ASA: Love It or Hate It but Use It

 I have read with interest several comments by Episcopal leaders critical of measuring and reporting the Average Sunday Attendance of congregations. This is important. ASA is not a measurement of success.

For Example, a congregation with an ASA of 250 is not “more successful or better” than a congregation with 95 ASA. Bigger is not better when it comes to congregations. As a consultant, I use ASA as one measurement reporting this number. My interest is rooted in the fact that I am one of two people who made the Average Sunday Attendance a factor in the annual parochial reports of Episcopal congregations. I learned the importance of this number from my mentor Lyle Schaller.  I thought it would be helpful if I clarified what this number means and what it does not mean.

Let me repeat what I have taught for 30 years. Average Sunday Attendance of the 52 Sundays of the year is NOT, as I have heard said by several leaders lately, a measure of success!  It is a tool to help measure the trends and health of a congregation and can understood best in context. 

The first trend is what this year’s ASA is when put alongside the ASA for the last ten years.  When Bishop Payne would visit a congregation for confirmation, he would meet with the Vestry and share with them 3 numbers for the last ten years in graph form. One number was membership. The second was stewardship (the average annual giving.) and the third was ASA. When we shared this information with leaders, we would often ask them what they thought this means for the future of their congregation. 

I still remember two experiences in doing this. One vestry member said after some silence, “Well, will the last member please turn out the lights when we are forced to close our doors!” The information raised a sense of urgency for a congregation long in decline with leaders who were complacent with the status quo.

A second revealing comment generated while looking at these numbers in a fast-growing congregation but one with conflict was “Who the hell are all these new people anyway?” A single statement made by a long-term leader showed what the conflict was about. My bias remains the same. I think all congregational leaders should have access to this historical information. After all, why do planning and stewardship without knowing the long-term trends. One thing leadership must understand is that if you keep doing what you have done, you will get what you have always gotten.

The second thing that ASA over time reveals is the type of congregation. We used Schaller’s numbers for four sizes: Family size between 20 and 70, Pastoral size between 80 and 150, Program size between 225 and 400, Recourse size between 400 and 1,000, What do these numbers mean? There are 4 distinct ways of being the Church. 

How a congregation remains stable, or declines, or grows is particular to each size. Some of you will remember a helpful tool from Presiding Bishop’s Office, “Sizing Up the Congregation for New Membership Growth” by Arlin Rothauge. What we did in the Diocese of Texas was to resource our local leaders with this information and easily 80% would plan and make healthy choices based on their size. Using these resources, we helped the Diocese become the fastest growing diocese for five years in both numbers and percentages. That was a remarkable result. Our result led the 815 staff to incorporate these three measurements into the Annual Reports. These are still being made available and can be found on the Episcopal Church’s website.

Again, while the growth was remarkable, success was not what we were measuring, the ASA and other numbers were diagnostic. You can also see why simply looking at last year’s ASA has little meaning outside of the longer trends.

Now let me say this. Some Episcopal leaders including Bishops, do not want to see this information because (a) our numbers for the past 20 years are very bleak, and (b) they are in denial about the implications of these trends. Denial is never a healthy response by a person, a leader, or a congregation, or even the Executive Council of TEC. Of course, the decline of TEC is a complex issue and needs to be understood in the context of Christianity in North America. My suggestion to leaders is to get out of denial and work for the spread and health of the Church given the current realities.

Some who read this will notice that I intentionally give gaps between the sizes, the most important one in my experience is the gap between the large Pastoral Size congregation and a small Program one. This became so clear to me as I worked with over 150 congregations that I wrote a book about it. If you fall in this in-between ASA, “The Myth of the 200 Barrier” is still a valuable tool. Episcopal Leaders might be interested to know that this book has been used by many Lutheran and Methodist congregations with positive results. 

All of this has been reinforced by the application of Systems Theory to ASA and its revelations for leaders. Each size represents a system or culture that can have both positive and negative health implications.

So, the next time you hear one of our leaders denigrating the use of ASA, note what it reveals about that leader’s denial and why the use of Average Sunday Attendance is still important. By the way, the ASA for our congregations dropped from pre-Covid of 65 to today’s 35! No wonder many of our leaders are caught in such strong denial!

 

 

Preaching Habits

 

There have been in recent years several significant books on the dynamic of habits. I have read much of the literature on this topic and watched several YouTube videos that show both the benefits of habits and the downside of habits. I would like in this blog to apply some of this to our preaching. 

Habits that Help

Right up front, we should acknowledge that we clergy have formed some significant habits around how we prepare our sermons. For example, I keep an illustration file that contains material and stores from different sources that I may use at an appropriate moment in a sermon. I draw these from wherever I can find them. In recent years this has included items from the internet. Mostly in my early days of preaching, these were from books or articles. Occasionally, I borrow from other preachers. When I do this, I cite the source. I was once disturbed by hearing a preacher use an story from The Anglican Digest that I had read the past week. It was disturbing because he made it first person, as if it was his experience. Of course, this is plagiarism. As one of my teachers once said, “Stealing sermons is like stealing shoes. It’s wrong!”

Another habit that I have developed over the years is doing my research on the lectionary readings on Mondays and start writing the sermon (or outline) on Thursday. I always do my final version of my sermon on Saturday. For many years, I also had a habit of reviewing the Gospel readings for the next season of the Church Year. This became even more necessary with the three-year lectionary. In my last decade of full-time work, I would just review my notes from past studies. In other words, sometimes our habit help us. 

I mention all this because they illustrate habits that help me prepare for preaching better. I have known a couple of Presbyterian preachers who prepared an outline of sermons for the next year. I cannot imagine doing this. However, my sermons have both a title and a descriptive sentence (often called a “sermonic sentence”), and I keep these in order from Advent though Pentecost. That way, I can look back on my last year and see if a particular form or theme has been overused. 

 On the other side of the preaching event is another habit that some of you have discovered. It is to periodically ask your congregation for feedback.  Providing a structured way for people to give such feedback is a habit that many clergy have found helpful. The topic of helpful habits for preparing a sermon is one that could be shared in a discussion group with other preachers. 

Unhelpful habits We Should Avoid

The top of my list would be using the same form for every sermon. As I have mentioned elsewhere in my blogs, I learned the need to vary the form of my sermon from Fred Craddock in his classic text “Preaching.” 

In speaking of the forms of oral communication available to a preacher, this is what he says. “The forms of which we speak are and have been for centuries the common store of writers and public speakers. In other words, these structures have demonstrated repeatedly that they can carry the burden of truth with clarity, thoroughness, and interest, and therefore, have come to be regard as standard.” 

