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. 

Ten Signs of Hope for the Episcopal Church

Those of you who read my blogs know that I am often critical of the direction of TEC and outspoken about our continued decline. I have been hearing some good news and I thought that I would start the year off with signs we may be stopping the decline. 

1.     Ministries aimed at strengthening congregational life and vitality such as The Pivot Program, The Preaching Congregation, combined with new Diocesan initiatives.  These are addressing our continual decline with creativity and support.

2.    The Resurgence of Nashotah House Seminary: As a Prayer Book Catholic, I see the resurgence of this seminary as a very helpful sign that TEC could be moving back towards its identity as part of the Anglican Communion.

3.    The intentional new congregation plants of the Diocese of Texas. This includes both non-traditional communities and the planting of new congregations which includes a mission out of my home parish of Grace, Georgetown Texas located in one of the fastest growing counties in America. 

4.    The ability of the ACNA and TEC in South Carolina to negotiate an issue of disputed property. After millions of dollars in legal fees, two bishops found a Christian resolve. We can pray that this kind of behavior spreads among our leadership.

5.    The creative reunion of the Diocese of North Texas with the Diocese of Texas. This was a creative solution and an example for the future. Pair a struggling diocese with one that has enough resources to make a difference. Especially in light of # 3 above.

6.    The Iona School for Leadership: This expanding school for training clergy and lay leaders in a non-residential degree program is helping provide leadership to struggling congregations.

7.  Mockingbird, a ministry that provides great teaching and resources for younger clergy.

8. The “Invite, Welcome, Connect” website and resources: this continues to be an excellent ministry that continues to expand their ideas and resources.

9.    The Diocese of Pennsylvania is doing restarts and planting in previously closed congregations. Research on congregational revitalization that confirms my own experience shows that restarting a congregation is often more effective than trying to revitalize a declining and struggling small congregation.

10. The Living Church Podcasts (as well as the ongoing “The Living Church” magazine and The Covenant website. For those who think that theology is important, this remains a solid Anglican resource.

I am not saying that it will be easy to reverse our decline, but these items add to our ability to stabilize our community. Right now, COVID has added to our downward trend as seen in the most recent parochial reports. But with the help of the above and the energy many new leaders including new Bishops are bringing to our community to a healthier place. Stabilizing will probably take 3 to 5 years.

Feel free to hit the comment button and add any other positive signs that you have seen in TEC.