Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

Greening Our Faith

In this month’s Vital Practices Digest, we highlight 5 ways for congregations to practice their commitment to caring for our earth home and all who inhabit it. Our 5 resource is a suggestion for congregations interested in the practice of year round stewardship and gratitude.

It’s easy and free to access 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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It’s morning in the office, and my instinct is to head straight to my desk, fire up the computer, scroll through email, and wrap my brain around the day’s agenda.

But others think I'm rude. They like to start with friendly chatter, checking in, getting coffee, warming up to the day with conversation.

Neither way is “right.” They are just two styles of communication. But knowing that—and finding ways to bridge the disconnect—is key to healthier staffs (and churches!).

At a conference last week, Denise Trevino of the Diocese of Texas led a workshop on communication styles. I’ve attended a lot of these kinds of things, so I expected it to be more of the same. I was surprised.

She expounds on a concept developed by Edward T. Hall, an American anthropologist. The idea is that people communicate and deal with conflict on a spectrum of low to high context. Low context folks are direct, focused on action and solution, and adaptable to change. High context people prioritize relationships and storytelling.

There’s a lot more to it, but the bottom line is that it’s sometimes hard for low and high context people to find common ground. Take the situation of my morning routine. For me and my low-context self, I like to start the day with a focus on the work ahead. After thirty or forty minutes, I tend to be more social. High context people may think I’m standoffish. Or that I don’t care. Or I’m rude. On the other hand, I stew: why don’t they want to get started on the day’s work?

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Alleluia! Gosh, it feels good to say that again. From the darkness of the Easter Vigil it suddenly rang out: “Alleluia! Christ is risen!” The victory is won! We are bold and jubilant.

This is so different from the Friday before when we quietly contemplated the evil Jesus endured to take away our own evilness. At Trinity Episcopal Church in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the Rev. Dr. Thomas P. Hansen stopped us from wallowing in our dust. He looked to John’s accounts of the passion which present Jesus in control, not as a victim.

Father Tom’s Good Friday homily reminded us that our God had a strategy for victory. He had the power and confidence to see His plan through until the resurrection, and until now and to eternity.

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Have you ever heard, ‘if we could just solve the problem of x in our parish strategy, we'd be ready …”?

I was on the plane on my way to visit a client. I picked up a “Psychology Today” magazine which featured  this article: “Eureka: Is there a way to manufacture an ‘aha’ moment…or at least improve the odds of having one?” 

The article, by author Bruce Grierson, described a variety of studies that indicate that many of the moments we experience as transformational or life changing is a result of our brain in an “idle” or “prepatory” state of mine. Essentially, our subciousious spends time collecting information and the “aha!” moment occurs when the filter temporary allows the culmination of these ideas to the forefront of our conscious.

The author goes on to cite different ways of encouraging this state of mind—at one point noting “Instead of spending time on a mountain top incubating a solution, could you instead keep doggedly trying things?” In the process of trying things, we can then gain the experience necessary to prompt the “aha” moment.

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This is really a book-length issue about which I’m only going to write a few hundred words. Underneath all of this is a library-full of information, plus an entire life’s journey and discernment. I’m thinking about baptism. It’s Easter, after all, and these 50 Days of Easter are the season of baptism.

Christianity’s one big sacrament of initiation has a noticeably wide spectrum of practice and belief and interpretation surrounding it. From Jesus and John in the Jordan River – and the gospel authors’ mild disagreements about what was happening there – to the divergent ways in which Christ’s earliest followers went about baptizing converts, at least according to the earlier chapters in Acts of the Apostles, to the fundamental question that arose much later in the tradition about where and when and how the Holy Spirit shows up, it can be said that baptism has a profound and yet uneasy both/and nature about it: baptism is both initiation and cleansing; something both for believers and for those who don’t yet (fully) understand; both customary practice and a radical, personal, individual decision. In our current baptismal rite, I think the 1979 Book of Common Prayer captures brilliantly such diversity; it’s a rite which allows for believer baptism and infant baptism and, by consequence, renders that other initiatory sacrament – confirmation – somewhat in question. Like I said, there’s a library full of information and a life’s journey to answer questions and question answers.