Then he lists eight these. He uses descriptive terms and not those of classical rhetoric.

  What is it? What is it worth? How does one get it?

   Explore, Explain, Apply

   The Problem, the solution

   What it is not, what it is

    Either/or

    Both/ and

    Promise, fulfillment

    Ambiguity, clarity

    Major premise, minor premise, conclusion

    Not this, nor this, nor this, nor this, but this

    The flashback (from present to past to present)

    From the lesser, to the greater 

Then he observes, “No small amount of biblical, theological, and pastoral instruction, encouragement, and urging can be framed on these forms with a minimum of distortion, reduction, or dullness.” (Preaching, pg. 177) He is right! In my sermon note pad, I keep a list of these forms and during preparation I ask, “Which of these forms will best communicate this sermon?” I find that if I don’t remind myself of these variations, I tend to overuse two or three of them. I find that many preachers do not even try to vary their form. Like the torture bed of mythology, we arbitrarily make every message fit our favorite form. 

The Most Overused Form

I have no doubt which of the above forms is used and overused by too many Episcopal Clergy. It is the “Explore, Explain. Apply” method. I call this the Seminary of the Southwest Form because I worked in the Diocese of Texas for almost 10 years, and it was the form most used by their graduates. They have developed a form for their sermons and their habit of using it over and over makes preaching predictable and sometimes boring. I also observe that over time the applications tends to be too overused. We need to remember that even the most profound truths repeat time and time again become cliches. 

Another over used form comes from 19^th century preaching and is essentially a written form. I was once on the staff of a large Episcopal Church. The Rector was conscientious in putting together his sermons. Unfortunately, he had learned to use a common 19^th century form. It was Introduction, 3 points, and a conclusion/application. I once asked him why all his sermons had 3 points. He observed that they could have less or more, but that the 3-point division was easy for him to build upon. What he did not observe was how his congregation had learned his form. If he took to long for his first point, people began to look at their watches. He had become predictable. 

Another Rector of a large church said he used the 3-point sermon because 3 points were all his people could remember. It made for what he called “a logical progression.” I have the same dislike for the 3-point sermon used constantly as I have for those clergy who have told me that they only preach for 10 minutes because “that is the limit of how long people will listen.” When I teach preaching, I share that time is a secondary value in a sermon. Then I add that a 10-minute sermon that is bad is 9 minutes too long. 

The habit of using the same form all the time is a bad one no matter what that form may be. Besides, why not take the great insight from Craddock. Why not use a form of preaching that best fits the text before us. Trust me, people will listen and will be able to follow and remember. He also observes that another positive use of these forms is variety. Develop the habit of asking, “What oral form would best serve the message of this text and the message of my sermon?” 

For example, recently the lectionary had what I consider the singular hardest passage for Episcopal clergy to preach. The pagan widow pleads for Jesus to heal her daughter. Jesus responds with “Is it right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs?” I read and listened to several attempts by Episcopal preachers to deal with this text. I noted that all used the Explore, Explain, Apply method. And what did they explore? In this story Jesus sounded cruel. If he said this to the widow, he may even have been racist, but he was certainly heartless. They went on to explain basically that Jesus would never have said such a thing. Obviously, the problem for our clergy is that the story does not fit our 21^st century view of Jesus. It did not allow him to be (a) human, (b) someone who could be astonished, (c) confrontational, and most of all (d) Jewish. A better form would have been the one intended by the gospel writer, “Not this, not this, but this!” I think a better message from this story is “Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, was astounded to find faith were his people never expected it to exist. We Christians can find too that faithfulness isn’t only the prerogative of God’s chosen people!” 

Use of a Narrative is an Underrated Habit

If you want a suggestion for a more effective and usable form, I suggest Narrative with the use of elaboration, teaching and illustrations. Recently, I joined my fellow 8 0’clockers at Grace and heard an excellent sermon using just such a form on the parable Jesus told of the two sons. As you remember. one said “no” to working in the vineyard but later repented.  The second son said “yes” but did not go. Our preacher started in the right place. Staring at us she asked the question that led Jesus to share this parable. “By what authority do you preach?” She noted, it was a fair question by those appointed to authority themselves. Her ending drove home her point. When we speak God’s truth, the words contain their own authority, just like John the Baptist and Jesus! 

Summary: In learning to Preach Better, there are habits that help and habits to avoid. Building on the good habits makes us a stronger communicator of the Gospel. Avoiding bad habits, makes us a more interesting and effective preacher.

Develop Your Preaching

Underscoring the difference between oral communication and written communication is important in preaching. Improving our oral communication is an important skill for any preacher. 

In this blog, I want to share how my own preaching developed. Your preaching should develop in your own way given your own personality and preferred style. But avoid arriving at your own comfortable way of preaching. Learn to stretch yourself. People will thank you. 

Why this is a Pivotal Time for Preaching?

Most historians agree that the Protestant Reformation was directly connected to the invention of the printing press. Some even suggest that written communications revolutionized the whole of Western culture. But today, our society is becoming increasingly more visual. Hence the rules of oral communication also work better because oral communication is most effective when it paints a picture for people. 

What I was Taught and What I learned

At my seminary, the assumption in both the preaching classes I had was that a sermon was something we wrote. That was modelled for us by almost all my professors. The most glaring exception was the Dean in my last year. Dean Allen was an entirely oral communicator who never used notes and extensively used story, narrative, and illustrations in his preaching. Several of my professors let us know that his “wasn’t normal” and to try an avoid this. After all, as theologically trained people, we wanted to be theologically and biblically precise. I would add that even if we were wrong, we still needed to be precise, but perhaps I am being unfair. 

So, I went forth with text in hand for all my preaching opportunities. I guess because my personality type was more intuitive, I often felt that my text stood between me and the congregation. It often did not feel natural to the way I spoke or even taught classes. The sermon seemed forced even when I thought the content was good. I often heard “nice or interesting sermon.” Since I grew up in the South where the words nice and interesting are not necessarily complements, I didn’t like this feedback. 

Preaching is after all a form of Communication. 

The first change for me was when I began to read more books on communications in general. In these, the main points were often about communicating better. My training had been on communicating more accurately. One phrase I found in a book in the late 80s on creating presentations stuck with me. It was called I Can See You Naked. (I think today it’s in its 30th edition!) The author used short chapters, illustrations, and practical advice, hence, modeling what he was teaching. One chapter was titled Lectern or No Lectern. The author said no lectern because lecterns reminded people of pulpits and “we all know how boring preaching is.” From this communication book, I resolved to never bore people again! 

