I know I've been quiet lately. I've posted little here, although I've been commenting occasionally here and there. Fact is, I've been getting ready for the General Convention. It starts in days, and I'll be part of it.
Which led to my newest post at the Episcopal Cafe. It has my thoughts about what makes General Convention fun and exciting (and, no, it isn't all the A resolutions). So, go take a look to see what keeps me going.
And check in daily at the Cafe. There will be ongoing news and comments from the Convention frequently, and good stuff from my valued colleagues. If you want to know what's really going on, don't depend on the mainstream media (or their media competitors who pretend they're not "mainstream"). Go to the Cafe.
If you're going to Convention, perhaps I'll see you there. And if you're not, keep up in prayer.
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Thursday, June 07, 2012
Blogging the CPE Experience 2012
Every summer I look around for students in CPE programs who are blogging about their experience. This year I’ve found an interesting collection of writers. I was pleased this year to find some Episcopalians writing about their experience. Take a look at these students and authors.
These are all students in CPE for the Summer. But in addition, I found a blog from a CPE Supervisory Candidate. That means that she’s experience in clinical pastoral education, and is now training to be a clinical pastoral educator. Take a look at
Saturday, June 02, 2012
On Casting Stones: the Draft Proposed Budget
Over at the Episcopal Cafe there have been a number of discussions on the Draft Proposed Budget for the Episcopal Church for the next triennium (2013-2015). We'll be discussing that budget in Indianapolis at the next General Convention soon, and as a Deputy I'll be voting on it.
The Budget goes to the Program, Budget, and Finance Committee of the General Convention. The Budget as it has gone to PB&F this year came out of a new process, one that didn't go smoothly. It sought to really focus on doing at the level of the national church those things that required action at that level (with more things being done more effectively at the diocesan or parish levels of the Church). You can see the Proposed Budget and also some commentary on it here.
Again, there's been a lot of discussion about this at Episcopal Cafe. There's a piece posted today with some reflections on the commentary (more than on the budget itself). Most of the comments on the commentary have seemed to me pretty bitter. This was my contribution to that discussion:
I have mixed feelings about this [Proposed Budget and commentary] myself. However, my concerns gore a number of oxen, if you will. Should the Executive Council have undertaken a different budgeting process in the first place? Perhaps not; but then if we're so intent on doing things differently, a different process for budgeting seems a good place to start.
Should they have started by polling leaders in the Church instead of working with staff? Well, it's one way to prevent staff from getting into "defending turf." It's also a way to reconsider priorities - another step if we really want to do things differently.
Again, should the standards have included a commitment to subsidiarity, to having only those things done at the church-wide level that required church-wide support and consistency? In these days when all the civil rhetoric is "less government," that posture is at least not a surprise. Moreover, if we want our Church's governance to cost less, that seems an important question to raise. (Note here especially that I'm concerned: I'm not one committed to "less government," either in the civil realm or the Church. I'm still not surprised.) And, if we do plan a church-wide budget focused only on those things that require church-wide support, isn't it going to look heavily centered on the staff with church-wide responsibilities? After all, we've trusted everything else to be done by someone else.
I had my concerns about the survey. However, I'm appalled by a paltry 17% response rate - and that's certainly not the fault of the Executive Council or its Executive Committee. I did complete it; but I have to wonder what it says about our folks in leadership that so very few did.
Should the Executive Committee decided to plan expenditures as if dioceses gave only 15%, even as they planned with hope that dioceses would give 19%? Maybe not; but considering the experience at the parish level of pledge shortfalls, not to speak of those dioceses that just flat fail to support church-wide work, one could argue that it's only prudent. There is no doubt that it is more painful; but one could argue that it's really more responsible to take the pain up front, rather than extending it.
