Sunday
began with a massive Eucharist and the UTO Ingathering. Major fal-da-rol.
Then it
was on to the Structure Committee. The already good resolution on structural
reform came back to us improved. We processed it some more, this time making
formal revisions. I proposed an amendment which was adopted and I am very pleased
about it. It calls for the whole Church to pray for the task force, the special
gathering, and process of discernment created by the resolution.
On the
surface, this may seem like religious window dressing. It is certainly less
spiritually ambitious than the separate “Act 8 resolution” calling for a
process that is more ascetical and less structural in approach. But I believe
the word “pray” is nuclear loaded. Whether we detonate it depends entirely on
the Church in each of its local incarnations.
Here’s
why I believe this is crucial. Russ Crabtree (a church leadership heavyweight)
says that a strategic plan is like the cerebral cortex of an organization. The
organizational culture is like the reflexes. It’s what we do automatically. To
the extent the strategic plan and organizational culture are in conflict,
Crabtree says, the culture, the habits, the unconscious reflexes win “every
time, every time.” (Yes, he repeats for emphasis.) I have seen plenty of
official changes of structure crumble in the sand of an inconsistent culture.
If a
strategic plan is like the cerebral cortex, the governance structures are even
more so. They are how things get done officially. But what happens officially
depends entirely on what gets said in the parking lot. Governance structures are on the surface.
They are supported, or not, but something deeper – the spiritual culture. The
spirituality of the church is our culture. Our present cumbersome dysfunctional
structure is not something someone else did to us. It is the outward and
visible sign of our inner and spiritual state. If we do not, as the whole Church,
engage the process of transformation deeply and widely, if this process is
just carried out on a superficial-structural
level but a few hundred people, then it will all be a waste of time.
So the
question is: how do we all engage in a prayerful process of discerning what the
Church is called to be. We can start with the 5 Marks of Mission (if you don’t
know about them, just Google the term) but that is way broad and vague. What would that kind of mission look like on the
ground -- on our ground -- in our community?
Can we
prayerfully imagine alternative scenarios for the future of our congregations?
Maybe we imagine dying off and closing. That is an option. Maybe we imagine
bringing in a few younger people who are pretty much like us, training them to
be completely like us, then handing the building on to them so that nothing
changes inside the church walls – even though the world outside is different in
ways we cannot begin to imagine. Or maybe we imagine something quite different.
What might that be? What might God have in mind for our community? These are
questions to pray into and there are ways of praying into it. Maybe we can
bring in spiritual directors to help us pray with our religious imagination (a
term commonly used in Jesuit circles) fully engaged.
I am
excited about this resolution coming out of the structure committee, but the
most exciting word in it for me is “pray.” We may pray for a vision, pray for
the faith to walk into the darkness toward the light, pray for the resources we
need to become the people we are called to be. I am convinced the fate of our
discernment process depends on the prayers of all of our people.
After
working the Resolution over a second time today, we sent it back to the
drafting committee for more work. We will take it up again tomorrow and
hopefully hammer this resolution, which our chair Gay Jennings calls “The Big
Kahuna”, into shape so it can go to the House of Deputies on Tuesday.
In the
House of Bishops we spent a long time again today in a closed session dealing
with relationship matters. I cannot describe what goes on in the private
sessions, but I believe I can say that it was an emotionally intense time of
authentic personal sharing, that it was a graced time in which the faith of the
bishops was manifest and Christ’s reconciling love-power was palpable. Once
again, I was surprised and moved by the spirituality of the bishops of our
Church and stunned by the Spirit’s deftness in brining light into the darkness.
In open
session, we transacted a lot of business. There were two high points for Nevada
given our particular mission focus these days. First, there was a resolution on
human trafficking commending those who are fighting this evil and calling
several resources to our attention, including resources from Anglican Women’s
Empowerment (AWE), a program considered at the recent Women’s Ministries Gathering
in Tonopah.
Second,
there was a broader resolution on engagement with the culture outside our
church walls. It particularly encouraged churches to participate in community
organizing effort with programs such as IAF and PICO by name. It was satisfying
to see Nevada ahead of the curve on this one. Two of our congregations
(Trinity, Reno and St. Paul’s, Sparks) have already joined ACTIONN, a
PICO-sponsored community organizing group. In Las Vegas, Episcopal Latino
Ministries have already joined Nevadans For The Common Good, an IAF-sponsored
community organizing group – and 6 of our 8 congregations in the area are
seriously considering signing on in the coming year. It is good to know our
efforts are endorsed by the General Convention of the Episcopal Church and that
we are helping to lead the way – and no, I had nothing to do with this
resolution other than voting for it.
I keep
encountering people I have known in different parts of the Church at different
stages of my vocational life. I only wish I had time to actually talk with each
of them in depth. But tonight, we had a great dinner out with the Nevada
Deputies, other Nevadans here in various roles, and with Nevada alum, the Rev.
Canon Britt Olson, now of Northern California. A good time was had by all.
4 comments:
I like the idea of a Constitutional Convention rather than piecemeal change over time. Get it done and tell the church to get over it.
Thank you, thank you for your recognition of the spiritual challenges that underlie our structural challenges. I truly appreciate the fact that you made sure that prayer and discernment were part of the process. Good work. I think this is a very good proposal.
Thank you for these updates. Another question (and thanks for entertaining them; I realize its hectic). What to make of resolution C060 and its accompany minority report? I did not realize that the church's relationship to Israel had become a source of disagreement. Do some feel that we are not being critical enough of Israel? and others too critical?
David, the Structure Committee was emphatic that we have no provision for a "Constitutional Convention" in the Constitution. The Constitution can only be amended at a regular meeting of Gen Con. It seems to me that just means you have a special meeting to handle all the routine business while devoting a regular session to comprehensive revision of the Constitution. We don't want to have the same stumble the UMC just did, adopting a major restructuring only to discover it was unconstitutional.
Susan, gave it my best shot. I got some language in that latter got knocked out. But there is still enough there to hand our hat on. I talked with the HOB about it today and got good feedback. The language of the resolution is not as important as what we actually do, and you are already doing great things.
Matthew, I don't actually know the back story on C 060. Certainly, Palestinean Christian (who are usually Anglican) have some major differences with the state of Israel particularly with regard to Gaza. We have spoken out for the right of the Bishop of Jerusalem and his family to travel; and in support of our hospital in Gaza which treats people of all faiths. Given the strong feelings around Jerusalem, I would imagine that some would think we are too critical of Israel and I know some think we are not critical enough. But our relationship with the leadership of the Diocese of Jerusalem is very good.
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