The point of this blog post, however, is not to delve more deeply into traditions and histories and theologies of baptism but to encourage the pastoral art of, let me call it, theologizing-on-the-ground.

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This past weekend I went to an Easter Vigil at a large Manhattan church. It was a lovely service, crowded, with beautiful music and several baptisms. It was not, of course, perfect. There was a microphone that didn’t work and a noisy child sitting behind us, up way past her bedtime, talking and crying through most of the service.

I have to admit I’d prefer a quieter service, but I also want children to feel welcome and at home in church. Ultimately, you just have to let the children be themselves, which means a bit of extra noise.

This is, I've been reminded recently, how life works: we have to live with noise and imperfections. Children are loud and messy. Sometimes they cry. That’s simply something we must accept. So it is with any community or even individual. There are parts of us that are loud and messy. There are times when we will feel anxious and fearful, when we will accidentally break things, and when we will feel sick and sad. There’s no way around this. 

There’s a temptation to believe we can fix ourselves and our communities, perhaps even perfect them, but this is not how reality actually works, nor is it the Christian story. The story we celebrated this past weekend does not ignore the pain and messiness of life, but rather blesses it. In Holy Week we commemorate the life and death of a savior who suffered, of a God who suffers. Resurrection does not erase pain and death. There is still a scar in Jesus’s side, holes in his hands and feet. The disciples are still afraid and sinful. The world remains imperfect.

No, in the story we tell every Holy Week, God loves and blesses our misshapen, broken hearts, our unpredictable, loud, and noisy world.

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Holy Trinity, Manistee recently completed month 8 of its Laundry Love ministry. We learned about this idea last summer from a video sent out by The Episcopal Church. We hadn’t thought of this as a ministry opportunity until then, but it was immediately apparent to us that this was an unaddressed need in our community.

Our town of approximately 7,000 in rural Northwest Michigan has few people who are homeless but many people live on fixed incomes or get by on low-paying jobs. Of our town's two laundromats, one is located closer to the residents we were looking serve and, as it happened, charges considerably less for their machines and provides free soap for those who need it. The owner of that laundromat thought Laundry Love was a wonderful idea. Working with her we decided the best time to do this would be a four hour window on the fourth Friday afternoon of each month.

Our first month, publicized only by a poster at thee laundromat and a couple of writeups in the newspaper, we served 11 people or "family units." In the months since we've numbered 15 to 20 family units. With the low cost of the machines at this laundromat, we spend around $250 each month. Some of the people who come are regulars, such as the older woman who lives on $715 a month and the family with both parents on disability and four children at home. Others have come only a time or two due to circumstances such as their washer at home being broken or their pipes at home being frozen. (It's been a very cold winter here.) Some people have vehicles they can drive to the laundromat, some catch rides with friends, and some use the very limited bus service in our town. All have been quite grateful to us for doing this and there's been more than a little wonderment that people are willing to help in this way.

The owner of the laundromat, Eve, and her assistant, Wanda, have been beyond helpful in this ministry. Eve definitely performs her own unsung ministry in treating the patrons of her laundromat with respect and kindness. She has built relationships with most of our regulars. During Laundry Love, she is invaluable in helping keep the laundry flowing through the machines in the most efficient manner.

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Do you feel too small or too shy to get out there?

Let me tell you a story.

I am a fairly shy person. In my early 20s, I was certainly not given to drawing attention to myself in public. But my first job after college was as a union organizer. It involved a lot of talking to people and an occasional trip out into the world to make some noise.

That’s how I ended up in a Home Depot outside Houston, Texas, in the door and window department, with a bullhorn and three workers from a Dallas door and window factory. Our job was to make a little noise, and draw attention to the poor working conditions in the factories that sourced Home Depot’s products at the time.