There it was the unspoken truth in many churches. Preaching was often boring. It was in this book that I was first confronted with the idea that oral communication was different than a lecture or sermon which were often written and hard to follow. This is a point that Fred Craddock reminded his students about throughout his text Preaching. But it would be several years before I discovered Craddock. I hope you have discovered him. I was the beneficiary of hearing him on tape and then at live workshops on two occasions. 

My question and quest became what was I to do? The idea hit me that most PowerPoint presentations for example could produce notes and these notes make for excellent outlines. So, I moved to experimentations with outlines instead of a written pulpit sermon. I still wrote a sermon (I still do at times) but now I converted them into outlines for preaching. 

You know, typically something like this:

1: A Introduction

1: B The Text repeated

2: A Who wrote this and why 

I meant well, and it worked better. But I remember the day I looked down at my outline while preaching and I had written 3:a Walmart illustration. I paused and looked again and said to myself, “What the hell does that mean?” When I figured it out later, I discovered the two-fold problem. “Walmart” didn’t bring back the illustration and the illustration didn’t really follow the point I had been making that well. It was just an interesting illustration. 

Discovering a Narrative Outline? This led me to more research and one day I discover the term “Narrative Outline.” Maybe you use this yourself. A narrative outline doesn’t have numbers or titles like a formal outline. It has the NEXT SENTENCE you intend to say. So, when I finished my point, I would look down and see, “This reminds me of a run in I had with an angry shopper at Walmart.” The first sentence did two things. At first, it made preaching easier. I often still use a narrative outline for sermons. However, over time I noticed something else. Shouldn’t the point of my last paragraph naturally lead me to the next sentence? 

The reason the Walmart story didn’t come naturally is because often this next sentence was a change rather than building on what had come before. Today, I carry a narrative outline into the pulpit but by the next service, I do not need it. Often when I review my outline on Saturday night, I find that some point doesn’t really fit. I thought when I wrote it, it did. But now with some space I see that it doesn’t fit. So, I take it out. 

I call this the pruning stage when I lecture on preaching. I point out that this pruning almost always strengthens my message. I have heard lots of sermons that could use such pruning. As you can see, preaching from a text often doesn’t help you see that your points aren’t organically hanging together. A narrative outline often makes it obvious. 

Okay confession time, some illustrations are just too good to take out, but at least I am forced to admit why it is there. The danger with this, of course, is that the illustration is so good, people often remember the illustration and forget the point of the sermon. This is NOT good communication and blaming it as the Holy Spirit is a dodge. 

In my next blog, I want to build on one of Fred Craddock’s tremendous insights about the relationship of a sermon to its text. 

Let me close by asking, are you developing as a preacher? I am 77 and I still read books on preaching and communication. I like to think that old dogs can learn.

 

 

  

Preaching Better: Helpful Hacks

 

I have been listening to sermons by mostly Episcopal Clergy for over 52 years. I have also taught preaching at seminaries and in numerous workshops. And of course, I have preached many sermons. Often, I find some common mistakes we make that contribute to making listening to our sermons difficult for our members. Here are a few things that I have discovered, used, and recommend to our clergy who want to be more effective preachers of the word. 

Remember that sermons are oral communications. One comment that I often hear from our clergy is that they would never get into the pulpit without a manuscript in front of them. When I hear this, I say something like “that’s fine as long as you don’t read it to your congregation.” What is wrong with reading a sermon? 

The point here is that the rules of oral communication and the rules for written communications are different. The oral communicator has the advantage of eye contact, of allowing voice inflection to underscore a point, and of using body motions and expressions to communicate.  Written communications use a different set of assumptions. 

For example, writing allows for more precise language, and I often think that such preachers are communicating more with their seminary professors than with the folks in their pews. It also allows the reader to gaze back in the text to remember the thread of thought. This doesn’t work in oral communication. This is why many written sermons sound like essays. I recommend to such preachers who really prefer this method to consider adding printing out the sermon for their congregations or sending them out as emails. 

I once met a pastor from Korea that had a congregation of over 10,000 members. He told me that his sermons went out to his members the week before he preached them and then the small groups in his congregation discussed them after he preached them. Most of us Episcopal folks don’t have the discipline to do such work, but then we don’t have 10,000 members who pay us to primary preach. I should mention that was a Presbyterian and his sermons were longer than 20 minutes.  My point is that he used the written form to enhance his oral communication. If you use a text, try this to enhance your effectiveness. 

Why All This Matters.  To further drive home the importance of the difference in oral and written communications, I point out to manuscript preachers that just about the best compliment they will get goes, “Gee Father (or Mother) you preached that sermon just like you weren’t reading it!” Bishop John Coburn was the only Episcopal preacher I’ve heard that always used a manuscript but never seemed to read it. I asked him once about this. His response was telling. He said he would never be comfortable in a pulpit without a text, but then he added that of course he memorized the sermon before he preached it. 

I recommend Preaching Without Notes by Joseph Webb as a wonderful book to underscore this difference and to show ways that manuscript preachers can bridge toward more effective oral communication. For example, he reminds his students that if you have a story or narrative in your text, it is easy to look up and tell the story. Like any good story or joke, they have a beginning, middle, and ending. Often the ending has a unique twist to it. This draws people more into the communication process.  

In a recent Podcast on changing peoples’ minds, the speaker, also a writer, shared that research shows that narratives and stories are much more effective in opening people up to new things while rhetorical arguments tend to only reinforce people in their opinions and attitude as a natural internal resistance and pushback to what they are hearing. Have you won any political arguments lately? Probably not by arguing.  

One last thing on oral communications, most of Jesus’ sermons and teachings were narrative and stories. Well, who wants to preach like Jesus? 

And Illustrations Matter!  I have heard and read several teachers on preaching who tend to treat illustrations as “superficial.” This seems to suggest that illustrations are nice but more like fluff compared to didactic material. Contrary, I have found that our listeners often need an effective illustration to drive home the message and make it memorable. Good preachers I know keep files of illustrations to use at appropriate moments. They know that if you can’t illustrate it, it may not be as insightful as you think. 

But what do I mean by “effective illustrations?” First, I mean that an illustration should be directly related to the point you are illustrating. This takes time and thought which by the way is why I seldom write or create a sermon on Friday or Saturday. I prefer my study and first outline be done on Monday. Then I ferment and finally I edit and create the final outline. More on outlines in my next blog. 

Second, I greatly appreciated Bruce Thielemann’s insight that there are some illustrations that are particularly effective at speaking to our listeners’ cultural understandings. One example from historic American culture is what he calls “the myth of the wisdom of country folks verses the foolishness of city folks.” 

