I know because in leaving each of these, I asked members this question and by far they remember my sermons. Since my ordination in 1971, that is the primary way that I think of myself. This is consistent with many pastors in various denominations, but I think this is not so in The Episcopal Church for several reasons. This I intend for my next article. What matters for this one is the task of preaching and its importance to the over all work of the pastor in leading a congregation. There are few leadership positions where the leader gets to stand before your constituents weekly and share the importance of our community’s identity, mission, and common life.

Of course, in every Christian denomination this is done by preaching on the Scriptures and in most mainline churches this involves the reading and use of the Sunday Lectionary. The preacher is given the essential leadership task of holding up the local community’s mission and our individual calling to be followers of Jesus Christ. The bottom line of all this is that I have always taken preaching seriously. I am a student of preaching, and I have taught preaching in seminaries and many clergy conferences. I have some important things to say about preaching and I warn you that I am VERY opinionated on this topic.

In my early days as an Episcopal preacher, two preachers greatly influenced me. The first was Fred Craddock, long time teacher at Candler. I heard him lecture several times and I used his book Preaching as the basic text when I taught preaching. The second was Bruce Thielemann, long time pastor at First Presbyterian in Pittsburg. I discovered both teachers back when “Preaching Today” arrived monthly in cassette form with two sermon examples divided by material from workshops or interviews. I tell younger preachers to listen to good preaching regularly. We often listen to ourselves too much. Both strongly emphasized that preaching is an oral event and that the rules of oral speech are different from those of writing. Even if you write your sermons and use a manuscript in the pulpit, you need to use the tools of rhetoric to present an effective sermon.

Craddock taught me the power of narrative preaching and storytelling. I learned from him the importance of having a “sermonic sentence” to unify a message. A sermonic sentence is a clear declarative sentence that may or may not appear in the sermon but is used to hold all points, illustrations, and applications together. If in reviewing a sermon, something does not serve this sermonic sentence, I prune it out. He also helped me understand that any truth needs illustration to be memorable. I also learned from Craddock that there are historically eight forms of rhetoric that serve oral communication.

His great insight is that scripture contains all eight of these so “why not preach using a form consistent the biblical passage.” For example, the first chapter of John’s Gospel is a “Not this, not this, not this, but this” rhetorical message. He once asked in a sermon workshop, “Why take a meaningful parable of Jesus and turn it into a three-point sermon?” He added that Jesus never did. He underscored how much of Jesus’ teachings were in stories that ordinary people could understand. Episcopal preachers often preach to college educated members using language not that familiar to farmers, laborers, and business workers. I can testify that listening to Craddock expands a preacher’s range and imagination.

From Thielemann, I learned that he would read five books at one time. One was always on communication and especially preaching. The others often involved history or theology, but one was on a completely non-religious topic. Those often became a rich source of examples and illustrations. He once used a book on surfing as a comparison to the Christian Life. It was and is remarkable. I still remember the ending. It went something like this. At the end of day, the surfer stands exhausted and quietly faces the ocean. There in that moment, the sea, the setting sun, and the surfer become one. It is the same for a Chrisitan. At the end of the day, we often stand exhausted from facing our challenges, the complexity of the world, and the immensity of God and in that moment, we become one with the challenges, the complexities, and with God.” Find it and listen. First listen to the sermon and then listen again to how he integrated a secular book into a profound understanding of discipleship.

Thielemann was an outstanding preacher. He also was a writer and teacher of preaching. Some of his workshops are still out the on the internet. Baylor has a whole collection of his sermons. His teaching on what kind of illustrations to use and the five types that best serve a sermon is priceless. Thielemann like Craddock wanted preachers to keep on the major themes of Christianity and not become pedantic. He once observed that he wanted his preaching to create in his listeners “big hearted and generous disciples.” He made this observation about much of evangelical preaching that goes verse by verse. “Such preaching is better at producing pharisees than big hearted followers of Christ.”

I have also learned from some very good Episcopal preachers like John Claypool. From them I learned the importance of cadence and of appropriate pauses. I also hold the sermons of John Donne as dear to me. They are profound although much longer than any of us preach today. He was short for his time, taking an hourglass with him in the Pulpit. His sermon on Love is a classic of prose and applies directly to the task of evangelism.

All this underscores the importance that preaching holds in the work of leadership and the importance of doing it effectively. In preaching we can lift vision and mission and illustrate them for our current situations. I have said often that if a pastor does not repeat vision and mission no one else in a congregation will be doing it. I like to underscore that the leader/ preacher should always “make the main thing the main thing!” I like to remind Episcopal preachers of our former presiding Bishop Michael Curry’s preaching. Truth is he only had one sermon, “Jesus and the Way of Love.” Yet, he preached it with variety, insight, application, and it was his most effective tool as a leader. I note that many of the great leaders in America in my lifetime like Martin Luther King, John Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan exercised much of their leadership by speaking. Remember the great gift we have as pastors. It is an opportunity to exercise our leadership by preaching.

Let me then turn to my second point, the preacher as influencer. It flows from all I have said above. While I believe strongly in doctrinal preaching, I also knew as a pastor that my 15 to 25 minutes in the pulpit was my opportunity to give pastoral insight and offer spiritual direction to my people. I was especially concerned about spiritual direction. I knew that few of my members would ever have a formal Spiritual Director. I was blessed to have three spiritual directors during my time in ministry. One taught me the classical outline of how Christian’s progress as Jesus’ followers. I put particular emphasis on how we make the transitions to our next stage. Teaching on any one of these steps touches a fairly large portion of the congregation. These generated lots of follow up conversations with individual members. For example, take the step we make as disciples of Jesus to follow him to the cross and die to the self. Another is moving believers saved by grace to disciples.

From my spiritual directors, I also learned the rightful place of doubt and facing the dark night of despair. Sure, a preacher faces people who are at different places on their spiritual journey, but the steps are predictable and shared. Sadly, many preachers focus on only one aspect of the Christian life. Learn to be an influencer and not an infomercial for one form of Christianity!

If you want to be a good Christian leader, you need to study and work at being a better preacher. In modern parlance, a preacher is by profession “an influencer.” They have always been that and always will be. If your current preacher is good, then encourage her or him. If they communicate something that particularly speaks to you, tell them or send them an email or drop them a note. If you do preach, remember this even if you use a manuscript, Preaching is an oral event! There are many tools that will help you do this better. Find and use them!

Remember also that preaching is not a monologue, it is a dialogue between leader and members. I learned from people like Craddock and Thielemann to create opportunities for feedback and discussion. If your congregation is small enough, the dialogue can take place as part of the sermon. If it is larger, you will have to use more structured opportunities for such needed feedback. I used small groups after a service to meet for 20 minutes and record their responses to one of my sermons. I would give them a sheet with three or four questions, one was always “How would you summarize in one sentence Dean Kevin’s sermon this morning? Such feedback made me a better leader, a better communicator, and a more effective influencer.

When the Episcopal Church gets around to producing a new hymnal, no doubt one new addition will be the Beatles “All You Need is Love.” I am also sure that the slogan “Love Wins” will find a place in any Prayer Book revisions. I cannot count how many times, I have heard or read some fellow clergy’s declaration that “the really important thing is that we love one another.” Let me clarify that I do believe in the Great Commandment that we love one another, and I appreciate our previous Presiding Bishop’s preaching on “the way of love.” I believe Bishop Curry’s use of the way of love was his way of putting forth to a secular society the following of Jesus. It is this love that our world badly needs.

However, all this love talk, and it’s becoming our primary language, although well meaning, also masks a profound misunderstanding about the Church’s true mission. Before I write about that mission, I want to pursue the word “love” as we Christians understand it beyond some of my colleagues cliches I mentioned above. There can be no doubt that an important part of the Christian development seen in the New Testament revolves around our understanding of love.

The Apostle Paul underscores this in some of his most important writings. For example, he notes what we now call the three Theological Virtues of Faith, Hope, and Love and then he underscores that “the greatest of these is love.” This whole chapter in I Corinthian’s is an exposition of this virtue. I would point out that this passage has become a favorite in recent decades at marriages, but as the meme says, “I am not sure that word means what you think it means.” We can turn to the KJV for clarity. “Now abideth faith, hope, and charity, but the greatest of these is charity.” The word charity is the 16^th century’s common translation of the Greek New Testament word Agape or sacrificial and compassionate love. Most English translations today just use the word love.

The problem is that in our time, love has multiple meanings. If we read C.S. Lewis’ The Four Loves, we see that the English word love is now used for the Greek Philos – brotherly affection or companionship, the word Eros – passion, and the word Agape as mentioned above. Simply said, love in English is an undifferentiated word while the Greek New Testament is much shaper. We know that Paul and the other Christians took a casual word Agape and gave it a much more profound meaning. In Christ, they found this love. It is, after all, the love he showed us of the Father on the cross. It is not surprising that this new revelation brought with it a new language to express the resurrected life.

Going back to marriage for a moment, I believe that a strong marriage is sustained by all three of the above. There are times of passion. There is a strong bond in friendship which is often built on mutual interests. But as we grow older, I’ve been married for 62 years and I am my wife’s caregiver, I can assure you that now sacrificial love holds us together. The other forms of love still abide if only in my memories. This is great information for homilies at weddings, but I seldom hear it.

Now let me make a stark observation. Just loving one another is not a missional nor a theological solution. For example, in the wake of the tragedy at Columbine and the numerous other school shootings, it is unrealistic to think that just urging people to love one another would solve any of our most significant human issues. It would not have stopped the shooters any more than it will stop the Russian tanks in the Ukraine. My colleague’s simple admonition to “just love one another” highlights one of the most profound dilemmas and painful truths about human nature, namely, why don’t we just learn to love one another?

