Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

I’m writing this on my 40th birthday, and it’s been a really fun day. I always like birthdays. I especially love getting to hear from and get caught up, once again, with family and friends. Even on a birthday such as this – one which carries with it such an increasingly large, round number – it’s all the more special to hear from those who’ve walked a lot of my past with me, and, together with them, to remember and celebrate and look forward.

Today, I’ve been trying to figure out if forty years is a long or short time.

On the one hand, it doesn’t really feel that long – and, no, this isn’t my way of deluding myself. It’s simply flown by, and I’m shocked that it came so quickly!

But, on the other hand, forty years does feel kind of long. Like that ancient biblical number which indicated ‘fullness’ or ‘more than sufficient time’, forty years is a good long chunk of time. I’m a father now, for instance, and I constantly find myself comparing my experience growing up and that of my daughter’s. Looking back over my childhood, I see things that I took for granted and which my parents, as young parents themselves, also took for granted but which, today, have completely and totally changed. The Catholic parochial school in my neighborhood, for example, sent the kids home every day for lunch, fully expecting that someone – most likely, the mother – would be home and cooking a homemade meal. Talk about a cultural shift! Church attendance and church membership were still pretty strong and compelling cultural forces forty years ago, and I can’t remember knowing anyone in my neighborhood who didn’t attend church, at least somewhat regularly. My home television set – the only one in our house, mind you – was black-and-white until I was, maybe, eight or nine, and there was no internet, no wireless, no iPad.

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The wheelchair broke. That was why she was stuck inside the access-a-ride minibus outside our church. Her only choices were to wait for someone to come and repair it, or to return to the assisted living home. It was a Monday evening at St. Lydia’s and we began the service as she, a member of the church, was stranded in a minibus. We could see her through the glass door.

As we were about to pass around the bread during communion, which we do at the start of the service, Emily Scott, the pastor, had an idea. As we sang the refrain of “Glory to you, forever and ever,” we crossed the street and filed into the bus, more than 20 of us.

We sang and we passed the bread from one hand to another in the cramped space. The driver looked slightly perturbed as we all piled in, but she offered us a “God bless you all” after communion as we were returning to the church.

It is in moments like this, when we leave the comfort of our space, that we best follow the example of Jesus. Just as when we, a mostly white congregation, march with those who know that black lives matter, and when we join those who fight for a living wage. Doing this well, we should not forget, requires a lot of listening so we actually know where people are and what they need (and don’t need) from us.

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I lost it when I pulled the Buzz Lightyear doll out of the boy’s closet. Until then, I’d been okay. Even after discovering what at first appeared to be flocked wallpaper was instead, an eerily beautiful pattern of black mold. And, after the discovery of a black snake, hidden deep in the overstuffed closet in the next room.

It’s January 2007. I’m with my colleagues from Episcopal Divinity School, inside a 3-bedroom home in East New Orleans. Earlier that week we’d helped gut other homes, in other neighborhoods, but this was our first experience working in a home seemingly untouched since the family fled the rising flood waters 15 months before. Clothing was hanging in the closets and folded into drawers. Toiletries littered the bathroom counters. Kitchen cabinets were stocked with food. Everything was damp and moldy and at the same time a powerful reminder of the family whose lives were forever changed by the power of wind and water.

Since that first trip, I’ve been back to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast many times. Once on another work trip, installing sheet rock in stripped-to-the studs homes, a hopeful step on the path to bringing families home. More often to visit family who call the Gulf Coast home: family members who lost homes or jobs to Katrina. Over the years we’ve seen the progress: schools, churches, homes, and businesses being rebuilt. And, as we noted during our most recent visit this past spring, too many empty lots remain, many with faded For Sale signs; ever present reminders of the destructive power of wind and water.

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I had to do a bit of Biblical ministry this past Sunday.

I arrived at my final Sunday service (a Spanish service that has been going for about a year) to discover that almost no one was there. It was (or at least seemed in the moment) actually worse than having no one there at all. There was one lovely family, newish in the church, stalwarts of this new thing we are trying to build. They had gotten themselves there and were all ready to have church. They were looking around a little nervously, a little hopefully, waiting to see when the others were going to show up.

I greeted them, and retreated to the sacristy. I put on my vestments and had an irritable conversation with Jesus, who was, as usual, unflappable in the face of ecclesiastical catastrophe. He drew my attention to the fact that there were some perfectly serviceable people outside in the parking lot. They had come to talk to me about planning a special-occasion service. They had arrived just at the time mass was supposed to start. When I explained that mass was happening, and we could talk after, they retreated affably to wait for me. I had hoped they would come in, but they hadn’t.

