Every month ECFVP offers resources on a theme. This month we've asked ECF's own Dr. Adriane Bilous to choose resources from Vital Practices to highlight. Please find her choices below. Please share this email with new members of your vestry and extend an invitation to subscribe to ECF Vital Practices to receive Vestry Papers and this monthly digest.
As this difficult year comes to a close, we invite you to take the time to celebrate Advent. A season of anticipation and waiting, Advent can be a wonderful time to pause and reflect not just on what has happened, but what is to come. To help you celebrate this season, we’ve gathered ten resources for Advent. From all of us at ECF, we pray that your Advent is filled with health and hopeful anticipation.
1. 5 Ways to Prepare Ye is a short and practical article to help Episcopalians recognize and observe the differences between Advent and Christmas.
2. Journeying the Way of Love Advent Curriculum: The Episcopal Church has produced this four-week curriculum that moves through the first two chapters of the Gospel of Luke. It’s perfect for use during your Christian Formation hour before or after church and can be used by small or large groups.
More than 25 years ago, I started using Forward Movement’s Forward Day by Day (FDBD) publication as a Lenten discipline. I found starting the day by reading the Scriptures and reflecting on the meditations so meaningful that I kept it up. In those days, I read from the little printed booklets distributed at my church. When I found a meditation I loved, I gently tore out the page and taped it into my prayer journal. Today, I visit Forward Day by Day online. Now when I am particularly moved or enlightened by a meditation, I “copy and paste” it into my digital prayer journal.
How delighted I am to learn that Forward Movement has published a collection of past meditations in book form entitled Come and See: Reflections of the Life of Jesus. Curated by long-time Forward Day by Day reader Sanford Smith, Come and See includes some of the best Forward Day by Day meditations from the past three decades.
In my more than 25 years in starting new congregations and redeveloping existing ones, I have gained a number of hard-won insights into what makes stewardship successful. These insights are the results of much congregational experimentation and reviewing giving research, and most of them go against the grain of our stewardship traditions. I offer this list ten DOs and DON’Ts below:
Stewardship DOs and DON’Ts:
2020 has been a year of difficult reality checks. Yes, it’s dangerous out there. Yes, you should wear a mask. Yes, you need to figure out Zoom.
Now there is an opportunity for a vitality check, designed to help focus congregational leadership and planning.
The Congregational Vitality Assessment (CVA), is now offered at no cost thanks to a partnership between the Episcopal Church Foundation (ECF) and The FaithX Project. The CVA provides congregations with an assessment of Vitality (healthiness) and Sustainability (level of people, financial, and contextual resources necessary to survive and even thrive). The vitality section of the CVA measures ten areas of congregational functioning, such as Vision and Mission, Leadership, Lay Empowerment, Worship, Formation, and Stewardship.
As we head into election week, ECF has gathered five resources from around the church to help make this election week holy.
1. Holding on to Hope: A National Service for Healing and Wellness
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry will lead a live-streamed prayer service from Washington National Cathedral, Holding on to Hope: A National Service for Healing and Wholeness, on All Saints Sunday, November 1, at 4:00-5:30 p.m. EST. In the midst of a pandemic, racial reckoning, and a historic election, the live-streamed service will gather Americans for prayer, song, lament, hope, and a call to love God and neighbor. The event will be simulcast in English and Spanish. Learn how to participate here.
Every month ECFVP offers five resources on a theme. This month we've asked the Very Rev. Miguelina Howell, dean of Christ Church Cathedral, Hartford to choose five resources from Vital Practices to highlight. Please find her choices below. Please share this email with new members of your vestry and extend an invitation to subscribe to ECF Vital Practices to receive Vestry Papers and this monthly digest.
I will never forget a sweet widow I interviewed during a feasibility study for a capital campaign in a parish in Pennsylvania. As we discussed the various proposed projects, it seemed she had a story for each one. Her children were baptized in the sanctuary, she taught Sunday School in those classrooms, she donated china tea cups for fellowship in the lounge. There was no hesitation when asked about her support for the campaign. Of course she would give.
Nothing in the conversation surprised her until I asked if she thought the campaign would be successful. “What do you mean?” she wanted to know. When I explained that questions are being asked to determine how much money could be raised, her bright face suddenly faded.
