Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

When I was a little girl, I suppose I knew that my Grandma Wright did not have much money. She lived in a tiny, two room apartment carved into the back of an old house. On overnight visits, I slept on a cot next to her bed. Together we would watch Bonanza or play dominoes. In the morning, she would fry cornmeal mush and let me drown it in maple syrup.

I can see her now, adjusting a simple cotton dress with buttons up the front, tightening the laces on her sturdy black leather shoes with chunky heels, and placing a net over her waves of silver hair. Pocketbook on her arm, we would walk to South Arlington Methodist Church for quilting and midweek prayer. Grandma arrived early to get the big aluminum coffee pot percolating as the other women arrived.

When I think about the widow whom Jesus watched place two copper pennies – all she had – into the offering plate, I think of Grandma Wright. She lavished me with love and fun, reflecting her trust in and gratitude for God’s provision. Her life revolved around her faith; all she did and all she possessed was caught up in that orbit.

Recent studies show that on average today, Christians in America give less than three percent of their income to the church. This aligns with statistics revealing that many churches see average annual pledges, when they are made, hovering around $1,500 to $3,000 – far away from a tithe for most household incomes.

Jesus talked about money quite a bit, but churches have a tough time with it. Americans want to keep their money-business private. People find ways to avoid examining how they could possibly “sacrifice” more to the church, so they will skip a coffee hour presentation on stewardship as they rush off to grab a $6.00 Hazelnut Macchiato down the street.

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Why do relatively few parishes mount capital campaigns or have planned giving programs?

Well, it is very difficult to work toward a goal you don’t think is possible. It is impossible to work toward a goal you don’t even believe exists.

The leaders of most parishes are consumed with the difficulty of funding the operation from month to month, year to year. With the strong cultural headwinds that face institutional religion today, many leaders have lost touch with the idea that God wants a long-term future for their parishes, and that they have a role in bringing that future to birth.

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We’ve been having a great deal of success with our Sunday morning adult formation at St. George’s in Valley Lee, and it doesn’t have anything to do with new people. This year we tried something new, something a little bit bold, but I wanted to see if it’d work. And it has, so far.

A little bit about our immediate past: as is the case at many congregations, a Sunday morning at St. George’s is a busy and wonderful time. There’s a lot to do and catch up on, but save for Children’s Chapel and Sunday School classes for kids and youth, there’s not a lot of intentional formation going on. Worship is part and parcel of formation, I know, and meaningful worship and lively music and rich fellowship remain strong and central to our Sunday morning offering.

In previous years, we tried to offer an adult bible study. Oh, we tried everything: lectionary series, intensive 36-week study of one book, a co-teacher, and various hosts for various sessions of the class. But, year after year, the trends repeated themselves: it’d start off strong in September, maybe 15 people gathered in the conference room, and those numbers and, more so, that energy and commitment kept up through October, and then numbers would start dropping, one by one, leaving only a few really committed adult students a few weeks by the first Sunday of Advent. The week we’d resume in January, most of them forgot all about it – Christmas having erased their brain, I guess – and it’d stall out right then and there.

At some point in the late summer, as I was praying about and gearing up again for this program year, I felt a sudden call – an urge, really. We were being called, I sensed, to put all the energy, all the time, all the resources of our church – or at least what we do, and why we do it – into discipleship making. If those things don’t fit the fairly loose category called “Making Disciples” then we weren’t going to do them, or at least we weren’t going to stress about them. If those things were about Discipleship 101, even if they had the faintest, loosest connection to it, we were going to shine greater light on them and move them to the center.

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When you start a job, you receive a handbook (or at least, you should). The handbook contains information about the company and its policies and procedures. Of course, the handbook doesn’t cover everything. There are those office culture and traditions that new employees tend to stumble upon. Oh, we celebrate birthdays by bringing in a treat for everyone to share? Oh, the office closes for the opening day of baseball? Oops, we’re not supposed to use scotch tape on the wall…

An office handbook can’t cover every situation, but a helpful human resources associate can guide a newcomer through some of the local customs. But the fact remains that this is a job, and you’re getting paid for it. When people are voluntarily coming to a church for the first or second time, they’re making a choice. And if they don’t feel welcome or included, the choice may quickly become to find another place of worship.

Some of our congregations are really good at the initial welcome (others are not, but that’s a topic for another day). But when it comes to incorporating new people into our churches, the track record of most congregations is pretty dismal.

