.

Daisuke Kitagawa died on a Good Friday, March 27, 1970.