Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

Ninety-four years later, we still remember. 

On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, World War I officially ended. The tradition of Remembrance Day on November 11 began in England and has spread across the globe as a time to remember the fallen, the men and women who gave their lives in conflict.   

Our church joined in the commemoration of Remembrance Day. We offered special prayers for those who have died in these conflicts and those who have served faithfully. We observed two minutes of silence at the beginning of the service, and we gave thanks for veterans and their families in the congregation.

My own feelings about the military are mixed. I have a peace sign on my ankle, but I’ve never had to face real conflict, real war in my own community. I’ve seen war only through the silver screen and grainy photographs. 

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Folks seem to agree that the Episcopal Church is a hierarchical church. But where there seems to be some diversity of opinion is around who or what is at the top of that hierarchy. Where does the “buck stop” so to speak? And in reality, who has the final say?

Following the Amicus Brief hearings in the Diocese of Fort Worth this past year, this topic became very significant for me. As best as I was able to understand, the argument was not that the Episcopal Church is not hierarchical, but rather simply that the hierarchy of the Episcopal Church rests at the diocesan level. Discussion was engaged around the issue that our church is a diocesan based church--it is not a congregational church, with decisions and governance resting with the local minister and congregation--but rather it is a diocesan based church with decisions and governance resting at that broader level, under the guidance and direction of a Bishop.

This is something I treasure about this denomination: The community that I am part of is bigger than my congregation which meets in "this" part of town--it includes the church that gathers on the south side of town and the west side of town and the rich side of town and the poor side of town--it includes the congregation that is made up of Spanish speakers and the one that is made up of University students. And when we all get together, whether at diocesan annual meetings, or Lenten programs or clergy gatherings, we have a clearer sense of the church of God in our part of the world. Functioning as part of a diocese allows me the chance to take off the blinders that might so easily block my view if I remained only a part of my local congregation. I agree we are diocesan based.

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This lesson doesn’t appear on the bright-colored posters of Robert Fulghum’s “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.” But it should.

Knowing when to hold tightly and when to hold lightly is a hard and critical lesson.   

We face this everyday in our work and personal lives. What projects do we steer with a steely hand, micromanaging even the most minute details? Which ones do we let go lightly into the good night (and day)?

As a parent, I experience this tug-of-war constantly. How firm do I press down on homework? How does that pressure change from elementary to middle and high school? When do I step in when my tween feels lonely? When do I let her fight her own battles, even when her heart (and mine) is breaking? 

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Queridos amigos,

Espero que todos ustedes estén disfrutando un otoño maravilloso.

Ahora que se aproxima el final de este año, deseo invitarles a que sigan explorando los artículos, las herramientas y los recursos en español de la Fundación de la Iglesia Episcopal (ECF) que se concentran en el liderazgo en las feligresías. A continuación, algunos puntos salientes que espero les resulten útiles en sus ministerios:

Inscríbanse para el próximo webinar “Fortalecimiento del liderazgo del equipo”, una presentación del Rev. Juan Ángel Monge, Asesor de la Fundación de la Iglesia Episcopal. Será el 14 de noviembre de 7 a 8:30 PM ET. Hagan clic aquí para obtener más información e inscribirse. El pasado mes de septiembre, la ECF fue anfitriona de un webinar titulado “Las Campañas Anuales de Mayordomía”. Pueden ver una grabación de este webinar haciendo clic aquí. Además, pueden ver un excelente clip del webinar haciendo clic aquí. Este clip es un ejemplo del tipo de conversaciones y oportunidades de aprendizaje que ocurren durante estos webinars. Sigan los comentarios de las blogueras en español de la ECF, la diácona Ema Rosero-Nordalm y la Rev. Rosa Lindahl Mallow. Algunos de sus comentarios recientes son "Sí, y" y “Acompañamiento pastoral a visitas médicas” y “Comunidades latinas y la reforma migratoria”. Lean muchos de los artículos recientes sobre liderazgo que publicamos recientemente en español, entre ellos “Mayordomía incondicional” y “Echar por tierra el statu quo”.

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First in a two-part series. Read part 2 here.

Around this time of year, vestries and stewardship committees, rectors and wardens, finance committees, and those few parishioners who’ve served on any of the above working groups have a big thing on their mind: the annual pledge campaign. Letters are about to go out and, in time, properly completed pledge cards will start to trickle in. This will happen anytime between the next several weeks and the initial days of, say, February of next year.

