Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

Birthdays in the age of Facebook are fun. 

People from all different parts of your life chime in and send good wishes. It’s a virtual “This is your life” episode.

Meandering down memory lane is lovely, but this year I decided to try something more. I responded to every message in some way. Some received an earnest “Thanks!” A few got the thumbs-up like. But for most replies, I added a note or two to my thanks.

“Can’t believe how long it’s been since we were in youth group together. We need a reunion!”
“Congrats on your award! Well-deserved!”
“Saw that you were in town. Let’s get together.”
“Love seeing pictures of your cute family.”
“Thank you for being a role model for me.”

More than 200 people took the time to send birthday greetings. And I had the opportunity to reach back out to them, to remember where our lives intersected, to hope they might again, and to acknowledge the piece, big or small, that they played in shaping my life.

The experiment kept me busy! But it also transformed the day in an interesting way. The birthday wasn’t all about me. (Sure, it was some. I did enjoy the requisite singing, opening presents, and sharing dinner with my family!) But it became more about relationship, a way not only to receive these well wishes but also to give some back.

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When one learns about the tremendous outreach ministries of Trinity Episcopal Church in Logansport, Indiana, a natural question might be, “How do they afford it?” As it turns out, many years ago, the church invested a large estate gift at the Cass County Community Foundation, and determined that half of the annual proceeds of the fund would go to outreach ministry and half to building maintenance. But if you conclude that THAT is how Trinity Logansport “affords” its apostolic outreach ministry, you are not realizing the full power of being a joyful giver.

Clark Miller, rector of Trinity Logansport, explains: “When we started looking outside our walls, we started to grow. When you start giving things, things come back to you. The people of Trinity give willingly of their money and time. People don’t say, ‘let the endowment take care of it’ – they jump in to help.”

Trinity’s largest outreach ministry is its annual school backpack project, which has grown to an amazing 1,200 backpacks a year! Children and their families line up around the block on the day the backpacks are available at Trinity. Kids choose the backpack they want from grade-appropriate selections. This day has evolved into a back-to-school event – even free haircuts are provided.

While Trinity’s endowment certainly helps, members of congregation personally purchase backpacks and supplies all year long. People may be reimbursed from the Fund, but most don't ask.

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I knew why he was calling so I picked up the phone. I was glad to get an update on his friend’s health condition: Some good news, some not-so-good news. (His friend is also a parishioner.) Prayers were shared. Prayers continue, I reminded him. While he had me on the phone, he asked, “Did I hear back from the local John Deere dealer about the lawn tractor?” And he had an update, which he shared, about the dishwasher in the parish hall. “Thank you,“ I said, and we wrapped up the phone call.

Later that evening, as I offered up my day in prayer, I smiled with unbreakable gratitude: How amazing it is, God reminded me, that in a quick little moment, in a span of, say, no more than fifteen minutes I attended, literally, to life-and-death and dwelt for a while in the riches of common prayer and, just as quickly, dealt with the banality of lawn mowers and plumbing.

This story from a day-in-the-life of a parish priest is really very common, probably so much so that lay leaders and clergy don’t give it much notice. Dealing with so many disparate things can be confusing, especially early in one’s ministry. It can also be frustrating: “I’ve used my tool box more than my Prayer Book!” being a common refrain. I am reminded of what my friend calls “psychic mobility” – the ability to go from and be present to one subject, one encounter, one person to the next; often transitioning in nanoseconds, drawing on different skill sets in so doing. For all of these reasons, and so many more, serving a Christian community is always exciting and seldom grows dull!

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The cardboard numbers were well-worn, a clear crease in the middle and the corners tattered from altar guild members wrestling them into the hymn board.

335

The Hymnal 1982 opened to the page.

“I am the bread of life; they who come to me shall not hunger.”

A stole lay across the table. And a large can of beans. Dish towels and oven mitts and fine linens.   

Then we turned the corner of the line in the funeral home. The family waited ahead for our condolences.

Diana was the secretary for one of our previous churches. As my husband told her family, during his time as rector there, he really worked for her. She also was the head of the altar guild and a longtime member of the choir. She founded Loaves and Fishes, a feeding program. She weeded the garden, restocked the vending machines, organized amazing coffee hours, and worked with AA, NA, GA, and all the other acronym-groups. She decorated for Pentecost and swept the pine needles after the greening of the church. She knew where to find the candles for Christmas Eve and the chafing dishes for the funeral receptions. 

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Your team’s in place, you’ve recommitted to the congregation’s mission and vision, and for your first few vestry meetings everything’s been working well. Then “bam” –everything seems to be falling apart. What’s happening?