The answer, of course, from a Christian perspective is sin. Hatred, violence, murder, cruelty, abuse and even racism, indeed all the “isms”, are expressions of true human nature. As Jeraslov Pelikan while teaching Christian Doctrine at Yale profoundly observed, “Original sin is the only provable doctrine of the Christian Faith.” We need only to watch the evening news to understand this truth. The suggestion that if we just taught everyone to love one another, the world would solve all its issues is misguided at the best and totally naive at the worst. After over 100 years of the American educational system’s attempts to convince all of us that education will solve all our problems has so utterly failed, is it not time to abandon the hopeless romanticism that we can just teach people to love everyone, even their enemies? All we need is love is not a solution but a profound expression of our problem.

In addition, for Christians and many other worldviews, love is the result of something else. This something else ranges from a change of heart, or a change in mind, or a moment of realization, or even to a revelation. These things have often led great teachers and leaders to allow love and compassion to flow towards others. We only need to think of people like Mandella or Ghandi, or Dr. King to see how profound this transformation can be found in such leaders. This also happens to ordinary people. Great literature and great films are full of these moments of transformation. For us to love one another takes a transformation, and for Christians, this transformation is found at the foot of the cross. It is there that we see the truth about ourselves, and the love of God revealed in the face of Jesus Christ. Also remember that the consequences of the worst of abuse of others or living amidst dysfunction have led people to do terrible things, but the same situations have also led others to great acts of charity and compassion. Again, love is not a solution, it is a consequence of something transformative.

This brings me back to all this Episcopal love talk. It is clear to me that our preaching would be substantially more effective if we could keep asking why humans choose everything but love!

At least let us put love into its proper perspective. And for us Christians, we balance the Great Commandment “to love one another” with the Great Commission “to make disciples of all people” by proclaiming the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. My former mentor, Bishop Claude Payne, used to point out regularly that these two are the core values of the Christian mission, “to reconcile all to God and one another through Christ.” It is the holding of these two core values in a complimentary relationship that guides our mission of reconciliation and keeps the Apostolic community in healthy balance.

In other words, all we need is to confess our sinfulness and fallen nature and to put our full faith in Jesus Christ. Love always flows from this. One of the most profound examples of this, I discovered when I was on a sabbatical two decades ago. In studying Wesley and the early American methodist, I discovered that Wesleyan followers who were slave owners were expected as a sign of their true conversion to free their slaves. Sadly, this is why Southern Baptists became the strongest denomination in the South and not Methodism. All we need is love is naive. What we really need is repentance and the grace given to us to be a new creation in Christ. When the Church lives out this transformation, love flows out to everyone both within and outside the Church. All we need is conversion and transformation. Then love wins!

First let me share something personal. As I read the book, I was constantly reminded of my father. At 17, he worked as a mechanic for $1 a day. He gave the money to his mother who used it to feed her six boys. My grandfather was apparently attending to other matters. At 18, my newly married father entered the army. It was 1942 and he was assigned to an artillery division. His duties were primarily to keep the vehicles running that pulled the artillery from battle to battle. He landed on D-Day + 6 and fought through with his unit to the end of the war. During the Battle of the Bulge, his unit came under fire by a German artillery unit. Dad was wounded and later given a purple heart. His best friend was killed. He almost never spoke of any of this.

When the war ended, he began to search for steady employment. He ended up becoming an apprentice machinist advancing to a master machinist. He then worked with design engineers in making new production equipment and maintained the prototypes. He once confessed to me that he had hoped I would become an engineer during my school years but finally resolved that I was right following my call to ministry. Why I thought of this was that I spend most of my time as a child assisting my father over the weekends in fixing things. He would work and I would pass him the tools. He never hired anyone to fix anything we owned including our cars and homes. He would read the repair manuals (there was no internet) and do it himself. The legacy for me was that when I arrived at seminary, I was the only student in my class who could repair things. I was valued by my classmates for being able to drive a nail or use a screwdriver. His lessons helped me repair things and over the years I frequently had to apply this in the parishes that I served. He primary mantra was “everything needs maintenance and doing this saves you time and money down the road.” He often said, “Always keep your tools repaired first.”

Obviously, reading Brand’s book took me back to my early days with even more appreciation of my father’s teaching. What also stood out was how Brand’s insight applied to much of the Christian life and our communities. However, what most struck me at this point in my life was the wisdom of applying this to my role as caregiver. In the past two years, I twice hit a wall of physical and mental exhaustion when the work of caregiver led me to postpone my own health. Of course, I had learned to “drink the tea first” and “to put on my oxygen mask first” before helping my beloved. But maintenance is discretionary and is easy to put off with other life demands. I paid the price and I learned. I am still learning.

However, I write about leadership, especially for pastors and other church leaders, and it is this topic that I want to underscore. I want to mention two areas. The first is for fellow pastors. Most pastors care about others and we often put the needs of parishioners above our own. My mentors taught me to pay attention to my ongoing relationship with Christ first. This has meant many disciplines in the past and now that I am retired, I have a new set of disciplines to keep centered. There are many good books on this topic so I would list these here. I just wish to mention Brand’s truth. Maintenance is often discretionary and we tend to postpone it. In 42 years of full-time ministry, I was frequently reminded of this.

When I have addressed newly ordained ministers, I point out that we tend to confuse the work of ministry with our own spiritual life. Surrounded by holy things, we are tempted to think that the bible, altar, and sacraments make us holy by touching them. I often wonder these days when so many if my younger Episcopal colleagues are emphasizing justice and other right causes if they find standing or even demonstrating for the “right” can be confused with standing before the righteous one. My father would also advise us to keep our tools sharp.

I also correct those who refer to the church as the “beloved community” that we are members of “the community of the beloved.” That is very different. Sadly, I note much misunderstood ecclesiology about the very nature of the church. No wonder we Episcopalians have made decline normative! Speaking of our congregations, the second application for all Christian leaders is the maintenance of this community of the beloved. The scientific word for this is atrophy, things left to their own devices tend to run down. As a congregational observer and consultant for many years, I have noted this often.

I pay attention to the regular meeting of the leadership of the congregation. We Episcopalians call this a Vestry but most call it the board of elders. What I note is how a relatively capable group of leaders have settled into keeping the status quo running. Sure, they maintain the budget, the facilities, and the programs, but seldom do they think about the core values of our faith, the Great Commission of making disciples and the Great Commandment of loving one another. How are these being lived out and how can they be improved. My experience is that growing congregations hold these two values in creative balance. It is hard to attract and make new disciples without a practical way for them to connect to a loving community. It is also true that some small churches are so tightly knit that no new people can get into the circle of current fellowship. As I have heard many times from visitors to such churches, “Sure they are friendly - to one another!” Choirs and Altar Guilds in Episcopal congregations often function this way. They say they need new members, but they have almost no skills at incorporating them.

The stewardship of the parish means that the leaders must be consistently asking ourselves how the congregation is doing in evangelism and formation of new Christians and how we are doing at increasing opportunities for members not just to attend but to grow in love and support for one another. And how are those in leadership growing and working together as a leadership team. Let me add to this with an observation that I have often made about declining large congregations. The mark of decline of a large congregation is that today they hire staff to do what the members used to do. A paid choir and paid youth worker are just two of many examples of this. Members of a larger but declining congregation used to care about music or youth, but now they are contented letting hired folks to do this for them. Their passion has become nostalgia. I tell the leaders of such churches to only hire staff to assist members in carrying out their passions never to replace its loss.

Remember, maintenance is necessary, but it is also discretionary and we tend to postpone it.

The last time I was in Washington D.C., I went to the Vietnam Memorial. It was very moving especially for someone from my generation. However, my most profound moment came when I ascended the steps to the Lincoln Memorial. Turning to the right, I stood in silence as I read once again the profound words of the Second inaugural Address, one of the moving pieces of oratory in American History. “With Malice toward none, and Charity for all....” I wept.

The assassination of Lincoln was a great tragedy for our Nation, but even more so for the South. It was clear that he intended his last three years to be dedicated to reconciliation and national restoration. In the wake of his death, the radical Republicans put through their agenda to “punish” the South for the War, as if all those deaths and all that destruction, and the humiliation of defeat wasn’t punishment enough. They instituted economic controls. They denied the right of any officer of the South to serve in public office, which completely bankrupted the political and social leadership. Imagine if people like Longstreet had been allowed into office, how different things may have been. And they did little to improve the great poverty of African Americans who never saw their land grants or other reparations.

The History of the South is certainly one of the shame of slavery. Yet amidst all the focus of recent years on the Confederate Battle Flag and out worn monuments, I think part of history has been lost. This is the incredible poverty of the south for over 75 years. The KKK, the racists retaliations, and segregation are all part of this impoverished story. Blacks and Whites have lived close together in the South and during that time we all shared in poverty. I grew up in a segregated and racist community where I never attended school with African Americans until college. Yet, the worse racism I experience toward Blacks was in New Haven, Connecticut, and the worse of that was in the faculty dining room at Yale.

My purpose in this post is not to attribute either blame or to deny the sin of slavery and its on-going legacy of racism. It is to remember on this National Day, and lament, what our lives would have been if “malice toward none and charity for all” had become our national slogan. It still could become that if we desire it.

My experience as a church consultant for many years before retirement was that many congregations pay little attention to how people enter. Further, most congregations pay almost no attention to how people exit.

Once I worked with a congregation that had maintained a very stable average Sunday attendance of around 200 people for eight straight years. They asked me to help them grow. I pointed out to the leaders that this kind of stability was a remarkable balance of incoming new members and exiting older ones. I further pointed out that growth would simply be a matter of either widening their front door or narrowing the back door. When we explored what this would mean, the leaders quickly discovered that there was no systematic monitoring of either door. In other words, they had very little idea how people were attracted and joined or when and how they exited.

