How then are we to preach?

 

As Fred Craddock reminds all us preachers, preaching is an oral event. It is not a written essay. Oral communication follows its own set of rules. There are things we can say or gestures we can add in oral communication that enhance and underscore the points we are making. For me, written sermons always sound like they are being read. If you insist on this method, let me point out a method that works. Memorize your sermon. Bishop John Coburn said that he never entered the pulpit without a manuscript in from of him, but then quipped, “but by then I had memorized it.” I have known several excellent preachers who do this, and they relate well to others. If you insist on reading sermons to your people, the greatest compliment you will ever receive is something like “wow, you preached that sermon today just like you weren’t reading it.” Preaching is an oral event.

Today I either use a “narrative outline” or no text at all. I follow Joseph Webb’s comment in “Preaching without notes” that a sermon prepared to preach without notes takes the same preparation as one with notes but follows with a different form of delivery.  It is never “speaking extemporarily.”  I especially appreciate Webb’s suggestion of using a metaphor as the key image around which one can build a sermon effectively. Again, I recommend Craddock’s forms of oral communication. These forms are natural ways to create a memorable sermon following an oral structure.

I am big on preaching authentically. This means that our head, our heart, and our will are in alignment. This produces congruency. Such preaching captures the congregation. There is, I think, too much head in Episcopal preaching. I think we have been taught to sound smart. It goes with our education and theological studies. Such preaching seldom touches the heart /emotions or the will/ desires. I often ask what I want my people to want after I preach. Paul consistently wanted his hearers to want a holy life.

To aid us in our ongoing work, I have a couple of suggestions.

1.     I used to keep a summary of all my year’s sermons with the date, place, and sermonic sentence. I watch carefully for unintended repetitions. Intended repetitive things are often good.

2.     I pay attention to the theme of the lessons for the day. I ask which of the readings best serves a sermon on that theme.

3.     I always ask what the “big idea” is contained in these lessons, and this leads me to both doctrine and theology.

And here are a couple of things that I would like to see added as resources for Episcopal Preachers.

1. A lectionary for new or revitalized congregations that cover in an 8-to-12-week period the major teachings of the Christian Church for new people.  Church planters would certainly benefit from this.

2.     A lectionary that allows for a series of sermons. After all, all but one season represents both a liturgical theme and a doctrine. More of Paul’s letters could be included in the Pentecost season. As one of my readers pointed out, the lectionary leans primarily on his introductions.

Finally, give yourself permission to experiment with your sermons both content and form. It will free you up in the pulpit, and it will challenge and reward your listeners.

let me end this series with my favorite quote from John Wesley:

            “Set yourself on fire in the pulpit and the whole world will come to watch you burn.”

 

The Need to Rediscover the Pulpit and Preaching: What then Shall we Preach?

 

Of all my blogs, this series on preaching has generated the most thoughtful responses and observations. This confirms my sense that most clergy care about our preaching. So, I want to conclude this series with some help for you in this and the next and last blog on this topic.

Exegesis: But first a word about exegesis. Several of you noted the issue of Exegetical Preaching and felt that I should say more on this topic. I would start with this. I make a distinction between exegetical work and Exegetical preaching. There is no doubt that if you are going to be good at this craft of preparing and delivering sermons, you MUST do your exegetical work. If not, you will yield to what one of my teachers at Yale called eisegesis, the word out of context. The world of biblical studies has been through a tremendous time of scholarship and understanding of our texts since 1870.

Therefore, the preacher today has more resources available via our library and the internet than any other age of the Church. Not to avail ourselves of this information is nothing short of a dereliction of our duty. I have always started my sermons with a study of the texts produced by outstand scholars. Notice that I said outstanding and not necessarily contemporary.

However, I learned from some great preachers that once having done this work, I must remember that my task is not to regurgitate what I learned to the congregation. To help me with this, I did my study on Mondays and my writing or structuring my sermons on Thursday or Friday. As I decided on my theme or what Fred Craddock called “the sermonic sentence, a single declarative sentence that was my subject for the sermon, I eliminated as best I could any story, illustration, or research that did not serve this theme. On Saturdays I would focus on delivery often revising my outline.

Some texts of scripture, the Prodigal Son, and other stories, lend themselves naturally to Exegetical Preaching. When that is the case, I use this method, if it serves the proclamation of the Word, why not?  The only standing ovation that I received was in 2003 preaching in the largest attended Episcopal Church on the prodigal son. It was an Exegetical Sermon. But not all Exegetical Preaching serves proclamation, and it becomes more teaching.  A good sermon has teaching in it, but a sermon is not only teaching.

Bruce Thielemann, the great preacher from First Presbyterian in Pittsburgh also observed that preaching verse by verse, a favorite of more fundamentalist and evangelical preachers, often produces better Pharisees than big hearted Christians. Thielemann also said, “Aim at the big idea, because life is too short to focus on bible trivia.”  This leads me to my next point.

Proclamation: The Gospel is literally “God’s news, the good news” and this is our primary reason for preaching.  When I would struggle with a text or message, I would prayerfully sit back and ask God and myself this question: What is the good news that I should proclaim today?

There are times when the imperative is necessary, but as I said in my last blog, it is much overused in TEC. Speaking of the good news, faith, hope, and love (agape) are the theological virtues produced in us by the action of the Holy Spirit. The Good News, of course, according to Paul, the Apostolic tradition, Augustine, Francis, Luther, the English Reformer Bishops, John Donne, Barth, Bonhoeffer to mention only, a few, is “We are saved by Grace through faith in the Son of God.”

Doctrine: Speaking of teaching; the Incarnation, the Resurrection, the Ascension, Pentecost (including the person of the Holy Spirit,) the Communion of Saints, the Forgiveness of Sins for examples, are all part of this comprehensive God News. They also give us the chance to expand our congregation’s understanding of the Faith. I once preached as a visitor when the lesson came from the fifth chapter of Romans. I preached on being saved by faith and not works. At the coffee hour many long-term Episcopalians told me that they had never heard that preached before by which they meant both the text and the message. No wonder our people are so easily swayed by moralism! 

Life in the Spirit, or Sanctification:  One of the reasons that Charismatic Renewal of the 70’s and 80’ spoke to so many people was its emphasis on the experiential reality of the power of the Holy Spirit in a believer’s life.  This is, of course, dependent on God’s grace given to us in the gift of the Holy Spirit and not by any methods or techniques humans come up with on our own, even if the human in question is a priest or bishop. The first step of life in Christ, or Spiritual Life, is surrender, so too is the last step at our passing, and all that happens in between.

Sam Keyes an excellent writer and a former Episcopal priest, now a Roman Catholic, recently made this observation about our contemporary church life. “We often hear from secular people that they are “spiritual but not religious.” He observes that the Church should be the first to speak about the reality of human spiritual life, but then he asks, “Why then has the Church decided to offer religion without the spirituality as an alternative to secularism?” If you do not get his meaning, may I recommend that you find a good spiritual director!

In my next blog, I will conclude this series with some practical suggestions on how we are to preach.

The Need to Restore the Pulpit and Preaching: Imperative or Indicative

Having come to a norm of reading four scriptures and focusing especially on the gospel reading for the day, TEC preachers are mainly led to explore the gospel reading, explain what this means, and apply it for today.  As I observed in my last blog, I notice that even when the gospel does not contain a parable or teaching the form of explore, explain, and apply still dominates. What is wrong with this?

First, overuse of one form of oral communication becomes predictable and redundant. Engaging our listening members becomes harder. That is what happened in the 19^th century with the very predictable use of the three-point sermon. This form had an introduction, three points, and a conclusion. The rationale was that people could not remember more than three points. The mistake was that not every reading from scripture, be it narrative, teaching, parable, or other can be reduced or expanded to three points. Notice that this form like the Explore, Explain, and Apply form stretches or shrinks a passage to fit the form.