It could be the Holy Spirit. It might be life in general or something worse. Whatever’s causing this disruption, one thing is clear: Stuff happens. In this Vestry Papers, we look at some of the challenges leaders may face and share stories, resources, and approaches of how others respond to these common challenges.

Here are our May offerings:

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I was at a parish recently for an all day workshop. The parish leaders were struggling to recruit new volunteers and keep the volunteers they had from burning out.

One parishioner made this key observation, “It’s frustrating for our workers to show up for an event that is poorly attended.” Put another way, their volunteers are disheartened when their work doesn`t produce an intended impact or make much of a difference on a specific ministry at their parish. 

Across the United States, nonprofits are seeing a decrease in volunteerism. A September 2014 report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics notes a ten-year low; the same report shows that states with the highest unemployment rate also report the lowest number of volunteer hours.

Just because you have extra time, it doesn`t mean you are going to spend it volunteering.

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Like communicators everywhere, Episcopal communicators need data to evaluate their effectiveness. But what kind of data: big or small?

It’s relatively easy to get numbers: How many people visit the website, how many followers we have on Twitter and how many people “like” our Facebook page, and, of course, how many people attend worship on Sunday.

But there is also less easily quantified measurements a church communicator must consider as well, or what this article in yesterday’s The New York Times calls small data. “The things we can measure are never exactly what we care about,” the authors write. You need both kinds of data.

The communications office at Trinity Wall Street where I work has been considering this question lately. We, like all church communicators, do many things that don’t generate big numbers. Maybe we wrote a story for our website about a parishioner that doesn’t get a lot of readers, for example, but means the world to that one person.

All of us communicators must consider both the big data—page views, likes, retweets, etc.— as well as the data that can only be collected by asking questions and knowing the community.

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There was an adage growing up in white Baltimore that declared, "70% of Baltimore is black; the rest of us all know each other." I recall being vaguely uncomfortable whenever I heard it -- the product of liberal parents -- but also thinking, well, there is some truth to that.

And therein lies the problem. Despite all the rhetoric, Baltimore, like many urban areas, has remained a segregated city -- geographically, socio-economically, religiously, politically. The forces of income inequality and institutional racism, combined with the tragic and preventable death of Freddie Gray, have sparked the inevitable outburst of despair triumphing over hope.

As the Episcopal Bishop of Maryland put it in a sermon he preached on Tuesday afternoon, "We are in an official State of Emergency, but we are also in an unofficial State of Despair."

And we're all responsible. Every time we fail to acknowledge our privilege comes at another's expense; every time we neglect to reach out and embrace the less fortunate; every time we close our hearts to those who don't look or act like us.

Whenever children grow up in privileged communities, you hear parents lament that their kids are "growing up in a bubble." Living in a wealthy community on Boston's South Shore, I've had the same thought. Sometimes when parents say this, it's because their "ungrateful" children don't know how good they really have it. There's also a sense of guilt that they aren't exposing them to the "real world" and helping them develop a healthy empathy for others. Of course, given the choice, parents wouldn't actually leave that bubble. It's not perfect, of course, but it's not as if they're going to uproot their families to leave the bubble that is their perceived birthright.

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Sometimes the Holy Spirit can be inconvenient. There we are going about our lives when, bam! Something happens. I easily produce list after list of the rotten stuff, but that's not for this venue. Besides, often the rotten stuff turns out to be the foundation for living into a new creation. The list that is much harder for many of us to populate is the list of those “bam” moments when we are blindsided by the Holy Spirit and the possibility that death really does not have the last word.

But what about the ordinary? I love the dual nature of the word ordinary. Ordinary, as in the everyday or commonplace and, as in that which is set apart (same root as ordained). God can use the ordinary, yes even our ordinary stuff. In Southside Abbey's small groups, we engage the spiritual maturity muscles. These are required to build a practice of thankfulness for all that “was, and is, and is to come.”

Why might I be writing about these things? I am awakening to the possibility that stuff is not nearly as bad as we thought, that God is still using the ordinary. As I mentioned in my last post, I was gifted with the opportunity to mold the minds of some students at the School of Theology at Sewanee. I shared with them some of the realities the world is facing and how the church might be impacted or be impactful, and how they, in partnership with the Holy Spirit, have a hand in building a church that is passive or proactive.

I have read that between sixteen and seventeen trillion dollars (yes, trillion, with a “t”) is about to change hands. As the last of the Greatest and Builder generations meet their reward and the Baby Boomers retire, the world will see the largest transfer of wealth, ever. That amount is about what the U.S. owes our creditors, but I digress.

