Following are opening remarks, lightly edited for clarity, by House of Deputies President Julia Ayala Harris to the Executive Council of The Episcopal Church, meeting Oct. 20-21 at Kanuga conference center in Hendersonville, North Carolina.
Acts 20:28 (NRSV): “Keep watch over yourselves and over all the flock, of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God that he obtained with the blood of his own Son.”