In his excellent book “Preaching” by Fred Craddock, he explores the forms of oral communication that have been effective throughout history. He lists eight not using rhetorical terms, but with helpful descriptive ones. They are:

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

Explore, Explain, and apply

The problem, the solution

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

Craddock than observes that “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.” Then he points out that a feature of using these different forms is “the guarantee of variety.” Then he adds “No form is so good that it does not eventually become wearisome to both listener and speaker, hence the problem of the overuse of the Explore, Explain, and Apply method.

I recommend that preachers write down these forms and keeping the list with your preaching resources. When we finish studying a passage, we can ask ourselves which of these forms would best serve our preaching? With great insight, Craddock suggests that a key would be to use a form that is closest to the form of the original text!  Explore, Explain, and Apply is one of these forms. Craddock also notes that it is often the most overused.

But what about the themes and topics of today’s preaching. Why have we abandoned both Biblical Theology and Doctrinal Theology? Why have we so narrowed our approach and focused so closely on gospel texts to the exclusion of all the other texts which are also the Word of God?

To answer this question, I turn to an important moment in TEC’s history. And I turn to a remarkable leader and teacher. This was Theodore Wedel, most known as the Warden of the College of Preachers at the National Cathedral. The College became under his direction a significant force in the improving of Episcopal preaching. For almost 30 years, Episcopal clergy would receive and invitation to the College three to five years after graduation from seminary. Then every five to ten years after.  For one week, attendees would be exposed to the best preachers in the Episcopal Church and often beyond. Mornings were lectures and afternoons were used for small groups where the students would share and critique sermons on both their content and delivery. Wedel wrote the book that guided most of my critique of preaching today. “The Pulpit Rediscovers Theology” was published in 1956. I bought and re-read a copy of it for these blogs. What is amazing is how contemporary it remains.

Writing in a period caught up in the third Quest for the Historical Jesus, Waddell described the results of such theology and its affect upon the preaching of his day.

“If we should be forced to find a theological category for many, if not most of our sermon – those at least, that preach the perfectionist moralism of our “historic Jesus” Christianity – we should have to confess that the category would be law, not grace. We have been placing burdens upon our people. We have preached to them in the imperative, not the indicative mood. Our sermons are ought sermons, discipleship presented as unadorned demand for performance, is an ought, not an is. It is law, not grace. It is command, not gospel.” (Theodore Wedel, The Pulpit Rediscovers Theology)

Let me bluntly elaborate on our situation as his words apply today especially as they apply to moralism and works. Of course, we are talking about the Episcopal Church, not the moralism of the right be they fundamentalist or American Evangelicals. It is the moralism of the left. We are to love everyone. We are to be accepting of everyone and inclusive of all people. We are to fight for justice and against oppression. We are to set right the sins of racism, sexism or any other ism that divides humans and to make restoration to those who have be afflicted in the past and in the present by these.

An ought is an ought by any color, or we could say by any political spectrum. The theological virtues are faith, hope, and love. These are not behaviors, but virtues instilled in us by the sanctifying power of God’s spirit, not by human intentions no matter how noble they may appear.

We have gone from proclamation (the indicative mood) to the imperative. We have moved from salvation by grace through faith in the Son of God to bringing in the Kingdom by our own works. We have moved from the risen Christ of God’s Word to an imagined Jesus concerned with social justice and whose own point of view was cynicism about religion and truth according to the fourth quest of the historical Jesus.

In my next blog, I will point to a way of proclamation that would transform our repeating of cliches as a substitute for God’s Word as found in scripture and in the risen Christ.

The Need to Restore the Pulpit and Preaching: What Changed?

What changed the historic classical approach to preaching to the lectionary centered one, and what has made the “Explore, Explain, and Apply form the standard of preaching today? And how has this led to a general decline in the quality of preaching?

The first answer is, of course, the Prayer Book of 1979. Most Episcopalians including many of our clergy do not remember or know that the standard worship of most Episcopal Churches in the 50s was Morning Prayer two to three Sundays of the month.  There were High Church exceptions of course.  I became a church member in 1958 in the Diocese of Dallas. I had to go to seminary to discover that I was consider “a spike from Dallas.”

The outstanding scholarship found in the 21 “Prayer Book Studies” and the “Trial Use Books” all culminated in an agreement about the re-establishment of the Holy Eucharist as the principal service of the Church on the Lord’s Day (79 PB page 13.)  While seldom mentioned, the “New Prayer Book” approved in 76 and 79 marked a Prayer Book that was more Liberal and Catholic in its theological underpinning than its predecessor.   The Baptismal Covenant demonstrates this most clearly.

My blog isn’t about all the changes brought by the “New” Prayer Book, but on how these changes affected preaching. Remember that the 28 Prayer Book Holy Communion had one collect, one lesson, and one gospel reading for each Sunday of the Christian year.  The classical view of preaching fits this well and Morning Prayer usage reinforced it.  The limited use of scripture called for the more comprehensive classical view with its emphasis on communicating the Church’s Doctrine. In six years, all these reinforcements shifted and began to work their way into our standard of today’s worship.

For the first decade or so, little changed in preaching because of two things. First, the clergy had been trained in the classical mode and kept going. John Claypool would be a prime example, but there were many more. Second, Prayer Book studies and the division of the Eucharist with “Liturgy of the Word” and “Holy Communion” reinforce the Word and Sacrament theology.

The second major reason for change and decline in preaching was the adoption of the three-year lectionary with two lessons, a psalm, and wider reading from the four Gospels. The merit of the three-year lectionary was its ecumenical nature, and we now have in the Revised Common Lectionary the reading of greater portions of the Scriptures. While the Episcopal Church is not thought of as a “bible church,” visit one of these on the internet and you will see that we hear much more scripture every Sunday than almost any American Evangelical or Bible Church.

Note: one of the most common mistakes of our clergy is attempting to explain to a congregation why how these three lessons are connected. It was not the intention of the editors of the lectionary that they be directly connected. For example, First, we seasonally have sequential lessons from the epistles, especially Paul’s letters. These seldom relate to the gospel of the day.  Second, the newest revision to the lectionary has given us preachers rich readings from the narratives of the Old Testament. This was done to give preachers resources for preaching in the Pentecost Season. Of course, the connection of the lessons is most found in the high holy days of the year.

What followed from these two major changes was not more variety in preaching, the lectionary intention, but rather a greater focus on the variant gospel readings for each of the three-year cycle. This is especially true if you have a gospel procession. Few churches did this liturgical action in 1960, almost all do today. Focusing on the gospel readings, many of which are Jesus’ teachings and parables, fits the form of Explore, Explain, and apply. And once this becomes the most used form, it becomes habitual to many clergy even if the gospel reading of the day does not contain a parable or teaching. I will explore what is wrong with this overuse of a particular form of preaching in my next blog.

Lastly, these major changes in our worship in TEC led to believing the sermon was a subset or servant of the Eucharistic liturgy for that Sunday of the Church Year. The practicality of reading three scriptures and the psalm added to a tendency to shorten the sermon. Leaders developed a rationale that “people today cannot pay attention” to the more typical 20-minute sermon of classical preaching.

I noticed by the mid-80s; the term “sermon” was being replaced in bulletins with the word “homily.” Since homily is Latin for sermon what was the point?  Because for many clergy, homily became a 10-to-12-minute explanation of the gospel reading for the day.  Homily came to mean a short sermon based on the gospel that fit the theme for that Sunday.