Jesus made me walk outside, in my vestments, and tell the people in the parking lot that I was about to do mass with one single small family, and that I would really like them to come inside and be with us. It was humiliating. Successful priests, I seem to believe, get to put on their vestments and emerge triumphantly from the sacristy in all their fabulousness to a full house that gathers just because everyone already knows that they are fabulous. Sweating in my vestments in the parking lot, I felt like a visible failure, the priest who threw a party and nobody came.

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It’s September. The program year is kicking off, soon followed by annual campaigns, budgeting, and diocesan convocations or conventions. It’s a busy time and I’m about to suggest adding something else to this mix: Plan time this program year to rethink your congregation’s stewardship programs.

Our September articles and resources share how others are thinking about stewardship. Perhaps some of their experiences will spark a conversation at a vestry or other leadership meeting and provide a catalyst for looking at your own situation in a different way.

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Folded between faded newspapers and birthday cards were the notes I had written.

My husband and his family found them as they were cleaning out his grandmother’s house. I didn’t remember writing them.

But apparently I did. The notes didn’t contain anything monumental. Updates on a job search, plans for vacations, comments about the weather or an upcoming visit. In themselves, they weren’t anything special but, as with many gestures, it wasn’t the content that mattered as much as the effort.

I hardly ever write notes now. I dash off a lot of emails. A lot. I comment on Facebook posts and send invites by texts. But no one will tuck those into a dresser drawer for safekeeping. No one will pull out Facebook Messenger and hold the words in their hands on a sorrow-filled day. 

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This is the second of a 3-part series about the relationship ministry of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in South Bend, Indiana. Read part 1 here. 

In 2011, in the midst of “mayhem” in inner city South Bend, Indiana, Holy Trinity Episcopal Church hosted a community meeting. Rather than retreating into the fortress of the church in the wake of violence, the people of Holy Trinity invited neighbors to join with them in activism, calling on authorities to pay attention, and calling on each other to live in peace. It was the planting of a Kingdom seed.

In the four years since that time, Holy Trinity has continued planting seeds, and now celebrates how the seeds, and the congregation, are firmly rooted.

Through open listening sessions, the people of Holy Trinity learned that what neighbors wanted most was relationship – to be in community with the church. Current priest-in-charge, Mother Terri Bays, says the process helped the congregation “become more attuned to the blessings of the neighborhood.”

This mutual respect is reflected in Holy Trinity’s responses to ministry opportunities. For instance, Mother Terri explains: “We had children wandering into church during services. They gobbled up snacks. We talked about that. One man said, ‘I just want to make them some soup.’ But none of us wanted a ‘soup kitchen.’ 

Rather, Holy Trinity began hosting community suppers – not for their neighbors, but for members of the church and neighbors, so everyone could sit and talk with each other. 

“Our ministry is to walk with our neighbors and to notice the work of God already going on in their lives,” explains Mother Terri. “It’s not just us who are holy. Part of our job is to help people recognize their own gifts.”

Walking with neighbors is quite literal for Holy Trinity. On Rogation Days, instead of praying for the work inside the church, Holy Trinity processes down sidewalks, stopping to pray for people who work in the neighborhood. Mother Terri explains the church asked store owners in advance for permission to come on their property and pray. She then wrote special prayers for each place.
“We started with our own community garden, then the convenience store across the street, then we kept going. Along the route was a business that washing cars out front, but was suspected of selling drugs out back. We noticed a group of people sitting out in front of the business, and they were watching us. We went into a gas station where people thanked us for our prayers, and we kept walking. Suddenly one of the people from the group watching us came running up to us. I left the front of the procession and circled back to meet him. As the man approached he asked, ‘Are you praying only for the good people? Aren’t we good enough?’’

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If St. Augustine were alive today, you could follow him on Twitter @BishopofHippo.

It wasn’t quite St. Augustine’s famous “take it and read it” conversion moment in his “Confessions.” But hearing the Rev. Keith Anderson discuss social media and pastoral practice at the Rocky Mountain Synod’s Theological Convocation was a kind of repentance for me.

Because now, I’m officially a believer in the gospel of “digital ministry.”

I’ve long been a skeptic of the salvation promised by the story social media tells. Looking around the conference room at dozens of pastors unable to listen to such a compelling presenter without burying their heads in their iPhones every five minutes only provided grist for the mills. I’ve always felt (feared?) that Facebook and “friends” were gateway drugs, the use of which would precipitate a rapid decline into gnosticism and narcissism.

