Have you had 6-8 servings of sacred story? What about the recommended monthly 2-4 servings of Christian action?
The Soul Food Pyramid outlines what is needed for a healthy, balanced spiritual diet.
Developed by the folks at St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church in Dublin, a suburb of Columbus, Ohio, the Soul Food Pyramid plays off the well-known USDA Food Pyramid. And just like that pyramid, the Soul Food one isn’t a “rigid prescription but a general guide.”
Continue reading...
Leading a team is really hard. Can Google help?
Two weeks ago, the New York Times ran an article on Google’s 8-Point Plan to Build a Better Boss. The 8-Point Plan was the fruit of a two-year project in which a team analyzed Google performance reviews, feedback surveys and nominations for top-manager awards. The goal? To produce a list of the 8 practices of highly effective Google managers. You can find that list here.
As the Times article points out, at first glance the eight practices seem so obvious that they are underwhelming. (The seventh point is “Have a clear vision and strategy for your team.”) But what makes Google’s list unique is how these practices are ranked. So, for instance, we learn that expressing interest in team members’ success and well-being is more important than having a clear vision & strategy. Both are vital, of course, but it’s interesting to note the top three are all about the human touch.
Continue reading...
A New York Times article last summer began, “The findings have surfaced with ominous regularity over the last few years, and with little notice: members of the clergy now suffer from obesity, hypertension, and depression at rates higher than most Americans. In the last decade, their use of antidepressants has risen, while their life expectancy has fallen. Many would change jobs if they could.
A growing number of health care experts and religious leaders have settled on one simple remedy that has long been a touchy subject with many clerics: taking more time off."
Continue reading...
While driving outside of Boston on Tuesday morning, I heard the bad news: Rev. Peter Gomes had died.
I was saddened by the news, but I also knew that I was not mourning alone. Like thousands of people in the communities of Boston and Cambridge, I had met Peter Gomes during one of his many speaking engagements.
Continue reading...
How many of you have sat through announcements in church, wishing you could treat them like acceptance speeches at the Oscars?
When they get too long – or boring, you could cue the orchestra (or organ) music, and the teen daughter of a celebrity could politely escort the announcer away from the microphone.
Church announcements are a tricky thing. We need them, no doubt about it. We know that important items need to be communicated time and again in a number of venues – from the church bulletin to Facebook updates to e-mail reminders.
The announcement in church is another important tool for sharing information. But all too often, it’s a recitation of event listings mumbled by an inarticulate vestry member or the opportunity for some stage-starved parishioner to try and expand on his or her 15 minutes of fame.
Continue reading...
Next week I celebrate 30 years as an Episcopal priest, but I feel like I am just getting started. Time has flown by. At my 30 reunion at Yale Divinity School this past fall, a large number of us gathered and relived memories that were as fresh as yesterday.
As fast as time has passed incredible changes have come to the church in that time. Back then, the 1979 Prayer Book was brand new. The Eucharist was only then replacing Morning Prayer as the predominant Sunday morning service. The huge fights then were over women priests and altars facing the people. The diaconate was a fledgling order just then being reconstructed from the ancient past. To nearly all of us the Anglican Communion was new concept, based entirely on the Lambeth Conference and tea with the queen.
Continue reading...
If you're involved in diocesan work (or on staff, like me), then you spend a lot of time in your car, driving to meetings.
My diocese is about five hours long and three hours wide -- and we're one of the lucky ones. I know some of the western dioceses dream of such a short jaunt to diocesan house.
Someday I'll laugh at the irony that in more than 13 years of marriage, I've been the long-distance commuter. And I hate to drive. Thank goodness for cell phone plans with unlimited minutes and a headset.
Continue reading...
Stories and numbers: we need both. Stories motivate; numbers evaluate.
This point, about the need to use both numbers and stories in our ministries, has pressed on me from all sides this past week.
It started through commentary
here about a Vestry Papers article in which the author challenges vestries to use “sophisticated, consistent and accurate
metrics” to chart their future. Then yesterday I sat through a presentation of statistics about Episcopal congregations that drilled down into details of giving, attendance, resources, and growth (or decline) in our geographic provinces. The presenter included rich examples of thriving churches of all sizes. A key factor: the leaders in each congregation knew their numbers and how to use them to measure growth and impact.