I end this blog with an experience I had on a website with a clergy person from the Midwest who was explaining his use of a homily of exactly 10 minutes each Sunday. When I challenged him over what could possibly be communicated of substance in 10 minutes, he said that no one will listen longer than 10 minutes and whatever needed to be said that day could be said in 10 minutes. His caveat “and that keeps the service short!”

I responded with a comment from one of my homiletics teachers of the classical method. “Sermonettes produce Christianettes!” In other words, how can we possibly form our people through the preaching of the Word in 10 minutes? While I have heard several colleagues who are talented at such short reflections, I would point out that these are almost always thematic talks based on the priest’s reflection on the passage with no reference to any substantive biblical or doctrinal theology. What happens to Word and Sacrament when this becomes the Sunday-by-Sunday practice?

These trends are why I am arguing for the need to restore both the pulpit and preaching. In my next blog, I will present the movement from indicative preaching to imperative preaching and the serious theological crisis this has created.   

The Need to Restore the Pulpit and Preaching

Let me begin this blog with two disclaimers. First, there are many Episcopal Clergy that give their congregations good sermons that build up the faithful. I will be speaking frankly in this blog series about the state of preaching in TEC. Thank God there are notable exceptions to my general observations.

Second, there are great resources like “Backstory Preaching” that give any preacher excellent tools to shape and deliver good preaching. Speaking of resources, think on this, the average preacher today has more resources at our disposal via the internet than preachers prior to World War II could even imagine.

Having said this, I want to take on the practice of preaching, especially as it has changed over the past thirty years and the trends that have led to what I see as a general decline. Many of these trends that I will be exploring have had a negative effect on both the place of preaching in TEC and the quality. What I want to call for is nothing short of the restoration of the pulpit in the Episcopal /Anglican Church of North America.  This will be the subject of my next few blogs, and I invite you into a dialog about how we can reinvigorate preaching.

As I listen to preaching in TEC, and I listen to lots of it, I want to make a distinction between what I think our clergy are doing today and what classic Anglicanism thought was the purpose of preaching. I think about 70% of the preachers that I hear understand the task of preaching to be explaining to the gathered Eucharistic community one of the lessons in the 3-year lectionary. This is almost always the gospel for the day. At conferences when I have asked, most clergy are emphatic that they are “lectionary preachers” I will be coming back to several issues related to the lectionary in a future blog but let me present the common form of this preaching.

First, there is an introduction to the passage. Next the preacher explains the passage. Then the preacher explores further the meaning or possible optional meanings of the passage indicating which of these they prefer. Finally, the preacher concludes with some thoughts and if appropriate adds application for our members. A summary conclusion at the end of such preaching seems to be either an implied “think about it” or “so, we should… with an application.” Since, most clergy in TEC are highly educated, as are many of our congregations, the sermons reflect sophisticated analytic information and insight. Often the preacher adds cultural or political points of reference. Sadly, Episcopal sermons are consistently short on stories or illustrations. At this point, several of my readers will be thinking “yes, okay what is wrong with this?”

Put alongside this the view of classical preaching. Remember that the classical view is in the context of the task of clergy to nurture congregations on “Word and Sacrament.” This view is ancient and was strongly reinforced by the Reformation. It was held in common by Anglicans, Lutherans, Presbyterians, and denominations that came from these like Methodists. In this view, the task of the pulpit and preaching was to nurture and build up the faith of God’s people. Notice that I continue to use the doublet “pulpit and preaching” because in the classical view, the pulpit was symbol or place where preaching illuminated the “Word of God!” This profound phrase meant the “Word or Logos” of God that is found in the words of Holy Scripture and illuminates the Word of God, Jesus. The phrase in Eucharistic Prayer A “Christ has died, Christ is Risen, Christ will come again” reflects this classical view as expressed in the sacrament, but it also applies to the work of the pulpit. Theologically we can say that this demonstrates the unity of the work of “Word and Sacrament.” In other words, preaching was not a subset or servant of the sacrament but an equal. The division in the 79 Prayer Book between liturgy of the Word of God and the Holy Communion expressed the dual emphasis on both.

This is the viewpoint and tradition I was trained in 50 years ago. Feedback that I get from lay people is that my preaching is different, and they are right. My intention and methods serve the classical view. This does not mean that I do not understand the development of the current view or think that it is all wrong. I just think that it is inadequate for the task of preaching and the intentions of the expected results.

Now I am going to tell you something that few Episcopal clergy would ever admit, and quite frankly most of our newer ordained clergy do not even know. It is that we used to have outstanding preachers. These preachers were known not only in the Episcopal Church, but in the wider Christian community of North America.

Here are some examples and names worth remembering: John Claypool, Urban Holmes, John Coburn, John Hines, and, of course, their model, Philip Brooks. What did these episcopal clergy have in common? I would list:

All made their pulpit ministry the center of their work.

All served Churches known to call outstanding preachers that expected excellent preaching each Sunday.

 All thought theologically and used preaching to engage both the Church and the culture.

 All were known as outstanding preachers beyond TEC!

All followed the classical view of primarily doctrinal preaching.

None used the explain, explore, apply form for sermons.

All preached for at least 20 minutes.

The last Episcopal clergy person who fit these criteria was Barbara Brown Taylor. She was recognized by Baylor University (along with fellow Anglican John Stott) in their tribute to the Ten Best Preachers series twenty years ago.

Today, there are none! I contend that this is the consequence of factors that have led to Episcopal Preaching being what I identified at the beginning. In future blogs, I will be exploring these factors further. My aim is to inspire at least a handful of women and men to rediscover the Pulpit and Preaching from the classical view. I want to end this first evocative blog with an experience that I had more than 50 years ago.

I was a senior at Berkeley Divinity school the year it merged with Yale Divinity School. As a senior, I was eligible to take a fall course taught by our retired Dean. His name was Percy Urban. Dean Urban was in his 80s and taught this course every other year in retirement. Six of us would proceed once a week to his home where we would sit at his dining room table. There he would teach “Doctrinal Preaching.” It was an incredible experience. Each week two of us would bring a sermon on a Christian Doctrine. Dean Urban assigned the doctrine we were to preach on. We all preached twice during the term.

The method was simple. The first to preach would pass out copies of the sermon. As one student preached, the rest of us including Dean Urban would make notes on the manuscript before us. Then we would question the preacher and critique the sermon. We repeated this with the second sermon. After all the students had critiqued the two sermons, we would take a break. We headed to the parlor where Mrs. Urban would serve us tea and sherry. It felt very much like being in a Victorian home.

Following some social time, we would return to the dining room. There Dean Urban would make a few observations about the sermons we had heard. Then he would pass out his sermon on the topic. I keep dearly his sermon on “The Christian Doctrine of Human Nature.” Few today probably even know that there is a doctrine about human nature. We would sit in astonishment at his understanding and depth of knowledge of the Church’s historical teachings. For this blog, I want you to note that his expectation was that we would “go and preach likewise.” I have tried, often failed, but always remembered his example.

On the last day and in the last session, he concluded with these words. “Gentlemen, thank you for coming here this past semester. It means a great deal to me at my age. You bring me life. I thank you for it and wish all of you well.” We were speechless. He had brought us the riches of our faith.

Now that I have held up what we once had, I will share where we strayed from the task of preaching in my next blog.

The Church Where Everyone is an Expert

 

The recent Lambeth Conference reminded me that as an Anglican/Episcopalian, I am a member of a rich community with a great respect for intellectual and theological engagement. Why do I say this?  At Lambeth, I observed the wider communion finding a way to avoid division and affirm that different Provinces hold varying views on marriage while also affirming that the vast majority of Anglicans still affirm that marriage is intended as a sacrament between a man and a woman.