But just as St. Ambrose unlocked the creative potential of new readings of Scripture for Augustine, Keith presented us with a radically different vision of digital media as a vehicle for digital ministry.

Keith reminded us that “people are not looking for information, but relationship,” and that “your website/sermon blog/Facebook profile -- that you never use! -- cannot love somebody.” He flipped the script on a broadcast mentality of social media, challenging us to consider the question: “How do we love people via social media? How do we extend grace and share Christ’s gospel through it?”

Now that’s a query Augustine would relish: challenging our disordered desire for the false “enjoyment” of media by considering the “use” -- in love -- to which we might put it.

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"How many hours a day do you write?" a marketing and social media expert asked me.

"Four hours," I replied.

"Then you should spend two hours a day on marketing," she said, mainly in social media and email campaigns where costs are quite affordable.

I get her point. If I want people to read what I write and to buy my products, I need to do solid marketing: catch prospective readers' attention, explain my offerings, present opportunities to buy, drive people to my web sites, form relationships, provide customer service.

These principles apply in churches, too. Most of what church leaders do is like my writing: the reason we are "in business." Preparing for worship, for example, teaching classes, calling on people, getting to know prospective constituents, nurturing community, creating mission programs, training leaders, conducting weddings and funerals and Easter Egg hunts.

If church leaders want people to "buy" their "goods and services' -- come to worship, take a class, engage with the community, grow in faith, serve God -- they can't just open the door on Sunday or send out a weekly newsletter stuffed with announcements. They need to do solid marketing. They need to do the basics as outlined above: catch people's attention, explain offerings, present opportunities to engage, lead people to various forms of participation, form relationships, provide customer service.

The ratio of two to one sounds about right. That is, for every two hours spent preparing for Sunday worship, spend one hour in marketing efforts to draw people to church.

For every two hours spent training leaders, spend one hour "selling" these new leaders to the congregation (telling their stories, posting photographs and bios, letting them share their visions and ideas.)

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Several years ago, St. George’s organized its vestry around several key areas of parish life. It was a good idea, rooted in the biblical priesthood of all believers and acknowledging that the rector can’t do everything her/himself.

They tried to do too much, however. For one, they created as many commissions or committees or boards as there were vestry members; nine vestry-members meant nine boards. Buildings was one, grounds was another. Finance got as much air-time, then, as fellowship and – my personal favorite, since no one ever really knew what it did – parish life. And then there was the problem of vestry turnover and people who don’t live for generations in the same community. Jobs change, families shift, people move. They tried to do way too much.

Early in my ministry, then, as I’ve written about earlier, we revised our by-laws to create standards and expectations for members of the congregation, not just vestry-members. In order to stabilize the programmatic work and ensure continuity of programs from year to year, we moved committees away from the vestry and to the congregation. And we cut down the number of established committees from nine to five.

I thought that freeing the vestry from these myopic managerial responsibilities would enable them to see the whole and respond in broader, bolder strokes to those areas in which God is growing this congregation and community. A good idea on paper, right? That was my thinking and my hope, at least, but that hasn’t worked as well as I would’ve liked. I don’t get the sense that St. George’s vestry is really leading, together with me, into God’s creative future.

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The pleas are urgent: If you’ve seen Joe, contact us immediately. No one has heard from him in two days. Cell phone is dead.

Joe, a high school classmate, has fought the demon of alcohol for years. No one knows if he’s back in its grip. But they’re worried. Deeply worried.

The demon I’m facing right now is food. Ballpark food like warm, drippy nachos. Summer food like ice cream, and movie theater popcorn. For seven months, I’ve been part of a weight management program, and I’ve been really successful. Almost 100 pounds lost. And tons of energy and self-confidence gained. But I’m stuck. And all these delicious, terrible foods are crying out.

Food isn’t a demon, of course. And neither is alcohol. But when we let them or anything else control our thoughts or steer us from good health, then they become dangerous masters.
Your demon might be alcohol or food. Or overworking. Gossip. Spending. Depression. We all have a couple of demons that lurk, waiting to sink their claws into us.

Of course we need willpower. But sometimes our willpower is a thin thread holding a semi truck over the chasm. Prayer is a powerful tool, and I know that without God’s help, I wouldn’t be where I am in my journey.

But I’m also convinced that one of the most important demon repellants is community. When our friends and family and church community rally around us, our ability to turn away from the siren's call is strengthened. When someone has our back, we’re better at saying no. When we know that the community is there to embrace and support us, we can more easily turn away from the temptations. 

