Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

Jeremy Sierra’s “Priest as CEO” blog post raised the question: “is the Church preparing them for this role?” and generated the following comment:

 "A question or two ... are priests to personally embody all of the roles/functions that a congregation needs? Apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, teacher ... and all of the more specific roles ... all in one package? If so, how does this notion fit with an understanding of the ministry of all the baptized? What does it say about the importance of building teams, lay & ordained, paid & unpaid, made up of a variety of people with diverse gifts and abilities? All of these roles/gifts are critical to the life, health and vitality of congregational life, but how reasonable is it to expect them to all be present, when needed, in one person? What examples do others have of building leadership teams of differently gifted members?"   - Rob Skirving

Rob brings to the fore questions and concerns that the church has struggled with for centuries. Indeed, each era has different answers and the 21st century is no different. Two programs that now live under the ECF “umbrella” address these issues (2014 Update: these two programs are no longer active). The ECF Fresh Start curriculum has a whole section where clergy and lay leaders are asked to look at “role clarity” for what is a priest’s role, what are lay leader’s roles and how to bring clarity given the particular gifts of the clergy and of the laity. In The Barnabas Project ECF is trying to make sure that senior seminarians and clergy ordained less than five years understand the basics of running a small nonprofit organization, things like reading budgets and understanding parish finances; creating support systems for volunteers, understanding the basics about administration and the legal issues of helping to run a nonprofit organization… all the while remaining the church!

My answer to Rob’s question about “all gifts being present in one person” is that clergy need to know about and understand the basics of running a non-profit organization. After that, clergy need to share their oversight responsibility with lay leaders who have the gifts and skills to take an area of parish life and run with it… with the support and gentle oversight of the rector/clergy. Regarding leadership teams ECFVP has a wonderful example in Devon Anderson’s “snowflake model,” which we highlight in The Barnabas Project. 

I do not think there is one answer to Rob’s questions. Rather, the church needs to create ways to have the conversations at national, diocesan and congregational levels. That is why ECF is committed to projects like ECF Fresh Start, The Barnabas Project and supports this kind of exchange on ECFVP. We do it not because we have THE answers, but because we know the answers are found in learning from the past, exploring our collective wisdom and sharing our thoughts with the help of the Holy Spirit.