Executive Council opens four-day meeting in Ecuador
Episcopal News Service, Quito, Ecuador. February 11, 2008 [021108-04]
Mary Frances Schjonberg
During the opening morning February 11 of a four-day meeting in the Diocese of Ecuador Central, members of the Episcopal Church's Executive Council heard about progress on the reorganization of the Church Center in New York and were called to find ways to be pro-active about their work.
Later in the day, members of Council's International Concerns Committee had an initial discussion on how Council might respond to the second draft of a proposed Anglican covenant.
Presiding officers address Council
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, during her opening remarks in the morning, outlined the national and international traveling she has done since Council's meeting last October. She noted that, since her installation in November 2006, she has visited 45 of the Episcopal Church's 110 dioceses. "Wherever I go I see signs of vitality in mission and ministry," she said.
Highlighted in her remarks was a report on the work of the Rev. David Copley, the Episcopal Church's mission personnel officer, to help the Episcopal Church's missionaries in Kenya in the midst of post-presidential election violence. Copley, Jefferts Schori said, "spent hours and days on the phone to discover how our missionaries were doing and to get them out to safer places."
The Presiding Bishop also praised the work of a volunteer group of Council members and staff who spent February 10 in a scenario-planning workshop. Scenario planning is a process used by businesses and government agencies to consider the possible alternative future effects of present-day decisions, and to consider possible responses to a variety of potential future worlds.
"If we're going to do strategic planning in this church, we need to get some perspective," she said, adding that such perspective is gained by taking a break from the "day-to-day minutiae."
Council Vice President and House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson echoed that theme in her opening remarks, saying that the "luxury" of having the chance to be "pro-active" rather than "deliberative" made the day a success.
"We find ourselves unable to meet long enough to allow for pro-active planning," she said, noting that what she called the Council's "bare-bones budget" was cut for this triennium. That cut resulted in the Council deciding to conduct most of its meetings in three days instead of four.
Anderson, reminding the Council that only four meetings remain between the end of the Quito gathering and the beginning of the 76th General Convention in July 2009, told the members "it's a good time for us all to be reflective," both individually and as a group.
"I worry sometimes about Council," she said, especially that not all of the members have "found their voice" and feel free to speak up during meetings.
She noted that when she and the Presiding Bishop invited certain Council members to join task forces, some members declined. "It makes me wonder if the work of Council is a low priority for them" or if something is happening in their personal lives or in their role on Council with which the rest of Council could help.
"I'm concerned that the work of Council is spread unevenly," Anderson said.
During its June meeting in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Council is scheduled to discuss its role, responsibility and authority. She said that conversation will also include "how we do our work together." With that in mind, Anderson gave the rest of her opening-remarks time to the Rev. Gregory Straub, the Episcopal Church's executive officer and secretary of the General Convention, and asked him to briefly review Council's rules and norms.
Anderson also reported that a design team has been gathered and is planning a conference on the common mission of the Anglican provinces in the Americas. The conference is part of an effort towards the Council's desire to consider establishing a convocation of Anglican Churches in the Americas.
Council hears of reorganization, mission funding progress
Chief Operating Officer Linda Watt reported on the work to reorganize the staff of the Episcopal Church Center in New York. She predicted that the switch to the new structure would be organizationally complete by April 1 but that physical moves within the building at 815 Second Avenue may not be complete by then.
Watt told Council that the search for a successor to the Rev. Dr. James Lemler as director of mission has been suspended. Lemler resigned in early November. Watt said that the four newly named directors of the Episcopal Church's Centers for Mission are working well together, and that she and the Rev. Dr. Charles Robertson, canon to the Presiding Bishop, are taking up other parts of Lemler's job.
"We think we want to try to do without [the director of mission post] for a while and see how it works," Watt said.
The Rev. Canon Brian J. Grieves, who will head the new Center for Advocacy, has been serving as interim director of mission and Watt told Council that he would be the "lead center director" under this new plan.
Lemler had led the church's Mission Funding Initiative and the Rev. Charles Fulton, who recently retired as president of the Episcopal Church Building Fund, has taken on that role.
Fulton and the Rev. Susan McCone, mission funding coordinator, updated Council on the work they have done so far in setting up five funds for communication, planting new congregations, funding future leaders, global ministry, and spiritual enrichment. That work includes writing "case statements" for each fund, identifying and cultivating major donors, setting up advisory committees for each fund, developing a strategic plan as well as gift-acceptance policies and procedures, and training themselves on donor softwares.
