Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

With the enticement of pizza and pop, the youth group gathered to talk with us about how to support and strengthen the Latino community.   

We learned a lot – the need for bilingual materials, desire for resources on the sacraments and saints, and the absence of culturally relevant primers on The Episcopal Church that they could give to family and friends. But they also schooled me in ways of being community.   

This teaching wasn’t delivered lecture-style or with PowerPoint but rather in the interactions of the youth group, the way they respected each other, cared and supported each member.   

From this evening, I learned some important lessons in building community, especially among young people.

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“I’m just a volunteer.” You may use this phrase in a number of different contexts, but in every single instance, the word ‘just’ should be stricken from the sentence. In fact, the consequences of uttering the word ‘just’ when used before the word ‘volunteer’, is actually hurting our church communities.

First, it supports an unhealthy model of staff dependency. After all, many churches expect the program staff to be the primary “doers” of the ministry since they are the ones being paid. These churches are missing a key to a thriving ministry: a program staff person whose primary responsibilities are to equip, empower, and encourage volunteers.

It also gives the volunteer an easy out. If a volunteer has the perspective that he or she is just a volunteer, one may be less inclined to live into his or her role by not fulfilling obligations. If given the chance to show up for a church meeting or enjoy the first sunny, 75-degree day in the spring, such people could very well blow off their church commitment. After all, they’re just volunteers.

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Do you remember the movie “Sideways?” A middle aged man, dissatisfied with his life, takes his ‘washed up actor and about to be married’ friend on a weeklong trip to California’s wine country. The movie became an unexpected hit, garnering numerous awards.

Working on this month’s Vestry Papers, a common theme emerged: congregations discovering potential and new leaders by reaching out sideways. As with so many things, broadening our field of vision often brings unexpected and welcome rewards. To help you with this, we’ve assembled a collection of approaches to leadership, with more method than story in three of the four articles.

Here’s what we’re sharing with you this month:

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Facebook posts by clergy and church workers trumpet the beginning of Holy Week. The posts share a similar mix of emotions: excitement, anticipation, reverence. There is also the collective breath before the weeklong sprint.

For Christians, Holy Week is a rollercoaster of emotions: the high of Jesus’ entry to Jerusalem, followed so quickly by betrayal, crucifixion, and resurrection. Hollywood has nothing on this real life and death and life story.

We should allow ourselves to be swept into the emotions, swinging from high to low. It’s one way to fully embrace our Saviour, living as if the events happened yesterday and today, – and might happen again tomorrow.

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The Pope’s resignation, followed by the conclave of Roman Catholic cardinals at the Vatican, has the world focused on leadership. When asked about the type of leader the Roman Catholic Church should chose, the best answer I’ve heard is “Jesus Christ with an MBA.” 

How do we define leadership at ECF Vital Practices? Just as our understanding of church needs to change with changing times and circumstances, so do our models of leadership. Faithful commitment in service to our congregations can become tested without a strong sense of purpose. For communities of faith, this transformational style of leadership starts with asking why and what does any of this have to do with Jesus? And how is all this effort helping us to grow as followers of Christ?

In our March and April Vestry Papers, we share stories illustrating transformational leadership. Across our church, in congregations, organizations, and dioceses, leaders are putting transformational leadership principles into practice and encouraging people to step out of their comfort zone and open themselves up to different ways of understanding their faith and what God is calling them to do.

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A few years ago, I attended a collaborative leadership training led by the Interaction Institute for Social Change. The training was a short, two-day intensive course which left me, and perhaps a few others, feeling like they’d just finished drinking from a fire hydrant. By the end of the training, I wasn’t quite sure whether I’d been helped or simply weighed down with new vocabulary and a very large binder.

Nearly two years later, I can say that the training was truly helpful to me. Time after time, I’ve found myself returning to some of the key concepts of that training and have incorporated a few of the most important ones into my day-to-day work at the Episcopal Church Foundation. In this blog post, I’ll focus on what I consider to be the most important concept that I gained from the training. This has to do with learning to balance one's work across three areas: results, process, and relationships. I’ve added some questions to clarify what is meant by these terms.

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Last week, ECF concluded a two-part web conference series on “Becoming Local” presented by Will Scott. Will is the vicar of St. Cyprian’s Episcopal Church in San Francisco, a community of faith that has discerned the key to its revitalization is robust neighborhood engagement. Will was awarded an ECF Fellowship in 2012 for the passion and skill that he brings to this work of building up neighborhood partnerships, and of helping churches to become truly local.

In case you missed this web conference series, click the following links for recordings of Part I and Part II.

While Will shared many helpful insights throughout the series, I’d like to highlight his discussion of St. Cyprian’s leadership structure. As you will see below, this structure is comprised of three main parts - a vestry, a neighborhood council, and a kitchen committee - all of which help to make St. Cyprian’s “locally owned.”

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This past weekend, my colleague Brendon Hunter and I took part in the annual Leadership Development Initiative (LDI) training in the Diocese of Massachusetts. If you are unfamiliar with LDI, know that it is one of the most important and inspiring efforts taking place in the Episcopal Church right now. They describe themselves as “a rigorous, hands-on, six-month learning lab that aims to strategically develop leaders who are agents of transformation for the mission of God in the world.” For a taste of LDI’s work, check out these recordings of two webinars: Creating Effective Team Projects and Creating Strong Teams.

