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  • Cuidado con una tecnología de derechos adquiridos ✓
    Una joven que había pedido tiempo en la agenda de la junta parroquial fue directamente al grano: “Hablo en nombre de aquellos a quienes no nos gustan los cambios en el culto”.
  • No More Parking Lot Conversations ✓
    Highly functioning, fruitful vestries are built on transparency and respect.
  • Beware a Theology of Entitlement ✓
    A young woman who has asked for a spot on a vestry agenda comes right to the point: “I speak for those of us who don’t like the changes in the worship service.”
  • The End to 'Business as Usual' ✓
    For a better future to happen, vestries need to recognize that business-as-usual is over. Over the next two to three years, vestries need to undertake six radical shifts in how they operate.
  • Discernment: Where’s the Spirit moving? ✓
    The way Martha Steves, former senior warden and current vestry member explains it, the work of St. Mark’s vestry in San Antonio, Texas, has undergone a gradual yet fully transformative shift.
  • A warden’s guide: Surviving the process ✓
    Think of this time as the longest Advent season you have ever experienced.
  • Bootstrap your vestry retreat ✓
    “I really had a bad experience my first time on the vestry,” Anne said to me. Of course that upset me — in my years as a pastor I really did all I could, especially with my senior warden, to make our work as a vestry EFFECTIVE, first, but also …
  • Secrets of the Advent artichoke ✓
    One day before Christmas, my four-year-old grandson Danny was acting particularly obstreperous. His exasperated mother finally said, “Danny, settle down and behave or Santa’s going to bring you rocks and sticks.” Danny’s eyes lit up. “Goody…
  • Build bonds of joy in a spirited retreat ✓
    It is truly unfortunate when a vestry gathers in retreat to address only the mundane business that confronts every parish.
  • Create holy time away for your vestry ✓
    Why do so many vestries go on retreats? Why do they clear their busy calendars and make such time a priority for the health of their congregation?
  • Wardens: chief stewards and servants ✓
    “Warden” means “steward” or “guardian,” and wardens are the chief stewards and servants of their congregations.
  • Let’s hear it from the other side ✓
    Question: What are five best traits for a rector to have? How about: inspirational, organized, a great multi-tasker, outstanding people skills, and a good delegator? And underscore that with humility.
  • The votes are in: What makes a good warden? ✓
    We asked two questions from rectors of Consortium congregations: What are five best traits in a warden? What would you like your warden(s) to know, but that is hard to articulate face-to-face?
  • You’re a new warden: Now what? ✓
    So you’ve just been elected a warden in your parish. You may be thinking: What now?
  • Top 10 Resources for Vestries ✓
    1 The Bible - Helping to lead a congregation comes from the heart, mind and spirit, so read the Bible to stay centered in your faith.
  • Commissioning new parish leaders ✓
    A liturgy for the commissioning of new parish leaders.
  • Clergy Wellness: The role of vestries ✓
    In 2006, a major study of the state of wellness of Episcopal clergy was conducted by CREDO Institute.
  • Vestry #101: Encouraging hearts & souls ✓
    We sing about it. We hear about it, and we pray about it...the firm foundation on which our faith rests. However, at this moment there is some significant seismic activity.
  • Cultivating a culture of discernment ✓
    St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in St. Paul, MN has been re-envisioning the role of the vestry over the last five years: inviting vestry members to understand their role as that of a spiritual discernment team.
  • Knowledge is Power
    In “Knowledge is Power,” William Doubleday introduces congregational leaders to the resources available to them in Canon 7: Of Business Methods in Church Affairs.
  • Being on the Same Page
    “Being on the Same Page” by Ron Pogue, reminds us of the value of our congregation’s governing documents and how they can be a useful tool for decision making.
  • From Above or Below?
    Alberto Cutié shares key differences in governance between the Episcopal and Roman Catholic churches. Available in both Spanish and English.
  • ¿De Arriba o de Abajo?
    Alberto Cutié comparte diferencias claves en el gobierno entre la Iglesia Episcopal y de la Iglesias Católica Romana. Disponible en español e Inglés.
  • Our Story
    “Our Story” by Sheryl Kujawa-Holbrook explores the roots of our democratic style of governance and invites us to consider ways to balance an organization’s need for order with its equally important need for creativity and risk-taking.
  • Una instantánea de nuestro barrio urbano
    Lo más difícil de ver es lo que tenemos delante de los ojos.
  • A Snapshot of our Urban Neighborhood
    The photo project was designed to give the Vestry the opportunity to take a closer look at our neighborhood. It was not intended to lead directly into strategic planning, but rather to shift our perspective and open our eyes to creative possibilities…
  • Missionaries One and All
    Is not God most concerned about how we live from Monday to Saturday?