Their church was not unique. I found over the years that few congregational leaders had a clear grasp of the primary reasons people leave. The harsh truth is that most people withdraw from a church long before leaders realize they are gone. Research has also shown that members often stop giving before they withdraw and often start attending less. In other words, members often signal their movement toward the back door. Even when a congregation gets new members, the leaders have little information about why they joined and even more importantly what attracted and connected with them. Sadly, the assumption is that attending is the same as membership.

What many congregations need is a better system for shepherding the front and back doors. Let me underscore what I have often pointed out to leaders. This is not just an issue of better management. This is an issue of caring. It is making real what we profess about Christian community mutual love and caring.

To understand what joining and leaving really means, we need to ask a fundamental question. What is a member? When I have asked clergy and lay leaders this question, I almost always get a paraphrase of the bylaws or, in Episcopal language, the canonical requirements for membership. These allow one to vote at a congregational meeting. For Episcopalians and other mainline churches these requirements often include the following:

1. Regular attendance (never usually defined.)

2. Receiving Communion at least four times a year.

3. Some affirmation of the church’s creeds.

4. Contributing financially to the local congregation.

5. Or simply calling oneself a member.

Technically for the past four decades in the Episcopal Church, to first become a member is to be baptized. To transfer in is to have the date of your baptism, in whichever denomination it was, entered into the registry of the congregation. Almost no one remembers this not even our clergy.

But more importantly, when I would ask this question, “What would happen if most of your members only behaved this way?” Quickly, leaders would note that the congregation could not possibly survive if most members behaved this way including the leaders. I then would show them what “functional membership” is.

Functional Membership is participation in the congregation’s life and ministry through one or more of its organized activities beyond any of those minimal requirements listed above!

Those minimal requirements are not biblical, they are, of course, the consequence of Christendom. The mainline inherited this from our European origins. Interestingly, there are very large congregations in America that require tithing as one of their main requirements for membership. I’ve heard of several whose attendance on Sundays are up to ten times larger than their membership. I knew of only one newly formed Episcopal congregation that practiced this. They grew quickly but they left the denomination after only five years. Naturally, this is so counter cultural to mainline mentality, that the first time the pastor and leaders disagreed with their bishop, the membership voted to withdraw. The Sunday folks hardly notice the change! Besides the word “Episcopal” didn’t even appear on their signs.

Let’s return to functional membership for the rest of us. Here is some additional information about such functional members.

25 to 30% of the functional members often contribute from 70 to 80% of the giving of the congregation. For us at the Cathedral in Dallas, it was 80% when I arrived. The same percentages hold up too for volunteers or members of small groups. Often it is the percentage of those who participate in adult education. The only exceptions that I’ve found to this pattern are in two types of congregations. First are newly planted ones. Second, are those few congregations built primarily on small group fellowships. (Yes, the Episcopal Church has a few of these.) These tend to be Made up of 50% functional members, but this is because new arrivals are often in transition to the normal congregational life of such churches.

What then was I teaching leaders to track? At the front door, they tracked why people entered and how they connected to ministries and other organizations. They began to see to it that new members were introduced to the congregation with ministry leaders paying close attention. They often rotate leaders because long-term lay leaders tend to stabilize their groups and ministries. I suggest tenures of 3 years for current leaders. Many stable or declining churches tend to find that few of their ministries recruit new people until someone leaves their group. Think of choirs, altar guilds, and lay readers as prime examples of such stable groups. Sadly, some congregations only have one or two ministries that invite new people to join them.

And what did they learn to track at the back door? They paid attention to people’s attendance. They note when a leader leaves a position because it is often natural for them to disengage for a while and they will need to make sure they reconnect. They flag when regular givers cut or end their giving. I have always done this last one. I have the treasurer flag this for me. I never contacted these folks to say “Hey, I saw you cut your support.” I contact them to see if they have a pastoral issue or financial crisis as a family. Sometimes I’ve found a couple having marital problems. I often found families with health issues. Note, I gathered this information because I cared. I have had many clergy push back with “I have never looked at people’s giving.” I point out that I didn’t review the stewardship list of who gave what amount. I had the treasurer alert me to the change because I learned from good pastors that this often alerts us to pastoral issues.

Of course, the back door cannot be completely closed. People move. Some insist on moving on to their great reward like Sun City or other retirement communities. Some grow old and can no longer participate. These need regular visits from members. Congregations that really care for people do such caring acts. Many do not really care enough to do this.

My bottom line is this. Membership is participation. I think this is consistent with the New Testament. I do not think that early church leaders could have possible conceived of “inactive members!” Many congregations today have more inactive members than active ones.

If you want to know more about attracting and connecting with new people, visit the “Invite, Welcome, and Connect” website for excellent information on the three tasks at the front door of a congregation. Mary Parmer and her team do a wonderful job of helping congregations do these tasks well. Have a team review these and decide which ones need to be added to your community.

Remember this, Membership is not attendance it is Participation in the congregation’s fellowship and ministries!

When he announced that he was returning for his second tour and knowing what this was costing him and his family, I asked him why. His response was that the soldiers in Iraq were mostly young men with little life experience and facing terrible situations daily. “I am doing it for them!” he insisted.

During his first tour, he was wounded. He also suffered from PTSD from all he had seen and experienced. Now he spends his time working with other veterans suffering spiritual and moral PTSD. This includes a group in Tijuana who are Mexicans who served with our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan many of whom suffer from PTSD issues too. Rather than provide them with treatment, our government deported them. He continues to argue for help for them.

Right now, he is spending time serving a small congregation in Molokai. While there he took a trip to Kalaupapa, the site of the world-famous leper colony where sufferers of Hansen’s Disease who were erroneously believed to be contagious were sent to die. It was an awful place until a young priest named Fr. Damien arrived. He transformed the place. Here is what Robert learned while there and shared with me.

The priest who serves Kalaupapa today was asked what impact Fr. Damien brought to the leper colony that he served for years. His response was the following; “Father Damien brought three things to the peninsula for the patients; one, was a spiritual presence of God for all the people of all spiritual backgrounds. Two, he built Homes to touch the lives of the people who were living in simple shacks built with lumber from shipwrecked vessels. The third impact which touched all the patients struggling with Henson’s disease were coffins.”

When I heard that I was shocked. What value did coffins bring to a people with such an afflicted disease? His response was dignity. The dignity was that before his arrival, those patients were wrapped up in cloth and thrown in shallow graves, where the wild boar and pigs of the island would dig up the shallow graves and eat the bodies.

I was further shocked. My first question was why did they carelessly toss out the bodies? The response was because they didn’t care enough to care for the bodies. Only the living had some value. When Father Damien provided coffins, he inferred that the bodies of the patients were worthy of dignity, and that gave value to the living.

Then Robert added this. “I felt it was equivalent to the way we honor the soldiers, sailors, airman, and Marines, who were killed in battle. By honoring those who died, we placed value and dignity upon those who are living. What a gift Father Damien brought to the people he served. I believe that one of the greatest ways we can evangelize and share the good news of Jesus. It is to figure out how to provide dignity to those around us who we would like to see the as members of the family of Jesus Christ.”

I was struck by Robert’s insight. So much of evangelism among American Christians is trying to “save” people from hell without realizing how many already live there, and to make it harder, they often are not treated with dignity by many in their communities, including the Churches there, and even the government. Think about the discussion going on now about the homeless in Los Angeles and other places. Sure, many are drug addicted and mentally ill. Is that the new leprosy of our age? What would dignity mean to them?

I think that is what Robert gives to his fellow veterans and especially those our country has abandoned.

The name Protestant became problematic for several reasons. First posturing ourselves today as midway between Catholic and Protestant makes little sense given the variety of denominations in the US. Second, I know of almost no Episcopal Cleric who identifies with the word Protestant. Most clergy persons just use Episcopal. That is why about 4 decades ago the name was officially changed to The Episcopal Church often shortened to TEC. I would point out that today this name has little descriptiveness to non-Episcopalians. In addition, bishops hardly have the power today that they had back in our history.

We can’t and won’t use the common name used worldwide which is Anglican. This is not for the original issue at the founding of the republic. Today it would confuse us with worldwide Anglicans who are much more conservative than we. It would be further confusing because of the emerging Anglican Church of North America. So, we need a descriptive name that clarifies our identity and those who we most want to evangelize or at least attract. Here is what I propose.

The Progressive Episcopal Church

First note that it contains at least a historical continuity and it identifies our polity. We still have bishops; in fact, over 100 in our House of Bishops. Today with our decline, we have more bishops proportionately to our membership than ever before thanks to our decline of the past two decades. Soon we could have one bishop for every 1000 members. They may not have the historical power they once had, but they dress well.

Second, and more importantly, “Progressive” clearly identifies us theologically, culturally, and politically in this time in the United States. It marks our decision to be the church of choice to those in America who are committed to social justice, diversity, and equity. This has, of course, an important brand name. It also identifies our desire to be the church to those who identify as Progressives. It also states clearly that we are part of The Resistance. Since most people who identify as Progressives are not church members, it gives us tremendous potential for growth. I remember Bishop Charleton’s famous statement that consenting to Gene Robinson election to be our first openly gay bishop in a same sex relationship would open our Church to hundreds of thousands of new members. That did not happen, but over the years it has become self-selective to those for whom gender identity is important. We just need a better brand!

I hope General Convention will consider this at their next meeting although as a retired priest, I have no voice in this matter. It will give us a stronger brand, a new name, a way of differentiating ourselves for all those other Christians even Anglicans. You know who I mean! And it will open our doors to millions of new people who agree with our positions and who we agree with their positions. Lastly, since we have no other strategy for reversing our decline, what have we got to lose? I would add that one of our famous past Anglican Bishops, J. Swift, would agree with my proposal.