Everything went pretty much according to plan. We found the doors and windows. We started to chant. We used the bullhorn. We were asked to leave the store. We did. We stood outside the store chanting. When the police arrived, we expected to be told to leave the property and to move on to the next store. We had been doing this all day. There are a lot of Home Depots in greater Houston.

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In her Easter message, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori reminds us we can find Jesus still rising, “if we will go stand with the grieving Marys of this world, if we will draw out the terrified who have retreated to their holes, if we will walk the Emmaus road with the lost and confused, if we will search out the hungry in the neighborhood called Galilee. We will find him already there before us, bringing new and verdant life. The only place we will not find him in is in his tomb.”

This month, we continue to share stories of individuals, congregations, and organizations who have chosen to stand with the grieving Mary’s of this world. What all of them have discovered is the strength that comes from seeking out others responding to the same, or similar, call; the wisdom gained by sharing their stories, experiences, and resources.

Here are our April offerings:

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This is what community looks like.

Fifteen coworkers seated around a conference table, cups of water at their right hand, spooning pudding from parfait glasses.

As we move through Holy Week, we recall the Last Supper, the Passover meal Jesus shared with his friends (and one definite frenemy). The disciples didn't know what this meal meant to Jesus. They had no idea that 2,000 years later, millions of faithful followers would still honor this evening, the words Jesus spoke, the community he loved. They couldn't know the transforming power of love. They were just eating a meal with their friend.

I haven't broken (or tasted) bread since December 6. No soft drinks, cookies, ice cream, or even fruit. With this medically supervised diet, my food consists of four or five packets of high-protein mixes. Eight hundred calories a day. And lots and lots of water. I've lost almost seventy pounds. And missed work lunches, Christmas brunch, happy hours, New Year's gnoshing, and breakfasts in bed.

In many ways, it's a good trade-off. But this is the hardest thing I've ever done. And I still have a way to go on the journey. 

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Several years ago I was inspired by a wonderful Southern Baptist friend who could, at the drop of a hat, quote a relevant verse from the Bible, no matter the situation. I realized how few verses I knew by heart, so I became determined to memorize some scripture.

I started with an easy one – the 23rd Psalm - as my husband and I drove to a get-away weekend in the hills of southern Indiana. I had the psalm committed to memory by the time we made it to our charming rental cabin, positioned next to a pond. A rickety set of wooden stairs descended from the gravel drive, beckoning me to come closer to the still waters. I sat on the steps, listening and watching nature reveal the secrets of the ecosystem around me. I repeated the psalm, and meant every word of it.

God restored my soul in those moments. I could have driven home right then and felt as refreshed as the entire weekend was supposed to offer.

As a consultant with the Episcopal Church Foundation (ECF), I help congregations with projects for which volunteers are needed. Sometimes potential helpers are ruled out “because he is just really burned out right now,” or, “she says she can’t do one more thing until the rummage sale is over.”

I get it. Do-ers of the Word need some time to refresh along their busy way. Similarly, all worship and no action might prevent people from deepening their faith through service.

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When we go out, they come in. It seems like too simple a formula. But it’s by far the closest to a sure bet that I’ve seen in parish ministry. It sure beats, “If we build it, they will come,” which I have heard an awful lot of times as church-building advice.

Probably worth remembering that “If you build it…” is a quote from a 1980s baseball fantasy movie, not the Bible or any other source that even purports to hold holy truth.

I just counted up the number of times that we have “gotten out there” from St. Mary’s in the last year. By that I mean some sort of public demonstration of faith or public liturgy that involved leaving church building (and usually the church property).

Here’s the list in the last twelve months:

Palm Sunday
Palms and Oaxacan band music around the block

Good Friday
2 ½ mile walk with Stations of the Cross, band music, singing and Big Jesus on the back of a truck

Feast of St. Christopher
Patron saint for a group of our parishioners and neighbors celebrated with band music, incense, procession led by the image of St. Cris, giant puppets, dancers, lots of good and loud all-day festivity

Halloween
A few lively folks in full costume giving out treats to the neighborhood kids; not terribly liturgical, but very popular nonetheless

All Saints Sunday
Mass in our church courtyard with band music and a traditional outdoor Day of the Dead Altar

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We were standing and talking in the entryway of his church as the afternoon light on this early spring day flooded the well-designed and beautiful, inviting space. His is a large church, a new church building and a congregation that just keeps growing. It’s not a mega-church, he was quick to add, and I agreed; it felt warm and welcoming and I, for my part, felt downright connected to those with whom I was worshipping.

