Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

I recently spent some time in Los Angeles with a bilingual congregation. The group I was with wanted to hear and talk with members of this congregation about the types of resources they want – and need. It was a good day, with conversations in the church kitchen and fellowship hall, in people’s homes, over lunch, and with the youth group. 

We heard lots of wonderful ideas and some concrete suggestions about how organizations of the church can support the Latino communities. Two questions were posed to every individual: What brought you to The Episcopal Church? What keeps you in The Episcopal Church?

As you might expect, the answers varied about why people first visited The Episcopal Church: baptism and first communion, marriages, and invitations by friends. Interestingly though, the answer to the second question was nearly universal: relationships – and especially with the priest -- connected people to the church. 

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It’s not funny. Not even the first time, although I’ll likely flash a faint smile and then steer the conversation in a new direction. By the second or third time, I want to school the speaker, to explain why the phrase is hurtful, undermining, and wrong.

“I thought priests only worked one day a week.”

We’ve all heard this side comment. Some of us may have said it, joking (mostly). But like other off-handed remarks, this one stings, in part because it’s so off-base, and in part, because I wonder if deep down, some people believe it’s true.

Before we proceed, I want to assure you that this is not some rant about how priests have the hardest job, woe-is-them. Wonderful gifts of ordained ministry abound. Priests have the privilege of being present with people at some of the most joyous moments in their lives. Their schedules are somewhat flexible (although weekend trips are out), and they get to (or should) spend time in reading, reflection, and study.

The vocation of priesthood also comes with significant challenges: vacations interrupted by pastoral emergencies, bullying from certain corners of the church, paperwork and clogged pipes, night meetings, early morning breakfasts, critical audiences, and relentless expectations.

So when someone says, “I thought priests only worked one day a week,” I sometimes want to stick my foot out and trip them. I pull back the urge to shout or strangle or launch into the litany of demands piled onto my husband and other priests. 

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I keep circling back to the image of a toothy, twinkling 8-year-old Martin, one of the three fatalities of the bombing at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. I think of other pictures that haunt me: men and women jumping from the top floors of the World Trade Center, the slumped, broken shoulders of a father learning his 7-year-old was shot to death in a second-grade classroom, police tape around the neon of a movie theater.

For me, part of the gut punch of these images is the contrast, the stark difference between joy and terror.

The finish line isn’t supposed to be obliterated by a pressure-cooker bomb. A day at the office shouldn’t turn into an incomprehensible decision between death by jumping or by inferno. Children should never have to huddle under desks or in cubbies to escape rapid and incessant gunfire.

The contrast is almost too big to comprehend, the gap between what should be and what has become too hard to see together.

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The setting of this week’s Gospel reading sounds like many of the meetings I’ve attended lately: A small band of deeply committed, faithful disciples trying to figure out what to do when things seem to be falling apart. Too often their numbers are both dwindling and aging, energy is flagging, buildings need attention, and changes in their surrounding communities have left them wondering where mission and ministry fit in the grand scheme of things.

A few weeks ago at the Northeast Ecumenical Stewardship Council’s biennial conference, the keynote speaker made a point that speaks deeply to this scenario: You can’t die twice.[i] It doesn’t matter if the things you try don’t bring the results you planned—at least you tried something. And if each effort to engage congregational growth and development reaches a few new people, energy will accumulate and new life will become greater than the sum of its parts.

So how do we live into the miracle of a church that’s only mostly dead?[ii]

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Recently I’ve been watching the West Wing, a show I watched religiously when it first aired. It’s an idealistic, if not particularly realistic, show. Frequently, characters are persuaded to change their minds, often after someone makes a particularly salient argument. But most of us know that that’s not usually how minds are changed.

You may have heard about the Republican Senator who changed his stance on gay marriage after his son told him he was gay. As this story demonstrates, most often our minds are changed by relationships and experience. There are many opportunities to interact with people who agree with us, from websites to cable news networks to radio talk shows. It is often only relationships with others that can break us out of these echo chambers.

As every Anglican knows, the church has its own politics and deep divides. Fortunately, we also have liturgy and community that can bring us together despite these divides, and Jesus Christ, a person. The church can be a place where life-altering relationships can develop with those who are different from us and challenge us.

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Selecting target audiences is a key step in creating a communication – and ministry – plan.

In this blog, we talked about methods to identify target audiences. My recommendation is to pick two or three target audience groups. For instance, you may decide to frame your evangelism efforts for young families and immigrants. These target audiences then should become an important lens for programming, marketing, and even outreach.

What I mean is that there are a gazillion things a congregation can do, from new styles of worship to changing service times to mission trips to food pantries, from after-school activities for kids to wine tastings, mid-day Bible studies, and Sunday School classes. Determining target audiences helps narrow some of the options. If your congregation is serious about attracting young families, then it needs to pony up for a renovation of the nursery and invest time and perhaps money in a quality Christian education program. If your congregation is committed to being a place of worship for immigrants, then you need to consider your signage and printed materials. Should they be printed in two languages? Are they in clear and simple English so that new learners can decipher them? Does the church have intentional opportunities for integration?