Any Deputy to General Convention can suggest this name change. Any takers? 😊

The creators of the Grid used a simple concept to break down our preferred style of leadership. They started with two preferences of leaders. The first is whether we prefer a less directional or more directional approach when leading. They made this into a horizontal line from Less directional to More directional. Then they created a vertical line representing our preference for emotional connectedness with the people we are leading. This goes from more to More Emotionally Connected to Less Connected. Here is the full Grid.

On the left side top Quadrant S3 is less directive and more emotionally connected. I mention this quatrant first because this is where most Episcopal Clergy I have tested score highest. I call this the Participatory Leader. Think of working with an engaged team of leaders. The left lower quadrant S4 less directive and less emotionally connect I call the Delegative Leader. This is particularly helpful for the Rector/Pastor of a larger congregation as I discovered when I became the rector of a larger urban congregation.

The right hand quadrants top S2 represents a more coaching/teaching type of leader. I have found this the second most preferred style among clergy. While the right had lower S1 represents a more directive leader. Church planters often fall in this quadrant. I have found this rare among clergy.

I will come back to the bottom M1 – M4 scale. Note also that those who created this edition of the Grid show their bias toward the top by the pejorative terms they use for S4 and S1.

So, how do we use the Grid? Many of you may just wish to look at the Grid and this information. Some of you may wish to go further. You can take a questionnaire and score it to find our preference. You can find this on the internet just google The Situational Leadership Grid. I found three. Or you can email me. I have information on this at the end of the article. I will send it to you. Once you have taken it, I would really like to see how you scored and can send you some additional information. Just email me. For now, read on.

When I first took this, I scored highest S3 and next on S2. That told me that in working with groups, the most important dynamic for me was emotional involvement. These were my most natural responses as a leader. When I later became a rector of a larger parish, I had to learn to be a S4 delegator. Note: you can learn those skills if you want them. There are effective and ineffective ways to lead in all the quadrants.

My initial score predicted that I would enjoy working with vestries (the Episcopal Board of a congregation) helping them to understand their work and then reaping the reward of participating with them in a leadership team. Later I began teaching vestries in conferences how to do this. It was one of my favorite ministries.

Once you determine your score, you will discover which style you prefer and the one you least like. For example, a leader who scores highest in S3 will predictably dislike acting as an S1 leader. It makes sense. You do not like “telling people what to do” while remaining less emotionally connected. The opposite quadrant is the hardest to adapt to, but the two adjacent, for me S2 and S4, share some commonalities.

What makes this grid dynamic is the M scale at the bottom. What does it represent? It represents the maturity level and experience of a group. So, M1 represents a newly formed group with members unfamiliar with their tasks and little relationships. The M4 level represents a group with high familiarity with the task and good relationships of longer standing. Think here of a building committee that to be successful needs to be on the M4 scale.

But more importantly, the M scale introduces this important element which is the “Situational” part by asking a couple of simple questions like

How long has this group been together?

What is the level of their experience with the task?

How are their inter-group dynamic?

By ranking a group’s M scale, you discover the group’s level AND WHAT THEY NEED FROM YOU as a leader. So, determine their level of maturity. Draw a line vertically up from where you rank the group on the M scale till you meet the bell-curve and you find what they need from you rather than what you just prefer to do.

Remember, if you cannot find a questionnaire on the internet, you can email me at deankevinmartin@gmail.com

Finish a questionnaire online or from me and email me your score at the same address and I will send you some applications for you to consider.

If you have questions about the Grid, you can also email me or reply to this article.

I have struggled hard to understand this decline. As a result, I have even written articles on this from a historical perspective, from a sociological perspective, from a demographic perspective, and most importantly, from a theological perspective.

As one of the initial eight members of the 2020 Taskforce of the Episcopal Church whose work was to help set a goal of doubling our size from 2000 to 2020, I tried to put forward several curative actions and reforms to offset this decline based on my experience as a staff member of the fastest growing Diocese in TEC. Our report that, Lyle Schaller the Dean of congregational development, called “the most significant action by a mainline denomination in 20 years, was never acted on. In 2020, TEC declined to 1/3 its size in 2002.

But on the deepest level, I must confess that I really do not understand this decline although analytically I have tried. The reason I say this is because on a personal level, I have never served a declining parish or ministry. Let me share a summary of my history.

The first church I served out of seminary as a curate grew

The three parishes that I served as a rector all grew

The Cathedral that I served as a dean turned around decline and grew

The para-church organizations I helped found all grew; one exponentially

The diocese I served for 9 years grew and for 5 years was TEC’s fastest growing

As the rector of a church in Seattle with a weekly evangelistic service, I think that I can claim that I am among a small number of Episcopal clergy who have led hundreds of people to Christ and his Church. I have also helped start more new congregations than any individual alive today. Now let me be clear. I am not saying this was simply me, since I have always functioned among a team of leaders and I was taught by a wonderful group of mentors. I am simply confessing that I have spent my life consistently counter-cultural to the church I have served. As a counter-cultural person what do I know and believe that has allowed me to lead in such a different direction?

Before I present this, I want to make clear that by growth I do not only mean numbers, I mean leading members, churches, and ministries in deeper discipleship and ministry to others. Here is what I think formed me into such a counter-cultural leader.

First, as a person from an un-churched family who was drawn to the Episcopal / Anglican Church, formed and trained by its Prayer Book tradition and transcendent worship, I have never been satisfied with being a chaplain to contented church members who seem so unaware of the condition and needs of the unchurched. I’ve always been leery of people who are quick to tell me that they are life-long Episcopalians or especially life-long members of their parish. It has always sounded like a claim to status. Sadly, often it is.

Second and conversely, I have always believed that the lost are of greater value to God than those who are already in the sheepfold and before you react, I remind you of Jesus’ parable on exactly this topic and his description of the joy in haven for the finding of such lost ones. I have noted over the years that those who plant new congregations that grow often share this belief.

Third, I have always found that vibrant and engaging Anglican worship done with effective preaching and our great music has a place in our society and attracts others. Members of such churches are keen to share this with family, friends, and co-workers. “Naturally,” as one of my mentors would say.

Fourth, I believe that the greatest sin in Episcopal preaching is the absence of the emotional presence of the preacher. I’ve found that our seminary and cultural expectation is that demonstrating our intelligence is held higher than preaching passionately and compellingly the gospel of Jesus Christ. Most Episcopal clergy I hear preach are preaching to their seminary professors.

Fifth, as a post-seminary convert to Christ like Wesley, I know that people can have a PhD in theology, or scripture, or church history and know not Christ. While I embrace Anglicans’ understanding of a faith that is compatible to all truth, reason and science, I know that this needs to be expressed in the context of a local community of loving, passionate disciples, not mere comfortable church members. Hence my role as a leader is to model this to those I serve. “Modeling is not a way to lead others; it is the only way to lead others.” These are the words of one of my mentors.

Along with the above, as a leader, I have learned:

a. To have an abiding dissatisfaction with the status quo.

b. That modeling isn’t a way to teach; it is the only way to teach especially when it comes to evangelism. I learned to lead others to Christ by learning from those who could do this.

c. That you cannot lead from the middle of a crowd, a congregation, clergy gathering, or a diocese, or by re-stating conventional wisdom. “All we need to do is learn to love one another” is not a truth, it is a cliché that describes the human predicament. If we could simply learn it, we do not need a savior. Look at the Episcopal Church today. How is that cliché working for us?

d. That our system rewards, smart, kind, well-meaning pastors, and marginalizes creative and innovative leaders. We have many such leaders, but we live on the margins of our declining status quo.

e. Hence like elsewhere, creativity and innovation are found in the margins of institutions and not among those who most benefit from the present status quo of organization life.

If you are an ordained or lay leader in the Episcopal Church or other mainline churches, take my admonition to learn how to become a counter-cultural leader in our declining communities. You may not be recognized or rewarded by our hierarchy, you may be marginalized by your bishop or fellow clergy, but you will be an agent of change and a blessing to your local community, those you lead to Christ, and to the wider Church in the age in which we live.

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Meanwhile, let me give you this preview. I plan to write about my favorite leadership assessment tool and how to use it to become a more effective leader. Alone with the articles, I am going to offer a questionnaire to you and then a way to follow up with the application for your setting directly with me.

So, watch this space. Prayers are welcome.

When I worked with Bishop Claude Payne of the Diocese of Texas as the staff person most directly involved in clergy training, he asked me to visit one of our clergy persons and share some important information about the decline of his parish and his role as a leader. I agreed and set up a meeting. The day after the meeting, the bishop dropped by my office and asked me how it went. It was not the conversation that I wanted to have. Why?

It had to do with age, and you need to know that Bishop Payne was elected at age 62. Next, the Rector was 58 and served most of his ministry in the Diocese of Texas. He also had been at that parish for several years. The visit was cordial and we had a straightforward conversation about the Parish, its decline, and the Rector’s role. I felt that while there was some resistance to my suggestions that he was trying to listen and not be too defensive. While I was driving home, I thought about the interaction and felt that it went about as good as I could have expected. I did not feel good about whether it would make a difference. Now I faced my boss and was reluctant to say why. When the bishop pressed me about why I felt negative about the outcome, I responded something like this.

Bishop, when I was Rector of a parish and in my mid-forties, I learned a valuable lesson. I was trying to change the attitudes of several older members who did not like some of the changes that I had made. Then I made this discovery. My ministry went a lot better when I abandoned hope that my call was to change the values and habits of members who were over 55 years of age. The bishop frowned but continue to listen. I added, I came to realize that these older members had a right to their positions. They had earned them by age and experience. Second, change is hard. Third, they also had patterns and habits that worked for them in the past. I found that I had a much better chance of influencing those in the parish who were younger than me.