Above all else, it seems to me that the Executive Council tried to use a new budgeting process, that intended to focus not only on mission per se, but especially on what was required at the church-wide level, and reflected a broad perspective not only on what mission was called for but on what that church-wide staff was useful for. It was a new process, and well-meaning but sinful people (not unlike me, really) struggled with it, and we can argue it didn't work very well. It may not ever be worth using again. If so, it's our job in General Convention to say so, to make the changes that we can, and then get on with it. But, I can't fault the intent to try a new way, or to ask a broad group of leaders outside the Episcopal Church Center to participate. I can't fault a budget planned on conservative predictions of revenue, even if I find it sad. I can't fault folks who were trying to lead in an effort that it appeared everyone agreed on, and that most of us here agree with: reconfiguring the structures of the Episcopal Church in light of the trends we seem to face for the future. And I can't fault folks for making some honest mistakes - especially when they're honest enough to air dirty linen in public, like the phone pre-meeting of five of the eight members of ECEC (talk about transparency!); and especially when I don't know that I could have done any better.
The Budget goes to the Program, Budget, and Finance Committee of the General Convention. The Budget as it has gone to PB&F this year came out of a new process, one that didn't go smoothly. It sought to really focus on doing at the level of the national church those things that required action at that level (with more things being done more effectively at the diocesan or parish levels of the Church). You can see the Proposed Budget and also some commentary on it here.
Again, there's been a lot of discussion about this at Episcopal Cafe. There's a piece posted today with some reflections on the commentary (more than on the budget itself). Most of the comments on the commentary have seemed to me pretty bitter. This was my contribution to that discussion:
I have mixed feelings about this [Proposed Budget and commentary] myself. However, my concerns gore a number of oxen, if you will. Should the Executive Council have undertaken a different budgeting process in the first place? Perhaps not; but then if we're so intent on doing things differently, a different process for budgeting seems a good place to start.
Should they have started by polling leaders in the Church instead of working with staff? Well, it's one way to prevent staff from getting into "defending turf." It's also a way to reconsider priorities - another step if we really want to do things differently.
Again, should the standards have included a commitment to subsidiarity, to having only those things done at the church-wide level that required church-wide support and consistency? In these days when all the civil rhetoric is "less government," that posture is at least not a surprise. Moreover, if we want our Church's governance to cost less, that seems an important question to raise. (Note here especially that I'm concerned: I'm not one committed to "less government," either in the civil realm or the Church. I'm still not surprised.) And, if we do plan a church-wide budget focused only on those things that require church-wide support, isn't it going to look heavily centered on the staff with church-wide responsibilities? After all, we've trusted everything else to be done by someone else.
I had my concerns about the survey. However, I'm appalled by a paltry 17% response rate - and that's certainly not the fault of the Executive Council or its Executive Committee. I did complete it; but I have to wonder what it says about our folks in leadership that so very few did.
Should the Executive Committee decided to plan expenditures as if dioceses gave only 15%, even as they planned with hope that dioceses would give 19%? Maybe not; but considering the experience at the parish level of pledge shortfalls, not to speak of those dioceses that just flat fail to support church-wide work, one could argue that it's only prudent. There is no doubt that it is more painful; but one could argue that it's really more responsible to take the pain up front, rather than extending it.
Above all else, it seems to me that the Executive Council tried to use a new budgeting process, that intended to focus not only on mission per se, but especially on what was required at the church-wide level, and reflected a broad perspective not only on what mission was called for but on what that church-wide staff was useful for. It was a new process, and well-meaning but sinful people (not unlike me, really) struggled with it, and we can argue it didn't work very well. It may not ever be worth using again. If so, it's our job in General Convention to say so, to make the changes that we can, and then get on with it. But, I can't fault the intent to try a new way, or to ask a broad group of leaders outside the Episcopal Church Center to participate. I can't fault a budget planned on conservative predictions of revenue, even if I find it sad. I can't fault folks who were trying to lead in an effort that it appeared everyone agreed on, and that most of us here agree with: reconfiguring the structures of the Episcopal Church in light of the trends we seem to face for the future. And I can't fault folks for making some honest mistakes - especially when they're honest enough to air dirty linen in public, like the phone pre-meeting of five of the eight members of ECEC (talk about transparency!); and especially when I don't know that I could have done any better.
Monday, May 21, 2012
What Do We Do While We Wait for What's Next? A Sermon for Easter VII
Once again I preached at St. Mary Magdalene Church, and once again the sermon was recorded. You can listen here. It's about discernment; but if nothing else you'll hear about the songs that didn't make sense for this Sunday....
