Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

The four new vestry members were announced at our annual meeting yesterday, and I said a little prayer for them. Give them strength, O Lord. And patience. And, I pray, they'll still want to be a part of this community when their term is over.

Working for the church – and being a part of the leadership – can be akin to seeing how the sausage is made. At the end, you may end up vegetarian.

To be sure, in the 10-plus years of churchwork, I have had incredible experiences that have deepened and broadened my faith. I am blessed to be in a work environment where we talk about Jesus every day. At Forward Movement, we read the daily devotionals and pray together each morning. We try to consider in every decision how our work and ministry will build disciples and create evangelists.

But over the past 10 years – for the diocese and in my personal involvement with church, there have certainly been times when my work has weakened my faith, when my utter disappointment at the behavior of individuals or groups has made me question the institution.

Christians aren’t supposed to behave this way, right? Right?!

During my first week on diocesan staff, the archdeacon took me to the side. Remember, he said, working for the church doesn’t mean that everybody is an angel. We are still human, and we’re going to make human mistakes. People will be jealous and petty. They’ll undermine projects and mislead to cover their tracks. They will seek power and make selfish decisions. They will hurt you, purposefully or not. But that’s not God’s fault. It’s human nature.

I’ve tried to keep that perspective when my heart has been broken by church leaders and parishioners. Human foible shouldn’t cause a crisis of faith.

And that’s at the heart of my prayer for new vestry members stepping into leadership, some for the first time.

I encourage rectors and senior wardens to begin the next vestry meeting with the acknowledgement that they're stepping into an inside view of how the sausage is made. And it won't always be pretty. Sometimes the work will become personal, and sometimes fellow Christians won’t behave in a very Christ-like manner.

But ultimately, our goal is to build the body of Christ, and we’ll do it together, with missteps and huge leaps forward, ups and downs and the inner workings, all mixed together.