I added that I had learned as his staff member that the chance of me changing the habits of a clergy person older than 55 was very small because of their age and tenure. Their habits have become so ingrained that no matter what I suggested, it would predictably fail. Even if they are interested in what I have to say, applying it would be very hard. They would not be able to overcome their entrenched behavior reinforced by their habits. The best I can do is find an area where they were concerned and make a few practical suggestions that they might want to try. The frown got deeper.

I then said something like this. Bishop somewhere along the line, you developed a different habit, one that has made you an excellent leader. You decided to become a lifelong learner. You made reflecting on your work a priority. Then you have focused on new behaviors. This is an ongoing part of who you are. It is one of the reasons working with you has been so rewarding. However, many clergy who have served for years have so habitualized their behavior that they have almost no insight into how they work. They just repeat what they found worked in the past. In addition, they have made little attempt to become the kind of lifelong learner that would make such changes possible.

The bishop sat thinking and finally said that, knowing who we were talking about, he had to agree. Then he asked what I thought we should do about the parish’s decline. That, I said, is another question and I made a few practical suggestions that were not dependent on the Rector changing.

Notice how I was holding up the relationship between habits and reflection. Habits help us but often they blind us to the need for reflection and change. There have been some very good books published over the last 20 years that deal directly with habits and how powerful they are, and how to build new ones. They underscore that it is hard to change long-established and reinforced ones. Atomic Habits by James Clear is one of these. Clear holds up how small changes in habits can bring about eventually long-term positive effects. Recently, I discovered another excellent book by Wendy Woods titled Good Habits/ Bad Habits that takes a more analytical approach to helping us understand how habits work and how bad habits can be changed by reverse engineering using her insights and research. Rather than have me try to outline these, let me simply recommend that you get a copy of Wendy’s very readable and helpful book. Even at age 79, I am using it to help me make some very important health changes.

I also enjoy the thoughtful books that have been written about the “habits of the heart” that help us form and build character not just skills. One of my favorite Anglican authors is Mark Clavier, who is producing a whole series on how such habits could be a better pathway to forming Christians and parishes instead of looking for a product or quick fix. You can find him on Substack under Well Tempered. I am urging him to turn these articles into a book. When he does, it will become essential reading for all Episcopal and Anglican leaders. Let me conclude by adding a couple of other observations about habits.

What we clergy hopefully learn in spiritual formation along side our formal education are really habits of the heart. Daily prayers, meditation, devotions, along with periodic retreats and important continuing education events are such habits of a pastor’s heart. Once established they become anchors of who we are. However, we seldom apply this to our work life. We do not realize that in the early days of ministry, we start establishing habits that feel comfortable but may not be that efficient or will need to be replaced in the future. By our mid-fifties these can become so fixed that we have little insight into how they steer our day-to-day life.

I learned four decades ago a habit that helped me throughout congregational ministry. Simply said it was Organize my daily activities to focus on similar tasks. For example, I used Monday mornings to research and prepare sermons and adult education offerings. I used Thursdays for meeting with parishioners, doing pre-marital counseling, and giving pastor care or spiritual direction. Tuesdays became my staff and office work. The writer who taught me this had noted that changing tasks hourly to different activities causes us to lose focus and leaves us feeling overworked. That habit made my work and focus so much easier that even in retirement I still use it. For example, today is one of my writing days. Yesterday, I cleaned house. I do not mix the two very different tasks.

Another area where this is important to me because I have taught preaching is the downside of peaching habits. Fred Craddock taught me in books and seminars that there are key forms of oral communication that throughout history have proven to communicate effectively. However, what he went on to point out is that many clergy learn one of these forms and make all sermons and texts conform to it. Having served in the in Texas for many years, I expect most sermons that I listen to from Episcopal graduates of Southwest Seminary to be “Explore, Explain, Apply” sermons. When overused such preaching becomes too predictable. Dare I suggest, boring? One clergy person I worked with always had three points for every sermon. He had learned this classic 19^th century form: introduction, 3 points, conclusion. As Craddock points out, not all texts fix one formula. See his book Preaching for a thorough explanation and application of his insights.

In summary, much of our life and work become habits. This is natural and even necessary. However, becoming entrenched in our habits and unable to change and grow can negatively affect our need to change, especially when there are changes in our circumstances or environment. For example, a move from one size parish to another almost always demands reflection and change. If you want to improve in leading others, managing your parish, or even preaching, learn some new habits and replace some worn out ones.

Remember: James Clear Atomic Habits, Wendy Woods Good Habits/Bad Habits, and Fred Craddock Preaching are tools to help you apply this. But even more importantly, use periodic reflection to become a life-long learner! Your family, your friends, and your parish will thank you!

I have also had the advantage of coaching and observing leaders. As part of my Congregational Development series, I will be focusing on leadership. I want to start with a series of principles drawn off my experience. Let’s call them 12 things everyone should know about leadership.

1. Every adult has a preferred leadership style that is their default one. When we are put into a position of leadership or fall into one, this is how we will start to lead. This is true even if we do not think of ourselves as a leader.

2. Effective leaders have their default style but learn to be flexible because circumstances and organizations change.

3. The proper words to describe leaders and leadership are “Effective” and “Ineffective” not good or bad. Good or bad are our emotive responses to people in authority. It gets confusing because some leaders are also in a position of authority.

4. Not all clergy are comfortable with leadership rolls. I have found that about 10% of clergy function best as an “agent” of their faith community such as a hospital or military chaplain. They simply function better in an organization that provides them with structure.

5. Parish ministry provides little structure beyond Sunday Mornings, and lots of non-structured time. Over time parish clergy structure their time and it becomes habitual. This does not mean that it is effective.

6. I often have found that clergy leaders who complain about long hours do not have good boundaries and have not learned to structure their time well. (Remember that most of us are only effective about 35 to 40 hours a week.) The other hours we complain about are often an ineffectual use of time.)

7. I find that about 80% of clergy have leadership skills and can learn new skills and grow in our effectiveness.

8. There is also about 10% of clergy who are “natural and instinctive leaders” often seen as somewhat charismatic or charmed, but I have found these at times not very trainable.

9. Instinctive leaders act but do not reflect. When things are going well for such leaders, life is good. When they hit a wall or even fail, they have a hard time adjusting and find it often easier to blame their followers (or the system) for this.

10. Instinctive leaders who fail (think St. Peter) often become better leaders once they embrace their failures and learn from them.

11. There are several tools to help leaders learn our preferred style and to do it better. The Meyers Briggs Personality Profile, DISC Profile, The Situational Leadership Grid are helpful and are readily available on the internet. I recommend them all. (I intend a whole article on these resources.)

12. When a leader’s style and the organization’s needs are in sync, things go well. Go with the flow. Unfortunately, often they are not in sync. Add to this, even relatively small congregations have numerous ministries and groups at different points in their development needing different styles of leadership.

All this adds up to this primary truth. Leadership is a function of groups and organizations. It does not stand alone. If you think you are a leader and no one is following you, you are just taking a walk!

I will be expanding on these principles in further articles, but if you have a specific question about one of these or need further elaboration, feel free to reply to this introduction

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Notes is a new space on Substack for us to share links, short posts, quotes, photos, and more. I plan to use it for things that don’t fit in the newsletter, like work-in-progress or quick questions.

Go to Notes

How to join

Head to substack.com/notes or find the “Notes” tab in the Substack app. As a subscriber to Kevin E Martin, you’ll automatically see my notes. Feel free to like, reply, or share them around!

You can also share notes of your own. I hope this becomes a space where every reader of Kevin E Martin can share thoughts, ideas, and interesting quotes from the things we're reading on Substack and beyond.

Why Substack Notes

Fellow writers and readers are spending time in Notes for a variety of reasons.

Ted Gioia sees Notes as a forum for dialogue.

The idea behind Notes is simple. Millions of people now participate in Substack as writers and readers—but much of this is built on long articles and essays. We now have a forum for dialoguing and sharing shorter posts.

Chris Ryan is drawn to Substack as an alternative for legacy social media.

One of my main reasons for joining Substack was to wean myself off exploitative social media platforms. I’m hoping this is going to help move us along on that journey!

Sherman Alexie wants to create a kind and creative new space in Notes.

I’m going to focus on being positive, with my own thoughts and photos and by linking to songs, stories, poems from around the web and from other Substacks.

If you encounter any issues, you can always refer to the Notes FAQ for assistance. Looking forward to seeing you there!

Go to Notes

Do I advocate that you use this? Yes, if you wish to use our work. However, if you have the time and energy to produce your own work, that is fine too. Just remember the underlying premise. Do not just aim for membership, aim for formation. It is the future of Christianity in North America.

Note, for those of you who might be interested, a couple of colleagues and I are working on making the Cathedral Core Curriculum available in PDF. It will have both a user’s guidebook and a leader’s manual. We recognize that smaller congregations cannot produce your own courses. I will announce when these become available.

1. Christian Believing: This we based on the Baptismal Covenant in the Prayer Book. It was an introduction to Christian identity and basic creedal doctrine.

2. Anglican Spirituality which of course is Prayer Book Spirituality, so, we would teach people how use the Prayer Book for private and public worship. (We gave each participant a pew edition that they could write in and use.)

3. How to Read the Scriptures and Understand Them. This was a basic introductory class in the Old and New Testaments with suggestions on how to fully engage them.

4. Your Place in the Body of Christ: Taught by our deacons, participants took a spiritual gifts inventory and were introduced to ministries inside and outside the Cathedral. (It also presented the stewardship of time and talents.)

We designed these four classes to be 6-to-8-week sessions. In a last moment before we offered these publicly, our Canon Theologian, Natalie Van Kirk, and I realized that this would be a great place for newcomers to connect to current members. We made a critical decision. We asked all adult members to sign up for these over the next two years. We realized that this would be an excellent way also to create a common understanding of the faith and provide a path for formation for all our members. In two years, half of our members, even long-term Episcopalians, attended them. It revolutionized our life together.