In a wider sense, I am speaking of the way Anglicans think through such issues and the way we Episcopalians used to think through such issues.  In the late 1960’s and early 1970, my seminary sent me to observe two General Conventions. While women’s ordination was on the horizon as a hot issue, the major one at this moment was the preparation of a new Prayer Book. Here is how the Convention delt with the issue of the proposed Baptismal Rite.

Before any action was taken, there was a presentation from the Liturgical Commission on the proposed rite and the issues around it. There was an open evening presentation, and all deputies and visitors were invited. The session began with a brief introduction of the topic and the introduction of the three presenters that evening.  The speaker that evening was a prominent Episcopal professor of Liturgics. He spoke for 20 minutes on the rite and how it had evolved especially in the effort to return Baptism as a public Sunday service and the need to restore Baptism as “the primary “identity Sacrament.” The force behind these changes were the growing influence of the Oxford Movement in recognizing the importance of Baptism. For those who do not know, most baptisms of that era were held in private and had become quite frankly a “nice family ceremony.”  Hence Confirmation was being treated as the way of membership and the public profession of faith.

After this presentation, two scholars give a response. Both had read the presentation and had prepared a written response. They had 10 minutes. I listened to the manner of the response. Both began by affirming where they agreed with in the initial presentation. Then, they added their “and” or “but” to what was being presented.  This procedure allowed the debate which was tense at moments to proceed with mutual respect. After the presentations which were quite outstanding, the floor was open to the public for questions of any of the presenters.  Note, it was not open to their opinions although some questions implied this.

This is how all the liturgical rites in the proposed new Prayer Book were handled. It represented a Church of respect for intelligence and civility even in disagreement. It is the DNA of Anglicanism. This too was the way that such issues as the ordination of Women was proposed and debated. By the way, the crucial issue debated was whether a male priesthood was a part of the doctrine of the Church or it’s discipline. As Cranmer had so eloquently written in the preface to his Prayer Book, doctrines of the Apostolic Church could not be changed, but issues of how we worshipped and ordered our common life was a matter of discipline and could be altered, amended, or thrown out altogether.  The theological viewpoint that prevailed was that maleness of the priesthood was not a matter of doctrine but of discipline. This opened the way for women’s ordination to be allowed by vote of two General Conventions. Of course, there were outspoken leaders of the Church who vehemently disagree with this action, but they proved to be a vocal minority.

I want you to notice the value given to reason and understanding through all this. This too is very Anglican. Also, the degree to which a disagreement was allowed to be discussed. It is true that a small number of dissenters left TEC over this issue, but many who did not accept women clergy were allowed to remain.

Contrast this to a presentation in 2003 over allowing Gene Robinson to receive consent as a Bishop and hence for the opening of marriage as possible beyond the traditional view of for a man and women.  There was a evening session. The Commission Presented the issue and then all who wished to speak were invited forward. There were two microphones at the front. One marked “For” and one “against”. As you can imagine, the lines were long. and each person was given only two minutes to comment. I remember the forlorn look upon the face of one of our seminary Deans who make his way forward looking at his watch. What could this academic of great credentials say in two minutes. This wasn’t a debate and far less a theological exploration, it was one person’s opinion after another. Most people left after about three hours.

This is the way that TEC’s General Convention does its public discussion today. Predictably it has become what I will call “each member is an expert.”  And life in the Church following controversial issues has become majority vote, and if you do not like it leave! And many have. Little or no attention is paid to allowing dissenters to remain. And when they left, they were blamed for leaving.

I have little hope that the Church can be restored to a more gracious and broad community where genuine intellectual and theological engagement is foremost. Lambeth did show us that most Anglicans remain this way. For TEC where we either have winners and losers, the remaining winning people are by the process largely of one mind. Losers can leave or comply.

What I lament the most is the regard once held by the Church of theological and Intellectual understand and thus diversity of thought and conscience. Now we have made such values submissive to the whim and will the majority.  Notice that the vote for same sex unions (or more accurately “marriage equality”) was done without any serious theological debate. It was in the end reduced to Bishops and Deputies opinions on the matter. Once the vote came, there was no tolerance for dissention and no allowance for those who conscientiously disagreed. Is it any wonder that the community of a once large tent has become a committee of likeminded individuals?

I may be a dissenter on these issues and in the minority, but I remain a member of the wider Communion that continues to live as a community of intellectual integrity that resists those who passionately want to have a Church of the “Either/Or.” There was a time during our division when leaders of the Progressive side of the Church used to scornfully say, “Schism is worse than heresy.” Little did we realize that what would remain would be both.

You may well ask, as many of my friends have, why do I remain?  I remain because I am clear that I am an Anglican. It is not clear that the current leaders of TEC are. That is what I believe the recent Lambeth Conference demonstrated. 

 

The Crisis Facing the Health, Vitality, and Future of our Congregations

  A Call to the Leadership of The Episcopal Church to Address with Greater Urgency the Three Challenges Confronting our Parishes

  

Introduction

          With the approaching General Convention of the Episcopal Church, my purpose in writing this paper is to communicate a greater awareness of three major challenges confronting Episcopal congregations and the urgent need we have for our leaders to address these issues. With over 30 years of experience in analyzing and addressing the dynamics and potentials of congregations, I believe the present and future effectiveness and, in some cases, the very existence of our congregations as thriving, transformative communities of faith are in question. I will propose strategic responses to this increasingly urgent situation and request that our Bishops and Deputies to Convention take the necessary steps that will inspire and enable broad based initiatives by Clergy and Lay leaders throughout the wider Church on national, regional, and diocesan levels. My overall goal is to further the work of the Gospel of Jesus Christ through renewed and effective means.  

The ongoing decline in the number of our congregations and those participating regularly in their worship and work is well documented.  These trends are accentuated by our continuing inability to reach newer, younger, and diverse people. Obviously, a now shortened General Convention will make the awareness of and addressing these challenges even more difficult. Yet, it must happen, and the renewal and redevelopment of our congregations must be prioritized by the Convention and extended into the whole Church. The three challenges are:

1.    A failure to form ordained leaders to do the work of congregational revitalization and of planting new communities of faith.

2.    A failure in the spiritual formation of present and new members in the work of following Jesus and his of way love.

3.    A failure in reaching newer, younger, and diverse people with the good news of Jesus’ resurrection and God’s reign. 

My purpose is not to have our leaders wringing their hands about these failures or even worse becoming resigned to them. In my work with local congregations, I am absolutely assured that, with God’s help, we can turn around our current crisis and make this a time of renewal and revitalization for the whole Church. But all change begins with awareness and all leaders must begin with an honest assessment of our current realities.

 

Leaders and our Congregations 

The trends indicate that 70% to 75% of our current congregations need revitalization. Yet, many of these congregations are stuck and resistant to change. The needed work includes clergy and lay leadership development, new member ministry, the formation of new and current members, and healthy working relationships between members of our congregations, and between those members and their clergy. This means we need our diocesan leaders and our clergy educated in this work. Regrettably, none of our current seminaries do a good job in preparing our future clergy for the present needs of our congregations.  This is not a criticism of seminary education. I believe in seminaries and their methodologies that have developed over past decades. It is a criticism of the Church for assuming that three years of theological formation produces leaders capable of starting new church communities or revitalizing the ones we have.  It is a declaration of the consequence of leaving the formation of leaders in the hands of specialized academics. 