Our congregation has been studying evangelism during Lent. It’s an unusual topic, perhaps, during this season of penitence. But the goal is to have parishioners reflect in meaningful, thoughtful ways about abiding Christ’s commandment to make disciples of all people. One interesting outgrowth of the discussions, spurred both by the Sunday sermons and Wednesday studies, is the need for a handbook for newcomers. In some ways, this handbook would be like one you receive at a job. It would include office hours and details about worship (times, childcare availability, etc.). The handbook would feature different ministries of the church, with contact information, meeting times, and a short description. It might offer a page on Episcopal basics: when we stand, sit, or kneel; an invitation to all baptized to partake in Holy Eucharist – and all people to come forward for a blessing; maybe even a short glossary of terms (sexton, narthex, etc.). 

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The other day in church, we sang a song called “What We Need is Here.” I was overcome with an almost suffocating feeling I couldn’t quite name, something between nostalgia and sadness. The song is a lovely simple melody that the church sings often and I’ve usually found it comforting. I couldn’t quite explain the feeling.

We used to sing the song more frequently when I first started attending about six years ago, and both the church and I have changed a lot since then. Maybe I was feeling some nostalgia for the people who have moved away or maybe I was remembering that sense of loneliness (and sleep deprivation) I often felt at that time.

I’ve been reading a book called Parenting from the Inside Out by Daniel Siegel and Mary Hartzel, and in it they write about implicit and explicit memories. Explicit memories are those clear pictures or scenes that we can pull up in our minds. But beneath that, there are the feelings, sensations, and associations that are triggered by other experiences and memories—the feeling of nostalgia that might accompany a certain smell, or a song that makes us sad for unknown reasons.

Sometimes we can determine the meaning and source of these implicit memories, but they’re not always obvious. We may not even realize what’s going on, we just find that we are suddenly sad or angry or some seemingly unrelated memory comes up. I still haven’t figured out what exactly triggered that feeling of sadness at church the other day.

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The healthy church has a fundamental orientation: outward. Leaders don’t ask, “What do our members want?” Instead, they ask, “What does the world around us need?”

Leaders understand that a missional mindset is the heart of all church development. New constituents, for example, are rarely attracted by better and better worship. They want to know what a congregation stands for and what it is doing in the world for others.
Transformative leaders aren’t necessarily more adept at reading the signs of insider moods and keeping people satisfied. They are focused on sending constituents into the world, where they will transform the world and, in the process, be transformed themselves.

Spiritual development leads inexorably to mission, not to deeper and deeper conversations within the body. Jesus sent disciples out to serve. Stewardship development springs from crossing the wilderness, not from reading a clever slogan. People give to mission, not to facilities or salaries.

Younger adult ministries aren’t centered in worship, but in building houses, doing mission, putting lives on the line.

Mission isn’t a line item in the budget. Mission is people going out into the world to serve others. To do that mission, leaders and constituents need to engage with the world as it is and to give what they have to give.

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Are your tenants your friends? Is that even possible? What is the relationship with the people who use your church’s space?

So many of our churches these days have tenants. It’s practical, mostly. We often have more space and less money than we need, and tenants help pay the bills. When we’re lucky, our tenants are nonprofits and community organizations that do things we are proud to be associated with.

My church has several tenants, including one large one that is a major part of our economic stability. What I have noticed, however, is that the tenant relationship is not particularly conducive to a sense of shared ministry. Tenant relationships tend to have defined expectations, clear exchanges of money, space and services, and not much beyond a friendly hello in the hallway to mark our connections.

In our parish, we have begun experimenting with other ways to offer our space. We are, in essence, asking people to be our friends. When someone comes to ask to rent space, we suggest a more complex relationship. We ask for voluntary donations rather than setting a dollar amount of rent. We ask for some kind of in-kind donation to the life of the church: help with parish work days, an eye out for security when the new groups are in the space, offerings of talent such as music and dance that add to the life of the church.

This approach can make people a little anxious. Many of our neighbors would honestly prefer to have a dollar amount and some rules and be done with it. Many of our parish leaders worry that the church will be short-changed.

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What is it about human behavior that lends itself to conflict? As followers of Christ, rather than pretending differences or bad behaviors don’t exist, can we break the cycle and instead learn new ways of building up the beloved community?

Our articles this month may help congregations to do just that:

We start by looking back to the early days of Christianity. In “Factions to Families: Lessons from 1 Corinthians,” C.K. Robertson reminds us that Paul’s advice to the Corinthians has stood the test of time. He suggests we have a choice: Unlike the Corinthians who ignored Paul’s advice, we can choose to listen and take seriously the challenge he offers us.

Leadership and finances are the areas most cited by Episcopal churches as sources of conflict. Often, the response is to accept this conflict and try to manage it. Jerry Keucher’s, “Treat the Disease, Not the Symptom” suggests a different approach: addressing the underlying problem(s) fueling that conflict.