It then led us to create a The Cathedral Way of Life which was a written covenantal community commitment to ongoing daily prayers, devotions, and study which our members old and new signed. Almost all participants in The Cathedral Core Curriculum as well as several other members signed on. Never have I seen a congregation with such grounding in formation and a commitment to a common way of life.

Over those first two years, I taught the Christian Believing Class twice and the class on the Scriptures once. The second time in the Christian Believing Class we not only had new people again, but Hispanic members from our Spanish service came. It was one of the most exciting and meaningful experiences that I had in 42 years of ordained ministry. Then I retired. The covenantal commitments continued, but the Adult Education soon returned to topical subjects and studies of various books of the Bible. One of my few regrets in those 42 years was retiring before doing this work long enough to build it into the very DNA of the Cathedral.

The discovery of making the “Connect” work at the front door by connecting not just with the congregation, but with the congregation’s historic Faith and Spiritual tradition. I have been advocating the importance of this over my years of retirement. I know of a few congregations that have done this and the response is always the same. “Why didn’t we think of this before.” Let me tell you why I think we did not think of this before.

We are Christians living in a post-Christian era who still think membership is important. The older I get, the more I see that the future of Christianity and of Churches in North America needs to be rooted in formation and not focused on membership. Not only are we in the former mainline churches stuck with the wrong model, I note that even our evangelical brothers and sisters have fallen into the membership paradigm. Let me say this clearly. Membership is a Christendom creation. Formation (or Discipleship) is a scriptural model and an early Church missional necessity. I also see, as an Anglican and member of a worldwide community, how those Churches born in countries where no history of Christendom existed make formation the key to their growth. I think that churches in North America are holding on to the Christendom model, and this is one of the main reasons for our decline today.

The answer to that decline is not better marketing, but a radical reimaging of what the Christian Faith is. It is a way of life lived in a community of love that is presenting Jesus’ invitation to “follow me.” Connecting people to such a community may not produce great numbers or mega-churches, but it will offer a way of life that many will choose to follow. Why not invite, welcome, and connect people to a way of life rather than declining and dying organizations?

There is an excellent resource available to all Episcopal congregations. It is on the internet and is www.InviteWelcomeConnect. Mary Palmer is the terrific person who put this ministry together. When I consult with congregations, I recommend a working group go to this website and look at some of the best practices. Then they can add new ones to the three tasks at their front door. You can subscribe to this service but may find your diocese is already a member.

Let me start with a little history on this ministry that originated in the Diocese of Texas. In my early days as Canon for Mission and Congregational Develop in the Diocese, I connected with Charles Fulton of the Church Building Foundation. He provided great conferences for congregational leaders and especially those who did this for dioceses. By the late 1990s, we had 38 such officers paid and volunteers who Charles had connected; no wonder TEC was growing. After all, you can’t grow dioceses without growing your congregations.

The first conference I attended was in Jacksonville and they had several great presenters. There was one presentation by a consultant whose name I have now forgotten, but whose presentation was outstanding. I have tried to find her name because sadly she died of cancer a year later.

She stood before us and drew on a whiteboard three concentric circles like the rings at the Olympics. Then she spoke, “There are three tasks at the front door of every congregation and growing churches attend to these constantly.” Then she added one of the following words in each overlapping circle.

Invite – Welcome - Assimilate

She then outlined these three tasks. I was so impressed that I made this the subject of our yearly presentation at our annual training for clergy of different sizes of congregations. These sizes are

Family, Pastoral, Program, and Resource

These will be a subject of a future articles, but I wanted to underscore how important these gatherings of different sized congregations were to the health and vitality of the diocese. We added to these a presentation at each one by a congregation with outstanding ministry in key areas like stewardship or outreach. They were an example of peer learning at their best. Later we added one more for churches making the different transition from Pastoral to Program. This was the source for my book The Myth of the 200 Barrier that is still selling 25 years later just not to Episcopal Congregations. It is available on Amazon. Please forgive me for the plug.

Patrick Gahan who was rector of St. Stephans Baumont took his notes and delivered them to his parish administrator. Her name was Mary Palmer. I do not want in any way to diminish Mary’s contribution in building the ministry. Nor do I want credit. I do this to acknowledge the contribution of that consultant, and the work Charles did with the Building Fund. Mary was also wise enough to change the third category to “Connect” rather than “Assimilate.” The latter word was natural years ago, but after Star Trek introduced the Borg and their motto, “Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated” the word became negative. “Connect” is kinder and more appropriate for Christian churches.

One of the most important insights the consultant shared at the end of her presentation was this advice. “Don’t start with inviting first because if you are not ready to welcome people and assimilate them, your front door ministry will suffer.” She underscored this important point.

“Start with the Connect circle first and work back to Welcoming then Inviting.”

That remains my strongest advice to congregations who begin to apply this information. Many Episcopal congregations have no method for connecting new members other than to expect them to start attending. Note that connecting new people to confirmation instruction connects to our identity as Episcopalians/Anglicans, but it does not intentionally connect to the local congregation in ministry and fellowship. Connecting can include introduction to the local church, its history, its ministries, and where newcomers can give time and talents to the work. Some churches do this well. And it can also lead people toward deeper formation as disciples. But this doesn’t just happen. It happens intentionally. Many larger congregations build this right into their new member ministries. Most Pastoral and Family sized churches just expect it to happen over time; this is seldom effective.

In my next post, I am going to describe how we integrated this information into our adult education program and made it a formation ministry. I will also show the insight we gained when we decided to make the connect task into a cohesive way of building a common understanding of faith formation for every member.

In summary, have a working group review the best practices of the three tasks at Mary’s website. Next, upgrade your ministry in each area. Have staff or volunteers create a connect program that intentionally builds relationships and involvement of potential and new members. Note the critical point in planning that every organization and congregation should practice. Start with the end in Mind! Connection is the end. Attendance is not the end. Neither is membership in your parish, however in my next post, I will share how we connected all this to the formation of current and new members and made connecting a part of Christian formation.

The first was simply The Democratic Form. They had their diocese vote on issues and policies. This is, of course, the method used by our General Convention. It seems natural to Americans. I also noted it was becoming the most used one. One bishop wrote me to say; he used the democratic form when he didn’t care about the outcome.

That Second model is more top-down, The Directive Form. This I think is the appropriate term though some call it dictatorial. This means that bishops let their members know what they prefer and strongly suggest they follow it. Bishops are not the only leaders in America that follow this method. We see it in many for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. And there are times when such leadership is appropriate. Here are the problems with both.

Top-down leadership often makes members complacent, passive, and sometimes passive resistant or aggressive. Some members may not agree but remain silent for the sake of getting along. I remember when I was a priest in Connecticut back in the early 1970’s the first-time women’s ordination came before the Diocesan Convention, the then bishop smiled and said, “We don’t want to vote on this issue do we?” His dislike of the idea was well known. Lots of voices yelled out no! He hit the gavel and moved on.

Democratic leadership forgets that democracy may be a good form of government for a country but voting divides people and the more emotional an issue, the stronger the division. This is what happened to TEC in 2003. TEC voted on a highly emotional issue that passed (consent in the election as a bishop to Gene Robinson, a gay man in a same sex marriage.) It passed but with devasting consequences for us. Obviously, this is what we are living with as a country right now, high polarization by voting on very divisive social and political issue.

A check on this for TEC was that canonical issues took a 2/3rds vote and constitutional changes took a 3/4rds vote. The founders of TEC followed the Constitution of the new nation on this. I think they were wise. But, as a leader of the progressive side of this issue explained to me, “We realized that a vote for consent only required a 51% passage, so we made that our strategy.” Alas, sometimes when you vote everyone loses.

You may now be thinking, what other choices do we have? As Gallagher points out, as I did many years ago, there is a very long-standing Christian alternative. It comes from St. Benedict. Benedict created the rules for his monastic order. Remember that monks (nuns too) are all equal brothers or sisters. The Abbott is elected by them, but he or she remains one of them. If you have ever been to an English Cathedral, you may have visited the “Chapter Room” where the monks met for community life and business. Prior to the Reformation, English Cathedrals were mostly maintained by orders. Dramatically, the Chapter Room is in the round with seating against the wall. The Abbott sits in the circle. In what I call The Abbott or Consensual Style. The Abbott brings before the community any issues or challenges and the brothers then openly discuss this and share their opinions. At the end of this process, the Abbott summaries the discussion. If there is strong agreement, the Abott notes this and it becomes policy. If not, this process continues until the monks over time reach a strong consensus. Why? It’s simple. How do you maintain daily close contact in a divided community. This means that Benedict expected two things.

First, he expected that this process would bring about the best decision for a community verses an organization. It almost always did. An interesting Protestant example is from John Wesley who made this the style of leadership for his “Deeper Life” small groups. In the formation of what became the Methodist Church, the deeper life folks were the local leaders of their new forming communities made up of bible study groups.

Second, Bendict and Wesley seemed to instinctively understand something I learned by working for Bishop Claude Payne. He often reminded me that “People need time to talk themselves into a good decision.” He gave the local people time. This was unlike his predecessor who was famous for showing up and demanding local leaders decide by voting.

I found that local leaders wanted to hear a bishop’s ideas and opinions on what to do and they would listen. After discussion, sometimes hot and heavy, they would say “what do you want us to do now? Thanks to Bishop Payne, my answer was always, “That is up to you. I am going to get in my car and go home. You will need to discuss this among yourselves without a diocesan person sitting here.” And often this surprised them due to the previous bishop’s more directive and sometimes confrontational style. Those local communities always came back to our suggestions, sometimes modifying them to better suit their situation.

What was more important, we knew that whatever decision the local leadership made, especially in consensus, was the right one for them. I often joke that there is no decision or action so well-conceived by diocesan leadership that the local people can’t manage to screw up or sabotage! People often need time to make the right decision! This also means they take ownership for it.

