Conversations about changing the church occupy Executive Council
Episcopal News Service – Linthicum Heights, Maryland. June 17, 2011 [061711-04]
Mary Frances Schjonberg
The question of how the Episcopal Church needs to change to fit into the reality of a changing world continued to occupy the church's Executive Council as it concluded its three-day meeting here.
The council met to "talk of hard financial issues and church decline and growth, to address elephants in the room, and to speak truth to one another in love," the members said in a letter to the church issued at the end of the meeting.
"We were attentive to structural matters, keeping in mind that well-functioning structures make mission more easily facilitated and supported," the letter said. "Again our surroundings reminded us that changing the direction of a big sea-going vessel can take more miles than we can currently see and more time than one might assume."
Council met June 15-17 at the Conference Center at the Maritime Institute.
Structural change was not the only subject on the council's agenda. It spent its entire final day in plenary session hearing committee and task force reports, and approving a series of resolutions. Among them were resolutions reiterating the church's support for the people and church in South Sudan in the face of increasing persecution and its support for a two-state solution in Israel/Palestine.
The discussions about change during this meeting have their roots in the council's decision in October 2009 to reorganize and expand the number of its standing committees. The theme of structural change came to the fore again during the last two council meetings, beginning with remarks made by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori at the October 2010 meeting as well as those by House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson in February.
"We continue to work toward adaptive change rather than technical change," Jefferts Schori told the council in her closing remarks June 17. Calling it a "significant shift" in the council's attitude, she said "we have, to some degree, left the culture of fear and entered into a culture of the future."
Anderson said that "ever since we arrived [at the conference center], our energy and creative tension have been signaling to me that we're on the cusp of breaking through to authentic, creative change."
While the council may not yet have the right words and plans, Anderson said, "what we want to affirm to each other and say to the church is this: The church of the 21st century needs to become more nimble and responsive. We need to foster vibrant mission and ministry in local communities where it transforms people's lives and helps create the realm of God. And if we truly believe in this way of being the church, we need to realign our structure and budgets and staffing plans accordingly."
As one way to begin that work, the council instructed its newly formed executive committee to design and manage the process by which the council will develop a draft 2013-2015 budget. The committee, made up of Jefferts Schori, Anderson and six elected council members, was created in the revised by-laws that council had passed earlier in the day. (It also passed newly developed rules of order for its meetings.) The budget process will take into consideration the projections contained in a "long-range financial modeling" tool that was presented to council.
Council member and Finances for Mission Committee Chair Del Glover told the council that the tool's assumptions about future expenses, coupled with conservative income projections, show annual multi-million-dollar deficits from 2012 through 2015 and "growing to a substantial amount in 2021."
He cautioned that the deficit prediction in the tool "is not a forecast, but it's a tool which says unless you do something different, this could be the result."
Becky Snow, chair of the church's Standing Commission on the Structure of the Church, reported to the council about the results of a May 30-31 effort to begin coordinating the conversations going on in a number of the church's committees and commissions about strategic planning and possible changes in the structure and governance of the church. At council's request, Snow's commission gathered representatives from the joint standing committees on Program, Budget and Finance and Planning and Arrangements; the Standing Commission on Constitution and Canons; the Budgetary Funding Task Force the House of Deputies Committee on the State of the Church, and council's Governance and Administration for Mission, Finances for Mission and Strategic Planning committees, as well as Jefferts Schori, Anderson, General Convention Secretary and Episcopal Church Executive Officer Gregory Straub and Treasurer Kurt Barnes.
Snow told the council that her commission will eventually refine a draft report that she gave them June 17 and include it and its recommendations in its report to General Convention in 2012
The draft of the report, which was not released, suggests "three lenses for looking at structural issues," Snow said: subsidiarity (although she suggested there needs to be a better word for this that speaks to its sense of interdependence and mutual responsibility), structure and diversity.
Structure refers to the "bones" and the "scaffolding" on which the Episcopal Church is uniquely organized. That lens honors the role General Convention has in the church, "not because it is the place where most ministries are done but because it sets the framework for breadth of vision and flexibility in the whole church," Snow said.
She added that the members of the commission on structure do not think that the church's constitution and canons, or its structure, are the problem. "The problem is … the way people look at the canons," she said, noting that a careful study of the canons shows "they allow a lot of flexibility."
The diversity lens, Snow said, reflects what has been "one of our stated values for many years," and the church must "constantly re-examine" how to live into that value. She said the report suggests some possible ways in which the church could be "more creative" in overcoming hurdles and becoming truly more diverse.