A guy from Houston gets in his sports car and takes a road trip to East Texas. He goes down a freeway, then turns on a county road, and finally follows a gravel road till he gets to a farmhouse where the farmer is sitting on his front porch. He spins his convertible to a stop and says to the farmer, “Hey old man, have you lived here all your life?” The farmer thinks for a moment and responds, “Not yet!” 

Such a story makes even city folks laugh at themselves. Thielmann lists five of these cultural examples that I’ve used often. It is worth reading his notes on preaching. He is my favorite preacher of all time. 

Let me close this first blog on preaching hacks with an insight that has helped me when it comes to illustrations.  I read an article back in the early 2000s about “younger” people. By this the author mean “people younger than 40.” I was 58 at the time. He wrote that the average American under 40 years of age have seen 98 movies for each book they had read. I tried this out on folks at the Cathedral. I stopped using books as a reference in sermons and started using movies whenever I could. This got immediate positive feedback especially from parents who told me that their children paid a lot more attention when I mentioned Star Trec or The Lord of the Rings. I noticed the parents did too. My rule is to never mention a book when a movie would work better for our listeners. And even if your congregations are bell-curve 65, even we watch movies. (For NCIS fans, I call this the Tony Principle. 😊) Everything you need to know to illustrate is found somewhere in a movie!

In my next blog, I will share how I transformed preaching that I learned in seminary into more effect oral communications.

 

 

Has the Parachute Opened?

 

After years of steady decline, there is now some post-COVID good news for The Episcopal Church.

In my work with Church leaders in congregational development, I have often been asked to work with churches in decline. Sometimes such decline has been long-term and substantial as the decline of TEC has been since 2000. I have written several times on this decline and what could be done about it. I have also monitored the statistics for the whole church and commented on them several times. While our dioceses are still showing an overall decline in membership and attendance, there is a recent report that shows that since the end of COVID, the numbers of declining, stable, and growing congregations have changed.

Background: For almost two decades the statistics showed that 60 to 70% of our congregations were in decline, and many of these were in substantial decline which fits the information we have on closing congregations. Only a small number of congregations showed any significant growth during these two decades. A summary of our decline can be expressed in the simple fact that the declining congregations outnumber our growing ones.

The new report on our recovery of membership, attendance, and financial support changes this long tendency. Now while 50% show decline and about 20% show stability, a substantial number of around 30% now show substantial growth. This is good news indeed.

Let me interject here that often when I have written about the decline some leaders have accused me of spreading gloom and doom. This is unfair. I did not make them up. I took them directly from the official Episcopal website.

When I was the mission person for the Diocese of Texas working under Bishop Payne, I initiated collecting this information and reporting them over ten years to show the trends of individual congregations. Then I helped Charles Fulton and other staff members of TEC to gather this for all our congregations. These three items reported over ten years gave important and strategic information to our local leaders. They are important indicators of the health and vitality of congregations. I have been a priest for over 50 years and taught leaders about growing congregations. It is wrong to suggest that the decline information is what I wanted to see. I want the Church that I have served to flourish. So, I am glad to hear of this new post-COVID information.

Why This New Information is Important: When a congregation is in steady decline, the first goal of leadership is not growth, but stabilization. I like to call this “having the parachute open” phase. Once stability happens, then leaders can make plans to develop and grow the community. This change from decline to growth is not like throwing a switch. Stabilizing demonstrates viability and builds morale among present members along with a stronger ability to reach new people. The new people open the door to expansion and growth. Once that skill is rediscovered by members and leaders, there can be a new path to health and vitality resulting in growth. This parachute phase is essential to the future. I see the Episcopal Community now in this phase. The parachute is opening. We are finding stability and creating a more hopeful future for TEC.

This is happening at the time we are about to choose a new Presiding Bishop. What does this have to do with this phase? Interestingly, As I have written in other blogs, every change of a PB in the last 50 years has led to a significant change in the Church’s statistical trends. The decline during Bishop Browning’s tenure was followed by growth starting with the election of Bishop Griswold. Decline accompanied Bishop Shori’s election and continued with Bishop Curry. The parachute phase has happened in Bishop Curry’s last few years. Will the new PB inspire us build on this phase? We shall see.

Summary: COVID had a significant negative effect on the Church. The news that we are now recovering from COVID and two decades of decline is good news for sure. TEC’s trends are changing, and we are entering a time of opportunity. After such bad news for so long, this is something to celebrate. A key issue will be for us to learn from our growing congregations what they are doing right and to encourage all our congregations to follow their examples.

 

Every Member a Minister

The Protestant Reformation had three essential principles. The first, of course, was “we are saved by Grace and not by our works.”  The second principle was “sola Scriptura” the Scriptures alone as the basis of final authority in matters of faith.  The third and seldom mentioned today was “the priesthood of all believers.” In this blog, I will be focusing our attention on this last principle.

It was common during the charismatic renewal to see congregations rediscovering the experience of empowerment for ministry through the Holy Spirit. When it did, it was often called “every member a minister.” This is the correct and contemporary way to refer to the priesthood of all believers. Paul taught that all baptized believers receive the gift of the spirit to empower us for ministry. He urged new converts to “earnestly desire the spiritual gifts.” Congregations where this teaching took root would often list on their bulletin cover the various clergy who served but would add something like “Ministers – all members.”

During the spiritual renewal or Holy Spirit movement of the 70s and 80s this rediscovery of the biblical concept that all Christians were given gifts of the Spirit for ministry had a powerful impact on individual members and the corporate life of congregations. There was teaching on the gifts of the Spirit and therefore, ministry by laity in a wide range of areas.

This is a topic worth revisiting today because it is so explicitly biblical yet today, we seem to have returned to the more normal concept that the clergy minister to the members who act like either an audience or customers. We seem to be comfortable with the concept that about 20% of the Church are active and committed and the other 80% are recipients of ministry. The truth is that this is probably the fallback position of the post-Constantine Church. But for a season, this changed in many congregations.

I had the privilege of observing several congregations that had taken on this every member a minister concept and to see the results.  The first was that the number of organized ministries inside a congregation expanded with empowered lay leaders responding to more and more opportunities for ministry to others. Instead of a handful of lay members participating in various established ministries such as lay readers and altar guild members, there were many ministries of prayer and study. In my congregation in Seattle, our small group fellowships went from seven to over twenty in one year! Outreach ministries also blossomed in many congregations with a remarkable variety of caring activities. Many parishes began more overt evangelistic ministries, and some became known as centers for physical and emotional healing.   

It is safe to say that every member a minister never really penetrated that far into the normal Episcopal congregations.  But before the renewal movement, few lay members were involved in prayer ministry and teaching others. Today, many Episcopal Congregations continue to have members available to pray for others following communion. This was unheard of before 1970. Ministry was the clergies’ work. Of course, this is simply clericalism.