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Several years ago, a colleague and I worked with a congregation to develop a communications plan. One of the challenges for the group was to define its target audience. Who were they trying to reach?

The easy answer was everyone. They wanted everyone in their community to walk through the red doors and transform into spiritually mature members, generous in time and money, and preferably with two kids and a dog.

We pushed back. While it’s true that we hold our doors open for everyone, we also need to prayerfully identify two or three target audiences. This is important so that we can direct our limited resources, energy, and money to places where there we might better have traction. Big companies know this is important – that’s why they do endless market research.

Figuring out the target audience doesn’t have to require a team from Procter & Gamble’s marketing division. But it does require some clear-headed, honest evaluation.

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It’s possible to make things too complicated. This is something I’ve learned while working on multiple projects. Some projects require extensive planning. They need budgets and a clear vision and measurable goals. Sometimes, however, overly ambitious plans can bog you down. Sometimes it’s best just to get started.

I’ve recently been working on a project like this. We met a year or two ago, and made extensive plans that never went anywhere. Then, we started over, smaller and simpler, and we’re all excited about it again.

There are times when it may be better to just start up the reading group or meditation gathering or blog or small experimental worship service on Sunday evenings with the young adult group. These projects are more like experiments. You have to be willing to let them fail, and keep the stakes fairly small. They may not work out, and if they start to take off it’s at that point you start thinking long term, creating a budget, and taking the next steps.

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It’s an all-American, boot-strappin’ response to tough times: We’re fine. We’re over it. We’ve moved on. 

Even when, especially when, the wounds are still there, just covered with a light scab for disguise.

The past three years have been tough for our congregation . Their rector of nearly three decades retired. For many in the congregation, he was the only ordained leader they had experienced, conducting their confirmations, marriages, and baptisms of their children. Whether or not he was universally beloved during his tenure, at the time of retirement, he was elevated to saint.  

Then an interim came to the congregation. Sadly he was fighting a host of demons and 13 months later, he shot himself in the head. 

The losses came too fast, mourning an old friend and pastor, then bewilderment at the suicide of a priest. 

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Every year at diocesan convention, we hear the same browbeating about raising money for seminaries. One of the retired priests has a real passion for supporting the seminaries, but his frustration at the lack of wide participation translates into a 10-minute nag. Frankly, most people tune out. 

This year, he didn’t even have a chance to take the podium. And the convention raised more in 24 hours than it had in the entire previous year.

Here, perhaps, is the difference: We had fun doing it.

At lunch on the first day of convention, the retired priest ribbed a couple of his colleagues for wearing cassocks. After some (mostly) good-natured back-and-forth, one of the cassock-clad priests challenged, “I’d pay good money to see you wear one.” And the gauntlet was laid.

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I’ve heard of a boy named Sue but never a person named “we.”

In meeting after meeting, I’ll hear (and sometimes say), “We will take care of it.” Or “We should do something about that.” Or even, “We think there’s a problem.”

In a leadership seminar a few weeks ago, the speaker talked about how people (especially women) often use the collective “we” when they should be using the singular pronoun “I.”

There’s no one named “we” in the room, she said.

That has stuck with me as I hear time and again someone promise: “We’ll work on that.”

On the one hand, using we can create the idea of shared ownership – a sense that we accomplished something together. I’m cool with that.

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Are nice people really killing churches? The Episcopal Café is calling attention to this blog post by Todd Rhoades which suggests that church leaders, while being good at treating others with grace and love are not as good at treating each other with truth, or as Rhoades puts it “Truth, covered in grace and love.” And this lack of truth then leads to a dying church.

At ECF Vital Practices, we agree: Truth, covered in grace and love, is essential for a church – or any organization - to be healthy and growing. We also know that this isn’t always easy. People often want to be ‘nice’ or ‘kind’ so they gloss over behaviors or other things they find troubling rather than learn to offer feedback as a tool for encouragement and effective performance. Perhaps it is in our nature to avoid things we fear might be unpleasant or uncomfortable.

The ability to learn is also in our nature.

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A theme that ran through each conversation was the importance of managing expectations, beginning with the recruitment of vestry members, and continuing through vestry orientation and training. Equally important was valuing vestry service as sacred ministry as well as maintaining a healthy balance between the leadership and management aspects of vestry responsibilities.

Here’s how each of our contributors approached this question:

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The past six months have been full of discovery.

It started with a week at CREDO, a program by the Church Pension Group that promotes health in spirit, body, vocation and finances. Then I began a year-long program with the regional chamber of commerce for women leaders. Between the two programs, I spent a lot of time talking about and figuring out my definition of success. I wrote personal mission statements and haikus about my five-year plan. I explored ways to find the elusive work-life balance, techniques for de-stressing and goals for setting aside me-time.