“What are your other services like?” I asked, noting that as a working pastor I don’t have the opportunity to worship at other churches as much as I’d like.

“The 8 o’clock is kind of the ‘original’ church,” he said; “traditional and simple. The 9:15 is a blended service, and the 11 o’clock has organ and choir and probably more hymns than at this evening service or the 9:15.” He said all this as the praise team was breaking down their instruments and wrapping up their chords. “It takes a lot of coordination of volunteers, but each service also takes on its own style and shape and meaning.”

At these words, as if on cue, a vast wall behind the altar table slid open and a few volunteers slid the drum kit back into its resting space. At the same time, two others were rolling the altar table to the center of the raised platform while another rolled the piano back to the left-hand side. “There it is,” he said, “now it’s all set for next Sunday’s 8 o’clock.”

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Most of the time the name Ichabod summons images of a bony, apple-adamed schoolteacher racing from the clutches of the Headless Horseman. But theologian and Church of England priest Graham Tomlin offers another interpretation of Ichabod.

In 1 Samuel, Ichabod is described as a son of Phinehas, a priest in early Israel. His mother gave him the name Ichabod, which means “the glory of the Lord has departed.” Talk about low expectations and that kid needing some therapy later! 

Anyway, Tomlin shares how one church held a yearly “Ichabod meeting.” The purpose was to ask the question: “From which of our church’s activities has God’s glory departed?” Are there fundraisers, committees, organizations, events, and traditions that no longer build the mission or vision of the church? Have they long since become disconnected from God’s glory and now are tedious at best and destructive and time (money and opportunity) sucking at worst? Putting an end to something that is no longer building up the Body is an important practice. It won’t be easy, but saying no – or saying no more – can free up resources (people, money, time, and space) for expansion of current projects or for new initiatives.

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A few years ago, I went to the monthly meeting of a local environmental group. It was long and tedious, and at the end I wasn’t sure what I should do next to get involved. I never went back.

I eventually got involved in other ways, but I think this is a common experience that people have when they care about a cause but can’t quite figure out how to contribute meaningfully.

Some people, of course, enjoy going to meetings, attending rallies, and writing letters to their senators, but for the rest of us advocacy or activism can be a chore. Engaging people in making change requires a little more than just convincing them our cause is just.

The other day I went to a panel discussion on climate change, and one of the hosts, Curt Collier from the New York Society for Ethical Culture, said, “The stronger the community, the better it is able to tackle environmental issues.”

Now I know the church is not simply an advocacy or environmental organization, but a church cannot follow Jesus without also creating community and trying to change the world for the better. Fortunately, as Collier points out, those things go hand in hand. To create change you don’t just need to make people care, you have to get them connected to each other.

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Hint: It’s not about making coffee.

Churches could learn a few things from Starbucks…

Starbucks is one of those places that, even if you don’t go there, you know it’s the place to go.
It’s the number one coffee shop in the United States, maybe even in the world. It’s almost like Starbucks was selling something addictive…

They are, of course. Starbucks sells coffee, which contains the drug caffeine. But as far as we know, Starbucks coffee contains no more of the drug than the coffee sold at it’s two biggest coffee competitors, McDonalds or Dunkin’ Donuts. Starbucks doesn’t even sell better coffee, regularly coming in #3 behind McD and DD in blind taste tests.

It’s not about advertising, either. Starbucks hardly does any, compared to its competitors. You won’t find the Starbucks mermaid popping up on your TV next to the words “I’m lovin’ it.” Nor will you find a single billboard proclaiming, “America runs on Starbucks.”

