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.