In lieu of naming every insight that I gained from this training, I’d instead like to focus on one idea that came through to me loud and clear. This is a slight twist on the work of identifying a shared mission and vision for one’s leadership team. Whereas I have attended several leadership trainings that focused on the importance of identifying a common purpose - or shared mission and vision - I was struck by the fact that LDI pushed us further. As a third step, they also asked us to identify the shared nightmare that the team’s efforts were seeking to overcome.

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For the past few years at the Episcopal Church Foundation (ECF), the pendulum has been swinging in one direction only. Since 2009, ECF has been expanding its programs and services; we developed ECF Vital Practices, launched our series of web conferences, funded two pilot programs, took on Fresh Start, and funded additional Fellows. In short, the past few years have been an exciting time of growth, expansion, and of pushing ourselves to full capacity (and beyond).

As the first month of 2013 draws to a close, however, it seems that the pendulum is starting to swing in the other direction. I’ve noticed that more and more of our conversations are about focusing our efforts on what we can do well. They are about recognizing the limits of our resources and staff capacity and asking the tough question, “What shouldn’t we be doing?”

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A few weeks ago, while browsing in an airport bookstore, I picked up Tina Fey’s bestselling autobiography Bossypants. As many will already know, Tina Fey is a popular comedian, former head writer of Saturday Night Live, and the executive producer of the NBC show 30 Rock. Her book seemed perfect for the beginning of my Christmas vacation: I expected it to be funny, highly irreverent, and I presumed that it’d have nothing to do with the Episcopal Church. 
I ended up being wrong about that last part.

In the end, Tina Fey’s autobiography is largely about how she developed her own leadership style - or, as she puts it, how she became the bossypants. She describes the people who she’s tried to emulate, and also those who taught her what not to do and what not to be. There’s a lot of rich material here for anyone who has ever been part of or tried to lead a creative team.

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In these remaining days before we celebrate the birth of the Christ Child, we pause to offer some resources for hope and for healing. The pain experienced by the tragic mass shootings of the children and teachers at Sandy Hook have opened wounds for some, added salt into the rawness of others, and have left all of us feeling vulnerable. Whether a soothing balm or boost of inspiration, we hope it helps you usher in the true joy and promise of the Prince of Peace this Christmas.

Interested in receiving the mid-month collection of articles and resources? Click here to register for our mid-month email blast.

Leaders Bear the Burdens

In times of tragedy and crisis, leaders take on many different roles to assist others through challenging times. Courtney Cowart faced this in her ministry at St. Paul’s Chapel in the wake of the September 11 attacks. In Leaders Bear the Burdens, Courtney looks at how leaders must take on the challenges of crises but also the strengths that can be found through the wisdom of St. Paul and insights of Joan Chittister.

A Church That Fails

Jeremy Sierra implores us in A Church That Fails to acknowledge our failures in light of the recent mass shootings in Newtown, CT, as well as other areas like the economy and the environment. "Gathering for prayer and worship and reading the Bible are not enough. If that’s all we ask of each other then we are shirking our responsibility, failing to keep each other accountable, and failing to follow Christ."

Popular Blog Posts:

Offering Hope and Healing: Stephen Ministry: Christmas can be tough, especially for those who have lost loved ones.

Healing Hands: Spiritual healing can be a powerful tool that we may not think of when we need it.

What ARE You Saying?
What we try to say - or forget to say - can make it difficult for visitors to feel welcome.

Tools and Resources:

Helping and Healing Resources (Children): How adults can talk to children in times of crisis and offer healing & hope.

Prepare the Way for Visitors: Are you making it easy for visitors to find you this Christmas?

Calendaring: Christmas is fast approaching, but using best practices of calendaring will alert you to events also quickly coming up in January and February.

So You Think You Don't Know One

No matter what we say, Advent and Christmas are still a busy time of year and the stress can expose underlying problems of anxiety and dysfunction in our own leadership. Chilton Knudsen walks us through issues that may go untouched in our congregations in So You Think You Don’t Know One. We can learn what menacing problems may be lurking or staring at us in the face and how we can help heal ourselves.

Keep the Serenity Prayer close at hand when reading anonymous evaluation forms.

We just completed our diocesan convention. For the first time, I was in charge as chair of the dispatch of business. (This is also the last time because I’ve accepted a new job).

We introduced significant changes, from a new registration system to a re-structured agenda to a new style of worship. We moved to a nearly paperless convention, inviting people to bring their tablets and smart phones (we created a download page and a QR code so people could easily find all the documents).

It was a lot of change. Especially for a people who don’t like change.

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This weekend my community, St. Lydia’s, made some big decisions. We affirmed a new governance system and a leadership team for the first time in our short history. All good change, though none of it was particularly simple or easy. What made this go so smoothly was the quality of the communication in the previous weeks and months. There were no surprises, everyone in the community was invited to participate at every stage, and we all listened to each other.

