With General Convention of the Episcopal Church 2015 set to begin in Salt Lake City within a month a number of groups have proposed meeting the trends head on. In particular there are two reform minded groups – Episcopal Resurrection and TREC(Taskforce to Reimagine the Church) and one group within the House of Deputies (State of the Church report). Last week we reviewed TREC. This week we look at Episcopal Resurrection
At the 77th General Convention in Indianapolis in 2012, several Episcopalians gathered to encourage prayer at the heart of General Convention. That gathering resulted in the Acts 8 Moment, a movement that is devoted to fostering prayer within and for the church.
They describe it this way "The Acts 8 Moment is about prayer, not legislation. Still, some of us who grew to know each other in this effort wanted to work together to encourage our church to recommit to spiritual disciplines, to find its life in Jesus. We gathered at the Bexley Seabury campus in Bexley, Ohio in April 2015. There we drafted A Memorial to the Church along with some enabling resolutions, ways in which the General Convention can incarnate a vision of a renewed and revitalized Episcopal Church"
A. Memorial
"We believe that we have reached one of those critical junctures in the life of our church, and respectfully submit a Memorial calling for the church to recommit itself to the spiritual disciplines at the core of our common life, to go into our neighborhoods boldly with church planters and church revitalizers, and to restructure our church for the mission God is laying before us today"
"In the eighth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, the newly formed church of disciples of the risen Savior found itself in a new situation. No longer could Christians depend on traditional ways of following Jesus and traditional places in which to do it. Driven out of their comfortable existence praying in the Temple in Jerusalem and waiting for the kingdom to come, they found themselves in new and unexpected neighborhoods, developing new ways of proclaiming the Word. Yet they found that the crowds were eager to hear the Good News of Christ and welcomed it with joy. The very loss of the old ways of being the church gave them opportunities to expand and multiply the reach of Christ’s loving embrace.
"Our beloved Episcopal Church is in a similar situation. We must find new ways of proclaiming the gospel in varied and ever changing neighborhoods. Old ways of being the church no longer apply. We can no longer settle for complacency and comfort. We can no longer claim to dominate the political and social landscape. We can no longer wait inside our sanctuaries to welcome those who want to become Episcopalian.
"We have a choice before us. We can continue, valiantly and tragically, to try to save all the rights and privileges we have previously enjoyed. We can continue to watch our church dwindle until it someday becomes an endowed museum to the faith of our forebears. We can continue business as usual until we lose our common life entirely.
"Or we can lose our life for Jesus’ sake so that we might save it
"And we call upon those bishops and deputies gathered for Convention to the following actions as specific ways we may enter this time of transition in a spirit of exploration, discovering the gifts that the Holy Spirit has for us in this moment:
- Engage creatively, openly, and prayerfully in reading the signs of the times and discerning the particular ways God is speaking to the Episcopal Church now;
- Pray, read the scriptures, and listen deeply for the Holy Spirit’s guidance in electing a new Presiding Bishop and other leaders, in entering into creative initiatives for the spread of the kingdom, and in restructuring the church for mission;
- Fund evangelism initiatives extravagantly: training laborers to go into the harvest to revitalize existing congregations and plant new ones; forming networks and educational offerings to train and deploy church planters and revitalizers who will follow Jesus into all kinds of neighborhoods; and creating training opportunities for bilingual and bi-cultural ministry;
- Release our hold on buildings, structures, comfortable habits, egos, and conflicts that do not serve the church well;
- Remove obstacles embedded in current structures, however formerly useful or well-meaning, that hinder new and creative mission and evangelism initiatives;
- Refocus our energies from building up a large, centralized, expensive, hierarchical church-wide structure, to networking and supporting mission at the local level, where we all may learn how to follow Jesus into all of our neighborhoods.
They are proposing resolutions
#1. Creating Capacity to Plant Churches creating a churchwide network for church planting, in order to reach new people and new populations e propose that this network should consist of a number of interrelated parts: seminary, churchwide church planiting program, internship, grants, task force of persons experienced
Funding three new seminary faculty positions in order to teach church planting methods to future lay
#2. Revitalization of Congregations providing training, conferences, resources, and people to consult with congregations about ministry and revitalization in their contexts.
#3. Permit Dioceses to Explore Shared Ministry and Collaboration (Web version or PDF) share ministries, bishops
#4. Amend Article V of the Constitutionfor dioceses to merge when one or both merging dioceses do not have a sitting bishop.
#5. Task Force to Study Episcopal Elections possible changes to our current process of discernment, nomination, election, and transition of bishops,
#6. Amend Article I, Section 1 of the Constitutionto allow Joint Sessions of the House of Bishops and House of Deputies to occur received reports and to deliberate together.
