In her sermon for Episcopal Relief & Development Sunday, which coincided with the First Sunday in Lent (Feb 21, 2021), The Right Rev. Jennifer Baskerville-Burrows recognized Lent as a time when we ritually walk into the wilderness and encounter the evil one head on. She describes how Episcopal Relief & Development goes to places where there is suffering and works together with communities to build resilience and amplify the proclamation that God’s kingdom is breaking through.
Jennifer Lynn Baskerville-Burrows is an American Anglican bishop in the Episcopal Church. She was born and brought up in New York City and educated at Smith College, majoring in architecture with a minor in urban studies. She trained for ordained ministry at Church Divinity School of the Pacific, graduating in May 1997. From August 2002 to July 2004, Baskerville-Burrows served as a pastoral associate of All Saints’ Episcopal Church, a Progressive Christianity Anglo-Catholic church in San Francisco. She has served additionally in Syracuse, New York, and in Chicago. In October 2016, she was elected bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Indianapolis, and was consecrated on April 29, 2017. She is the first African-American woman to be elected a diocesan bishop.