“One size fits all” never fits anyone well. In “Conflict: Is Everyone Being Heard?” Anna Olson reminds us that cultural expectations related to accepted forms of communication vary. She identifies two dominant norms for managing conflict that, given the cultural context of a congregation, may undermine attempts to support healthier communication.

Can we learn new ways of dealing with conflict? Kay Collier McLaughlin’s “Getting Along in a Really Strange, Big Family” offers an approach to help congregational leaders identify destructive behaviors and replace them with healthier alternatives.

We encourage you to think about how the ideas presented in this and every issue can provide an impetus for evaluating and reflecting on what you could learn from the experiences of others.To help in your discernment, at the end of each article we offer a list of the resources related to the topic. If you have a resource you’d like to share, please email me with the link or add it to the site using the Your Turn feature.

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Who would have thought to use last year’s Christmas cards as a prayer cycle?

We received a note in the mail from a friend in New York. A talented and committed priest, we served together on a diocesan staff before she returned to parish ministry and I came to Forward Movement.

In her note, she explained that she had been praying for us this week. She kept her stack of Christmas cards and each week, pulls one out and prays with special intention for the sender.

I love this idea and plan to adopt it next year. It resolves some a small problem: I always hate to throw away all of the Christmas cards that people have worked hard to select, sign, and send. More importantly though, it can serve as a guide for an intentional, focused practice of prayer.

Many of us are probably pretty good at praying for specific concerns and in response to requests. But God works in all kinds of wonderful ways, and you never know when your prayer for a friend or family member may be just what they need—even if they didn’t ask for it.

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Priest Morris Thompson readily admits that, “All my life I have been afraid of evangelism.” Yet he and his fellow Christians at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Columbus, Mississippi, decided that they wanted to be part of the Jesus Movement proclaimed by Presiding Bishop Michael Curry in a video released they day after his installation. 

Before they got started, they stalled in the face of the unknown. HOW could THEY be evangelists? Father Morris, in his first year as Curate, reflected on his living in the old and diverse neighborhood of the church. He realized he talked daily with many neighbors, but he had never invited them to St. Paul’s. He shared his thoughts with parishioners.

Several in the congregation, including his wife Emily, had been raised Southern Baptist. With evangelizing experience, they bolstered the courage of others. 23 people went door-to-door last December, distributing parish-prepared candied pecans and flyers about Lessons and Carols and Christmas Eve services. Father Morris shared their experience in an Open Letter to Presiding Bishop Curry, which was posted on Facebook and published the diocesan newsletter.

The Lord blessed their efforts several ways…

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Our recent Vestry Papers article urged church leaders to shift their focus from “inside” to “outside,” and from church-sponsored outreach to individuals understanding themselves as “on mission” in their everyday lives. We’ve already offered ways to Break Out, Take Out, and Reach Out. Another one of the ways we Christians can “get the hell out of church” (the title of the VP article) is to Live Out – to be evangelists by carrying God’s Good News into every aspect of our daily lives.

Whenever I’m (Demi) dismayed by the idea of being the bearer of God’s Good News, I remember the disciples in Luke 10. That’s the story of Jesus sending them out, vulnerable and inexperienced, as his “advance men” for his upcoming campaign. Their assignment was to proclaim peace, accept the hospitality that was offered, heal people who were sick, and proclaim, “The kingdom of God has come near to you.”

These people, Jesus’ first evangelists, knew nothing about Jesus’ crucifixion, or resurrection, or victory over sin and death, or substitutionary atonement, or how to celebrate Eucharist. So what was their Good News? Basically, “Shalom! Peace and health be with you. God who loves us is right here, near us.”

Unlike them, we are Easter people. And each Sunday, as worship ends and we hear, “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord,” we’re sent out into our worlds to do exactly what we’ve been called to do – offer God’s peace, healing, and presence to a hurting and angry world.

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Although the early numbers for 2016 seem pointed in an even more exciting direction than we previously thought, there are still some issues we need to work through. But working through them as part of an overall church growth strategy, such as we’ve learned to do for so many years, is not what we’re being called to do. Not now, that is.

This past fall, you see, St. George’s, Valley Lee went through a rather intense series of discernment. For one, we kicked off year one of a three-year financial stewardship campaign we’re calling ‘Growing Generous Givers.’ We wanted to be honest about our overall growth patterns – and there has been much growth, and much to celebrate – as well as naming the potential consequences for not continuing to grow, or failing to re-think church entirely. Some folks found this a welcome breath of fresh air – “Finally, we’re naming the elephant in the room!” (meaning, probably that we were finally naming overall financial vulnerability and confronting the need to change) – but a great many people found this campaign too aggressive, too pushy, too much. Honestly, for my part, I get the sense that there are so many issues around financial dynamics and stewardship in the life of a given congregation that any talk – let alone the fairly straightforward talk we were doing this past fall – would set off a whole host of anxiety and hand-wringing.