So if it’s not about better coffee, stronger caffeine, or better advertising, what is it? Why are so many people addicted to Starbucks? If you ask the Starbucks CEO, he’ll tell you. It’s not about making better coffee but about the Starbuck’s experience. Starbucks knows how to create an experience and provide a sense of community that fill a deep-down need.

So let’s ask the real question, “Why are so many people addicted to the Starbuck’s experience?”

Here are ten reasons:1

Reason #1: Starbucks’ mission (the “why”) is greater than their product (the “what”). Starbucks’ mission is “to inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time.” Inspiring and nurturing human spirit is so much greater of a mission than selling people coffee in neighborhood stores. It is transcendent and transformational. It aspires to make a difference in the world. People want to be part of something greater than themselves.

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5 Resources for March: Connect with Your Community

In this month’s Vital Practices Digest, we’re highlighting 5 ways congregations are learning more about and making connections with their neighboring communities. Our 5th resource is a suggestion for congregations interested in the practice of year round stewardship and gratitude.

Please share this digest with new members of your vestry and extend an invitation to subscribe to ECF Vital Practices to receive Vestry Papers and the Vital Practices Digest.

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A few days ago I was reminded that if you want to know what God is calling you to do---its important to actually spend some time together. This reminder triggered a profound moment in my experiences as a consultant.

About a year ago, a parish is a charming town in Wisconsin contacted me to engage in a discernment phase of a capital campaign (the first of the three phases recommended by the Episcopal Church Foundation). During discernment, a community utilizes a listening tool to ask all its members to answer the question, “What is God calling us to do?”

The theology behind this phase is rooted in the understanding that God still speaks to us today. It’s an important time of creating a common understanding, ensuring all are heard, and determining next steps toward a capital campaign.

The congregation was certain they wanted to raise money for their endowment, but was unsure if the parish had other priorities that needed addressing as well. Together, we created a survey and following the results planned to walk through the survey in a parish wide meeting after coffee hour.

The meeting started off as most normally do. We collectively agreed up some group norms for interacting and I began asking questions. At first, responses were slow but rapidly people began raising their hands as many wanted to voice their feelings and ideas. There were some funny moments, heart felt testimonies to what the parish meant to its members, and articulated feelings of frustration that there were diverse ideas about how money should be spent. And then…a hand popped up.

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Many congregations invite folks to come to the altar for special prayers in honor of their birthdays. Some expand the invitation to those celebrating wedding anniversaries or to honor the date of their baptism and/or confirmation.

I think it can be a pretty great tradition, especially including the liturgical anniversaries of baptism—an important re-birth-day.

But, as with much of what we do during the service, we should take care not to alienate people during this celebration. We should intentionally invite them in, not push them away.

Here’s a scenario: some congregations encourage people to bring a small offering forward during these birthday prayers. Mine does, in fact. I hadn’t seen this before, but in a way, it makes good theological sense to offer a tangible thanksgiving to God for life. In our church, the priest holds a glass globe in which people drop a few coins or some dollar bills. The offering supports ministry in the community. On the top of the globe is the prayer that the congregation says. That way, if someone doesn’t know the prayer by heart (like me), they have a guide and don’t feel uncomfortable in front of the congregation. Afterward, people shake hands or hug and return to the pews for the liturgy of Holy Eucharist. 

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Have the two energy-zappers of vestry meetings, Routine and Re-hash, drained your creative juices? Even in the early church, Paul advised church leaders to persevere:

No matter what organizational structure is used, governance/leadership meetings can become boring and frustrating. With some intentional searching, vestries can find resources to enliven discussions and get creative juices flowing with new ideas and enthusiasm. Here are some ideas: 

First, look for congregational development books that provide insight-producing discussion questions around some big issue(s) your congregation is facing. There are many excellent publications regarding governance, outreach/mission ministries and stewardship.

One of my favorites is People of the Way; Renewing Episcopal Identity, by Dwight J. Zscheile. What I like most are its discussion questions designed to refresh the routine way of examining effectiveness and approach to mission. Here are some examples from the book:  

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