The point is: this is opportunity time! The Episcopal Church is primed. We are not a Johnny-come-lately, say-what-we-think-people-want-to-hear-so-we-can-draw-them-in, splash-in-the-pan outfit. No. Society is catching up to us. We have been on the forefront on issues of civil rights, gender equality, and sexuality. Don't get me wrong, we still have lots of work to do here, especially on issues of those who are differently-abled and those who are poor. But, we are standing on a foundation of centuries of theology, scholarship, prayer, and relationships.

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This post is also available in Spanish here.

Third Sunday is mash-up Sunday at St. Mary’s. We bring together all three of our Sunday worshipping groups -- from our two English and one Spanish service -- plus Trinity Church, our neighbor congregation, with whom we share our associate priest. They have an English and a Spanish service, too. The third-Sunday service is bilingual, and we do an interactive sermon with the children at the center of the action.

The reading was about the resurrected Jesus greeting the disciples, “Peace be with you.” Nancy Frausto, my co-conspirator in the shared Trinity-St. Mary’s ministry, talked with the kids about peace. They practiced passing the peace, which even one-year-olds can get pretty excited about. Then they handed out nametags. They invited the people of the five services of St. Mary’s and Trinity to greet one another by name at the passing of the peace.

The name-tagging process was awkward. We ran out of tags and had to rummage the office cabinets for more. There were not quite enough markers. Some of the kids were a little confused about their helper roles. It began to look like it was going to take a while. Very quietly, the organist began to play “Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.”

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Este blog también está disponible en inglés aquí.

El tercer domingo es domingo de mezcla en St. Mary’s. Unimos nuestros tres grupos de culto de los domingos: dos grupos de los servicios religiosos en inglés y uno del servicio religioso en español, y el grupo de Trinity Church, nuestra feligresía vecina, con la que compartimos nuestro sacerdote adjunto. Ellos también tienen un servicio religioso en inglés y uno en español. El servicio del tercer domingo es bilingüe y tenemos un sermón interactivo con los niños en el centro de la acción.

La lectura era sobre el Jesús resurrecto diciéndoles a los discípulos “La paz sea con vosotros”. Nancy Frausto, mi coconspiradora en el ministerio compartido Trinity-St. Mary’s, habló con los niños sobre la paz. Practicaron pasarse la paz, algo que puede llenar de entusiasmo hasta a los niños de un año de edad. Invitaron a la gente de los cinco servicios religiosos de St. Mary’s y de Trinity a que se saludaran por nombre al pasarse la paz.

El proceso de hacer las tarjetas de identificación no fue fácil: se nos acabaron las tarjetas y tuvimos que rebuscar los armarios de la oficina para encontrar más. No había suficientes marcadores. Algunos de los niños no habían entendido bien su papel de ayudantes. Parecía que iba a ser un proceso largo. El organista empezó a tocar suavemente el himno “Que haya paz en la tierra y que comience por mí”.

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We’re Facebook friends. And even at that, I would call us Facebook acquaintances. I don’t know her well, except we greeted each other in the school halls and during field trips. Our kids were in the same grades at the same school before we moved three years ago. 

Her theology and politics are light years from mine. And occasionally, I think it’s time to purge. But I’m strangely drawn to her messages. Hers is a faith lived out in real time, with all of its mess and drama and beauty. She isn’t afraid to name and thank God for the good. And she praises God too for the bad, for the opportunities for growth and change.

She beseeches God for strength while her husband recovers from a serious illness. And she posts a picture of his hospital wall, with a handwritten passage from Isaiah: “Be not afraid.” Apparently a doctor and some nurses asked about the sign, and together the couple offered their witness.

They traveled to Romania on a mission trip and have sold their house so they can be more responsive to God’s call for their lives.

I’m not sure what denomination of church they attend. Not Episcopalian, for sure. Way too many altar calls and out-front talk of the transforming power of Jesus.

I love our denomination. Its rich tradition connects me in powerful way to the apostles, to the dusty Upper Room, to the saints who grappled with doubts and questions. I love our focus on the three-legged stool, of discernment through scripture, tradition, and reason. I am proud of our progressive embrace of those on the fringes.

But we have room to grow. And this Facebook friend models a way. 

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Creating a time line is a fun, interactive way to engage a congregation in telling stories that help people learn about each other and what they have in common. This is not an exercise to compile an accurate account of your church’s history – it goes much deeper into shared faith and values.