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I’ve always enjoyed flying. Not the security lines or those times when I’ve been squished into a small seat in an overbooked plane, but the moment when you’re seated and you’ve just taken off. You can’t use your laptop or your phone and you’ve got a book to read or maybe you’re just sitting with your thoughts.

I’ve just returned from vacation abroad and I had many moments like that. I didn’t have cellular service so I didn’t walk around with my phone in my pocket as usual and only checked email every now and then. I found that it was a bit of a relief to leave my device in my room and pick up a book or write without distraction.

I, like many of us, am somewhat addicted to my phone. I know people often say that technology is simply a tool, like pen and paper, but there is evidence that it can mess with our brain, each notification or new status update giving us a little high. It’s ultimately about how we choose to use it, but you could say the same thing about sugar. Some of us just need to keep the Oreos out of eyesight so we don’t eat them all in one sitting.

So my vacation was a reminder that being connected all the time is not necessarily good for me.

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La música ha sido una gran parte de mi vida desde que tengo uso de razón. Mis primeras memorias incluyen momentos de música y canto. A mi mami y papi también les gusta cantar y yo recuerdo escuchar la dulce voz de mi mami cantando todos los días. Y sigue cantando. Yo crecí en la Iglesia Alianza Cristiana y Misionera donde cantábamos himnos y coritos. Así que cuando escucho o canto himnos como Cuán grande es Él o Santo, Santo, Santo o Estoy bien con mi Dios siento un nudo en la garganta porque esos cantos me llevan a mi fe de niña. Esa fe que todo lo cree y no cuestiona nada. Esa fe que me ha cargado durante momentos difíciles cuando no he querido cantar. Cuando necesito tener esa clase de fe regreso a la música. Pero ahora mi repertorio incluye música de diferentes fuentes. No sólo canto o escucho himnos de antaño – aunque es uno de mis géneros favoritos al igual que la música navideña y la música góspel – me encanta encontrar música nueva.

Cuando llegamos a la Iglesia Episcopal en los años 80 encontré varios cantos nuevos para adorar a Dios. Recuerdo Tú has venido a la orilla, Resucitó, Vienen con alegría y varios que pueden encontrar aquí. Estas grabaciones fueron parte de la Comisión de Liturgia y Música de la Iglesia Episcopal. Son unos cantos que se pueden encontrar en El Himnario Episcopal (el himnario rojo). Hay muchos cantos en el himnario que son bellos pero que a veces no usamos porque no tenemos ejemplos auditivos, sólo vemos las notas. Otro recurso que se usa mucho alrededor de la Iglesia Episcopal en español es Flor y Canto que viene con música grabada entonces se puede aprender las tonadas. A mí me encanta toda clase de música y busco en todas partes para poder tener una variedad en la Misa.

Como parte del ministerio que apoyo en la Iglesia Episcopal San Mateo en Houston, Texas elijo música para las misas. Esta labor grande nos la compartimos entre los cinco músicos. Si alguna vez has tenido que elegir los cantos para la Misa o Servicio entiendes la magnitud de esta tarea. Estos son los cuatro pasos que sigo cuando me toca esta obra.

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I've been thinking and writing recently about social media. Two posts ago, I mentioned that when I go places to speak, I am asked – and it is assumed – that we have social media guidelines in place at Southside Abbey. Well, we don't. What we do have – when we are at our best, which is not always – are how to treat one another guidelines. We all have access to these guidelines in the life and ministry of Jesus and his followers and the prayers that shape our corporate lives.

A lot of social media conflict that I have seen fits into a question that I consider a lot: Would you rather be right or would you rather be in relationship? Much of the conflict on social media occurs between folks who want to be right, often at the cost of relationship.

Social media is still young. We might even think about it as having some maturation ahead. We are coming from an Internet of anonymity, to posts with real-life repercussions. Maybe we've all got some growing up to do in this arena.

At Southside Abbey, we are about growing spiritual maturity (which requires social maturity). This is a good time to consider our social media posts with another question: Whom are we promoting? Are we promoting ourselves, our parishes, or Jesus? These things are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but the pictures and posts that point to our Savior are the ones that disarm in the best of ways.