Out meetings took place over the course of nine months, with lots of time for discussion. We talked, we tweaked, discussed, then tweaked again. What made all this possible was our willingness to listen to each other, and our belief that we all had the same goal, the health and fruitfulness of the body.

We don’t always express exactly what we mean. Our tone isn’t always right, or maybe we choose the wrong words, and occasionally we’re still figuring out what we are trying to say. Many of the people that have participated in this process have a gift for listening, for hearing what the other person is trying to say, and giving them the benefit of the doubt when they don’t quite get it right.

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Liturgy, Music, and Leadership

When recent converts are asked why they chose to join an Episcopal Church, many share they were drawn by the beauty of the liturgy. As Episcopalians we gather regularly to participate in liturgies that back to the 16th century. Week after week, year after year, we join our voices – in song and in prayer – in faithful celebration of Jesus’ sacrifice for us all.

But is the liturgy meant to be a place where lay people learn to lead? At the end of the Holy Eucharist the congregation is dismissed with a call to discipleship and leadership, “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.” For our November and December ECF Vital Practices’ Vestry Papers we have reached out across our church to find leaders who are using liturgy, music, and the Bible to inspire and empower people to live into their baptismal covenant. We hope their stories inspire you.

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I braced for impact.

Less than eight hours after Barack Obama won a second term as president, my father and father-in-law were in the same room. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that one of my daughter’s science terms this week is combustible.

These two men share a love of their children and grandchildren, but the similarities end there. One is a Glen Beck/Rush Limbaugh devotee who earnestly believes America just took a nosedive to destruction. The other is a straight-ticket Democrat, a union guy who has walked the picket line and counted on more than one unemployment check to feed his family.

To my delight and surprise, the election didn’t come up. They both know where the other stands – and that no amount of cajoling or debate will sway one to the other side. So they talked about what they had in common: family, the weather, house repairs, and Thanksgiving plans.
They gave each other grace. They created space so one’s jubilation didn’t collide with another’s deep disappointment.

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I’m exhausted.

I never thought I’d long for beer and sports-drink commercials. But when you live in or near a swing state like Ohio, all of the TV spots are bombast and lambast.

The news is, of course, consumed as well, detailing every jot and tittle of the campaigns.

And then there are the maps of the red and blue states. This shorthand for lumping whole states into one category or another reminds me of the same problem that we face in The Episcopal Church when we use labels like conservative and liberal, without acknowledging a full, rich and diverse spectrum between those points. 

Despite this tendency, The Episcopal Church at its best offers another way – a middle way, perhaps even a purple way. This ethos of via media appealed to me early in my move from another denomination to The Episcopal Church. And it’s one of the first things I tell people who aren’t Episcopalian.

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My heart broke a bit more last night.

I was reading the Episcopal Communicators’ Talk list; one of our members posted a question related to an online article she had seen about the Diocese of South Carolina. Within the hour, other members shared what they knew, including official statements from both the Diocese of South Carolina and The Episcopal Church.

My first thought was to write a blog post about communicating difficult news. I pulled out my resources on crisis communications, started an outline. I woke up early and began my first draft. And then I stopped.

Why?

I recognized that my heart broke because it appeared the gulf between the two parties had grown so wide that both had taken steps that made it appear almost impossible to find a way to build a bridge between them.

What does this have to do with congregational leaders?

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When it comes to our commitments to church, are we about making things easier or are we ultimately about making those commitments more meaningful?

This issue came up last Wednesday night during a web conference on Identifying and Recruiting New Leaders led by Ella Auchincloss of the Diocese of Massachusetts’ Leadership Development Initiative. After Ella had presented about how churches can move toward a more networked leadership model, and about how we can discern gifts and commitment through strategic one-on-one meetings, we received a question which brought the difficulty of recruiting new leaders home. A participant asked:

“We have trouble every year recruiting nominees for the vestry. Right now we have a focus group that is working on making vestry duty ‘easier.’ But this sounds like the opposite of getting someone to commit. Thoughts?”

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I want a village to help raise my PK’s (priest's kids) – as long as they’re not defined by their parents’ profession.

I’m sure this is an issue for families of a variety of occupations, but there are some peculiar expectations placed on priest kids. Let’s be honest: it’s complicated when Father Joe is also Daddy. When your foibles and quirky comments make the Sunday sermon. Or when people raise their eyebrows when the kids say their mom is the priest.

We’ve all heard the urban legend about the two kinds of priest kids: the super-devout and the wild child. My husband and I are trying to let our kids find their own way, without superimposing higher standards because of their father’s vocation.

But we need your help.

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The names we call each other sometimes hurt!

“Nonvital” Episcopalians are not members of nonvital and nonviable congregations.

The members of an Episcopal church about to close need to urgently know that they are not to blame for their congregation's close.

Of course you say!

Nonetheless, I sense that too many members of closed churches carry a false but real sense of blame and shame. It is very unlikely that the rector, vestry, or even bishop has blamed the members for the church's close. At the same time the language that Episcopalians commonly use to describe "at risk" congregations might be easily heard as words to describe the members of the church about to close.

Does a nonvital congregation mean its congregation's members are no longer vital too?

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