I observed congregations where 50% of members were active in ministry. And an extraordinary result of this involved stewardship. In a typical congregation today 20 to 30% of the members give 70 to 80% of the donations received. In renewal parishes the number was often that 50 to 70% of the members gave a tithe (10%) to their congregations. Bishop Payne who I worked with for 9 years did not much care for charismatic renewal, but he often credited them for their extraordinary giving. 

Members were often supported in this by Spiritual Gift Inventories that helped them discover areas of giftedness. With all these obvious benefits of such teaching, it is hard to understand why this work has almost completely disappeared. So too has almost all teaching about the person and work of the Holy Spirit. Today the phase we often hear is that “The Holy Spirit is the feminine attribute of God.” When I hear this, I often ask “So?”  Seldom does anyone say why this is important.

Let me remind us of the essential New Testament view of the Spirit:

First, the Holy Spirit was given at Pentecost for the evangelization of the world.

Second, the Holy Spirit teaches and guides us into all truth especially about Jesus.

Third, the Spirit is given to sanctify us, making us holy and imparting to us the “fruit of the Spirit.”

Fourth, the Spirit gives gifts of ministry to all the baptized.

Fifth, the Holy Spirit is the source of guidance for us.

Bishop Taylor’s great book “The Go-Between God” underscores the work of the Holy Spirit for all Christians. It is still a great read. In summary, the Holy Spirit is the experience of the work of God in the present moment.

I should mention two common abuses in the emphasis on the work and gifts of the Spirit.

The first was the tendency of some “spirit-filled” members to act judgmentally toward those without a dramatic experience of the Spirit.

The second was for some of those folks to look at various gifts as a series of spiritual merit badges.

But despite these exaggerations and misuses, it is still fundamental teaching of the scriptures that “the Spirit bears witness to our Spirit that we are the Children of God” giving us our identity and that the Spirit empowers us to overcome the struggles of this world making us overcomes.

Should we return to a greater emphasis on the Holy Spirit and the Spirit’s empowerment of all Christians for ministry? Obviously, we should. Will we? That remains to be seen. Meanwhile, let us continue to pray, “come Holy Spirit and kindle in us the fire of your love….!”  As the Prayer Book says, “For without you we are unable to please you.” For Christians, the gift of the Holy Spirit is the first fruit of the resurrection in us.  

  

What a 5.2 Million Dollar Surplus Reveals About our Lack of Leadership

The Executive Council members of the Episcopal Church were told that there was a $5.2 million surplus in the Church’s last 3-year Budget. What they debated doing with it tells us everything we need to know about the lack of vision and clear direction of our current leaders.

Why is this important? The Episcopal News Service reported that having received a report on the continuing decline of the Episcopal Church including the number of congregations that are closing, the Executive Board preferred to discuss “Abundance instead of Scarcity.” Evidently, when they did not like our trends, they chose to deny the facts and the consequences of this continued decline. Then as if to illustrate their complete lack of vision or direction, they debated about returning the 5.2 million dollar surplus to the dioceses.

The Backstory: Since 2003, the Episcopal Church has experienced a substantial decline in membership due to several complex reasons including a series of controversial decisions around sexuality. The current leadership on the wider Church level and in many of our dioceses seem to be unable to imagine any attempt to reverse these trends or to reach out to a wider group of unchurched people. So, given surplus money, they had no idea of how to use this for creating a healthy response to this decline.

The Alternative? Investing in parish revitalization. As the Church has declined, the number of mid-sized congregations that can afford a full-time ordained leader has also declined. Many congregations are now forced to seek part-time solutions for clergy aimed mostly at providing sacramental ministry to present members. While there are some significant stories of growth among some of these part-time situations, the general trend is that part-time clergy do not have the time or skills to help congregations grow by reaching new people especially from younger generations. In other words, part-time clergy is primarily a status quo solution, one that merely makes an adjustment to our decline.

Here is a direct action that they could have taken to strengthen our congregations. They could have used these funds to identify parishes with possible growth potential, we already have ministries that have the resources to do this. Then we could match these congregations to ordained leaders with skills to lead such congregations into revitalization and new member growth. If you are wondering if we have such clergy, the answer is yes, but they are not normally those clergy willing to supply and serve part-time. This means that the funds could be used to call such clergy and provide a subsidized salary for 3 to 5 years. The results of such an initiative could be monitored and what we learn shared with the wider Church. Imagine what 100 to 200 such congregations could do for our struggling denomination. Obviously, our Executive Council could not imagine this.

The fact that such an initiative was never even a topic reflects poorly on the Executive Council and their inability to understand that a healthy vibrant Church needs healthy vibrant congregations. Despite the inevitable affirmations they made of justice, diversity, and inclusion, it should be obvious that as important as these issues are, our leaders have no real idea how to include new people in our local congregations. I would point out that growth, inclusion, and diversity are not conflicting values. At the last minute, the Council approver $2 million to study the Episcopal Churches complacency in the past scandal of the Indigenous school ministries. This action is predictably not going to help the health and vitality of our present Church. It will also not directly help indigenous children today. Ironically, we have indigenous leaders who would know how to help their communities care for their children. One has to wonder who really will benefit from this action.  

As one knowledgeable organizational consultant observed about efforts to change an organization’s direction, “The people who got you into this mess are not going to get you out of it.” The recent Executive Council’s meeting showed us that even with millions of dollars at their disposal, most of them are just clueless about how to build up our congregations.  It should also be pointed out that what the Executive Council has in abundance is denial.

 

  

What Happens when a Great Teacher Demonstrates Great Scholarship?

In 2003, I attended a summer session at Regents in Vancouver to take a class taught by J.I. Packer titled “A History of Anglican Theology.” At that time Packer was one of the most read Evangelicals not just in the Anglican Church, but in the worldwide Evangelical community. The class was profound.

Why this is important? You would think being an English Evangelical that the class would have been presented with a strong bias toward his theological viewpoint. However, Dr. Packer was a prolific teacher and writer because he was first a great scholar. On each section from pre-Reformation to the modern era, his remarks were balanced and insightful. He would describe the theme or movement and talk about each’s strengths and weaknesses. One special delight was his knowledge of the good Puritan spiritual guides and writers which I learned about at my seminary by the Cliff Notes.

There were three areas in which he showed special prescience and a reconciling grace to those who you might think, given his Calvinistic theology, he would not.