I can make three reliable predictions about this way of doing business: one, the amount of income that’s pledged will not meet the annual budget’s pre-determined expenditures; two, the amount of talk and strategy will not correlate to an increase in giving and, a greater emphasis on the former might lead to a decrease in the latter; and, three, the actual giving income by the close of business next year will be more than the initial amount pledged.

So why continue a system which we know isn’t as effective as it could be or, maybe was at one time? It’s not that the typical autumn pledge campaign system is broken, mind you. It’s lacking something. And what I believe it’s lacking is more than made up for in the rest of the contours of our communal faith lives. In most congregations the regular pattern of our life together as the Body of Christ – the baptizing, teaching, preaching, forming, and discipling that we do when we‘re not trying to get people to fill out a pledge form – more than makes up for this sterile annual ritual … a ritual which doesn’t tell anyone how much money they’re going to get and whether they’ll even get it!

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Have you ever attended a really informational event and then came away saying, “That was great and now what?!” This recently happened to me. I was listening to a person speak eloquently about a topic. He ended with great fanfare. I had tears in my eyes when… I realized that he gave me absolutely no strategies for applying the information. 

Today I want to talk about the folks in your pews. We all have different needs. Pew Research as well as a few other noteworthy researchers has spent some time looking at what are the characteristics of each generation. Rather then simply talk about each generation, I thought it might be helpful to give some concrete ideas as to strategies to engaging each demographic in your annual giving efforts. 

This information was presented in the “Stewardship in a New Millennium” Webinar on Tuesday, September 10, 2013. If you missed it, you can watch a recording of it here.

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Who is going to lead?

Are you ready for your full slate of activities from Sunday school, the stewardship campaign, and the next big fundraiser? Are you brainstorming new ministries and projects?

Hopefully your congregation is abuzz with activity and generating excitement, but you may be wondering, who is going to get this done? Below we offer articles and resources for vestries and leaders in congregations on developing leadership teams, running effective meetings, and identifying new leaders.

Connect with us for the latest tools and resources on Facebook and Twitter, share your resources on Your Turn, and find others in our Tools. Also, be sure to share this email with other leaders in your congregation and invite them to subscribe to ECF Vital Practices.

Creating a Culture of Discernment
In many congregations, the vestry feels the onerous of having to “run” the majority of activities and manage the congregation. Healthy and vital vestries have learned to move beyond being managers, focusing instead on being the spiritual leadership of the congregation. In “Cultivating a Culture of Discernment,” Blaire Pogue shares the five year process her vestry and congregation undertook to re-envision the role of the vestry as a spiritual discernment team.

Getting to the 'Why' 2
Our congregations depend on the dedication of our volunteers. How can we strengthen the commitment within our congregation? How can we find new leaders? In “Getting to the ‘Why’ 2,” Miguel Escobar offers some of the best practices to both build a shared sense of purpose and strengthen leadership capacity.

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This morning I was privileged to see a high school senior give a speech to her entire school. I know her to be a person of deep faith – what kind of high school senior invites her priest to this kind of thing? As she spoke she showed grace, skill, and charisma. I thought to myself, what a wonderful leader she will make someday . . .

Then she danced. She held an auditorium full of teenagers and guests like me in silence, spellbinding us as the grace, skill, and charisma from her words was amplified as it transformed into movement. I was very nearly moved to tears by the beauty of the whole scene. After she took her bows, her schoolmates rushed the stage and embraced her in triumph. The shouts and applause were overwhelming. Thankfully, I was reminded . . .

This proud young lady won't just be a leader someday, she is a leader already. She is a leader right now.

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Normally a yellow-light note means bad news.   

In kindergarten, teachers judge behavior on a green, yellow, and red light system. A red light is pretty serious; yellow, as you might imagine, indicates a problem.   

The note attached to the yellow light offered some insight: Our son “pushed another child and then apologized, telling him, ‘I’ve asked you many times not to call me names.’”   

Our son asked if he was in trouble. He told us that the boy in question had been calling him names for several days. First and repeatedly, he told the boy to stop. Then he told the teacher. When the boy persisted, our son pushed back. The bullying stopped.   

We didn’t punish our son. In fact, we told him that we thought he handled the situation exactly right. I’m sure some parents and child-rearing experts are reeling in shock at this admission. But I think that sometimes the only way to stop a bully is to stand your ground—and if necessary, push back.   

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This is the first post in a three part series, read Part 2: The Difference Between Vestry and Congregation and Part 3: Entrusting and Empowering Parish Staff.

Early on, I was exhausted by vestry meetings. They were long, tedious and oddly disconnected from the bigger mission.