When I was acting Dean at the Cathedral in Dallas, I rediscovered this principle and learned a way to apply it to our community. The previous Dean to get more time between services moved the later Sunday morning service to 11am. I knew from my congregation development work that this was a bad decision, especially for families with young children. An Episcopal Service with music and a trained choir will be at least 1hour and 15 minutes long and that is if the preacher keeps to 12 minutes. I don’t do sermonettes, so I needed to make a change but especially for the younger families.

By then, I was sending out a weekly Dean’s Newsletter by email to all our members. Mostly it was announcements and minor business. Then I started writing about a change in the service back to 10:30. I laid out the issues that this involved. At the end of each email, I requested feedback. The strongest resistance came from our half dozen college students. They liked sleeping in.

I would repeat the feedback as I continued the emails. Finally, I said that we would be moving back to 10:30 primarily to support our families with children. I added this, “In 6 months, we will revisit this topic, and everyone will get to evaluate it.” This is important. No matter how good a decision seems, they often have unintended consequences, and a revisit allows for corrections.

Gallagher has some great advice about using this more consensual style in a congregation. He suggests regular open meetings as the method to use. I found the email method helpful because quite frankly less connected members often won’t come to a meeting.

Personally, I look at church meetings, especially diocesan and national ones, like air travel. “Hours of boredom interspersed with moments of terror.” The terror is often the vote. Consensual decision-making takes patience and time, but as Benedict knew, the benefits (no pun intended) are worth it for the church.

The next time your community needs to make a decision, try the consensual model. I believe it is more appropriate to Jesus’ kingdom model than the other two.

It was during one of my early Vestry Meetings. We had about 20 people present, including 12 vestry members, several staff, and a few interested visitors. We had done the initial business of minutes and budget, and then on the printed agenda I had “Item One: The Dean’s question.” I then asked it.

“I want you to think about your present experience at the main service of the Cathedral. This includes entering the service starting with the prelude followed by the procession, then comes the readings, the sermon, the prayers, communion, the recessional hymn and the dismissal including your exit.”

Now on a scale of 1 to 10, please rate a normal service. Here is what the ratings mean.

1 means “I don’t even know why I attend here any longer.

5 means “It’s OK, or it’s what I expect it to be.”

10 means “I can’t really put this in words (you begin to choke up) this is my spiritual home and family.

I gave them time to think about this. A few questions of clarification were asked and then I started to my right and went around the room. Most rated it at 4 to 5. One person gave an interesting answer that got lots of nods.

She said, “I love the Cathedral and its history, I want to give it a 6. Then she paused and added, “But in recent years, honestly, it’s a 4.”

I paused again and finally a member of the vestry asked me, “Dean Kevin, what do you think this means?”

Here is how I responded. When leaders rate the church below 5, they are not good at getting visitors to return. When the answer is 7 or above, the congregation expects and finds that visitors return and the church is growing. The higher the number leaders give, the higher the growth rate is. I paused again.

The next person asked me, can you tell us what we need to do to raise this? I responded, “The Leaders of the parish and especially those who greet people and those who lead worship must constantly raise the spiritual and community level of the congregation. That is what leadership means.”

I paused and another person asked, “How do we do that?” I responded with, “What do you think this would take?” Soon the flood gates opened! Here are some of the responses from that night. I have heard comments like these in many congregations that I have worked with.

Sing hymns we know!

I know we are Episcopalians, but can we be friendlier to people?

Could our clergy stop just reading their sermons and speak to us.

I admit that I have never said hello to a visitor. I thought it would be impolite to do so.

The choir sings all the service music, and we are discouraged from joining in. The choir director says we are disruptive to the choir’s work.

Isn’t it called The Celebration of the Eucharist? It doesn’t feel that way most of the time.

Why don’t we do something for the children? My daughter’s Methodist Church has a children’s choir often a children’s sermon.

Do we have to have all those announcements read to us. They are in the bulletin.

This was interesting feedback, but more importantly, it marked the beginning of a new way of being a Vestry, one of open dialog and feedback. I was also impressed that the Vestry had a strong desire to take up the challenge. It is simple. A rating of 4 or under doesn’t even feel good to long-term members no matter their loyalty.

Later that week, I had my first full staff meeting. After the opening prayers, I said that I wanted to begin by sharing something important. I mentioned that some knew that I was recently on the staff of a more evangelical parish of the diocese and that they are afraid that I will be making changes in that direction. I will be making changes I assured them and told the staff members who were not at the Vestry meeting about the tone and feedback there.

Then I added this. I do not intend to change the tradition and worship of the Cathedral to be like that other parish. I told them about my history in the Episcopal Church. I joined the Episcopal Church as a teen in this diocese. I shared with them that our mission church met in rented buildings in the beginning and that the first real Episcopal Church Building I attended was the Cathedral. I was deeply moved by its beauty and architecture. The Cathedral has some of the oldest stained-glass windows west of the Mississippi. Then I added this. But if we are going to be an example to the Diocese of what good Anglo-Catholic worship is, as our bishop has request of us, then hear me out. From now on, I want all our worship leaders to act like you really believe what you are saying and doing. I want all the chatter behind the altar rail about trivial things to stop. (They knew what I meant.) I want you to read and lead these great prayers with the heartful meaning they carry and is our Prayer Book heritage. Most of all, I want you to hear one of our Vestry members question and statement, “Isn’t it called The Celebration of the Eucharist? It doesn’t feel that way most of the time.” Help me raise the quality of our worship and its spiritual vitality.

There was a long pause. Folks, especially our clergy, stared at the floor. Then George Luck our senior retired and beloved priest and former acting Dean spoke up. “Dean may I say something?” I nodded and he added. “Thank you! Thank you for reminding us of who we are and why we are here. Somehow, and I have become part of this, we have lost our direction, and I thank you for reminding us.” At that moment, things changed. It took a while but a year later when I asked the rating question again, the consensus was that we were now regularly a 6 and at moments even an 8 and people gave examples of this. This didn’t happen by accident. It was intentional.

And we had begun to grow. One big factor was our greeting of visitors. I told people regularly as we were about to pass the peace, “If you turn to pass the peace and you do not know the person next to you, after you pass it, greet and tell them who you are. Don’t ask who they are or if they are a member, they will tell you who they are and possibly why they are here. Then just welcome them. We added families joining me at the back of the Church after the service and when I met a visitor, I would turn and introduce them, and they would invite them to join the coffee hour and take them there. It was a good walk to get there and usually visitors just went home. It wasn’t long before visitors were constantly saying that we were a wonderful welcoming church. Several even added, “We weren’t expecting that in an Episcopal Church.”

Now we were the Cathedral, and we took our Ministry of modeling very seriously. We were blessed that we had Archdeacon, Diana Luck, and an associate Deacon, Nancy Powers, who made sure we were prepared for every service. They stepped up our readiness. Your congregation may have a different way of doing liturgy. And some of you reading this may not even be Episcopalians, but the question of raising your spiritual and community temperature is still relevant. We are after all “Resurrection People!” Why don’t we act like it?

The next Sunday after that I arrived early, the sexton who was Hispanic greeted me at the door complaining that the Hispanic members had left the Great Hall and kitchen a mess after a “Quinceanera” that went on till midnight. Walking to the vesting area, our head verger complained about something that had not been done by our altar guild. Just before the early service started, one of my staff members complained about a staff matter. That afternoon, I wrote an email to all our leaders and told them how negative the day was for me. Then I told them this.

It is the duty and responsibility of our leaders at the Cathedral to set a positive and joyful tone every Sunday. That means it is our work to lead. I am happy to hear your concerns and complaints on Monday. But that is not what Sunday is about. I asked them to join me in this important work. From that Sunday onward, I never had to repeat my request. The whole emotional tone of the Cathedral changed. How did the membership know to do this? They followed their leaders’ example.

How do we raise the spiritual and communal temperature of our local church? Note these important truths:

It is the work of leaders to lead. The only way to lead is by example.

People know what to do if you give them permission to give you feedback.

If you accept mediocrity, you are accepting decline and death.

If you worship with joy and truly love others, people will want to be a part of such a community whether you are high or low church, use Rite I or Eucharistic Prayer B, or if you are Baptists or Pentecostals.

But especially for TEC and other mainline congregations, people either have no expectations of us, or they expect to be bored and ignored. Often your congregation fulfills these latter expectations.

Now apply this to your own community of faith. How can you raise the spiritual and communal life of your congregation. My experience is the lower the rating the more urgent the need to change what you are doing. My experience is also that the greatest resistance to change is complacency and accepting the status quo as normative.

Good leaders always are discontent with the status quo whether you are a clergy person, a lay leader, or the Bishop of the Diocese. If you are comfortable with the status quo, you are not being a leader. This is not to make you anxious. Anxious congregations do dumb things like pinning a visitor tag on people. I always say, “Why not make it a star of David so they will stand out clearly from your members?” Sometimes exaggeration is an effective tool.

Growing a church is not about numbers. It is about creating vibrant and healthy communities of joyful worship and love. Remember? It is in the Bible and it’s Jesus’ words, “Love the Lord you God with all your heart and mind and strength and your neighbor as yourself.” It is about being a 7 and not a 4 congregation. This is your work as a true leader. Anybody can vote for the status quo!

As you will see in my next post, I will be starting with the very important task of leaders of a congregation taking a serious assessment of your vitality and developing strategies to raise the quality of congregational life. I am starting with one about the challenge we faced at St. Matthews Cathedral in Dallas when I became the Acting Dean and then accepted what was for me the improbable calling to be the 18^th Dean of this historic parish.