For example, in covering the Oxford Movement which the evangelical English Bishop Ryle reviled, Packer was at moments very understanding. He saw their commitment to the scholarship of the early church fathers, the holiness of their lives, and the loving commitment of their early sacrificial ministry to the urban poor of the 19^th century. Many of the early Oxford movement leaders were dedicated to ministry among the working classes during the rise of the industrial revolution. Some were even Christian socialists.

Another important area for me was his appreciation for the Charismatic Movement, often much maligned by English Evangelicals. His book on Romans, Keeping in Step with the Spirit is a tour de force on this very topic and carefully points out what the movement got right.

I want to mention what he said at the end about the Liberal/Progressive Movement because it speaks to our current situation. What follows is a summary of his comments from my notes which I still revisit regularly.

First, the strength: Packer said this. Liberalism’s great strength and contribution to the Church is that essentially it is not so much a theological movement as a protest movement. The protest is over what is wrong in the Church and in society. And he underscored “there are always things in the status quo that need to be highlighted, criticized, and even reformed!” He mentioned several examples of this.

Second, the weakness: Packer pointed out that while liberals are often right on the mark in the protest and criticism, they are often the weakest on the ability to say what should be done, even at times unrealistic in their prescriptions. His final summary comment was “We need their voice, but I have NO idea what they would possible do if they end up running the Church!” Well, now we know.

When liberal/progressives got the leadership and power of the Church’s structure, what did they do? They used it to accomplish their ends at the expense of their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ who do not believe in their theology or agendas, but who are still legitimately Anglicans. This attitude, of course, fractured the Anglican Church in North America. 

Those of us who remain in TEC and who speak on behalf of classical Anglicanism and the inclusive theological and ecumenical nature of our historic faith keep facing this issue of power over and over.

The important issues of social justice, racism, and gender equality have become for many of those who run things the imposition of shame and guilt to control the agenda of our community of faith. What would the Jesus of the Cross say about this? Alas, we know.

The Gospel writers are unanimous on the topic. Jesus declared, “MY KINGDOM IS NOT OF THIS WORLD!” Jesus would not allow his disciples to use power to accomplish God’s reign of love. That is why he is the Prince of Peace and the incarnation of God’s love. And it is why Jesus of the New Testament remains such a captivating person to millions of people even outside of the Church, His way is the way of love and as one of his disciple’s wrote “love does not insist on its own way.” 

Many progressives like to say, “Love Wins.” Ultimately this is the message of the resurrection, but love wins most fully when it has no power and does not command others. This is why no matter how many times progressives repeat that we are a Church of inclusiveness and diversity, their words sound hollow. We now know that the words "inclusive and diverse" are code words for "people who agree with us." This is a long way from the simple invitation that was placed outside of Episcopal Congregations for over 100 years. These gracious words were "The Episcopal Church Welcomes You."   

The Episcopal Church Needs a “Come to Jesus Moment!”

The Episcopal Church is declining not just because of changing demographics, but because most of our proclamation lacks the transformative and conversionary power of the Cross and Resurrection! What is preached in many Episcopal Churches today is a combination of therapy and progressive theology and politics. It is not the loving, liberating, and life-giving Gospel that Bishop Michael Curry declares when he preaches.

Why this is important? Because under our current progressive leadership, the decline will predictably continue as our leaders continue to do what they have done for the past two decades. For things to change would take a serious intention of newer leaders to change our theological foundations and consequently our behavior.  This situation is drawing to a pivotal moment needing serious change. Sadly, for most of the last 20 years, TEC leadership has been dominated by the progressive wing of our denomination. Progressives under the often-well-intentioned banner of “Love Wins” and driven by the goals of diversity and inclusiveness have led the Church through the loss of almost half our membership. Sure, some have passed away, many have left, and some have been driven out.

What needs to change is a radical re-thinking and spiritual revival around one essential and key theological and spiritual dynamic that has simply evolved into a predictable short coming of progressive theology. What does serious and radical rethink involve? The answer is profound. It is Christology.

Here is the background: Under the dominance of progressive theology which you can read in current Episcopal literature or hear from many Bishops, teachers, and in local sermons has evolved into this.

The Apostolic Church of the New Testament believed that the experience of the early church with the Resurrection of Jesus was the insight foretold by Jesus himself that God would raise him up as vindication that he was the expected Messiah and suffering servant who would free God’s people from their sins and deliver them from the evil forces of this world which included in the first century the oppressive rule of Rome (Matthew’s and Mark’s Gospels)  They also believed that he was the ‘Lamb of God,” who was sacrificed for our sins, and not for “ours” only but for the sins of all the world making him worthy of worship and by revelation God’s only divine Son (John’s Gospel)  They believed his resurrection declared him not only King of the Jewish nation, but also Lord of the world who we are to believe in and follow as his disciples (Acts and Paul) And Luke, the only Gentile writer of the New Testament, summarized this in the significant title “Savior of the whole world.”

Progressives believe this Apostolic Witness was simply either misguided or as some more radical progressives say was maliciously wrong. They speak of this as “how Jesus became the Christ” by which they mean they understand how these misguided conclusions of the Apostolic Community evolved.

In progressive theology, they believe that they have returned to the Jesus who was a rabbi who was something of a cynic and a teacher of love and justice who was accidentally executed by the Romans after being falsely accused by the threatened Temple authorities of blasphemy. For progressives, the reported healing events and miracles of Jesus’ ministry are the Apostolic Church’s reading back into Jesus’ life and ministry events that probably did not happen literally but were merely of metaphoric inventions to project back on the early Jesus the Church’s claims about him.

This “insight” of progresses leaves us with a Jesus who as one famous progressive leader summarizes “is not a divine being and miracle worker who we must worship and will return at the end of time, but a moral teacher whose moral directions we must follow.” For progressives Jesus did not peach the “Kingdom of God” that points to an eschatological end and has for progressives overtones of power but “the reign of God,” their preferred term, is about how God wants humans to live in relationship to one another now. For progressives this is Jesus’ singular contribution. This has been the repeated and extended natural progression, pun intended, of this movement whose failure to sustain the unity and growth of the Church has clearly been demonstrated for the past 20 years with few but significant outlying TEC congregations modeling a different way.

This is a position that credal Christians of all kinds and especially historic and traditional Anglicans (who say the Creed every Sunday) cannot accept because the Church is “one catholic and apostolic Church.” Jaroslav Pelikan, the great Lutheran Doctrinal Scholar and convert to the Orthodox Church later in life affirmed the continuity of Apostolic Faith into Catholic Order and Doctrine.  This is a credal belief and the reason so many progressives want to drop the creed from our liturgy is not that modern people find this difficult to understand but because progressives simply do not believe that this or much of the Creed is believable and only acceptable as a historic relic of the now enlightened progressive Christianity. By the way, just because something is complex does not mean that it is not true after all the Universe is complex! And as Orthodox clergy often explain to American converts, “You do not HAVE to believe the Creed, you GET to believe it as a member of the Church” because the Church is Christ’s gift to his followers and the world.