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I’m a few days late submitting this blog post because I spent the day I was supposed to be writing, fearing for my life while riding roller coasters with names like “Intimidator” and “Dominator” – names which are merely metaphorical to the thrill-seeking youth group kids I was chaperoning and entirely literal to me! Ever since returning to solid, unmoving ground, I’ve been remembering the fears I was, only temporarily, able to overcome a few days ago, and, above all, celebrating that our summer-end youth group outing to Kings Dominion was a great success. I might even say that I’d do it again next year, but I’ll need at least eleven more months to forget about this past Tuesday!

While eating boardwalk fries with some of our youth, I remembered what a wise, senior priest once said to me about youth ministry. In the late 1960s and 70s, he said, when he was a young curate and first-time rector, the post-Baby Boom society still had enough staying power that a successful youth ministry was defined, pretty much, as a weekly gathering of a youth group. Sunday evenings in the parish house, some games and food and an occasional bible study was enough to “keep the kids in church.” But something began to change in the 1980s, he told me, and the shift was most certainly made by the late 90s: a successful youth ministry was dependent no longer on regular weekly meetings but, rather, on regular, fun outings. Over the course of a generation, youth ministry shifted from meetings to events. And if you wanted the kids present at the meetings, weekly or otherwise, you needed to develop big events regularly and systematically.

At St. George’s, Valley Lee, the congregation I have the pleasure of serving, this has also been the story of our recently re-built and now successful youth ministry. Over the course of this summer, for instance, we’ve had a campout in late May, a tubing trip on the river in June, our diocesan summer camp in July, the trip to Kings Dominion this past week, and a pool party on the books at the end of August. There’ve been regular (bi-weekly) youth group meetings, too, with formation and bible study and games. At one meeting, they even helped pull weeds in the churchyard’s brick walkway – made more fun by a contest with prizes! Fortunately, for us, we’re blessed with an engaged group of kids and families and two great young adult youth group leaders. The kids are bringing their friends, and word is getting out that there’s a new, exciting ministry for junior high and high school kids. There’s desire in the group for more events and more gatherings, and that’s precisely what will lead to sustained growth. Figuring out ways to most effectively advertise and connect with the kids as well as their parents has been a growing edge for us; we’ve realized that parents of teens and pre-teens aren’t always in sync with their own child’s schedule and that direct access to technology on the part of most of the youth, themselves, means that we need to find ways to connect more directly with them, on their terms, too. In short, email works for parents, but not for kids. Texting, however, works for kids (and many parents, too), as does Facebook messaging and Twitter.

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Building a Legacy for Future Ministry

In the August Vital Practices Digest, we offer five resources related to planned giving. As always, our fifth resource suggests a way to strengthen your practice of year-round stewardship.

It’s easy and free to connect with these resources for your congregation. Subscribe to ECF Vital Practices and receive Vestry Papers and this Vital Practices Digest in your inbox each month.

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Few things can pull a teen girl’s eyes from the allure of a smartphone. But enter a wiggly toddler or shy kindergartner, and the phone finds its way to the back jean pocket.

A colleague offered some insight: the young teens can play. It’s not hip to play with dolls when you’re 13. Even if you want to. Pretend play likely lands a teen girl into trouble or social exile. But these young teens, 13 and 14 years old, are still in the time-between. They’re not adults, even if they desperately want to be treated as such, and they’re not kids. But they sometimes still feel the pull to the simpler joys of being a child. When they play with 3, 4, and 5-year-olds, they can indulge that inner child and feed that desire to be seen as grown-up and responsible. It’s a delight to witness—and a godsend for parents needing a break!

Our congregation has been exploring Messy Church this summer. In the stead of a fading Vacation Bible School, Messy Church is an intergenerational program designed to engage people in scripture and in relationships. At the last class of the summer, attendance held steady at about 30-35. We gathered first for a light dinner and fellowship. Then we broke into groups and explored the stories of the plight of the Israelites through clay, crayons, and sugar cubes.
There was a lot of laughter, some serious building (sugar cubes and frosting make excellent materials for constructing temples!), and new friendships forged. When I asked the 3-year-old granddaughter of a parishioner if she thought I was older or younger, she responded in all seriousness, “Way, way, way older.” Giving her a chance for redemption, I said that maybe I was just a little bit older. But no. The girl was insistent (and right!). I am way, way, way, way older. But for the night, I got to be a kid at the craft table. And it was fun.

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First of a three part series... 

In one of the poorest neighborhoods in South Bend, Indiana, the Feast of the Virgin Mary was celebrated this month with ecumenical neighborhood joy radiating from Holy Trinity Episcopal Church. Since 1948, Holy Trinity worship has valued catholic traditions, but the church’s relationship with its neighbors is an even bigger part of its ministry story. The story is so compelling that I’d like to tell it in a three-part series on Vital Posts.

