May 2015
Facing Leadership Challenges

SWEEPS Out Burnout

How many different ministries occur at your church? Would you believe that there are 101 ministries at St. Stephen’s that do God’s work?

I’m senior warden at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Westborough, Massachusetts. We’re a pastoral size parish, with a priest, an honorary assisting priest, and two part time staff members; most Sundays you’ll find just over 100 worshippers in our pews. The congregation is passionate about making our community and the world a better place through a number of mission and outreach endeavors.

Yet, it wasn’t that long ago that overseeing all of these ministries was leading to vestry burnout. We questioned whether we would have enough people to keep the congregation going.

Until early last year, our vestry meetings were dominated by reports and operational decisions. There never seemed to be time to look ahead, to reflect on the changes happening all around us and articulate a sustainable vision for our future. When Winston Churchill said “Never…was so much owed by so many to so few” he could have been speaking about St. Stephen’s vestry members.

Something had to give.

We designated our 2014 vestry retreat as the time to begin a reorganization process related to oversight of all the church was doing. Our goals were to improve our internal communication and to provide more support to each vestry member while also creating time and space during vestry meetings to keep up with our parish’s need for sustainability. To help facilitate this process, our priest, Jesse Abell, introduced us to the SWEEPS model.

SWEEPS, which stands for service, worship, education, evangelism, pastoral care and parish life, and stewardship, would provide us with an organizational structure for St. Stephen’s 101 ministries, allowing us to consider ways to shift operational oversight of these ministries from the vestry to the working committees and groups. Bob Deysher, a parish member, acted as our consultant and led the discernment process.

Getting started

So, what was so remarkably transforming about those six hours on a Saturday in February 2014? Thanks to Bob, we were able to dive right into the work on transitioning all of our ministry areas into to a SWEEPS model for St. Stephen’s.

Did everything fit like a glove? Not necessarily. Bob required us to organize these ministries into the six categories by writing each ministry on to a sticky note and then had everyone organize them together. Sometimes we wanted to put the same ministry under a couple of different categories. Patiently, Bob helped us to get all of the ministries organized.

The next step required us to organize ourselves as vestry members to hear God’s calling as to what each vestry member felt compelled to do. This actually took longer than the meeting itself. Each vestry member discerned how best to do God’s work through St. Stephen’s.

By the end of this process, we had identified two vestry members to serve as advocates for each of the six ministry areas. It was understood that as an advocate, their role was to serve as a liaison between their ministry area and the vestry. They would become familiar with the work being done by each group, be available for support and counsel, encourage the committees and working groups to manage their day-to-day operations, and, when necessary, add any issue that required vestry attention to the agenda. It was also clear that vestry members would not serve as chair of any of these ministry groups or attend every meeting

As part of this work, we committed ourselves to changing the structure of our vestry meetings, based on the consent agenda model: Agendas and all supporting material are sent in advance of each meeting and vestry members committed themselves to coming to the meeting prepared to vote on items needed a decision without engaging in additional review or discussion.

Where we are today

I’m happy to report that things are working well. One measure of our success? The vestry is able to complete its work while keeping meeting length to two hours or less. Reports from our ministry areas are clear and concise, our committees and working groups feel empowered to carry out their ministries, and congregational leaders as a whole feel very supported.

What’s also working well is our practice of providing a three ring binder to each vestry member. Included are minutes from vestry meetings, reports from ministry areas, and other material related to vestry service such as the church canons. As vestry membership changes, binders are passed from outgoing to incoming members, providing a tool to help new vestry members get up to speed.

So is that the end of it? No, not really. With God’s leadership, our vestry will continue to explore ways to help make our parish more sustainable so that we can continue to do God’s work for many generations to come.

Jeff Bartee is senior warden of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Westborough, Massachusetts. This article has been updated and adapted for Vestry Papers; it was first published in the March/April 2014 issue of The Beacon, St. Stephen’s bimonthly newsletter.

Try This

How many ministry areas are there in your congregation? Are they organized by ministry area? The SWEEPS model provides a structure for reviewing the ministry areas of a congregation. The process is simple:

  1. Invite vestry members and/or other congregational leaders to gather for several hours to identify and then sort all of their ministries into one of the 6 SWEEPS categories.
  2. Write down the name of each ministry area – no matter how small – onto a sticky note.
  3. Designate areas on a wall or tables for each of the 6 categories:
    a. Service
    b. Worship 
  4. c. Education
  5. d. Evangelism
    e. Pastoral care/Parish life
    f. Stewardship
     
  6. Place the individual sticky notes into the category where they fit best. Not sure? Talk it out among the group to determine where it fits.

Congregations use this model for various purposes. Some, like St. Stephen’s, use it as a way for the vestry to move away from day-to-day operations. Others use it as part of their narrative budget process.

Resources

  • Ministry List, St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Westborough, Massachusetts (pdf)

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St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church SWEEPS Ministries List

This article is part of the May 2015 Vestry Papers issue on Facing Leadership Challenges