On a nine-member vestry (three, three-member classes for three-year terms) there were nine subcommittees. This made for nine monthly reports, most of which had little actual follow through, and had the downside potential of making nine chiefs. To be fair, a good friend of mine has had measured success with making this model work: she’s convinced her parish leadership to see themselves as ‘captains’ and to raise up a crew. Still, she says, there are those ‘committees of one’.

It wasn’t fostering shared ministry, delegated authority, and positive relationships. Simply put, it wasn’t fostering health. Plus, the idea of buttressing such a system with my own time and energy was not going to grow anything but the skills of daily management – skills which, in turn, had no direct impact on growing the congregation or expanding the mission of The Episcopal Church in our immediate community.

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I'm a “yes” man. I'll admit it, though maybe not the way you are imagining. As facilitator of a non-traditional community, people approach me with all kinds of questions: 

This All Souls' Day, can we host a meal and worship service at our local homeless center that honors all of the homeless who have died in the previous year?  Instead of washing feet this Maundy Thursday, can we collect shoes for our neighborhood elementary school?  Can we embody ministry equality and hire a Lay Missioner?  I heard about a Church with a Theologian-in-Residence; can we have a Theologian-in-Residence? 

I have been filled-with-the-Spirit or foolhardy enough to answer, “yes,” to all of these questions.

While it is better than being a “no” man, I did not set out to be a “yes” man. I set out to create a safe space for those I serve – a space safe enough to ask questions, but also a space safe enough for the questions to become declarations: 

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Like many, I’m starting to transition from the fun and frivolity of summer to the necessary stuff that goes into gearing up for the so-called program year.

This past week, though, my sister and her family were in town. It was as we always say it was, looking back, and always hope it will be: like picking up where we left off, the relationships already long-formed and the love so foundationally constructed.

That’s what I miss most of all when the experience of time together turns to a memory of things passed. I miss the physical presence which confirms that there is, in fact, a lasting connection; the “outward and visible sign” of an “inward and spiritual grace,” to borrow sacramental language.

Relationships matter. Knowing one another and developing love, trust, honesty, laughter, and back-stories matter. That’s always good to remember, and it’s a necessary reminder when we start strategizing and planning for the program year and all the busy-ness and business that comes along with it.

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Want to suck the energy out of a meeting? Allow the hog to dominate. Stay silent for the bog. Invite the frog.
At a leadership workshop offered this weekend by the Diocese of Lexington, I learned about this phrase. It was in the context of how I might best interact and respect my fellow workshop participants. But I think there’s a lot of value in looking at these three types of personalities in our vestry and other church meetings.
The hog likes to hear himself speak. He goes on and on, jumps in every conversation, and is quite pleased with his extensive knowledge of all things, from plumbing to liturgy, budget to tree trimming. The hog squeezes others out of the conversation and squelches disparate opinions.
 

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Sometimes snark isn’t helpful. 

Especially this weekend, with deep wounds being laid open again by the decision to acquit George Zimmerman in the death of Trayvon Martin.

This blog isn’t about justice, or lack thereof, racism, or even how to talk about difficult issues like this in the congregation. (Thank goodness, though, for many well-conceived, thoughtful, and challenging pieces written and shared here at ECF Vital Practices and across the church. This is an important time, and how we respond, interact, and show respect to one another is an opportunity to witness our Christian values).

Instead, I’d like to talk about Facebook.

I suspect that most of us have had our Facebook feeds filled with comments about the jury’s decision and its implications. The ones that stopped me, made me think and weep and consider, modeled a gracious behavior missing from much of the secular rhetoric. I saw prayers for the families and the jurors. I read wrenching comments about the value of life. I saw calls for renewed and vigorous work of reconciliation.

Then there were the gut punches, snarky, sidewise notes that fanned the flames. One priest wrote that anyone who didn’t preach about the decision on Sunday morning should rethink his or her vocation.

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I have been reading with some interest a book by Nassim Taleb titled Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder. The premise of the book is that institutions fall into three distinct categories.

The first is fragile. These can be seemingly strong organizations that have some fundamental flaws that make them unsuitable for growth and unsustainable. Think of something like Lehmann Brothers which had a storied name and long history but was shattered by the economic downturn. These kinds of actors necessarily must control their environment in order to survive. An uncontrollable change in the environment causes them to collapse.

The next organization is the robust one. It is able to continue decently performing despite the changes and chances of the environment. It is a generally desirable category because it is a dependable one however it is not given to any great leaps nor soaring achievements.