And despite the saccharine sound of our activities, it has been an amazing journey.

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For most problems in our lives, there’s a patron saint.

Need a house sold? Petition St. Joseph.

Troubled pregnancy? Pray to St. Gerard.

Lost something? Help me, St. Anthony.

But to the best of my knowledge and Google’s search capacity, there is no saint mind reader.

Our priest reminded folks of this gap in the calendar of saints during the announcements. The ECW is considering changes to their primary fundraiser. A lot of people stake claim to this tradition, from the ribbon sandwiches to the decorations, from the time, date, and location, to the composition of raffle baskets.

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Recently, we have undertaken a new outreach program at our mission in the Hill neighborhood called GARLiC (Green Art Renewing Life in Community). Its purpose, as outlined ably by its program director Sarah Raven, is “to encourage ‘upcycling’ and green art as a means to reduce consumer spending, increase art appreciation, and help the environment by reducing municipal waste in ethnically diverse, low income, urban neighborhoods.” Essentially we are working to take that which is being discarded and using it to create something beautiful.

I have been thinking about the implications of this sort of work for the broader life of the Church and keep wondering what it is that we are throwing away in our rush through modern life? Are there people, institutions, liturgies, prayer practices, and more that we are ignoring in our attempt to find something new that seems more relevant? What do we make of these disparate pieces?

My sense is that we are moving into an age of what I might call mosaic ministry. A mosaic takes bits of that which is broken and creates a work of art – sometimes even sublime and breathtaking art. How can we, as a community of believers, take the pieces of our history and stories and arrange them alongside new ones to form an icon of Christ in the world. Just gluing together broken pieces in an attempt to hold on to an old form creates a cracked (and unstable) replica of the former rather than a new work of beauty.

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From the Gospel according to Mark:

Jesus said, “No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak; otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.”

            (From the Daily Office Lectionary – Mark 2:21-22 (NRSV) – January 18, 2013.)

For the past few years, I’ve been reading some of the folks who are writing about “emerging Christianity,” primarily Brian McLaren and Phyllis Tickle, but others as well. So last weekend I went to an event called an “Emergence Christianity conversation,” which was really a kick off for Ms. Tickle’s latest book. I was one of 400 or so participants, many of whom had been to earlier “emergence” events or are members of “emerging church” communities or both. Since I have not and am not, I was at most a johnny-come-lately to the conversation and at least an outsider. Nonetheless, I took part as I hoped to learn more about this (as Ms. Tickle put it) new tributary in the river that is Christianity.

My reason for doing so was, frankly, practical. What, I wanted to know, is happening on the ground in those places where “emerging Christianity” has taken the form of viable communities and working ministries? What might we in the historic, institutional church (what the emergent community calls “the inherited church”) learn from them?

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Does your congregation have the right people on the bus?

I’ve been reading Jim Collins’ Good to Great, in part to prepare for my transition into a new job. What are the keys to success? How can I be an instrument of positive change?

But the book, I think, also offers some great insight for congregations, particularly as we move into vestry election season.

One of the critical elements, Collins insists, in moving from good to great is getting the right people on the bus – and ultimately, getting them in the right seats.

Collins and his team reviewed Fortune 500 companies, measuring their sustained success and then isolating the traits that separated 11 great organizations from the rest. They found that time and again the company’s leader spent a great deal of time finding the right people. Sometimes that meant hiring people without specific jobs in mind but with the knowledge that their skills, gumption and commitment would make them prime candidates for any position. Collins posits that without the right people, the best strategic plan will fail. 

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I’m not sure the Bible mentions the word pluck (other than a few pesky references to removing one’s eye), but Jesus is clear time and again that his followers should exhibit the values imbued in the word.

Trusty Webster defines pluck as a “courageous readiness to fight or continue against odds. Dogged resolution.”

Doomsday scenarios have the church withering on the vine, with statistics showing steep declines in the participation of organized religion. These numbers are sobering and should be cause for serious reflection and change. But I worry we’ll stew so long, that we will see the challenge is too big, that we miss wonderful opportunities in our own communities to be the church for which God is calling us and people are hungry.

Here’s a story of one plucky congregation. 

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One tree makes 8,333 sheets of paper. So says Yahoo! Answers.

So I’m estimating that our nearly paperless diocesan convention earlier this month saved, drum roll, please, … one tree.

And maybe a thick branch too.

At 2-cents a copy, we saved about $166.66 in printing costs, plus the cost of nearly 17 reams of paper. Not pocket change, but also not big-budget change either.

We promoted the nearly paperless convention as good stewardship of the environment and finances. And that is true, to a degree.

But the real value for me was the creation of space for something new. 

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