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Part of a Heritage
Preached for A Service of Worship for Graduates of Saint Luke's College of Health Sciences on May 11, 2012.
For the past two years, you have been students in Saint Luke’s College, a part of the Saint Luke’s Health System. Perhaps you’ve been told at some point that the Saint Luke’s Health System is associated with the Episcopal Church. Now, I’m an Episcopal priest, and it won’t surprise you at all that the Episcopal heritage means a lot to me. If you’ll bear with me a bit, I’d like to share some reflections coming from the Episcopal tradition that underlies Saint Luke’s.
Now, some of you will know that in the Episcopal Church we structure our worship according to a calendar. Certainly, we do remember the well-known days and seasons, like Christmas and Ash Wednesday and Lent and Easter. But in our calendar we also remember people, those folks we call Saints or Worthies. We remember them because they demonstrated in their lives the faith that lived within them.
For me as a hospital chaplain it’s been important that in that calendar we remember those who have provided health care. We remember quite a number who have found their ministries in caring for the sick and dying, I thought I might share some of those names with you.
Some you know. For example, we remember Florence Nightingale. You should know her work well, bringing sanitation and light and air into the tragedy of the Crimean War, and then to hospitals at home in England. We remember the Mayo family and the Menninger family. The hospitals they founded have become known world wide for care their of body and mind. And of course we remember the Beloved Physician, Luke.
Some you may not know. We remember, for example, the Martyrs of Memphis. In the 1870’s and ‘80’s Memphis, Tennessee, was so devastated by yellow fever that the city actually lost its charter. Anyone who could leave did; but there were so many who could not. A small group of people from a variety of faith traditions stayed in Memphis and cared for the sick. Constance and her companions were four Episcopal nuns of the Congregation of St. Mary, two priests, and a lay physician who stayed to care for the sick and the poor, and died of yellow fever themselves.
We remember Harriet Starr Cannon, who founded the Congregation of St. Mary, and began their vocation in hospitals. Coming from this order, it’s no wonder Constance and her companions saw their mission in staying to care for the sick.
We remember Damien and Marianne of Molokai. They were a Catholic priest and nun respectively who found their ministries and gave their lives caring for lepers, patients with Hansen’s disease on the island of Molokai.
We remember Innocent of Alaska, Russian Orthodox missionary and the first Orthodox bishop in the New World. He worked among the Aleut people, who like many native peoples suffered terribly from diseases brought by sailors and traders. He convinced them to accept vaccination for smallpox, and many were saved.
All these stories, all these people well known and less known, speak to me of a heritage, a tradition; and in this case, it isn’t the Episcopal tradition. After all, they weren’t all Episcopalian. Indeed, when in Memphis each year they remember the Martyrs of Memphis they remember those who were Christian, and also those who were Jewish, and some of no faith at all. If you know Florence Nightingale’s story well, you will know that she caused quite a scandal. She took with her to the Crimea some nurses who were Anglican and some who were Catholic and some whose faith was not recorded; and there were many who disapproved of that disregard for convention.
No, it is the heritage of those from every faith and culture and language who work for health and wholeness. It is the tradition, as you have heard, of those who feel called to give much because they have received much themselves. It is vocation, as you will hear, of those who find their service to their Creator in caring for the least and the last of their brothers and sisters. It is the heritage, expressed in Luke and Florence and Constance and Damien and so many others, expressed in so many languages of faith and in those moments when language fails, of those who have committed themselves to the care of the sick and the dying.
As you graduate, you take your own places in that tradition. I don’t really think it’s something that Saint Luke’s gave you. You came to Saint Luke’s because you had it in you. Rather, Saint Luke’s, reflecting that heritage of healing and supported by the Episcopal tradition, has worked with you to inform you in that heritage and to form you for that vocation. From now on, each of you will discover in your own life how you will express that it in word and deed.
You are part of the great tradition of those who commit themselves to the health and wholeness of others. May you so live out that tradition that you may take your place with those who have gone before you, and so shape and form the heritage of those who will come after.
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