But as good as these expert presentations are, my real learning came while working with lay people from the Diocese of Spokane.
Continue reading here...
When the Twin Towers tumbled down, I held my newborn daughter tightly and prayed that we would work to end the violence, to find a way to connect despite different faiths and cultures.
I suspect Christina-Taylor Green’s mother felt the same way as she cradled her newborn daughter, born on that day of infamy.
Christina’s life was bookended by violence – from birth on Sept. 11, 2001 to death on Jan.8, 2011, slain as she waited to shake hands with her Congresswoman, as one elected official to another.
While Christina’s mother spent the day figuring out burial plans for her third-grade daughter, I spent the day with mine, packing up the ornaments from the Christmas tree, playing tag and snuggling for the end of a movie.
Whether the vitriol in the political arena motivated the shooter or not, it is time for us to step up, share the blame and acknowledge that we must change how we communicate with each other or more mothers will bury their children.
Instead of engaging directly with people who rail against the government on Facebook, I block their messages from appearing on my wall. Instead of confronting family members about forwarded e-mails proclaiming Obama is Muslim, I delete them without comment.
I thought that was the best way to handle the situation – but I realize now that it allowed two conversations to carry on simultaneously without any intersection. I haven’t tried to understand how they feel. Instead, I gather with like-minded folk and self-righteously congratulate our perceived open-mindedness.
I find that we do this in church too. If a congregation doesn’t agree with viewpoints on an issue, people leave. The rhetoric of the Episcopal Church too often mirrors that of the political landscape, with the loudest, most opinionated on the right and left dominating the conversation, and the middle 80 percent putting our hands over our ears and pretending not to hear.
I’m not suggesting we hold forums on homosexuality or the new health care plan in perpetuity. My goodness, I feel like every other workshop since 2003 has dealt in some way with Bishop Gene Robinson.
But I yearn to find common ground – to find a place where we can explore our differences without using analogies about bringing a gun to a knife fight or placing bullseye targets over opponents. I hope this common ground can be found in our churches – but we need to model civility, compromise and cooperation.
I think my generation -- sandwiched between the hippy movement of the 1960s and Reagonomics of the 1980s – has a lot to offer in this type of relationship-building – but we need the boomers to let go of the microphones.
While at seminary, in a course on homiletics, I received a worksheet called "Troubling Texts." It was a short list of the hardest passages to preach on. At the top of the list was Jesus' line in the 26th chapter of Matthew, after the disciples complain about the costly gift made by the woman with the alabaster jar. "The poor will always be with you, but you will not always have me" Jesus responds, a phrase that has since been used to justify all kinds of inaction regarding poverty. This weekend, however, while attending the Diocese of Spokane’s Organizing for Mission training, I found myself reflecting on this line in new ways. (Organizing for Mission is a joint project of the Episcopal Diocese of Spokane, Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation, and the Episcopal Church Foundation.)
Continue reading...
We’re kicking off the year in a big way. Tomorrow I head to the Diocese of Spokane to spend three daSys training about seventy-five lay people, clergy, and bishops in organizing for mission. Why? To equip us to respond to God’s call to serve the hungry.
This isn’t to say that church folks haven’t done this before. Like my parish, many congregations provide a food pantry, soup kitchen or outreach ministry to fill needs in the community and live out Jesus’ command to love and serve our neighbors.
But the people in the Diocese of pokane aim for another level of response.
Read more here...
Sometimes people behave badly - and the media (willing participant or not) gives them a platform to advertise the bad behavior.
In a recent situation, a former parishioner and church employee was interviewed by a local newspaper. She misled the reporter, painting herself as a victim of cruel church politics.
The rector had a communications problem. People in the congregation were upset: those who knew what had happened were angry that they were being portrayed negatively - without cause. Those who didn't know the back story thought the church leaders acted in haste.
Some would call this a sticky wicket.
(Read more...)
I had someone come into my office and share that they wanted to become a priest.
