Executive Council briefed on proposed changes to discipline canons
Episcopal News Service. June 14, 2008 [061408-01]
Mary Frances Schjonberg
Members of Episcopal Church's Executive Council were briefed June 14 on proposed changes to the church's disciplinary canons and learned about the power of storytelling as a leadership tool.
The meeting began June 13 at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Albuquerque, New Mexico, the seat of the Diocese of the Rio Grande. Coverage of that day's meeting is available here.
The June 14 sessions began with a morning with simultaneous meetings of the Council's four standing committees (Administration and Finance, known as A&F; Congregations in Ministry, known as CIM; International Concerns, known as INC; and National Concerns, known as NAC). Council then met in a plenary session in the afternoon.
Briefing on proposed Title IV revisions
Council spent time in anti-racism training in the afternoon, followed by a plenary session during which members heard from Steve Hutchinson, chancellor of the Diocese of Utah and chair of the Title IV Task Force II, which is charged with revising the Episcopal Church's rules on ecclesiastical discipline. The task force has already proposed a draft for comment. It plans to use those comments to fine-tune the proposed revision and offer a final draft to the 76th General Convention in June 2009.
More information about the revision process, including the proposed changes to Title IV and other related canons, is here. The changes refer primarily to clergy discipline, but the task force has also proposed an addition to Title I, which would apply to lay leaders.
Hutchinson told the Council that the aim of the Title IV revision is "to try to find a model that will well serve the church and is easily understood." He said the task force's challenge is "to seek a fair balance" from the comments received during the first attempt to revise Title IV during the 75th General Convention in June 2006 and those made on the current proposed draft. He said the new proposal is rooted in the Baptismal Covenant and the need for accountability and responsibility, as well as healing and reconciliation.
He led the Council through a PowerPoint presentation of how a disciplinary case would work its way through the proposed system.
During a question-and-answer period, Sally Johnson, a consultant to the task force, said that a "fundamental shift" in the proposed revision is that the person accused of misconduct would have to tell their side of the story, something that is not required in the current Title IV. Refusing to do so can used to infer guilt, she said. Hutchinson noted that other professional-conduct models also required the accused to respond to accusations.
The emphasis on "truth-telling" may well lead to earlier and better settlements of complaints and possibly reduced costs, Johnson said.
Introduction to public-narrative tool
The June 14 plenary session also included an introduction to the use of public narrative as a leadership tool that will lead the 76th General Convention through a public-narrative discussion about mission. That discussion will then expand to the entire church, planners say.
House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson said the use of public narrative is aimed at "reactivating and enriching our mission call" as the members of the Episcopal Church use their stories to learn more about who they are, learn who others are and learn what all are called to do because of their relationships and their values.
Dr. Marshall Ganz, lecturer in public policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School and consultant to General Convention's Joint Standing Commission on Planning and Arrangements, led the Council through the introduction. He said that stories help people understand who they are, where they have been and are going, and why.
Ganz, the son of a rabbi, said that the questions of what I am called to do, what we are called to do as communities, and what we are called to do now are at least as old as the story of Moses' conversation with God at the burning bush. Ganz said Moses asked "Why me? Who, or what, is calling me? Why these people? Why now?"
Ganz told part of his story, particularly his involvement in the civil rights movement of the 1960s in the southern United States, and the lessons about leadership he learned. In order to motivate people to work for change, he said, "the challenge is not simply to make a good argument" but to help people overcome inertia, fear, anxiety, self-doubt, and isolation by inspiring hope, confidence, urgency and a sense of solidarity.
That, Ganz said, is where narratives -- stories -- come into play because people can connect more with the emotions of a story than with cognitive facts.
"How do we act right under conditions of uncertainty? That's what stories teach us," he said. "The morals of stories teach our hearts, not just our heads."
Public narrative relates "self, us and now," Ganz said. The first skill is learning how to tell the story of self -- "the story of your own calling." The second story is the story of us, bringing the shared experience of a community to life, he said. That story shows individuals the values they share. The story of now gives voice to the challenges of now; the choices that must be made and how to make the right choices. It offers a hopeful vision of the future.
"It's not learning a script," Ganz said. "This is not about messaging or branding … It's a way in which values become enacted."
"This is not about making people comfortable," he said "It's about creating tension that results in creative action."
"You're teaching people to preach, and you're teaching people to preach in a way that leads to meddling (for social good)," Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori told Ganz during the comment period.
A smaller portion of Council will be part of a group of about 65 people who will be trained in the public-narrative process on June 16 following the conclusion of the Council meeting.
Committee work on July 14 included:
- a discussion in the International Concerns Committee (INC) about the progress of the Anglican covenant design process. Committee member Ian Douglas said that, contrary to some people's perceptions, the upcoming Lambeth Conference will not be "some big showdown on the covenant." Instead, he said, the gathering of bishops will be "another stop on the road of data gathering" about the second version of the covenant -- the St. Andrew's Draft.
Douglas said the Covenant Design Group is due to meet in August to consider input from the Lambeth Conference and other sources, and will formally ask the provinces of the communion for responses to the St. Andrew's Draft in the fall. What Douglas called an "Anglican covenant 3.0" is anticipated in early 2009. That draft would be sent out to communion members for comment.
The 14th gathering of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC), which meets May 1-13, 2009 in Jamaica, will also consider that draft, he said. The ACC could ask that the member provinces accept that draft through their policy-setting bodies, Douglas said, or the ACC could reject that draft.
Based on that chronology, INC members decided to hold off on proposing an Executive Council response to the St. Andrew's Draft until the Council's meeting October 20-23 in Helena, Montana.
- a decision by the Administration and Finance Committee (A&F) to ask the full Council to restore about $73,000 that was cut from the 2008 budget allocation to the church's Domestic Partnership block grant program which aids the Navajoland Area Mission, the dioceses of Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and the Indigenous Theological Training Institute. The reduction was made in the revised 2008 Episcopal Church budget, approved by Council at its last meeting, which included reductions to several programs. The 2008 budget revision included a Council decision to give $340,000 to the Church Center's four mission center directors from the Episcopal Church's short-term reserves to cushion the impact of the reductions. The $73,000 would come from that $340,000.
During the A&F meeting June 14, the Rev. Richard Synder, regional vicar of Navajoland's Utah Region and area mission treasurer, said that the reduction would force cuts in a budget that is already "bare bones" and hamper him and others from ministering to Episcopalians in a place where people live "far apart on bad roads."
Anderson said restoring money to provide for the daily life and ministry of the people in those organizations should take precedence over other requests to restore reductions to the 2008 budget. She added that the ministers involved should not have to "literally beg for re-instatement of their funds."
"I think we owe them a big apology," she said.
Council will have dinner on June 14 with representatives of the Diocese of the Rio Grande and Province VII of the Episcopal Church. Presentations about the diocese and the province will follow the dinner.
June 15 will begin with Sunday Eucharist. Part of the Council goes to the Cathedral Church of St. John where Jefferts Schori will preach and preside. Other members of Council will worship with the congregation of St. Michael & All Angels Episcopal Church where the Rev. Brian Taylor will be celebrating his 25th anniversary as rector. Anderson will preach at that service.
Council will meet in its final plenary session that afternoon.
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.