Do you need a video for your capital campaign? Maybe you've had your heart strings pulled by glowing shots and the stirring soundtrack of your alma mater's video or the local hospital's. But is something that flashy appropriate for a church institution? And aren't those videos expensive?
It depends on what you need to do.
When a large diocese began an $8 million campaign for renovations to the diocesan center, most of their donors had never visited the building - the limited parking and urban traffic kept attendance at informational tours to a trickle. So the Director of Networking decided to "take the mountain to Mohammed." She used a tech-savvy production house to develop a Pixar-like video that blended donor interviews with animated architectural drawings to give people a virtual tour of the building before construction was completed.
Shocked, bewildered, hurt, and angry are just a few words that come to mind when thinking about what I and many others have experienced along with David in 1 Samuel. What do you do when the very institution that you love, trust, and given yourself to, turns against you? Moreover, what do you do when these institutions not only turn against you, but come against the purposes and plans of God for your life?
In 1 Samuel 18, we see the powers that be both bless David and attack his very life. In this chapter David is given armor, and even his sword and his bow and his belt of King Saul’s son, Jonathan (1 Samuel 18:4). It is also recorded that David is successful wherever Saul sends him (1 Samuel 18:5). In fact, he is so successful that Saul sets him over the army (1 Samuel 18:5). David’s fame grows to the point where the women of the towns of Israel sing a celebratory song about him recorded in verse 7: “Saul has killed his thousands, and David his ten thousands.” At this, Saul became angry.
In the beginning phases of the pandemic as our churches started closing, there was a lot of concern from church leadership about the financial stewardship from our members. This concern was not misplaced, many churches pre-pandemic were not able to meet their monthly commitment based solely on giving from congregants. Many were surmising that the fall-out would be permanent church closures.
So how would the pandemic impact these categories of givers:
1. The many faithful who pledge and fulfill that commitment
2. Those who do not pledge and are regular givers
3. Many who give only when they are physically present at the church service
4. Others who are unable or unwilling to contribute
“Spread for me a banquet of praise,
serve High God a feast of kept promises”
- Psalm 50:14 – The Message
After months of churches scrambling to add or improve electronic and/or mobile donation options during the pandemic, it seems safe to assume that online giving is here to stay. What I wonder about is how churches are faring if they previously did not strongly promote the concept of annual pledging. Sure, people may find it easier to donate online, but how do they determine the size of their gifts if they did not promise to give a certain amount this year?
There are bottom line reasons why most faith communities appreciate those who pledge to give a certain dollar amount in the year ahead. The most obvious is that the total amount pledged helps the Vestry set the overall spending plan (budget) for the next year.
Good morning, Steward!
I wonder what would happen if, instead of having a Buildings and Grounds Committee at the church, we had Site Stewards. And instead of a Chair of the Buildings and Grounds Committee, we had a Chief Site Steward. I wonder how it would be to call the Administrative Assistant the Administration Steward, or to call the newly emerging tech and digital assistant for worship the Tech Steward.
Every month ECFVP offers five resources on a theme. This month we've asked Paul Klitzke, Rector at Church of the Ascension in Dallas, TX, to offer a vlog sharing how he uses the different resource types on Vital Practices. Please find his choices below. Please share this email with new members of your vestry and extend an invitation to subscribe to ECF Vital Practices to receive Vestry Papers and this monthly digest.
Who could have imagined the upheavals 2020 has brought upon us? Along with every other institution, churches have been turned upside-down. In many cases necessity has been the mother of invention, as with the explosion of online worship. In other parts of our common life, such as youth ministry, it’s been tempting to throw up our hands and wait for a better time.
We’d like to share two experiences of adapting to the pandemic, with the hope that they’ll open up some possibilities in your setting. The first arose from young people and their youth leader responding to needs in the community and making an impact. The second explores the question of how a youth group can safely gather in person again. We’ll begin by describing the unique setting in which these experiences took place.
