Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

Nearly every weekend that I’m home I get out the flour, water and yeast and begin to make bread. Hearth loaves, baguettes, buttermilk currant loaves and more. What began as a hobby two and a half years ago has become a passion of mine, and I oftentimes can’t wait to get my hands dirty, to cover the kitchen with a thin film of flour, and fill bowls with sticky dough.

This past weekend, I was reminded of Jesus’ parable in Matthew 13, the one where he compares the Kingdom of God to “yeast that a woman took and mixed with three parts flour until it was leavened.” As a bread maker and as someone who is deeply interested in vital congregations, this parable sums up what I’ve intuited at times - namely, that there’s a profound connection between rising dough and growing communities.

In what follows, I take Jesus’ parable (a bit too) seriously and spell out what I think it means for congregational leaders. Transformative Agent
Yeast is a ubiquitous, oftentimes unseen, transformative agent. Before there were those handy packets of yeast, bakers relied on the naturally occurring yeasts in our environment - the white film, for instance, on the skins of sweet grapes and plums. In fermenting dough, yeast converts carbohydrates into carbon dioxides and alcohols, producing both the bubbly texture and distinctive taste of a good loaf of bread.

In working with congregations and two small organizations, I have found it helpful to remember that the seeds of transformation are already present within the community, if only we can help them come alive. How do we identify and empower the leaders and ministries in our congregations that will help us to rediscover our purpose and will set a new path forward for the future?

Conditions for Community
Good bread results from creating favorable conditions. It’s the small things that count: keeping tabs on the temperature of the dough, the type of water you use, and even how thoroughly you have cleaned your bowls. I recently learned why it is that many bakers use spring water as opposed to tap water - the fluoride in many people’s tap water instantly deadens the yeast!

Similarly, I’m finding that small things count when building community. In his article on church communications, Scott Gunn talks about the deadening effect that one-line emails can have in congregations. Far from creating communities where trust and creativity can flourish, we can oftentimes end up creating toxic environments through our thoughtlessness, our tendency toward flip comments, and our unwillingness to speak hard truths in a spirit of love.

The Gift of Time
To a great extent, time equals flavor when it comes to making bread. Sure there are fast ways to get dough to rise. Using warm water and fast acting yeast can produce a loaf sooner rather than later. But the earthy, nutty flavors of bread require fermentation over an extended period of time. Some bread recipes even call for doughs to be put in the refrigerator overnight, slowing down the fermentation process as long as possible. The result is delicious.

Transformation requires slow and steady commitment over a long period of time. One of the things that I’ve found helpful as a member of various committees is when chairs state this fact explicitly. It’s a helpful reminder that strong visions need to be implemented, that the pace of doing so in congregational settings can be frustratingly slow, and that two helpful qualities for working in this context are patience and persistence.

Transformative Community
In his book Bread Alone, Daniel Leader writes “As you continue to bake on a regular basis, your kitchen’s air will become alive with wild yeast...All I have to do is mix up some flour and water, and the brew attracts these wild cultures, fermenting the dough without the addition of commercial yeast.”

In many ways, I believe this image of a kitchen whose air is filled with wild yeast is a beautiful metaphor for what an empowered community functions like. At their best, our vestry meetings and committee assignments can serve as trainning grounds for future community leaders. When a congregation has this as its goal, greater emphasis is placed on recruiting young adults to serve on these leadership teams, and mentoring new members of these teams as they discern their own leadership styles, etc. The long-term benefit of cultivating such wild yeast is as good as delicious loaves themselves.