Today, almost all our seminaries through their deans are declaring that what they do is really leadership training for the Church. We need to be clear about two things. First, this is a marketing strategy aimed at diocesan bishops. Second, diocesan bishops are acutely aware that this is not what our seminaries are about. The wise bishops expect our seminaries to prepare women and men for the profession of ministry through learning the basics of the profession, just as law schools and medical schools teach their students the foundations of law and medicine.  The not so wise bishops are happy if seminaries indoctrinate their candidates in the bishop’s own theological preferences and agendas. Thank God we still have wise bishops! 

Those who teach leadership, as I have done for decades, know that leaders are developed primarily as they attempt to lead.  The textbooks on leadership are secondary to the leaders’ development as they attempt to function in our churches and mission areas. Such work involves good theory combined with practice done under supervision and coaching. In recent years, more dioceses are attempting to provide such education for curates and new rectors. This is a good step forward.  However, their efforts face two challenges.

The first is that many of our dioceses have too few resources to do this work effectively.  I retired from the Diocese of Dallas which does curacy well, and I live in the Diocese of Texas that is able with its size and resources to provide much post-seminary education around leadership.  They are, however, the exceptions to the general rule. 

The second challenge is that education in leading, planting, and revitalizing congregations needs to be done by our clergy who have had demonstratable success in doing this kind of work. I often point out to leaders that few if any our diocesan leaders even bishops have had any experience in planting a church. Most of these leaders also have not led a congregation in revitalization. What they often have done is maintain already healthy congregations. This, of course, demands an important set of skills but is much different from the risky kind of leadership that those who lead new plants and congregations in need of revitalization must learn to provide. 

What the Church is doing well is preparing clergy to pass the General Ordination Exams while at the very time there is a tremendous shortage of clergy prepared to do the primary work our Church needs to develop and lead healthy growing congregations. Thinking that our seminaries can add a class or two to change this is following the maxim “if you always do what you always have done, you will get what you have always gotten.” After all, “Insanity can best be described as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” 

Summary: A significant majority of our congregations need clergy formed in the spiritual, organizational, and relational skills and commitments required to lead the adaptive change required to revitalize a congregation. We also must identify and form clergy who are called and committed to planting new congregations. 

I ask that our Bishops and Deputies to General Convention help to create a training center for clergy leaders. This could be modeled on the outstanding work done years ago by the College of Preachers. Such an organization needs to be led and taught by clergy who have done this work. They need both a solid understanding of congregational systems and dynamics and the ability to teach and inspire others. This training center can create a resource of experienced clergy available to supervise and coach future leaders. Imagine our church transformed into a learning community that trains future leaders ordained and lay in responding to the missional challenges we face in the 21^st century.

 

The State of Evangelism and New Member Ministry 

Next, I want to write about the crisis in evangelism and leading others to faith in Christ, what we might call the front door and foundation of our communities. Let me begin by commending the ongoing and great work of the Invite, Welcome, Connect Ministry in equipping congregational leaders in building up our communities of faith. This is hands-on information for leaders who care about reaching and welcoming those outside the Church. 

According to the Church, evangelism is to present Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit so that others are led to believe in him as Savior and follow him as Lord within the fellowship of his Church. We should be honest that today this definition is largely ignored. TEC’s functional definition of evangelism has become rooted in something like this: ‘We are out to make the world a more just and inclusive society, to bring in “the reign of God,” and we invite anyone who would like to help us in this task to join us.’ According to the Evangelism Network’s publications, we are also committed to saving the environment and planting gardens to help provide food to those in need. This too falls within the category of making the world a better place. After all, what better news can we share than God cares for those in need? 

Before you think that this is a solely negative set of statements, let me clarify that I identify with a great deal with the Church’s efforts to be inclusive of all people and to be advocates of justice and protectors of the environment. These are all worthy works of the Church. However, this functional definition changes the way we invite others into the community of the Church.  

To be more precise, we are not so much reaching out to all those willing to listen but rather we are recruiting like-minded people. As one priest said recently in a public forum, “We will not accept anyone in our church who does not accept fully all our LGBTQ people.” It was not surprising to hear this said in a public forum, but what was troubling was that not one person present objected.  It would do no good in Episcopal circles to warn of the attitude of recruiting like-minded people because it has become so much the norm that a large majority of Episcopalians would not see anything wrong with it. However, I must point out that a community made up of like-minded people that will not let in anyone who does not agree with them is a better definition of a cult than a church.  

Next, the current leaders of our Church have made Christianity principally about what is classically called “works.” Most Episcopal leaders still remember that salvation is a grace and gift of God, but now they often say salvation results from living lives “modeled for us by Jesus.” As one recent leader wrote, “It is not necessary for people to believe in Jesus as God or the Son of God or to worship him. We just need to follow his example.” 

Further, while most Episcopalians are mindful of the classical formula that we are saved through God’s grace alone and not merely by our works, now we have a revised view of what salvation means. It is that God accepts us just the way we are. In other words, we have come to believe that therapeutic self-acceptance and salvation by grace are the same thing. Yes, there is a therapeutic benefit in self-acceptance, but salvation is not a therapeutic state which we can achieve on our own. Rather, salvation is the result of what God has done for us through sending us his only Son Jesus, while we were yet broken sinners, thus inviting our faithful response to and trust in his unearned, prevenient, and transformative love for us. 

What I am highlighting is the abysmal state of theological understanding that deconstructionism and revisionist theology have brought about in a community where having correct intentions and self-acceptance are the dominant themes. Fortunately, this is not the only story of the Church. There are many especially younger clergy who understand where all this leads us. But for now, many leaders keep repeating these current themes.

 

I have been and continue to be a strong advocate for evangelism. This largely falls on deaf ears among my fellow Episcopal clergy, but I can assure you not among the laity. I continue to declare that evangelism “proclaiming the God News of Salvation in Jesus Christ, the forgiveness of sin, reconciliation with God and others, and the new life in the power of the Holy Spirit” is at the heart of our calling, just that it is out of step with the with the spirit of the times. 

If I could provide a jolt to this mindset, what could I say? Why is it, I ask, that at so many public events of loss or tragedy voices are raised to sing “Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me? I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see”? I would contend that beyond the meeting rooms of seminary professors and the gatherings of well-meaning church leaders lies the dominant DNA of faith that knows the desperate need people and our society have for redemption and transformation. And if you do not know this need, I would suggest the evening news as the best jolt to question these false assumptions with the grim reminder of the human condition. For example, is the message that we just need to love other people going to stop the rumbling of those Russian tanks? No, our dilemma is that we know what is right, but we are unable in and of ourselves to do it as Paul so powerfully preached! He goes on to ask, “who can free us from this bondage to sin and death?” “Jesus” is the resounding response the Christian community from the Resurrection until this day. As Thomas Cahill has written so clearly, Jesus is the icon of non-power and of God’s love. 

Summary: The state of the Church today is that we have lost the message of the life giving, liberating, and loving Christ and we have sold our heritage of transformation in the power of his resurrection for a bowl of good intentions and therapeutic self-love.   

          What can General Convention do to set the Church back on the right course? I would suggest that they direct our current leadership to recapture our historic Anglican formularies of faith and place in leadership positions those who are committed to our own definition of evangelism. 

 

The Formation of Members 

There are many examples of clergy and congregations that do an outstanding work in deepening the Christian formation of their members. This issue is dear to my heart because I believe that it is the continual work of the Church to grow our members into closer disciples of our Lord. For example, when I have taught preaching, I share that our time in the pulpit is an opportunity for the spiritual direction for our people. Part of our work as a clergy is to motivate people to have a longing for and to seek this spiritual growth. 

The congregations that do this well have given thought and planning on how to do formation. They think through the steps and present a clear way forward. Those who benefit from spiritual direction know that this is precisely what a spiritual director does for individuals. Congregations that do spiritual formation well are following the same model. 