To start, determine your goal for the exercise. Would you like to learn what gifts for ministry exist within your congregation? Would you like to better understand how your members perceive your parish’s impact on your neighborhood? Perhaps your church has combined with another and you’d like to know more about your separate histories and how values and culture are unique and/or shared.

Next, gather the materials you need: 10 feet or more of newsprint paper and lots of color markers that won’t bleed through the paper. Another option for the paper is to use brightly colored paper rolls found in teacher-supply stores. Choose a color light enough so writing is easy to read.

Hang the paper horizontally on a wall in a place where people gather, such as the room used for coffee hour. Devise a way to keep the color markers handy. Draw a horizontal line all the way along the center of the paper. A foot or two from the left end, dissect the horizontal line with a vertical one. Above it, write the year the church was founded, and a short descriptive phrase such as: St. Luke’s dedication May, 1935. If you are made up of more than one congregation, place lines in approximately accurate spots to recognize the start of each.

Now the fun part. Invite the congregation to participate in filling in the time line with specific experiences that you request. Request no more than two specific experiences, or else your line will become too full to analyze. This is why it is important to first determine what you most want to learn. Here are some examples:

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"...open our eyes to see your hand at work in the world about us." (From Eucharistic Prayer C, The Book of Common Prayer, page 372)
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Easter is not confined to a day, to that Sunday morning that falls each year after the full moon that occurs on or after the spring equinox. Easter begins at the empty tomb but does not end there. It unfolds over fifty days, culminating at Pentecost.

The claim that Jesus was raised from the dead - that his body is not there but is to be found in the world, is the beginning of a journey, not a litmus test of belief. Trusting that claim sends us out into the world. Every time a loved one dies we have a choice to renew the claim that Jesus' death is the first fruits of resurrection, and that in death our lives are changed, not ended. Resurrection is a way of life.

This Easter Season, I've been reflecting on a thread that begins at the empty tomb as the fourth gospel writer remembers it, and then continues on the road to Emmaus as Luke tells that story.

First, from the twentieth chapter of John's Gospel: there is this exchange between Mary and the man she mistakenly believes to be the gardener, but who is in truth the resurrected Christ. Perhaps Mary does not recognize him because she is till in shock, and grieving. Whatever the reason, she is blind to who is right before her very eyes, at least until he speaks, calling her by name. Only then are her eyes opened.

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It has been a few weeks since my last post. I have been doing that quintessentially Fringe Episcopal Ministry thing: traveling around telling Southside Abbey's story in hopes that money will come our way. While we fell far short of our fund-raising goals, we did deepen some relationships, and that is impossible to put a price tag on. There was also a wonderful side effect, I've come to accept that maybe it's not so bad out there.

Earlier this month, I was blessed to teach a class at the School of Theology at Sewanee and preach at a parish in a Toronto suburb. I don't know what I was really expecting either place. The last time Sewanee was foolish or brave enough to unleash my brand of this-is-how-it-is on their students, I was not invited back for two years. I found that two-year-ago class utterly naïve to, or in denial of, the realities facing the Church.

This year's class was very receptive to my dispatches from the frontline of missional/emergent ministry. They are aware that in the next fifteen years 17 Trillion dollars (with a “T”) will change hands, and the Church is pretty low on the list of where benefactors are distributing said money. The students are aware that the Church is shrinking, as individual churches and as a denomination. They are aware that there are no jobs, especially for those seeking full-time employment. Seminarians know these things and they are there, studying to be priests anyway. They are there, giving themselves to God in service to the Church.

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The day’s events had me going from an early morning meeting, then answering several emails about an ongoing project, to a hospital call in the city, to, at last, an Evensong at the Virginia Seminary to kick-off their new Center for Liturgy & Music. It was a full day and an exciting one, at that.

Arriving early at the Virginia Seminary – thinking I could steal away a few hours in the library and get some more work done – I noticed a sign on a door saying that Emmanuel, a brother from the Taize community, would be stopping into the seminary’s new chapel that afternoon to lead some prayers and talk about the shape of that ecumenical, contemplative religious community in the Burgundy region of France. That was an opportunity I didn’t want to miss, so I gladly left the computer bag in my car and popped over to the chapel.

It was a quick visit, one of many Brother Emmanuel was making through the Washington region, marked by some words from him and some back-and-forth questions. Then we moved to a transept in the chapel and gathered for singing and Taize prayer. “I will sit among you,” Emmanuel said to the large group who had gathered. “For in Taize we do not like to put the musicians or a leader in front of the people.” We sang. We prayed. We sat in silence. We dwelt in God and, as Brother Emmanuel said, “we renewed ourselves in the God of love.”