  • Richard Hooker on Conflict
    The name Richard Hooker rings no bell for most vestry members. More than a few clergy haven’t heard of him, either.
  • My Top Ten: Vestry Responsibilities
    Just as the Great Commission—“Go therefore into the world to make disciples of all nations”—does not go into great detail on how exactly to accomplish that mission, so the canons of the Episcopal Church are not particularly specific about the…
  • Vestry Members as Spiritual Leaders
    “The spiritual leadership of the parish is the rector’s job!”
  • Managing Staff: 7 Things To Consider
    Churches are often full of secrets. Nothing sinister, just quirks you wouldn’t notice unless you spent a lot of time sitting at the receptionist’s desk or in the parish administrators’ office.
  • All-Church Vestry
    The Canons of the Episcopal Diocese of Eastern Oregon provide the option of an all-church vestry.
  • Flames and Faith
    St. Edward the Confessor in suburban Minneapolis burned to the ground last April after a young man threw gasoline-filled bottles at the structure late on a stormy night. We asked the rector to share tips with our readers on coping with such a loss.
  • Doing the Advance Work
    When someone asks me about vestries in times of crisis, my frank response is that vestries can be useless in such times – unless they have done their work in advance.
  • Finding God in the Raging Storms
    The events of September 11th have attuned our minds to the reality of crises in our lives. This focusing experience, powerful as it may be, is but one of the many forms a crisis might take.
  • Faith Forged in the Fire
    On September 11th, as my husband Larry and I were finishing breakfast, we heard a plane go over our house – too low and too loud for the usual air traffic approaching Newark Airport, 20 minutes away. We looked at each other in concern, and I glance…
  • Authentic Tough Talk
    We pushed and pried in private with some vestry members. What were their real attitudes toward “the numbers?”
  • Different Styles, Different Gifts
    The process of making such decisions have enormous capacity to bring together or tear apart vestries.
  • Tips on how NOT to make decisions...
    Louie’s not here. So let’s vote now.
  • Decision-making Led By The Spirit
    The Church is the body of Christ: the incarnation of God in the world.
  • Decisions: The Work of Leaders
    Decisions, decisions, decisions — sometimes vestry meetings seem overrun and overwrought by them.
  • Ways to Stay Focused on Jesus
    Be a non-anxious presence, especially in the midst of conflict.
  • Bean Counters No More
    Imagine a congregation where the priest isn’t the only one making pastoral calls.
  • 'The Lord Broke Through'
    We used the Psalms as a way to enter into prayer. At the beginning of each vestry meeting, we read a psalm or portion of a psalm, slowly, pausing a beat between verses.
  • Per your request
    I recently received a phone call from a rector seeking information about what to pay her staff.
  • Triangulation: vestries be mindful
    In human interactive terms, a triangle occurs when each of two opposing parties seeks to join with a third party against the other, with the third party finding it necessary to cooperate now with one and now with another of these opposing parties.
  • In YOUR eyes, what works?
    What makes for a good meeting? What are your hopes and expectations?
  • Three Time-Savers
    The agenda and the treasurer’s report should be distributed to vestry members a week in advance of the meeting.
  • How to lead effective vestry meetings
    Ugh. How many vestry meetings have you attended that went late into the night? The later the time the longer the meeting drags on.
  • Why not, if it is for Christ?
    Allow me to tell you about a member of a parish where I was rector. He was a man who possessed incredible faith.
  • Who is responsible for what?
    John Coburn, former bishop of Massachusetts and former president of the House of Deputies, once remarked that he liked to keep the canons of the church “behind” him for support but “not in front” of him as an impediment.
  • And when the bishop comes...
    It’s a standard joke. The bishop and the parish priest are in the sacristy just before the start of the service marking the bishop’s visitation to the congregation.
  • Vestry service: light over darkness
    About twenty-five years ago, I began my leadership journey as an elected vestry person in my current congregation, Christ Church in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
  • Good vestry members: born or grown?
    I’ve often wondered — are good vestry members just born that way, or are they people who take on the job and grow into it?
  • Healthy Transitions Part 1
    Change in ordained leadership in a congregation creates a time of both challenge and opportunity. As a vestry member you play a critical role in making the transition a healthy one.
  • Vestry discernment begins with the soul
    Nuts and bolts issues are more effectively and efficiently addressed when vestries focus first on key questions having to do with discernment and key values.
  • Discerning individual gifts on the vestry
    How do you understand your purpose as a vestry member? How do you know what God wants of you during your term on the vestry – or in the rest of your life?