Another thing we did back in October and November was have a more public discussion about the future of this congregation as a stand-alone, self-sufficient, relatively independent corporate entity. The fact is we’ve been talking for years and years in this part of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington about the need to collaborate more intentionally and, indeed, to collaborate institutionally; that is, to get beyond the restrictions of the mid-20th century “one-parish / one-priest” model. The other fact is that we are growing, and not just in vibrancy and ministry-focus but in numbers; actual people and money and time. Our position is that we need to continue to do this work, and that we need to get ahead of the inevitable demographic curve that’s headed our way, and so we’ve been talking about collaboration at vestry meetings and in region-wide gatherings and with our diocese for at least seven years now. But, to be fair, we never really talked about it publicly, broadly, and with what seemed to be consequences for avoiding the issue.

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It’s amazing how quickly the Cadillac SUV went to the wayside for a used Ford.
The middle school students were given a paper with a job, average monthly salary, and number of children (including zero). They had to make their way around tables set up in the gymnasium and make lifestyle decisions based on their budget. The tables included taxes (first stop!), health insurance, transportation, housing, childcare, communications (the almighty cell phone), entertainment, clothing, and my table, chance (where they would have to pay for the unexpected—flat tire, school fees, birthday parties, medicine, faulty furnace, etc.).
In some places, the students had no choice (like taxes), but in most places they could spend up—the Cadillac—or down—bus fare.
As you can imagine, the exercise was quite illuminating. By the time they made it to chance, they were desperate to draw a low-cost card. (Of course, I suggested that to make it more realistic, they should have to draw ten cards. It’s never just one unexpected bill in a month!)
The program instigated some good discussions among the teens and around our dinner table. And it got me to thinking: What if churches put on a similar program, but this time, for the budget?

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In recent weeks I’ve been baking bread in my free time. I’ve tried out French bread and some wheat sandwich bread and rolls. These recipes are from Peter Reinhart’s book, The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, and require a lot of time and patience and sometimes the process takes a few days. I find the practice relaxing, even meditative, a fitting activity for Lent.

Last weekend I tried Sicilian bread, which is supposed to be shaped kind of like an “S.” An important part of preparing the dough is making sure you don’t handle it too much and degas it, or let all the air bubbles out. Shaping dough into an “S” without degassing it is much harder than I expected. I made the bread over three days, and I ended up with something that looked like two flattened circles rather than the loaves shown in the photo. Oh well. It tasted pretty good.

I’ve only recently begun to learn about bread and to practice making it, but I’ve already learned it takes a lot of patience and it’s a lot more enjoyable if I relax. As Reinhart says in his book, homemade bread is always a hit. So far, it’s all tasted good even if the loaves aren’t exactly beautiful.

We in the church spend much of our time making things that are beautiful—liturgies and vestments, music and sermons—especially those of us at large churches with lots of resources. Growing up in a church with a very small staff and a volunteer choir and organist, all of that was secondary to Eucharist and the simple act of coming together on Sunday mornings. Even when our choir was out of tune I often loved them because they were clearly trying so hard. Breaking bread together in the Eucharist was more important.

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Our recent Vestry Papers article "Get the Hell Out of Church" urged church leaders to shift their focus from “inside” to “outside,” and from church-sponsored outreach to individuals understanding themselves as “on mission” in their everyday lives. We’ve already offered ways to Break Out and Take Out. Another one of the ways we Christians can “get the hell out of church” is to Reach Out – to affirm parishioners where they live their daily lives, and to expand the meaning of pastoral presence.

My (Fletcher’s) years of experience being the rector “running” a lively parish has given me an appreciation of what it means to be a CEO of a non-profit organization. In my first parish, I experienced the transformation of the community over nearly five years as 17 northern industries relocated to our rural area of upper South Carolina. With the newly arrived executives moving into the area, I discovered I could best pay a pastoral visit where they worked. That experience opened, for me, a new understanding of “pastoral care.” And my interest in them as working people, and in the connection they made between their faith and what they did at work, opened a new understanding for them as well – that they were empowered and sent out to be the church in their daily lives of home, community, and work.