In summary, we have seen the predictable and frankly expected decline under our current dominate progressive leadership especially when you add to this the actions of progressives to push out of TEC those who hold to the more historic and traditional view. As someone who believes myself to be what Archbishops Michael Ramsey and Rowan Williams described as Prayer Book Catholics, I too have received plenty of invitation from progressives to leave. Since, I am fundamentally an Anglican Episcopalian, I am not leaving, and one key reason is that there will come a time when progressives will run their course and the Church must return to its true DNA: Apostolic and Reformed Catholic or die. This return which I find as a longing in many of our younger clergy is coming sooner than progresses expect. What will it involve?

It must involve a revival of the Christology of the New Testament, all of it. As Pelikan said and has often been quoted, “The truth is that the only Jesus we know is the one whose witness is presented and proclaimed by the Apostolic Church. As critics have often pointed out “the real Jesus” who progressives attempt to find is simply a projection of their own selves, their values and the teachings of many of their seminary professors into the unknowable, a Jesus without Apostolic Witness. Apostolic Witness is in fact what makes the New Testament such a commanding and inspired Spiritual Book believed by millions.

As the authors of Episcopal/Luther Dialog #2 concluded, the way forward to a united Church with shared worship and life is the full restoration of both Apostolic Order (a big thing for Anglicans) and Apostolic Doctrine (a fundamental issue for Lutherans) and the two must not be separated. Significantly, this insight into the true meaning of Apostolic made our shared communion between the ELCA and TEC possible.

In conclusion, The Come to Jesus moment is before us. If we who remain in TEC embrace it, it would mean that we could find a way to restore Anglicanism from its fractured forms in North America into “the big tent” it once was and yes progressives can be a part of this. It will also retore the Anglican/Episcopal Church in North America to be the ecumenical force and identity that is one of the great gifts of Anglicanism today for the whole Christian Church unlike the partisan nature of the current Episcopal Church with all its issues and agendas. 

For this to happen would mean that it will take the action of God’s spirit to convict us and revive us, but it also means that TEC’s leadership and all our membership with have some serious sorrow filled confession and repentance to do to allow such reconciliation to happen. Something akin to what Peter must have experienced when the Resurrected Jesus appeared to him after his denial. You can read more of Pelikan in his History of Christian Tradition and his Commentary on the Book of Acts in the Brazos River Commentary Series.  

Read more from Jaroslav Pelikan, The History and of Christian andTradition The  

 

Lessons from a Church Planter

Seven things to know about church planting

By George H. Martin

Thank you, Kevin for asking me to share some things I learned in being a church planter. I was engaged along with others like Kevin who were focused with seeing the Episcopal church reverse its decline in the 80s and 90s. Sadly, as we notice from Kevin’s blog, the trends continue. At the same time, we have so much to offer, and it’s always a good time to consider starting over again. Most our diocese traces their roots back to bishops and clergy who thought of themselves as missionaries. One Bishop in North Dakota even had a railroad car that was the cathedral.  With that in mind let me share some of the things I learned about church planting—and often learned the hard way.

1.     Why do we start a new church community? (Please note the added word community!) Back in 1986 when Ss. Martha and Mary Episcopal Church began in Eagan Minnesota. It was a suburb just south of St. Paul and it was going to grow from 20,000 to over 70,000n in a very few years. Other nearby cities would grow exponentially as well. Our diocese wanted to reach all the Episcopalians who could be found there. Mistake #1.

What I had to learn after a first year when attendance plateaued at 70 was that our target audience was wrong. We needed to have a church for people who didn’t have a church, or whose story was that for various reasons they just stopped attending. I had a Lutheran pastor colleague starting a church by door-knocking. I assumed that made sense given the prevalence of Lutheran churches in Minnesota. Would this work for me? I asked Larry for help and with his guidance knocked on about 400 doors. And no one came to worship with us. I went back to Larry. He said, “Oh you need to go back to those who might be interested. It’s about relationships.” That’s what changed for me. I was seeking people who didn’t go to church. And what happened? Over 14 years and 14,000 doors I knocked on we had average attendance of 325 every Sunday.

2.     The need for mature leadership and the long process of teaching what membership means.

A common experience among new church planters is that some of the most enthusiastic new members do not have the grounding to be good and trust-worthy leaders. That is why some evangelicals let a new church planter fish within the church sponsoring a new plant. They can begin with a core group of more mature followers of Jesus. I was blessed with a few Episcopalians willing to work for a vision of a church, but not one with stained glass, organ music or pews. There is nothing wrong with liking those parts of our church, but they are not needed when forming community. And you can have a real Episcopal church with clear windows, a piano, and comfortable movable chairs in a multi-purpose worship space.

3.     When the goal is having a building?

In some ways this normative when starting a new church. It was energizing for the early members of Ss. Martha and Mary as we started meeting in a funeral home and for many years in a school cafeteria bring our little trailer with its Altar guild supplies, books, and hymnals each Sunday. It never got old. When new people arrived, they helped set up and take down chairs. You got be involved and needed from your very first Sunday.

And then we had a building! What now? Oh, we had to be the church for the community. That was a tall but worthwhile task. The building could be a welcoming place. We could do mission work from it. We could offer musicals which we did. We could belong to the issues of our city.

4.     What the founding Pastor has to know?

One of the things that the apostle Paul did was to settle into the world where he would teach, preach, and found new communities of Jesus Messiah people. He traveled a lot, but not often. That’s a rule for new church planters. Live where you plant. More than that learn to love where you plant. Learn the leadership. Follow the sports and school activities. Be visible and present Monday to Sunday. Wear a nametag or logo shirts and jackets with your church name on it. If you are an Episcopal priest know that the collar can be off-putting for some who experienced abuse in a church setting. I wore a nametag which said “Pastor George”. Obviously, lots of Lutherans could relate!

Get to know the leadership in the community. Know what the issues are. Partake in the community festivals. We always had a float in the 4^th of July parade! I was also a police chaplain in the community and as I look back to that time most of us who served in that capacity were new church planters.

5.     Where will you get your support?

A new church planter and one or two from the sponsoring committee need to get some training from experienced church planters. In the Episcopal Church, the director of Evangelism offered twice yearly seminars called “Start-Up Start-Over.” There were a great many similarities in strategies facing pastors doing one of these ministries. Evangelical denominations also know a great deal about church plants. Once a pastor begins a church plant his or her support will be found by making friends with other pastors in the same ministry. Neighboring Episcopal clergy, in my experience, will be threatened that you will be stealing their members. So much for collegiality! In my experience you also want to keep your bishop and diocesan support people in the know, but chances are that few will readily grasp your methodologies or strategies.