“There is so much we do in worship, in liturgy,” Emmanuel said at one point: “we kneel; we sit; we stand; we recite; we move from piece to piece. We do not often allow ourselves to pray.” That’s the genius of Taize, and so many other forms of liturgical music and art which have flowed from Brother Roger’s mid-20th century vision of a worldwide, ecumenical movement of Christians seeking after reconciliation through common prayer. “We do not often allow ourselves to pray,” Emmanuel summarized his movement so simply.

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The clerk shrugged apologetically.   

Sorry, it’s a little warm in here, she said. Our corporate office controls the thermostat.   

So we shopped, a sheen of sweat on our foreheads. The sweet wind of spring was outside.   

Oh, and did I mention we were in Kentucky? And the corporate office? Texas, naturally.
It’s ludicrous, really, to think that a corporate office controls the temperature of a local store. Somebody made that decision based on dollars, not sense.   

But even as I shake my head in wonder, I think about how we do this in the institutional church. Decisions are all too often made at the wrong level, control arbitrarily (or traditionally) held by certain groups when common sense and expediency argues for another solution.   

This is not a bash against church-wide offices or leaders of a diocese. We definitely need to reexamine our structures and imbue decision-making power in the right places. But our local churches are guilty of this same practice. Consider the relationships between commissions and vestries. All too often, leaders say they want to empower others to act. The vestry creates a building and grounds committee, for example. That group delves into the nitty-gritty of maintenance schedules and energy-saving practices. But when it comes to action, the committee has to get permission. And frequently the vestry wants to rehash the entire process, undermining the committee’s work and removing any authority or ownership.   

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I generally listen more than I speak. Not out of any noble impulse, but often out of fear of saying something stupid or of talking about myself too much. I have been known to sit silently while people speak for hours. But here is something I've learned in recent years: one of the easiest ways to become closer to people is to tell them things. Sharing a bit of yourself is a signal that you are present and open to other people and gives them a space to share a bit of themselves. 
I was thinking about this after attending the Episcopal Communicators Conference a couple of weeks ago. As an introvert, I generally approach conferences with a bit of trepidation, but this conference was very enjoyable. Just about everyone I met was warm and friendly and wanted to share their work and ideas.
At the conference I talked to people about their magazines and communication projects and some of the challenges they are facing. I mentioned that every article in Trinity News (and ECF Vital Practices!) is free to use. I love it when people want to share our work and I enjoy sharing other people’s work. I like learning about other writers and the stories other people are telling. 
Communication, especially in the church, is not a zero sum game. When I offer my ideas and advice about what works for me with humility and openness, I receive a lot more in return.

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While my wife browsed TJ Maxx for summer trousers, I sat on a curb outside and observed people going in and out of TJ Maxx. Here is what I observed:

Perhaps 95% of those entering TJ Maxx were female. The majority of them were middle-aged white women. Of the women under age 40, the majority were Asian. Those entering with babies were almost all Asian.

I didn't see a single African-American customer, or Hispanic customer, and only one South Asian.

More than half of those who went in came out empty-handed, having browsed but not purchased.

This wasn't a text-while-walking crowd. Most came in alone. These were "lumpy" people, looking (I speculated) for affordable fashion to make them feel less lumpy.

None of these observations has any value component. They are simply a profile of those entering this one store. But imagine how helpless you would be as manager of this TJ Maxx branch if you didn't know who your customers were. If the manager is smart, he is measuring everything I observed and far more. How long each customer stays inside, the exact percentage who purchase or don't purchase, the actual average sale, what they bought, where they browsed. And how the metrics are changing.

Imagine trying to lead a church and not having such metrics available to you. How would you know how to serve people if you didn't know their gender, age, race, socioeconomic circumstance, average stay time, and what "products" they actually consumed. You would always be guessing, and in all likelihood, you would be guessing wrong, because you would assume the next twenty people in the door would be like you.

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“The more you have, sometimes the more complicated your life gets."   - Dan Price

On April 13, 2014, 30-year-old CEO Dan Price of Gravity Payments made a startling announcement  to his 120-person staff. Over the next three years, Price intends to raise the minimum rate across the company from to $70,000. Today, his company pays an average wage of $48,000. 

To ensure all of his employees are compensated at this amount, he anticipates a decrease in his salary to $70,000 from about $1 million dollars. He plans to keep his salary at this amount until the company earns back the profit it made when the new salaries came in to affect.

What motivated him? Not politics---instead what drove him was inequality. Price is more concerned about the well being of his employees then his own salary. He notes, “Of all the social issues that I was in a position to do something about as a business leader, this was a worthy one to go after”

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