I want to continue here with what led me to this work on leadership. It started with the failure of my first rectorship. It was both a leadership failure and led to a personal collapse and priestly crisis. I left that parish and then after some serious soul searching, I applied for a position in Clinical Pastoral Education intending to become a supervising CPE chaplain and believing I would never return to a parish again. Two years later, I announced to my four chaplain supervisors that I believed that I was called to return to parish ministry. My primary supervisor said that it is obvious this is exactly who you were called to be and that you now know how to become the leader you must become. What got me there?

When I arrived at Cincinnati’s Bethesda Hospital to begin my internship, I met with the head chaplain. He asked me what I most wanted to learn over the next two years. Here is my answer as I best remember it from 1978.

Two years ago, I was the rector of a struggling parish with a sense of vocation and a happy marriage with my high school sweetheart. I was the father of two boys whom I loved. Then my world fell apart and I want to figure out what the hell happened.

After a pause, he said something like this, “I think you are in the right place to find out, and we are going to do everything we can to help you.” Then he assigned me to be one of two chaplains to the newly created Alcohol Rehabilitation Unit that Bethesda was starting using the Hazelden model. This was a four-week in-patient program. It became a year of insight, personal growth, and while I was not an alcoholic, working with those facing the challenges of recovery, I learned from them the courage to change and to start by looking inward and stop blaming others for my personal failings. It was my prodigal son’s moment and led me to return to my call to leadership and priestly vocation.

The beginning point started with the two-week training of all the Bethesda medical staff. Hazelden wisely made this the condition for starting this work. They knew that Bethesda needed awareness of the illness of addiction and their method of treatment. It was based on the emerging insights of Family System Therapy for recovery. It was ideal for me, and I had the great experience of listening to outstanding leaders in this field. I gained the most from Sharon Wegscheider‑Crusey as she applied these insights. Later, her husband became the first Medical Director of the new Betty Ford Clinic.

Primary for me was coming to terms with how being an only child framed my instincts toward leadership and how my dysfunctional family sabotaged them. It involved coming to terms with much pain and denial and beginning the path of recovery. When I returned with my family in tack to begin my renewed calling at St. Matthew’s in Westerville. Ohio, I immediately began to apply these insights and grew as a leader. This was aided by a new mentor, some coaches, and a wonderful Roman Catholic lay woman who was my spiritual director.

And I abandoned the Episcopal myth that leadership was about how much knowledge we had learned in seminary and would demonstrate to our parishioners. This also meant finding those who were effective church leaders, and those who teach it. They were out there and one, Lyle Schaller, the dean of congregational development, became a guide. I stopped going to conferences held by the Episcopal Church where PhD’s would share their untested ideas and theories. I had learned that few of them ever practiced real leadership anyway. Sensing the void, I began to share what I was learning with my colleagues.

Years later as rector of St. Luke’s in Seattle, I was a regular speaker for Episcopal Renewal Ministries and was elected to their board. The leadership recognized my gifts and called me to be the Director of the newly formed Leadership Training Institute. Why did they start this? Because we learned that much of the Spirit’s work was being undone by ineffective leadership and unwise decision making on the local level.

That meant a radical change for me and my family. I left St. Luke’s which was a Camelot experience and without a guaranteed salary, no way to buy a home, and a completely blank slate for building the LTI. We learned what it means to trust God completely for our provision. We learned that what God orders, God will provide which is, of course, a deeply ingrained truth found the Scriptures.

Over the next five years at the events we offered, my team of leaders would give to over 500 clergy and as many lay leaders from their congregations both the theory and practice of healthy church leadership. Later I became the Canon for Mission and Congregational Development for the Diocese of Texas where my next mentor, Bishop Claude Payne, gave me permission to apply this information into the congregations of one of TEC’s largest diocese. The results over the next 9 years were astounding. This information is the basis of what I will be sharing in these CD posts.

They will include

1. Leadership formation and development

2. Insights on evangelism and growing congregations

3. Starting new congregations and how that leadership differs from ongoing ones

4. What it takes for a diocese to intervene in a dysfunctional congregation successfully

5. What causes congregational conflict and how to address it

6. How to inspire an entire a large diocese with over 150 congregations to lead the whole church in growth for 7 years.

7. And amazingly how to double the stewardship and total income available to our congregations

8. And to apply accountability to one another and our Churches

I thank those of you who follow me, and I invite new readers to join us on this journey. You will hear why churches need healthy and effective leadership and how the wider church can make this happen. Some of you will learn how to become more effective leaders.

Yes, of course, the centrality of Christ, the power of the Spirit, the daily disciplines of prayer and devotional life must undergird the life of leaders as it must undergird all followers of the way of love. So, I will also be talking about how this Apostolic truth also gets applied to leaders and congregations. If there is anything that can reverse the apparent collapse of Christianity in North America, it is not programs and catchy ideas done with worldly marketing. It is Christian Formation and Discipleship.

In Acts we learn that 12 appointed leaders and an early congregation of 120 believers became a spiritual movement and community that transformed our world. What we sometimes forget is that the New Testament and the whole scriptures are the story of how believers became leaders and guides (“influencers” is the modern word) who helped build an alternative community of faith and love to address the lostness, pain and suffering of humanity. This is the most important calling and work God has given us to do. As Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones once observed, this is the first thing that every Christian leader must believe with our whole hearts or our labors are in vain.

First, there are way too many leaders in TEC who are vested in the current status quo. Chief among these, I would point to our Bishops and the Deputies to General Convention. I can’t imagine that any of my main points about changing course would even be considered on a national level. Let me underscore my issue with our current House of Bishops. Too many of them are engaged in administrative and operational details and few have any sense of their Apostolic calling. Too many believe it is their ministry to take sides on our political and cultural divides.

Note, I said few. There are several who do understand their Apostolic calling, and I follow their work with great interest. However, when you look at the number of bishops and dioceses we have today, it is almost the same as in 1990. Today, we have 1/3rd of the membership we had in 1990. TEC will pay for ignoring the burden and cost of this institutional structure and not facing this crisis.

In Ryan Burge’s New Book, The Vanishing Church, he shows the statistics on the mainline church decline. I hope every leader reads it. TEC leads in percentages of loss and the United Methodist leads in numbers. The UMC had 11 million members in 1970. Today they have about 5 million. Their decline has been accentuated in recent years by the same kinds of conflict that decimated TEC. Put simply, in numbers the UMC lost the equivalent of two times TEC membership in 1970.

I was struck by this observation made by Burge, “Imagine an older baby boomer in the UMC who lived through all of this. How discouraging must that be?” I don’t need to imagine it. Born in 46 and ordained in 71, I lived through this in TEC and have seen the church I still love fractured and divided. Do I blame any of the parties for this fracture? Yes, I blame the progressives who passed legislation that they knew would divide the church. I was there and I heard their response to the losers. “If you don’t like it, then just leave.” They also love to say that schism is worse than heresy aimed at shaming those who were leaving when the radical change was being pushed by them. Many of those who lost in the key votes did leave and many were my colleagues and dear friends. There was I assure you nothing Anglican or gracious about the triumphalism of many of the progressive leaders of that era. Why do I remain? It is a long story, but here is the punchline. I am an Anglican first and I am acutely aware that Anglicanism in North American is badly fractured. I continue to pray for our healing.

Now, what does the Old Dean think is the more realistic future for TEC given our current decline? I see two possible scenarios.

1. The status quo of decline continues. Statically for the past two years of 2023 and 2024, we seem to have plateaued. However, as Burge has reported, our plateau is below what it would have been if pre-Covid decline numbers were projected over our current numbers. Our apparent leveling off may be a post Covid recovery. Add to this, Burge’s well-documented fact that 2/3rds of our members are boomers and half of us will be gone in the next 10 years. No doubt, one will be me. That will be our next generational tsunami! It will leave us with less than half the membership we have now. Imagine all those empty pews and closed congregations and you see this future. Ironically, the two things that will not substantially decline are, as I noted, the House of Bishops and General Convention.

2. The alternative scenario is that good leaders of TEC will look at what is happening and act on the two suggestions that I and others have made regarding future members. They will move towards younger generations by actively recruiting ordained leaders 35 years of age or younger. In addition, they will grasp the opportunity we have for Hispanic members and select local and national Hispanic leaders to carry out this work. The current position TEC has taken on the support of immigrants and is a position I agree with. This is consistent with supporting and reaching this demographic. These two actions would have the possibility of maintaining our current size. Let me underscore the urgency in this. Both strategies must start in the next 5 years. In ten years, they will be too late.

In case you do not know, the ACNA’s growth if continued will surpass TEC in about 10 years. They have moved on from the conflict of the past and have recruited many younger leaders, most of whom were not formally Episcopalians. And they have formed and planted many new congregations. They also represent three of the wider movements that make up much of worldwide Anglicanism. These are Traditionalists, Anglo-Catholics, and Evangelicals. Personally, I would like to see Canterbury recognize the ACNA as a legitimate expression of the Communion. Certainly, when they become the larger church, they no doubt will. Many of the African and Asian Provinces already recognize them as such.

In the past, I have gotten pushback from Episcopal leaders that my negative predictions are what I would like to see happen. As I said, I love Anglicanism and I believe we have much to offer to North America especially in this time of both political and cultural crisis. We are a scriptural, historic, creedal, and reasoned faith. I believe this is a form of Christianity that future generations will come to appreciate.

Finally, let me add this personal note. Sharon and I are members of a wonderful local Episcopal congregation. We are loved and supported by the members. Our clergy are faithful priest who proclaim the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Given that we have health issues and are now turning 80, we are thankful to God for this gracious, loving, and growing local church. Here we are fed spiritually by Word and Sacrament just as we have been throughout our lives in TEC. My vocation now is caring for my beloved bride of over 60 years and as God allows me to write about Christian leadership and congregational vitality. I will continue my posts in this direction. Sometimes to my surprise, people listen.