Most mainstream churches in Holy Trinity’s neighborhood moved out to the newer parts of town decades ago. As is often the case, the parish struggled to survive, and was the subject of a “What are we going to do about Holy Trinity when the rector retires?” discussion at the diocesan level.   

Meanwhile, back in the summer of 2011, violence in the deteriorated neighborhood escalated at an alarming rate. Parishioner Susan Adamek tells the story best…

“On a regular basis, [neighbors] witnessed gun fire, homicide, and serious injury almost in their front yards. …neighbors felt abandoned by the city and believed they had no power to reclaim what was rightfully theirs.  “So here we are! Good Christians sitting in the middle of mayhem! Several times, gun fire and robberies to persons, were taking place as we were having Sunday services and on one Saturday as a bride was walking down the aisle to meet her groom! What to do? We could continue to deny everything and go right on as if nothing is happening, or we can take up the call and stand up in protest! Our neighbors were asking us for help! Then we definitely received a collect call from God! Now what? Scary!! You must realize that we are a very aging church with small numbers and few youthful energies, to answer this call.

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Cuando estaba preparándome para el webinario del 13 de agosto, Inroducción a “Guía de recursos para juntas parroquiales", leí mucho de la Guía de recursos para juntas parroquiales (lo pueden comprar aquí). Hay temas tan interesante para ayudar a todas las personas en cualquier situación o puesto de liderazgo. Desde el primer capítulo vemos que ser miembro de “las juntas parroquiales (o los comités del obispo) deberían ser uno de los ministerios más apasionantes y gozosos de la iglesia”. También leemos que hemos sido llamad@s para formar parte de un ministerio sagrado en nuestras iglesias. Cuando le preguntamos a Hugo Olaiz, traductor de la Guía al español, cuál capítulo deberíamos leer primero nos dijo que el Capítulo Cuatro: La visión y el pensamiento estratégico. La misión es el llamado que Dios le hace a nuestra congregación y es “una imagen esperanzadora de un futuro mejor, un futuro que deseas crear a través del impacto positivo de tu misión en la iglesia y el mundo” (p. 32). Creo que es un buen punto de partida para el resto del libro porque nos hace pensar y ver el fundamento de nuestra Iglesia. Al final de cada capítulo hay preguntas y recursos y la primera pregunta al final del capítulo cuatro me llamó mucho la atención y me hizo pensar en mi propia congregación (Iglesia Episcopal San Mateo, Houston, TX): “¿Cuáles son las tres fortalezas principales del ministerio de tu congregación?” (p. 41). Esta pregunta y muchas otras son excelentes para comenzar un diálogo entre líderes que va más allá de las paredes de nuestra Iglesia. Son preguntas para hacerte pensar y discernir tu llamado y el llamado de tu congregación. Mucha gente nos visita para ver qué estamos haciendo – algunos hasta nos preguntan cuál es el secreto de nuestra congregación que sigue creciendo y siendo muy activa. La respuesta puede ser: nuestra fortaleza principal es que estamos anclados en la Biblia, la Oración, y la relación con la Trinidad. Todo lo demás cae bajo esos tres fundamentos. La prédica, la música, los eventos, los programas, la comida – todo lo que hacemos está basado en esos tres principios.

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How can I keep from singing?

Singing is my very favorite part of church. I’m sure that my favorite is actually supposed to be Eucharist, and I do like that too...but I love to sing. I’m not a great singer. I have a decent voice, and can hold my own with simple chants, but I really do best as part of a group. Adding my voice to worship through song is a joy, almost no matter the type of music.

Group singing used to be a big part of American culture. Families sang together. Johnny Cash’s “Daddy Sang Bass (Mama Sang Tenor)” is a favorite of mine too, not least of all because I too am a mama who can easily pass as a tenor. Before we all got used to being entertained by professionals and screens, people entertained themselves and each other. Singing was a big part of that.

Church is just about the only place left where people are expected to make their own music. Even in church, entertainment models encroach. Fancy churches pay section leaders (or whole choirs!) to sing music that is just too hard for the average mortal. Megachurches and their followers produce band music that focuses more on the listening experience than participation. Oversized organs drown out shrinking congregations’ efforts to raise their voices.

Nonetheless, in most Episcopal congregations, we’re still doing some singing. As budgets shrink, we may have to depend more on the musical resources of our own members and less on professional leadership. This, I think, is good news. I am convinced that people need singing much more than we need perfectly produced music.

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