6.     Hospitality to guests has to be excessive, constant, and beyond what people normally expect.

As the founding pastor you need to be at the door welcoming all who come. Forget the normal routine at shaking the hands of all who came to worship. Consider welcome people as they come up to the front door. Be out front in all kinds of weather. At the church I started we loved it when it was raining on a Sunday morning. We had large umbrellas and along with my welcoming team walked in the rain with existing members and all those new under an umbrella. Sometimes we said,” You don’t get this at every church.”

The welcoming team I mentioned above needs to be ready to give your guests a nametag and show them around if need be. When worship starts that same team needs to stay on duty. So many testing a church for the first time want to come in late and slip in the last pew. You want to the welcome extended into the start of worship. When worship is concluded it is time to thank the newcomers and get to know them. Some churches practice follow-ups with homemade bread or flowers. We also hardly let a month pass by when we didn’t have a dinner or some invitation for our guests to come together.

Please note I mentioned “guests” and not “visitors.” There is a world of differences as a guest is supposed to be treated almost like a member of the family. When worship is also over the follow-up with your guests just begins.

7.     Every now and then you will find someone coming for the first time with a well-grounded faith story. 

Be surprised and happy when that happens but keep your focus on forming disciples. That begins with your teaching and preaching grounded in scripture, and not in our case the prayer book. I even learned from my evangelical church pastor friends to preach sermon series. We also had formation groups for those new to our community so they would comprehend what membership meant.

  

Who Are We Missing

Recently, I was listening to an interview on The Living Church Podcast with the Reverend Russell Levenson, the Rector of St. Martin’s in Houston. They were discussing Russ’s new book Witness to Dignity about President George Bush and his wife Barbara. The senior Bushes were long time members of St. Martin’s. Russ was their pastor in the last chapter of their lives. He preached at Barbara Bush’s funeral at St. Martin’s and President Bush’s at the National Cathedral both of which were televised.

During the insightful interview, Russ made mention of the over 100 letters and emails he received after Barbara’s service that talked about the beauty of the service and how this had touched people. A couple of people said that they were so affected by this that they returned to Church because of just watching the funeral. Several others talked about the way our traditional liturgy had spoken to them in a deeply meaningful and spiritual way. St. Martin’s is large and most of its services are Rite I. Russ’ reflection was how many people have been drawn to the Episcopal Church over the years by the beauty and message of the Prayer Book liturgy including himself.

As I listened, I was reminded that three of the largest Episcopal Churches, St. Martin’s, Incarnation in Dallas, and All Soul’s in Oklahoma City are traditional liturgy congregations. All have sophisticated members, many who are leaders outside the Church. They include teachers, academics, politicians, and artists. All three have a school and all have a very diverse generational congregation. They also have racial diversity on a par with the overall Episcopal Church. I should also mention that all three tend to stand apart from their dioceses, but all make major contributions to them in money and leadership.

In my 50 years of ordained ministry, I too like Russ, observed the number of people that I have seen drawn to traditional Anglican liturgy combined with outstanding music, outstanding preaching, excellent adult education, and outstanding pastoral care for members. This is what these three congregations offer consistently. There are other such places around TEC, but we should acknowledge that today they are not standard Episcopal congregations but largely outliers.

What I realized in reflecting on this was the truth about our situation in TEC today. These congregations represent the kind of people that our Church has largely abandoned during our rapid decline since 2000. What does this have to say about our denomination? When one visits these congregations, we are looking at the remaining remnant of what used to comprise a large number of members who are now missing. I would even say who we have alienated and driven away. These are traditional Anglican/Episcopalians, people who loved the beauty of our liturgy combined with the intellectual stimulation of our common life and love of high English culture.

I know in writing this that those Episcopalians who like what TEC is today would want to object and say that these missing people were reactionary, homophobic, and even racist. Of course, the above congregations show us how these are overly simple projections. If you attend in person as I have and visit the coffee hour, you will meet many people who are leaders of society on the local, regional, and even national level.

What I have seen happen since 2000 is not a defection of conservative Christians, but the marginalizing of traditional Episcopalians. By traditional, I mean traditional in language, literature, and intellectual appreciation. These traditionalists, and I count myself one in many ways, have been alienated from the Church and pushed out by those most interested in making TEC a cutting edge culturally relevant progressive expression of religion, i.e. “The Book of Daniel.” In case you have forgotten, this was a short and failed TV series that portrayed what many of our leaders claimed was the substance of a progressive religion. It is plain that many of our current leaders have no need or appreciation for the kind of people drawn to traditional congregations and those writing to Russ about how touched they were by their traditional Prayer Book approach to liturgy and sacrament.

Sadly, these are the people most missing from TEC today. I miss them and I often, like them, find myself alienated from our current preoccupations and the cultural contempt that I find for all traditional Anglican expressions of the faith. Don’t believe me? Listen in to discussions on the need for more expansive and experimental liturgies. I would have once said Prayer Books, but these discussions have no interest in the very impulse that created the Prayer Book tradition part of which was the desire to lift in prayer and worship the best our language and culture have to offer. Now we seem preoccupied with offering the commonplace banalities of our culture that are constantly changing. I must ask, have we become the Saturday Night Live version of denominations?

Never mind the objection that I continue to offer to our current leaders about how poorly we are at reaching new members even from all those diverse groups that we think will make us a “beloved community.” Simply and honestly ask what this shows us about our past 20 years. We have not been sustaining or encouraging communities where people who might be deeply touched by such traditional liturgies will ever connect. Why is this important? Because since the mid-point of the 20^th century, these were the very people who made up this “Community of the Beloved One” the significant leading denomination that we once were.  

If the Episcopal church continues its numerical decline, which by the way is accelerating, by the year 2040 The Episcopal church in the United States will cease to exist. It is sobering amidst all this to recognize that St. Martin’s, All Souls, and Incarnation to name only three will still be thriving especially given their generational diversity.  Perhaps what we really see is that these congregations have not lost their DNA of classical Anglicanism and its strengths while the rest of us have sold that heritage for a bowl of culturally relevant porridge.

Why do we continue to decline? Perhaps it is because we have abandoned the very people who would be drawn to such a spiritual Prayer Book tradition while we continue to make our community a more relevant place to people who we have little chance of ever attracting. Our current and ongoing decline makes this failure abundantly clear.