There now is considerable research on congregations that shows that the spiritual growth of members has almost no correlation to the planned activities of their churches. According to this research, members mostly grow because they just happen to be at the right place at the right time and were challenged to take a step further into the Christian life. Such providential steps are unpredictable and often far apart. The gaps are rarely filled in by the regular intentional spiritual direction by their leaders and the formational practices of their congregations. The classical image of the Christian life and following Jesus is pilgrimage. Unfortunately, many of our leaders and congregations seem to have forgotten that we are after all headed somewhere others have gone before.

There is a great lesson from church planting about all of this.  Church planters find that when they launch new congregations, they face a dilemma in our core value of using the three-year lectionary. Non-Episcopalians and non-Christians make up a large percentage of people in newly planted congregations. Using the common lectionary does not serve well in the early formation of those in these new congregations. Church planters often share that they had to plan the first months of services in ways that supported the presentation of the basics of the Christian faith via the lessons, gospels, and sermons. This involved using carefully selected scripture readings rather than those appointed by the lectionary. 

Of course, a regular attending member will find that the Church’s seasons and lectionary are generally an enriching experience, but I would point out that there are many life-long Episcopalians with large gaps in their formation in understanding Christ and living out their call to believe and follow him.  My point is that assuming that people can sit in our pews for years and “get it” is quite an assumption. As a one astute teacher once said, “It’s like putting people in a chicken coop and expecting them to eventually lay eggs.”

In consultation work with churches and in teaching congregational development to leaders, I often speak to the need for formation. I point out that this needs to be intentional and aimed at spiritual growth. Further, I describe the two paths that are necessary to a healthy congregation. The first is a clear tract to membership which means active participation in the congregation’s worship, ministries, and stewardship.  

The second path is that of discipleship.  I ask leaders to image a person or family that comes to their church as spiritual seekers, not already formed Christians. I then ask them to map out events, education, and experiences that will lead them in becoming intentional followers of Jesus Christ. Amazingly, once given the task, many of our leaders are up for the work. But how many congregations in TEC do this?  How many of our clergy and lay leaders assume that attending Church 1, 2, 3, or even 4 Sundays a month will make that happen? Current experience shows that answer is TOO MANY. 

This is not to negate the value of baptismal or confirmation instruction. Many of our churches put good effort into this. Unfortunately, many times these are aimed at becoming an Episcopalian. Once having completed this instruction followed by baptism or conformation, new people are treated as if they have arrived at the destination. 

Because I am rooted in the Anglo-Catholic tradition of TEC, I had a strong desire to make formation and spiritual direction part of the congregations I served. For example, when I was Dean at the Cathedral in Dallas, we created a core curriculum and a Cathedral Way of Life, a traditional Christian path for deepening one’s spiritual life as committed disciples of Jesus. We constantly invited both new members and long-time members to take these on. Were we perfect at this? Of course not, but we were intentional about it. When I retired from the Cathedral over half our members had signed on to following The Cathedral Way. It was the singularly most significant congregational dynamic that I had ever been a part of in years of ministry. 

Summary: When we look at our congregations, we see that too few of them have thought through a path of membership and many fewer have thought through a path of discipleship. When it comes to formation, the State of our congregations is that, despite some wonderful exceptions, most of them are not doing this work.  

 

What do our congregations need given these issues? 

              What do I ask Deputies and Bishops to do to improve all the areas that have been presented? To answer this, I would like to look back on a significant time in our Church’s history. From 1995 to 2000, TEC was the only mainline denomination that was growing in membership, attendance, and adult baptisms. This is a fact that few leaders of our denominational community now either know or understand. More specifically, what was TEC doing for its congregations during this time of expansion and new member incorporation? 

              Starting in the middle of the decade of the 1990s, Charles Fulton of the Church Building Fund gathered those in dioceses who had direct responsibility for the development and health of our congregations. At its peak, we had 32 members in this dynamic but unofficial group. This represented a major effort to give direct support to local congregations. 

              Remember, no one joins TEC generically. People join our local congregations. Service the congregations, help their ability to include new people, attend to healthy organizational life, and share examples (benchmarks) of congregations with outstanding ministries, and the whole Church will benefit. That is what we do not have now. In fact, I was a member and leader of that creative and productive community who serviced congregations. Our slogan was “Healthy Leaders, Healthy Congregations.” It was also implicitly “Healthy Congregations, Healthy Denomination.” 

              Today many of the dioceses that once had capable people to provide these services are now too small to afford staff dedicated to this task. But such services to congregations are even more needed today than ever. The good news is that we have qualified, experienced leaders and more potential ones. We have exemplary congregations, but little of this work is done by the whole Church.  During this same time span organizations such as the Alban Institute and even the Church Building Fund have changed their focus. Ironically, one of the people who benefited from this work in the 90s was our current Presiding Bishop. Bishop Curry does have people on his staff tasked with some of this work, but the offices at 815 are financially limited and are much too far removed from our local dioceses and congregations to provide this support effectively. 

              Imagine a Church that has 35 to 50 able leaders to provide direct services to our local congregations and you envision a healthy, growing, inclusive and diverse Episcopal Church. I am asking our Deputies and Bishops to make such services once again available to our congregations.  This is NOT nostalgia; it is remembering a tremendously effective method of ministry that has been lost in the past two decades and that is sorely needed today. 

              If TEC wants to accomplish its faithful, noble, and inspiring goals, it must attend to the ongoing health of its congregations. What is the cost of not doing this? Remember, if we always do what we have always done, we will always get what we currently have, a community with high and inspired goals but no ability to maintain its own health and viability by reaching new and diverse people to accomplish the work that Jesus has called us to do.               

What can our leaders do? We need a new sense of urgency in building up the health and vitality of our congregations especially in reaching newer, younger, and more diverse people and forming them into fully formed disciples of Jesus Christ.

 

 

 

 

The State of the Church in 2022 Blog 4

 A non-authorized and persona reflection on the health of our churches

 In this fourth and last in this series, I want to write about TEC and its diversity and inclusiveness especially as reflected in our congregations. I hope that I can say it in a way that helps my readers understand how our desire for inclusiveness has hindered our ability to become more diverse.

Let me start by stating some basic points:

No denomination or group can reach the growing diversity and complexity of our society. So even if we say, “The Episcopal Church Welcomes You,” it is unrealistic for us to expect that everyone will feel welcome among us.

For example, the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, still the standard for most congregations, is written on a 15^th grade reading level. This clearly reflects a church that is highly educated. The New York Times is written on a 6^th grade reading level! Historically, TEC has reached college educated Anglophiles, those who love English culture including language and literature. We have also reached those who value the arts and classical music. This is called “high European culture.”

Sometimes, this identity makes us uncomfortable acknowledging our cultural prejudices. We are also often embarrassed that TEC remains almost 85% white despite years of efforts at diversity. The most diverse thing we have done in membership is planting new congregations especially among Hispanics.

We have made strides in the inclusiveness of our leadership. The greatest gains in this are gender related. First, since the 70s, the equality of women movement has seen women enter every level of leadership. Today the number of women in seminaries outnumbers men. The second area related to gender is the full inclusion of what once was identified as gay and lesbian people and now includes a growing number of other gender identities.

Sadly, despite much effort, since the middle of the last century, TEC has lost a significant number of strong African American congregations. This is also true of blue-collar congregations. I often say that I am so old that I can remember when we let members of labor unions join TEC.