Change is inevitable; and, vestries are the key to the transformation. Governance for the sake of governance gives little attention to transformative leadership; but governance that focuses on missional ministry brings not just new structures but also new meaning. By leading such transformational change, the vestry creates the opportunity for the church to find not only vitality but growth. “The transformation of the church can be accomplished without losing what is precious to it, but it cannot avert change …the real work is to live into and through the dissonance that automatically comes with change, emerging with an even stronger faith.”
At our 2019 Diocesan Convention, citing Jesus in Luke 5, Bishop Gutiérrez urged us to ‘take our boats into deeper water to catch more fish’. Staying safely by the shore, maintaining the status quo, doing only what we knew how to do was not going to bring in the catch we were seeking. Instead he instructed us to “live fearlessly, and …continually reassess if our current structures are working. Let’s reassess and if they are slowing us down, if there are obstacles, if they keep us close to the shore, throw it overboard. Review what people are doing around the world and develop new structures that will help us to be innovative, agile, and keep going deep.” The charge of the transformative vestry is to go deeper into the un-chartered waters of ministry, following the missional template that Jesus gave us, only to discover a church we may not know but to which our faith will lead us.
Church Publishing. Transforming Vestries (Transformations) (Kindle Locations 121, 124-125). Church Publishing Inc.. Kindle Edition.
Gutiérrez, Rt. Rev. Daniel G. P. “Bishop’s Address”. The Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania: 236th Diocesan Convention. November 2, 2019
This has been a trying year. The Church in 2020 has gone through major adjustments in light of the Pandemic. Even with Facebook Live services and Zoom Bible Studies, many miss participating in the Eucharist, the singing of hymns, coffee hour, and other rituals that bind communities of faith.
Yet, there is a bright side to the present circumstances. This is a great opportunity to strengthen our spiritual lives in ways that often come when our lives are still. Here are some practices we can implement as we also practice our social distancing and our quarantines.
1. Reading the Bible: Ok. Ready for this? Some of us attend churches where both Word and Sacrament are pillars of worship, but if we are honest, the actual practice is Sacrament over Word. We love the beauty of the Eucharistic rituals, yet there is not a bible to be found in the pews: only prayer books and hymnals. Some of us need to brush up on the Word of God and meditate on it day and night (Joshua 1:8).
Neither is new wine put into old wineskins; otherwise, the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins are destroyed; but new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.” Matthew 9:17
Part I
As the Canons for Growth and Support in the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania, we are called to assist churches in transitioning from the traditional model of church (membership-driven with a financial base in which endowment, capital improvement, and parish administration are primary components) into envisioning and articulating a new way of “being church”. Whether a church was founded as a result of suburban ‘white-flight’ from the city or remained tied to its historical urban roots, these churches have a common denominator, namely that they have lost their connection to the community. The reasons for this disengagement are many and a topic for another discussion, but changes in both the neighborhood and church membership have resulted in the disconnection.
July and August are normally vacation time for many within the church. Attendance by parishioners decreases and there is a scramble to find supply priests while the clergy are away. We fret about tithes and many committees including vestries suspend their meetings and deliberations. We share our vacation plans, are thankful for the much needed rest, and hopeful that we will be reinvigorated for the work ahead. The good old days!!
With the public health issues of COVID-19 and systemic racism raging across our country, this summer’s vacation plans are different, and in many cases nonexistent. Practically, it may not be safe to travel or congregate with groups including family members. Others may be fearful given the continuous broadcast of civil unrest.
The liturgy of the Episcopal Church is strikingly beautiful. The revenant execution of both Word and Sacrament draws many to a deeper relationship with God. But if we’re honest, many of us in the Body of Christ have witnessed another liturgy at work within its members, revealing a corporate disease of the heart. To clarify, I will give an example of the ritual within this sinful liturgy.
The Ritual:
Approximately 3 years ago, I was a new doctoral student and had been an aspirant to Holy Orders for quite some time. I was also working full time at an Episcopal Church in the North Texas area. I was well aware that locally, only about two or three Black people had made it through the discernment process, but I was hopeful. However, shortly after my start in the church, both parish and diocesan leadership decided to place a white male from another diocese, who had yet to finish his prerequisite seminary education, at the church for the discernment process. They wanted me to help train him yet denied my own discernment process. When I began to speak up about what I and others saw as racial injustice, they removed me and tried to silence me.
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