I sometimes hear the disgruntled question,
“what is the diocese doing for us?” Or I hear, “We aren’t sure we are getting
our money’s worth from the diocese.” That’s kind of discouraging to me – not
because I think we are doing such a great job, but because the very spiritual
level of that question is strong evidence that we are not doing so well. There
are much better questions we could be asking.
But let’s start with the question people are
asking. To answer it, we need to clarify a key term. Who is the diocese that is supposed to be
giving people their money’s worth in
this question? I assume they mean Wendy (Finance Officer), Michelle
(Administration and Communications Officer), Canon Catherine and me.
Wendy works tirelessly not just to keep our
diocesan finances and Camp Galilee finances well ordered; but also to help
parish treasurers and wardens to keep things right. She is constantly on the
phone with them and sometimes travels the state to help our parishes with their
accounting. When parishes have insurance claims, Wendy helps them get
reimbursed. When clergy or parishes need help with Church Pension Group, she is
the one who gets things straightened out. The annual reporting to The Episcopal
Church is her job, which involves gathering and compiling al the data from the
parishes.
Michelle is the information clearinghouse of
the diocese. She produces the weekly E-Announcements, the weekly Clergy Flash,
the Nevada DJ (our diocesan journal), the prayer list, and special
communications. She maintains, the diocesan web site, Face Book page, and
Twitter account. Michelle is the coordinator for all sorts of events – Diocesan
Convention, Priests Conference, Deacons Conference, and training events like
the recent Preaching Workshops with Prof. Judith McDaniel. Recently she has
been hard at it arranging for us to host the Province VIII Deacons Conference
in 2017 and the All Our Children Regional Workshop (on equity in public
education) in Fall, 2016.
She schedules and arranges Canon Catherine’s
and my visits to parishes, prisons, and outreach centers. And Michelle is the
basic place people turn to figure out how to get done whatever it is they need.
She is the ombudsmen red tape cutter for parishes.
Canon Catherine is usually on the road. She
visits parishes to help them explore their vision and mission – sometimes as
part of a clergy search process or at other transitional points. Catherine is
our Transitions Officer; so she is a headhunter finding clergy to serve in
Nevada parishes and a talent agent helping our clergy who need to relocate find
new ministries. As Transitions Officer she assists parishes in their profile
and search processes so they do not have to hire consultants to help them
maneuver their way through the maze of clergy deployment. She visits congregations to preach,
celebrate, facilitate conversations, and teach. At this writing, she just
offered her first session of Celtic Spirituality at Epiphany. It was attended
by 50 people, 35 of whom were visitors. Right now she is gearing up for the
second session, and two congregations in the Northwest have asked her to
reprise her course there. She oversees our ministry development for lay and
ordained ministries, serves as Individual Discernment Guide to some in the ordination
process, and advises the Commission On Ordination & Licensing on the
progress of those seeking ordination. She recruits people (including me) to
teach our postulants various subjects and leads a group spiritual formation
process so our new clergy will bring wise hearts as well as clever heads to
their ministry.
These are just a few of the things the diocesan
staff does. As for me, “those who seek to justify themselves do not convince.”
So I won’t try to persuade you I earn my pay. If you wonder what I do, I’ll
just give an example. Last weekend was pretty typical, I had meetings with two
aspirants for ordination, met with a grant writer looking for a way to save our
building in Virginia City, worked with the lawyers on that same project,
attended the Preaching Workshop at Trinity, celebrated and preached at St.
John’s in the morning and St. Nicholas (Northern Nevada Correctional Center) in
the afternoon, and held a forum on national and international shifts in the
Church. On Monday, I spent half of my day “off” driving home, and then joined
six of our congregations for a Nevadans For The Common Good meeting that night.
But I really believe all of that is going to
answer the wrong question. A mature spirituality would ask something else. Let
me give you some facts that lead toward that question.
Last week, when I was at St. John’s, the
Women’s Group from St. Paul’s, Sparks were there. They had been having a
retreat at Camp Galilee. More and more of our Nevada parishes are sending
groups to Galilee for retreats and workshops. We have worked with the Galilee
Board on shifting their mission in that direction and we have increased our
diocesan support of Galilee by 1,600% since I have been here. That’s one place
“our money” (a theologically problematic term) goes. Aside from the fun and
formation Galilee offers our children and other children, this is one way
Galilee serves parishes. And St. John’s is serving them too by providing Sunday
worship in an incomparably beautiful setting.
Holy Trinity, Fallon has become a major
supporter of St. Hugh’s Outreach Center in Silver Springs. While I was
celebrating at St. Nicholas (in the Northern Nevada Correctional Center) last
week, we consecrated additional elements for St. Thomas the Believer (in
Lovelock Correctional Center) so the inmates there can have Public Communion
Under Special Circumstances. Deacon Marla from St. Paul’s, Elko goes once a
month to lead worship for St. Barnabas, Wells. Priests from Fallon and the
Pyramid Lake congregations travel to Yerington to serve at St. Alban’s.
St. Martin’s, Pahrump has a line item in their
budget to support St. Mark’s, Tonopah and sends Bob Greene twice a month to
lead worship and to train a Worship Leader/ Eucharistic Visitor in Tonopah to
help them stand on their own feet. Grace in the Desert has begun a program
called Travels With Shannon And Sherm.
Their priests take turns leading delegations of laity from Grace to visit small
congregations, particularly those who do not have priests so Shannon and Sherm
serve as celebrants.
We just conducted training in community
organizing skills to be used for building bridges between the Latino and
English Speaking members of All Saints, Christ Church, and St. Matthew’s.
Epiphany hosted it.
Lay and clergy leaders from Trinity, Epiphany,
and Grace are serving as stewardship consultants to seven congregations using
the new Project Resource model for their parish stewardship programs.
The point: more and more of our congregations
are dropping the passive dependent question, what is the diocese doing for us? and putting together this
missional statement/ question combo: We
are the diocese. What can we do for each other in the name of Christ?