The final category is the one that occupies the author most – antifragile organizations. These are organizations that are not only able to withstand shocks but are able to grow from them. The author cites examples from industry, nature, and more to demonstrate the traits and characteristics that mark antifragile organizations. These are organizations that are ready for the unpredictable and can respond to changes in the environment rapidly and with great efficiency.

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Growing up, July and August meant a change of routine: lazy days to bike, swim, and read, and summer camp. In my neighborhood all the kids played outside after dinner; at dusk Mrs. Manghis would ring the bell hanging by her back door and we’d all head home.

As an adult I try to keep a sense of summer, spending as much time outdoors as possible, even during the work week: Taking advantage of longer days to get outside after dinner. Eating lunch on the patio. Sitting on my porch to read, think, or daydream.

Summer can also be a time for evaluation, planning, and reflection. At the Episcopal Church Foundation’s annual staff convocation, Sally Skardon, ECF board chair, challenged us to think about these questions:

Why am I proud to be an Episcopalian? How am I hopeful? What can I do to help the church grow?

These questions are essential to the vision of ECF Vital Practices and the Episcopal Church Foundation. Across our church, congregations wrestle with questions of viability and struggle to break old patterns, recognizing the need for change.

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We need to fail faster.   

At a graduation ceremony for a year-long leadership program, one of the speakers talked to us about failure. She recounted a story by the chief executive officer of Procter & Gamble, the makers of Tide, Ivory, Pampers, and dozens of other household items.   

At this Fortune 500 company, 85 percent of new products they develop fail. Eighty-five percent. Isn’t that an astonishing number? Can you imagine if you failed four out of five times in your life? If you only hit the ball once every five times? If your kids brought home passing grades only 15 percent of the time?   

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Memorial Day isn’t a feast day in the church (although some might understand feast in a different way, with all the BBQs and cookouts).

But I’m really thankful that my congregation took note of the holiday anyway.

A few of our hymns were more patriotic in nature—O Beautiful for Spacious Skies and Eternal Father, Strong to Save (the Naval hymn). And our prayers of the people included special mention of veterans.

But the most powerful moment came at the conclusion of the Eucharist and before the dismissal. A lone trumpet played “Taps.”

Listen to the music here: 

This piece, often played at funerals and memorials, immediately evokes a deep sense of gratitude for men and women who have lost their lives in battle. For me, this isn’t the time for a theological debate over just war theory or the moral rightness of our troops in Iraq or Afghanistan. It is, plain and simple, about honoring those who have died.

Perhaps this year’s tribute struck a particular chord for our community. Two days earlier, a young widow brought her husband to his hometown, our little city, for burial. Killed by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan, he was a month away from meeting his first child.

I don’t know if playing "Taps" at the end of a worship service is politically correct or liturgically appropriate. But it was a powerful moment, of being reminded of people who laid down their lives on my behalf. It was a time of thanking them for their service and of praying for their families and friends left behind.

Almighty God, we remember before you today your faithful
servants; and we pray that, having opened to them the gates
of larger life, you will receive them more and more into your
joyful service, that, with all who have faithfully served you in
the past, they may share in the eternal victory of Jesus Christ
our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the
Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Book of Common Prayer, page 253

Incorporating new people into leadership in a methodical, regular way is important, and most of our churches elect new vestry members each year.

The problem, I’m discovering, is that most congregations don’t have a methodical, regular way to pass along information about the decisions of the vestry over the past few years.

Let me explain: We know training for new vestry members is helpful. And The Vestry Resource Guide developed by the estimable Episcopal Church Foundation is a fantastic start. It is a fantastic resource about what it means to serve on the vestry, the roles and expectations of leadership, and how to navigate transitions and conflict. But it doesn’t (and can’t) explain a particular vestry’s decision about replacing the roof or adding a part-time administrator or ending involvement in a particular program. That’s because this information is specific to each congregation and vestry. But that doesn’t mean it’s any less important.

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I know what you need: To meditate.
I know what you need: To eat better.
I know what you need: To watch less television. To exercise. To repent.

It’s sometimes easy to diagnose others. Our culture is full of those who want to solve each other’s problems with religion or self-help books or heavy-handed community projects. These things aren’t bad, but only if you know and understand the people you are trying to help first.

As I mentioned last week, a group from my church has been reading Life Together by Dietrich Bohhoeffer. In the passage on ministry, there’s this line that I loved: “Are we, like the professionally pious, to ‘talk away’ the other person’s real need?” This is a real danger, in which we speak so much that we forget to listen. In which we offer advice without offering any real help because we never listen long enough to understand the problem.

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