#7. Budget Process for the Episcopal Church – Update with sanctions those Diocese not pay full assessment
#8. Clarify Officers of The Episcopal Church – We propose a change in the office of the Executive Director of The Episcopal Church (ED). The Executive Director will be nominated by the Presiding Officers and appointed by Executive Council, reporting to Executive Council. The ED will be responsible for all staff except for the staff directly allocable to the offices of the Presiding Bishop and the President of the House of Deputies and the staff of the Office of the General Convention. The ED will ensure that churchwide staff are working toward strategic priorities set by General Convention and Executive Council, under the leadership of the Presiding Bishop.
The current canons name several distinct roles, and it is unclear how they interrelate: Treasurer of General Convention, Treasurer of Executive Council, Chief Financial Officer, etc.
We propose adding the position of General Counsel of The Episcopal Church, who will advise the Executive Counsel and General Convention Office on legal matters. This person need not be the same as the staff person of Chief Legal Officer, who will report to the Executive Director.
All of these positions – Executive Director, Executive Officer of General Convention, Treasurer of The Episcopal Church, and General Counsel of The Episcopal Church – would be nominated by the presiding officers and elected by Executive Council. They would report to Executive Council, and Council could terminate any of them by a two-thirds vote.
#9. Eliminate Provinces. First established over a hundred years ago after decades of discussion, provinces have served their useful purpose. In today’s age of easy travel, we wish to open up collaborative possibilities beyond the constrained boundaries of provinces, to permit shared ministry across current lines, if desired. This layer of denominational structure serves little purpose today other than to ensure geographic diversity on certain committees.
B. Interpretations
1. Scott Gunn, Director of Forward Movements writes about why he signed on to the Memorial
Deimel’s thoughts:
#1. Planting church The first resolution is probably the boldest and most important. For a variety of reasons, it is also the scariest. First, it proposes to spend nearly $8.5 million, all of which, save $2 million, is to come from the church budget. The first question that must be asked is where that money is coming from. What will we not be able to do because we are funding church plants? Is there a body of knowledge ready to be taught? My concern is that we need to figure out how to plant churches. I am inclined to think we should fund some sort of church planting pilot project, rather than jump with both feet (and millions of dollars) into the full-blown program called for in this resolution. I recommend reading what two of the people behind Episcopal Resurrection have said about church planting. Adam Tranbley has written a blog post titled “Creating a Capacity to Plant Churches.” Susan Brown Snook has written “Treasure to Share: Why Plant New Churches?” on her blog. See if you find their arguments compelling. We need to let the world know that there is a church that values science, that respects the dignity of every human being, does not believe that war or guns are the answer to every problem, and is concerned about such social ills as income inequality. Getting that message out would make Episcopal church planting a good deal easier.
#2. Revitalize congregations Both the TREC resolutions and the Episcopal Resurrection resolutions address organization somewhat, but I think the General Convention needs to see a complete organization chart of who is working on its behalf. One picture, as they say, is worth a thousand words. Were I a deputy, I would be reluctant to add another staff position having no idea of how big or engaged the present staff is.
#3. Permit Dioceses to Explore Shared Ministry and Collaboration – Pass
#4. Article V of the Constitution – Pass
#5. Task Force to Study Episcopal Elections
This resolution is not unlike one proposed by TREC, though the cost associated with it is 50% higher. As I suggested earlier, I am skeptical as to whether something like this is needed, and I suspect that the Heather Cook affair has the whole church a bit gun shy
#6. Amend Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution – Pass
#7. Budget process
If the resolution does what it says it does, I guess that would be a good thing. I have long said that it is crazy that the church does not demand money from its dioceses, and both TREC and the Episcopal Resurrection folks seem to agree.
#8. Clarify officers
TREC resolutions are contingent on adopting a unicameral legislature, however, which is not going to happen. The explanation for this resolution is worth reproducing here, because it has lots moving parts, all of which are important
I have not checked all the details in this proposal. In particular, I have no idea if all the necessary canonical changes are correct. Others need to be sure that everything is proper and consistent. On the other hand, I think this resolution gets the organization of the church exactly right and makes the office of Presiding Bishop something that a sane person might actually hold.
#9. Eliminate Provinces
Although the first eight proposed resolutions are either small changes made for good reason or bold initiatives that may or may not pay off, this resolution seems to make a fairly significant change that will save little money and will probably yield no significant benefits. It may do actual harm
I don’t believe the existence of provinces constitutes a significant drain on church resources, and promises to achieve geographic diversity are not completely credible where there is no mechanism to assure it. Moreover, the existence of provincial groupings does not preclude dioceses in different provinces from working together for some particular purpose.
Province III helped bring everyone together when unity was needed most.during a split with Episcopalians of Pittsburgh
Finally, it is worth noting that other organizations have taken advantage of the provincial organization to segment the work of their own groups. Episcopal Relief & Development and Daughters of the King both rely on a provincial structure.
3. Ken Howard
Revitalizing Congregations -. Congregational revitalization is more like raising the undead.
4. More on church planting.
5. Steve Pankey – Thoughts on resurrection