In its letter to the church, council members said they "called one another to the work of examining not only budgets but also how we treat one another and the staff that supports our work."
"How do we create and honor the beloved community? How do we avoid losing our better selves, losing patience with one another in the midst of long days with everyone trying to do too much with limited resources and time?"
In other business, the council:
- passed a resolution deploring recent military actions of the Government of Sudan against the people of Abyei and the Nuba Mountains, which have resulted in the death and displacement of thousands of people, the burning of the cathedral in the Episcopal Diocese of Kadugli and the Nuba Mountains, the attack and killing of church members, and the destruction of church property. The resolution also urged the U.S. government to take a number of steps to end the violence. The council expressed its "solidarity with the Episcopal Church of Sudan and its pastors and priests and in the church's call for peace in Sudan, its leadership and care for the people of Sudan, and its suffering as it has been targeted for violence and abuse." Finally, the resolution urged all Episcopalians to continue in prayer and advocacy for the people of Sudan, especially those in war-torn regions.
- expressed "profound concern at the impasse between Israeli and Palestinian leaders in the process toward final-status negotiations for a two-state solution to end decades of conflict." The resolution reaffirms church's support for a two-state solution "in which a secure and universally recognized State of Israel lives alongside a secure, independent and viable Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as the shared capital of both states." Among other resolves, it affirms that Palestinian political unity is necessary for a government capable of representing the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but notes that the inclusion of Hamas in any governing entity must be accompanied by "concrete reaffirmations by the Palestinian Authority of its unequivocal renunciation of all forms of violence and its recognition of the State of Israel and its right to exist." And the council urged all Episcopalians to pray for the peace of the Holy Land and advocate to their own governments for maximum international support for a negotiated two-state solution.
- agreed to continue financial support to the reorganizing dioceses of Quincy and San Joaquin. In Quincy's case, the council agreed to provide it with a $50,000 grant and to defer principal and interest payments on its $125,000 line until Dec. 31 as it explores the future of the diocese while continuing to pay for the costs of its operations. The council agreed to loan San Joaquin up to $500,000 to support "its protection of diocesan properties and continuing operations." Up to now, San Joaquin has received $2.3 million in grants and loans from the Executive Council since 2008, according to diocesan Chancellor Michael Glass.
- heard a report from Rosalie Ballentine, council member and chair of its Anglican Covenant Task Force. She said that there were "a few" among the 64 responses the group received from a request for comment on the final draft of the covenant who would approve the covenant in full. "Almost all" respondents objected to Section 4, which contained a disciplinary process, she said. Ballentine also said that the group will not yet release a report it requested from the Standing Commission on Constitution and Canons outlining the changes that would be needed if the General Convention decided to sign on to the covenant. "We're reluctant to have it out there" because some people may assume that decisions have already been made, she said. The report will eventually be appended to the task force report to General Convention. Council will receive a draft of the Blue Book report in October, according to Ballentine.
- was told by member Mark Harris that the council's United Thank Offering study group, which he chairs, will be able to separate the issues of UTO's policies and procedures from larger questions of a renewed vision for the 120-year-old organization. Details of the former category will be brought to the council in October, Harris said. He predicted that the group will then be able to suggest to General Convention in 2012 that UTO and the church re-engage with "the theology of thankfulness that is at the core of the United Thank Offering" in a way that could result in a re-invigorated UTO with a "more supportive, missionary engagement with this church." The study group was formed in October 2008 to conduct a "serious and extensive" study of the UTO. The council's request resulted from a series of conversations that began in January 2008 and centered on the need to clarify the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society's legal relationship with UTO. (The DFMS is the church's corporate legal entity.)
- heard an update in executive session on the report of the A&F 093Task Force, which was formed in 2009 to conduct a comprehensive review of the human resources practices of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society (the Episcopal Church's corporate entity) relating to all employees, contractors and consultants.
- In February, council members passed Government and Administration for Mission Resolution 010 directing Episcopal Church Center management to report to GAM at this meeting with recommendations for implementation, a timeline and actions taken to date regarding recommendations contained in the A&F093 Task Force report and in a Joint Audit Committee evaluation of employment and personnel practices.
A summary list of all resolutions passed by council is available here.
The Executive Council carries out the programs and policies adopted by the General Convention, according to Canon I.4 (1)(a). The council is composed of 38 members, 20 of whom (four bishops, four priests or deacons and 12 lay people) are elected by General Convention and 18 (one clergy and one lay) by provincial synods for six-year terms, plus the Presiding Bishop and the President of the House of Deputies.