I set aside Thursday lunch time to visit parishioners across their desk or table or workbench. Two versions of a possible pattern for such workplace visits can be found at the website for Radical Sending. Such visits have allowed me to hear the stories of more than 300 lay folks in their places of work: mortgage managers, bank tellers, investment brokers, ad designers, plumbers, stay at home moms and dads, contract lawyers, nurses, school teachers, university professors to name a few. By listening to their stories and sometimes by challenging their perspectives, my sermons became enriched with real illustrations, my teachings focused on sharing the voices of lay folks, and the dismissal at the end of worship has taken on new meaning – sending people out to be the Church.

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My friend and I finished a meal at a local pub. We looked up and our friendly waiter gave us two pieces of paper and asked if we would be willing to contribute to a local nonprofit. By contributing $5.00, we had the opportunity to write our name on the paper and have it displayed by the bar at the pub.

My friend immediately agreed and began filling out the sheet. This sparked my curiosity and I asked “What was it about the invitation that made you agree to give $5.00 to this organization that you have no previous ties to?”

My friend’s response “because I was invited to personally by our waiter. He’s been so nice to us and I felt a connection.” 

When thinking about what motivates a person to give, there are a number of factors including: context, generation, and previous experience. 

Yet, there is something particularly powerful when being personally invited to give as a way of belonging to something bigger.

Henri Nouwen writes in A Spirituality of Fundraising: 

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This month we’re featuring 5 ways to help your newly forming vestry get off to a strong start, being a resource to aid in developing year round stewardship in your congregation.

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The campfire song goes, “They’ll know we are Christians by our love.”
I’ve never heard the lyrics with substitutes, like, “They’ll know we are Christians because we’re right.” Or because the other person was more wrong (at least according to our smug categorization).
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia wasn’t my favorite. I disagreed with many of his views, from gun control to the rights of gays and lesbians. But the relish many took in his death is deeply disturbing. He was a son, a husband, a father, and a friend. He was committed to seeking justice, even if he understood it in a different way than me. He was a legal scholar and a devoted American.
I felt similarly after the death of Osama bin Laden. (Not to lump Justice Scalia in even the same universe!). Death, even if deserved in the case of bin Laden, is not to be celebrated with glee. Even if we loathe the person, we must still summon compassion for those reeling from loss and grief.
In our Episcopal tradition, I cherish the weekly reminder to pray for our leaders in government.

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On December 13, 2015, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Columbus, Mississippi, put into action their response to Presiding Bishop Michael Curry’s reminder that the Episcopal Church is part of the Jesus movement. In January, they wrote an Open Letter to Presiding Bishop Curry to tell him, and all of us, about their experience. ECF Vital Practices reached out to St. Paul's to request permission to share this story of their experience: 

Dear Presiding Bishop Curry,

We, at St. Paul’s Columbus, MS, watched the video you released the day after your installation. The one that called us to take to the streets, leave the walls that so often enclose us, and seek our congregation in the world. When we first viewed it, we conversed with excitement as to how the Episcopal Church was going to become evangelical under your leadership as primate of our church. However, a few weeks passed and we found ourselves still worshiping in our pews, carrying on within our church walls. Nothing changed. Apparently evangelism wasn’t really coming to Columbus. The realization that YOU weren’t coming to St. Paul’s to lead us outside the church was a jolt. We concluded that if we truly believed in your message, WE would have to become the agents of evangelism within our community.

So, together, we organized an event called “Southside Evangelism.” Our church is located in “Southside Columbus.” It is a historic, diverse neighborhood bordered by downtown, the Mississippi University for Women, and the Tombigbee Waterway. This neighborhood, our neighborhood, became our aim. Our goal was to simply remind them that we are neighbors, and we would like to get to know them.

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Our recent Vestry Papers article urged church leaders to shift their focus from “inside” to “outside,” and from church-sponsored outreach to individuals understanding themselves as “on mission” in their everyday lives. Last week we offered ways to Break Out.  Another one of the ways we Christians can “get the hell out of church” (the title of the VP article) is to Take Out – to re-frame our habits of prayer and liturgy to offer a “to go” alternative. Can we shift our thinking – whenever and wherever we worship – so that we are focused on the Dismissal, which sends us out to be the Church in our worlds of home and work and community?

One “take-away” opportunity is to celebrate liturgy in a non-church setting. In recent years, commuters and college students have been treated to “ashes to go,” when clergy have appeared on train platforms, near elevators, and on college campuses offering to smudge foreheads on Ash Wednesday, reminding each person “you are dust and to dust you shall return.” Eucharist in an outdoor setting or across the desk at a job site, baptism on the riverbank or in a swimming pool, and stations of the cross marking scenes of urban violence have all made news in the secular press. How do you expand your imagination to invite and welcome participation in such events, especially by those who are “not our flock”? How might you encourage reconnection once the event is over?

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