All these dynamics must be seen also from the great loss of membership that TEC, like many so-called mainline denominations, has experienced. When I went to seminary in 1968, we had 3.6 million members which represented a much larger percentage of the U.S. population than now. In the last two decades, we have had an accelerated lost of half  of the numbers reported in 2000. What have these changes done to our diversity? The percentages remain about the same for the past 30 years.

These factors leave us with several important questions. For example, why is it that despite much enthusiastic talk from our leaders about our potential to now reach a wider circle of our pluralistic society, our continued decline challenges the very future of our existence?  

Further, why is it that in a time when the worldwide Anglican Communion is growing at an astounding rate, especially in Africa and Asia, TEC still has made little gains in the diversity of our membership even with people from these countries with strong and growing Anglican memberships who migrate to the U.S.?

And what about generational diversity? Why is it that despite some valent efforts of some bishops to reach leaders from younger generations, the average age of seminarians continues to move higher, now over 45?

I feel that our leaders “good intentions” to be more inclusive mask our long-standing inability to become more diverse.  Perhaps part of this is our post World War II attitude of “build it and they will come” with an emphasis primarily on land and buildings.  Bishop Payne used to point out that evangelism is the most diverse ministry that the Episcopal Church could do.  Perhaps our focus on present members and a lack of desire to reach people who are different from our Episcopal profile has created a culture of decline that we now accept as normative.

In evangelism training, we often look at those in our community that we are more likely to reach. This is sometimes called “the low hanging fruit.” In each community this may vary, but for the Episcopal Church in the United States as a whole, there is a universal answer. And that answer illustrates how our desire to be inclusive often trumps our ability to grow in diversity.

In 2000, I wrote an article for The Living Church that addressed the potential for TEC in Hispanic ministry. Since we were working on a plan to double our size, I pointed out that four proven missional strategies that if aimed at Hispanic people would allow us to double the size of TEC in 20 years.  I also pointed out several reasons why Hispanics are very receptive to TEC. Why would a Church so committed to diversity ignore this potential?

The answer came from a member of the Executive Council. He wrote me to say I was right about the potential for Hispanic ministry but that if we did this, it would be wrong. He said that once the number of Hispanic members began to equal everyone else, we would “cease to be an inclusive Church.”  I found this attitude among several of our Bishops and many of our national leaders.

It took me several years to grasp what was meant. It meant that those who had benefited from the inclusiveness of our Church feared a loss of power if we expanded our diversity. The highly educated and inclusive minded leaders might no longer be in control.  I have since realized that if you listen to the language of our leaders, you will discover that all the language about inclusiveness has become code language to protect the status quo of our current membership profile. 

What is the State of the Church in 2022? It is stuck in decline while continuing efforts at inclusiveness continue to prevent any real change toward diversity. This is true even if that diversity represents exactly the kind of people about whom Jesus seemed the most concerned, the poor, the needy, the oppressed, and the foreigner among us.   

 

The State of the Church 2022: Blog 3

 An unauthorized and personal reflection

In my first blog of this series, I wrote about the crisis of preparing ordained leaders for the present and future Church. In my second blog I wrote about our failure in evangelism. In this blog, I look at the issue of formation.

I have seen several examples of clergy and congregations that do an outstanding work in the deepening formation of their members. This issue is dear to my heart because I believe that it is the continual work of the church to grow our members into closer disciples of our Lord. For example, when I have taught on preaching, I share that our time in the pulpit is an opportunity for spiritual direction for our members. Remember C.S. Lewis’ refrain in heaven, “higher up and deeper in.” Part of my work as a priest is to motivate people to have longing for and seek this spiritual progression.

The congregations that do this well have given thought and planning on how to do formation. Once having done this, they think through the steps. Those who benefit from spiritual direction know that this is precisely what the director does for individuals. Congregations that do formation well are following the same model.

I have written other blogs about the research on congregations that point out that the spiritual growth of members has almost no correlation to the planned activities of a church. According to this research, members mostly grow because they just happen to be at the right place at the right time. Our parishioners might joke that they were in the wrong place at the right time, but whether by chance or intention, the consequence is that they were challenged to take a step further in to the Christian life. The classical image is pilgrimage.

I learned a great lesson from church planting about all this.  Church planters find when they launch the new congregation, they face a dilemma in our core value of using the lectionary. Given the large percentage of a new church who are not only non-Episcopalians but also non-Christian, the lectionary provides little continuity in the early formation of Christians.  Church planters taught me that they often had to plan the first months of services in a way for them to present the basics of the Christian faith via the lessons, gospels, and sermons.

I would acknowledge that a long tenured Episcopalian should not need this, and the seasons and lectionary are generally an enriching experience, but I would also mention that I have met life-long Episcopalians with large gaps in their formation, in understanding Christ and their call to believe and follow him.  My point is that assuming that folks can sit in our pews for years and “get it” is quite an assumption. As a teacher of mine once said, “it’s like putting people in a chicken coop and expecting them to eventually lay eggs.”

In my consultation work with churches and in teaching congregational development to leaders, I often speak to the need for formation. I point out that this needs to be intentional and aimed at spiritual growth. Further, I point out the two paths that I think are necessary to a healthy congregation. The first is a clear tract to membership which means active participation in the congregation’s worship, ministries, and stewardship. 

The second path is that of discipleship.  I ask leadership to image a person or family that comes to their church as spiritual seekers, not already formed Christians. Then I ask them to map out events, education, and experiences that would lead them in becoming intentional followers of Jesus Christ. Amazingly, once given the task, many of our leaders are up for the work. But how many congregations in TEC do this?  How many of our clergy and lay leaders assume that attending Church 1, 2, 3, or 4 Sundays a month will make that happen? My answer is TOO MANY.

This is not to negate the value of baptismal or confirmation instruction. Many of our churches put good effort into this. Unfortunately, many times these are aimed at becoming an Episcopalian. Once having completed this instruction followed by baptism or conformation, new people are treated as if they have arrived at the destination.

Thus, when I look at the State of the Church, I see a major issue. Too few congregations have thought through a path of membership and many fewer have thought through a path of discipleship.

Because I am rooted in the catholic (small c) tradition of TEC, I have a strong desire to make formation and spiritual direction part of the congregations I have served. At the Cathedral in Dallas, we created a core curriculum and a Cathedral Way of Life and constantly invited both new members and long-time members to take these on. Were we perfect at this? Of course not, but we were intentional about it. When I retired from the Cathedral over half our members had signed on to following the Cathedral Way, a traditional Christian path for deepening the spiritual life of our people. It was the singularly most significant congregational dynamic that I had ever been a part of in years of ministry.

When it comes to formation, the State of our Church is that despite some wonderful examples, most of our congregations are not doing this work. 

The State of the Church 2022 Blog 2

In my first blog on the State of the Church: A personal Reflection, I talked about the crisis in preparing ordained leaders for the challenge of revitalizing congregations. In this one, I want to write about the crisis in evangelism and leading other to faith in Christ what we might call the front door of our community. Let me begin by commending the ongoing and great work of the Invite, Welcome, Connect Ministry in equipping congregations in building up our congregations. This is great hands-on information for leaders who care about reaching and greeting those outside the Church.

Now let’s face the challenge and the problem. Officially according to the Church, evangelism is to present Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit so that others are led to believe in him as savior and follow him as Lord within the fellowship of his Church. We should be honest that today this definition is largely ignored. As progressives have taken more control over our community, the definition of evangelism is now rooted in this. We are out to make the world a more just and inclusive society, the reign of God, and we invite anyone who would like to help us in this task to join us. We also, according to the evangelism network’s publications, are committed to saving the environment and planting gardens to assist in providing food to those in need. This too falls within the category of making the world a better place. After all, what better news can we share than God cares for those in need?