McCone said that each of the funds reflects one of the General Convention's mission priorities "although that may not seem obvious at first glance." She added that the funds could change if it becomes clear that people are more interested in one fund over another or if needs change.
Fulton explained that the initiative is not strictly a development or planned-giving effort, or a capital campaign, and is not meant to interfere with those efforts at any level in the church.
"It's something we've never done before," he said. "This is going after the gifts we never get anyway."
The initiative is meant to raise in excess of $190 million through gifts of more than $1 million each.
In her opening remarks, Watt also outlined the status of the four new regional offices planned in the reorganization. The Los Angeles office has had a "soft opening" and a similar office is about to open in Omaha. The Church Center is negotiating with diocesan and congregational officials in Atlanta and Seattle, she said.
"We're very excited to be on the ground and in a listening mode all around the country," she said.
Watt offered highlights of the Church Center's work based on the 2007-2009 triennium's mission priorities as set (Resolution D031) by the 75th General Convention: justice and peace; youth, young adults and children; reconciliation and evangelism; congregational transformation; and partnerships.
INC discusses covenant response process
Rosalie Ballentine of the Virgin Islands, chair of the work group that drafted the Council's response to the first draft of the covenant, told the committee that the group had met at lunch February 11 and would meet again in the evening to compare the first and second drafts, and to compare the second draft to Council's response to the first. That response came during Council's October meeting.
She suggested that what the group might propose would be some sort of document which the Council would ask the House of Bishops to consider during its upcoming March meeting. A formal Council response, she suggested, might come during the June meeting.
Ballentine said her initial look at the so-called the St. Andrew's Draft suggested to her that it is "substantially different" from the first draft and "much, much improved," especially in ways that make the proposed covenant "less punitive."
The St. Andrew's Draft was released on February 6.
Information about the covenant process is available here.
Upcoming on Council's agenda
The Quito gathering fulfills the council's pledge to meet in Province IX of the Episcopal Church during the current triennium. Ecuador Central Provisional Bishop Wilfrido Ramos-Orench is a member of the Executive Council as is Puerto Rico Bishop David Alvarez, Dominican Republic Bishop Julio Cesar Holguin and the Rev. Canon Emily Morales of Puerto Rico.
Ramos-Orench has been provisional bishop of the diocese since June 1, 2006. Formerly the bishop suffragan of the Diocese of Connecticut and native of Puerto Rico, he succeeded Neptali Larrea Moreno who was deposed in 2004. Moreno was found to have abandoned the communion of the Episcopal Church amid complaints of financial irregularities.
During Council's opening session February 11, Ramos-Orench told the members that "the transformation" of the diocese is starting.
"I'm learning how to become a Third World bishop from a First World bishop," he said. "What a joy."
The Council will have a day-long chance February 12 to learn about and engage in the ministry of the diocese. Members and Church Center staff will spend five hours at various venues in and around Quito, working with diocesan members in their ministries and learning about their lives. Some of the trips had to be cancelled because of the recent eruption of the Tungurahua volcano, about 95 miles southeast of Quito.
That afternoon's plenary session will include briefings from government officials and representatives of the Latin American Council of Churches. That session is due to be conducted in Spanish and translated into the English. The first language of the majority of Council members and staff is English and, typically, proceedings are conducted in English and translated simultaneously into Spanish, and Spanish-speaking Council members have their remarks translated into English.
In other business on the morning of February 11, the council:
- ratified the members of Episcopal Relief and Development's board of directors; and
- heard two board members of the United Thank Offering (UTO), Regina Ratterree and Consuelo Coindet, report that the UTO had given $2,439,342.46 by way of 104 grants in 2007, including $474,000 in Latin America. Ratterree said that "every penny that goes into the blue boxes (boxes people can use to mark their thanks for blessings in their lives) does get granted." The grants are made for "compelling human need" and "new or expanding ministries," Ratterree said.
The Executive Council carries out the programs and policies adopted by the General Convention, according to Canon I.4 (1)(a). The council is composed of 38 members, 20 of whom (four bishops, four priests or deacons and 12 lay people) are elected by General Convention and 18 (one clergy and one lay) by provincial synods, plus the Presiding Bishop and the president of the House of Deputies.