This will be the fourth time that as rector I have responded to such a conversation by pulling together a formal discernment group. They will meet over nine months and at that time together with the “asprirant (is that really a word?)” they will come to our vestry if they believe the person is called to the priesthood.
Sitting on the State of the Church Committee for...
The first semester of our experiment ends tonight.
My church is a typical county-seat congregation in the foothills of Appalachia. If only Christmas Eve were our typical attendance on Sunday mornings, we’d be a packed 150. Instead, most Sundays, we’re half that, with each family getting their own pew.
In the past five years, we’ve tried lots of techniques to build up Christian education. Sunday School – on Sunday morning – was a flop (before – and after – the main service). We tried a once-a-month Evensong, with activities. No traction. Our Beer and Bible study had been a hit for three years, but attendance fizzled.
Last school year, we picked up kids from school and brought them to our house for two hours of GodSquad. The kids loved it – but it happened in a vacuum, 20 minutes from church and away from all of the adults (save two teachers).
We wanted a program that integrated...
When Bishop Greg Rickel makes his first official visitation to St. Andrew’s this Sunday, he’ll join a priest, a deacon, and a lay presider at the altar for a celebration of the Eucharist that stretches the rubrics but models the theology of our community.
Each week at St. Andrew’s a lay person, a deacon, and a priest concelebrate the Eucharist to model that all orders have roles in helping the community enact the ritual of becoming the Body of Christ. The deacon touches and holds up the bread at the words of institution and a lay person then does the same for the wine. All three assume a “holy hands” posture over the elements while the entire community speaks out loud the Holy Spirit prayer, “Sanctify them by your Holy Spirit to be for your people the Body and Blood of your Son, the holy food and drink of new and unending life in him. (BCP p. 360).
The rules say...
Last week in my blog I held up our General Convention as an object lesson in applying human reason as a theological authority. With the announcement of the Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson’s retirement I am remembering the most meaningful example of this I ever witnessed.
Early during the 2003 General Convention, the Committee on the Consecration of a Bishop held a hearing on Robinson’s election in the biggest ballroom in the convention’s host city of Minneapolis.
In addition to the people in the room,...
E-mail addresses are gold.
By Olympic award standards, the bronze medal goes to snail mail addresses. Cell phone numbers snag the silver.
But e-mail addresses rise to the top of the podium.
Managing the database for a congregation or a diocese is a huge challenge. It was hard enough when only physical addresses were needed. But communication methods have changed.
Over the last five months, we have made a concerted effort in my diocese to bolster our database with e-mail addresses. When someone registers for an event, we add the e-mail. When administrators send in leadership lists, we add the e-mail address. Sometimes I’ve even copied the email recipients from a bulk send and put them into our list.
One of the most successful methods...
This past weekend the Episcopal Church Foundation visited the northern part of the Diocese of Puerto Rico. We were there at the invitation of Bishop David Álvarez and Fr. Juan Monge with the goal of presenting just about everything we possibly could in a seven hour stretch: the role of the vestry, transformational leadership, stewardship and planned giving. As this was the first time ECF had done such a presentation in Spanish, we learned a great deal about how our “church speak” – which truly is a language all its own - doesn't necessarily translate. We also learned the helpful term feligresía which serves in Puerto Rico as a catchall word for mission, parish, church plant, worshipping community, etc. If it involves worship, it’s a feligresía and the lay members are feligreses.
But perhaps the most important thing I learned...
My diocese is not known to have many money problems.
But when a committee started drafting the 2011 budget, they realized we were facing a shortfall. Like every church organization, we’ve tightened our belts, frozen salaries, and made tough decisions. Still revenue is down in many congregations, which means mission share – the portion each congregation contributes as part of the diocese – also is down.
The budget committee could have...
The separation of church and state is a key cornerstone of the U.S. government. At the same time, everyone at my noonday meeting on Tuesday had cast their vote in a local church.
This juxtaposition struck me today as we move from one of the most contentious, fractious election cycles in my lifetime into a new era of leadership. Our churches serve as polling stations as a way to support their communities. But we have so much more to offer, especially now.
But we have so much more to offer, especially now.
RSS Feed