Before you think that this is a negative set of statements on my part, let me clarify that I identify with a great deal of the Church’s efforts to be inclusive of all people and to be advocates of justice and protectors of the environment. These are all worthy activities and works of the Church. However, in our attitude toward these works rests the problem we now have with evangelism.

First, we are not doing evangelism, we are doing recruitment of like-minded people. As one priest said publicly, “we will not accept anyone in our church who does not accept all our LGBTQ… people.” I was not surprised to hear this said in a large public forum, but I was troubled that not one of those who heard this objected.  It would do me no good in Episcopal Circles to warn of the attitude of recruiting likeminded people because this has become so much the norm that no Episcopalian would see anything wrong with this. Let me point out that a community made up of like-minded people that will not let in anyone who does not agree with them is a better definition of a cult than a church. 

Second, the progressive side of our community has made Christianity principally about what is classically called “works.” Our Episcopalian leaders still remember that salvation, if you care about it, is a grace and gift of God, by now they often say, “modeled for us by Jesus.” As one recent progressive leader wrote, "It is not necessary for people to believe in Jesus as God or the son of God or worship him. We just need to follow his example. To an untrained theological mind, this sounds good but it is not good.

Episcopalians are mindful of the classical formula that we are saved by Grace and not by our works. But now we have a revisionist view of what salvation means. It is that God accepts us just the way we are because like most college educated Christians, we have come to believe therapeutic self-acceptance and salvation by grace are the same thing. Perhaps we should add the song “Learning to Love yourself is the greatest love of all” to a new hymnal. Yes, there is a therapeutic truth that lies in self-acceptance. In classical theology we learn to hate sin and not the sinner even if the sinner is us. And we are taught that the sinful must stand before judgement because we are not who God created us to be or intends for us to be in Christ. Toxic self-hatred is not repentance, it is an illness and a debilitating dysfunction in need of healing, but that is not salvation.

What I am highlighting is the abysmal state of theological understanding that deconstructionism and revisionist progressive theology have brought about in a community where having correct intentions is the dominant theme. Fortunately, this isn’t the only story of the Church. There are many especially younger clergy who understand where all this leads us. But for now, most progressives keep repeating these themes.

As most of my readers know, I have been and continue to be a strong advocate for evangelism. This largely falls on deaf ears among my fellow Episcopal clergy at this time, but I can assure you not the laity. I continue to declare that evangelism “proclaiming the God News of Salvation in Jesus Christ, the forgiveness of sin, the reconciliation with God and others, and the new life lived in the power of the Holy Spirit” is at the heart of our calling, just that it is out of step with the times. Out of step at least with the Spirit of the times.

If I could best provide a jolt to this mindset, what could I say? Why is it, I ask, that at almost every public event of loss or tragedy voices are raised to sing “amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me? I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see” I would contend that beyond the meeting rooms of seminary professors and the gathering together of well-meaning church leaders lies the dominant DNA of American faith that knows the desperate need people and our society have for redemption and transformation. And if you do not know this need, I would suggest the evening news as the best jolt to question these false assumptions with the grim reminder of the human condition. For example, is the message that we just need to learn to love other people going to stop the rumbling of those Russian tanks? No, our dilemma is that we know what is right, but we are unable of ourselves to do it as Paul so powerfully preached! And he asks, “who can free us from this bondage to sin and death? “Jesus” is the resounding response the Christian community from the Resurrection until this day.

The State of the Church is that today we have lost the message of the life giving, liberating, and loving Christ and we have sold our heritage of transformation in the power of his resurrection for a bowl of good intentions and therapeutic self-love.

 

 

The State of the Church 2022: Blog 1

A non-authorized and personal reflection on the health of our churches.

One of the great experiences that I had as a Deputy to General Convention was the year that I served on the Committee on the State of the Church. This group reports to each General Convention on the State (health and vitality) of the Church.  The year I did this, we produced a great report with just criticisms mixed with insight and suggestions for the future. Delegates liked it.  I read everyone one of these reports since 1990, and some are both prophetic and profound.

If so, why have they had such little effect on the decisions of GC? The answer is systemic. To give the Committees some objectiveness, they are not allowed to propose legislation only make their report.  Ironically, the more profound and insightful these reports, the more complicated translating them into action becomes especially in a legislative body already overloaded with hundreds of resolutions prepared by join committees and commissions. GC is by all accounts a dysfunctional and oversized organization, but that is a subject for another time.

This blog series is about the state of our churches by one observer with 50 years of ordination and many years working with congregations and their leaders. By church, I do not mean the offices at 815 Second Avenue or even local diocesan entities.  I mean the local congregation where our people receive Word and Sacrament and are formed in Christ. The simple truth is this. If we continue to decline in membership and congregations, at what point do we cease to be any semblance of a Church? Imagine a Church in which the number of clergy including Bishops outnumber the members. That is where we are currently heading.

Here is my first reflection

70 to 80% of our current congregations need revitalization. This includes lay leadership development, new member ministry, formation of new and current members, and healthy working relationships among members and between members and our clergy. This means we need our diocesan leaders and our clergy educated in this work. Here is a list of our current seminaries that do a good job in preparing our future clergy for this.

Yes, you saw this correctly. There are NONE. Listen, this is not a criticism of seminary education. I believe in seminaries and their methodology as it has developed over past centuries. It is a criticism of the Church for assuming that three years of theological formation produces leaders capable of starting new communities or revitalizing the ones we have.  It is a declaration of the consequence of leaving the formation of leaders in the hands of academics.

Today, almost all our seminaries through their deans are declaring that what they do is really leadership for the Church. We need to be clear about two things. First, this is a marketing strategy aimed at Diocesan Bishops. Second, Diocesan Bishop are acutely aware that this is not what our seminaries are about. The wise Bishops expect our seminaries to prepare women and men for the profession of ministry through learning the basics of the profession, just as law schools and medical schools teach their professionals the foundations of law and medicine.  The not so wise Bishops are happy if seminaries indoctrinate their candidates in the bishop’s theology preferences and agendas. Thank God we still have wise bishops! What part of Episcopal Church do we not understand?

Everyone who teaches leadership, as I have done for over 30 years, knows that we develop leaders as they attempt to lead.  The textbooks on leadership are secondary to the leaders attempts to function in our communities. Such work involves good theory combined with practice done under supervision and with coaching. In recent years, more dioceses have been providing such education for curates and for new Rectors. This is a great step forward.  However, it faces two challenges.

The first challenge is that many of our dioceses have too little resources in trying to do this work. I am retired from the Diocese of Dallas which does curacy well, and I live in the Diocese of Texas that is able with its size and resources to provide much post-seminary education around leadership.  They are, however, the excepts to the general rule. 

The second challenge is that education in leading planting and revitalization needs to be done by our clergy who have had demonstratable success in doing this. I often point out to leaders that my experience is that few if any our Diocesan leaders even Bishops have had any experience in planting a Church. (Which by the way, does not stop them from having opinions on how it should be done.) Most of these leaders also have not led revitalization. What they have done is maintain already healthy congregations. This, of course, demands an important set of skills but is much different from the risky kind of leadership that planting and revitalizing leaders must give.

In summary, my first observation about our churches in that many of them need clergy formed as leaders to revitalize congregations, many of which also resist change, but few clergy are prepared for such work. While there a hopeful example of offering this education, it is often done by people who have never done it themselves.

This means that we are preparing clergy, but at the same time, there is a tremendous void in the number of them prepared to do the work our churches now need. Thinking that our seminaries can add a class or two to change this void is following the maxim “if you always do what you always have done, you will get what you have always gotten.” After all, “Insanity can best be described as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”