Executive Council begins new term by learning about its job, call to ministry
Episcopal News Service -- Memphis, Tennessee. October 5, 2009 [100509-01]
Mary Frances Schjonberg
The Episcopal Church's Executive Council opened its first meeting of the 2010-2012 triennium here by considering how it will live out its role and responsibility.
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 for six-year terms, plus the Presiding Bishop and the President of the House of Deputies. Twenty-one of the 38 members are new to the council with this meeting, having just been elected by General Convention and the provinces.
The October 5-8 meeting at the Holiday Inn at the University of Memphis Fogelman Conference Center is taking place in the seat of the Episcopal Diocese of West Tennessee. Council will hear about the mission and ministry of the diocese and of Province IV on the evening of October 6.
Council members spent all of October 5 in plenary session learning about their role in the governance of the Episcopal Church. Those discussions are due to continue October 6, and will include considering whether its four standing committees -- Administration & Finance (A&F), Congregations in Ministry (CIM), National Concerns (NAC) and International Concerns (INC) -- still serve the needs of the council and the church, and how to clarify their individual responsibilities.
Whatever shape the committees take, they will meet for most of the day on October 7 (with the exception of time for disability sensitivity and anti-racism training).
In their opening remarks to the council, both Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, council chair, and Bonnie Anderson, president of the House of Deputies and council vice chair, called on the members to be creative and innovative as they discern how to lead the church in the coming three years.
"We are together as a council embarking on a journey to serve God's people and God's creation across this planet," Jefferts Schori said. "The decisions we make as a body will impact the lives of people far beyond this place or this church. I think the biggest question before us is what will occupy us this triennium, where will we spend our energy? … We live with a vision of the reign of God, the kingdom of God, which last time I checked has not been fully realized; therefore we have work to do in the name of Jesus."
Citing the changes forced by the church's reduced 2010-2012 budget and the convention's call to the church to be focused on mission, Jefferts Schori told the council that "we are in a paschal moment."
"Will we discover resurrection or will we stay holed up in the tomb?" she asked. "We have opportunities to be creative and collaborative … We cannot be preservers of turf or maintainers of the status quo. That is, I believe, to remain in the tomb. We can be celebrants of the spirit behind the law, the life-giving, creative law that the Jewish people know as Torah. We can experience the grace that comes of loving God and our neighbor, and not being afraid."
Anderson called on the council to bring to the triennium "a love for the inventive, rooted in our history, charged with our responsibilities and then let's apply that love to our work."
And she also posed questions to the members.
"What if Executive Council created a truly spiritually based Christian community together, based on relationship and understanding of each other's gifts?" she asked. "What if we understood and embraced the vision of our forebearers, and then took a look at that vision in light of our realities of today? … What if Executive Council prayed hard together and was able to discern what we are being called to do at this time in the life of the church? What if we figured that out together and then what if we did it?"
Also on the council's agenda
While in Memphis, the council is also expected to respond to the latest draft of a proposed Anglican covenant.
In May, the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) postponed an expected request that the Anglican Communion's 38 provinces consider adopting the Ridley Cambridge draft. The ACC said instead that it wanted the draft's Section 4, which contains a dispute-resolution process, to get more scrutiny and possibly be revised.
The Archbishop of Canterbury appointed a small working group to do that work. The members, all of whom served on the original Covenant Design Group, have solicited provincial responses by November 13. The working group will meet November 20-21 in London and report to the Standing Committee meeting December 15-18. The Standing Committee is a group of elected representatives of the ACC and the Primates Meeting.
Jefferts Schori, Anderson and Rosalie Ballentine, the Executive Council member who chairs the council's task force on the Anglican covenant, in July asked General Convention deputations and their bishops to study and comment on the Ridley Cambridge draft by September 1. Those comments will be considered in the council's official response that is due to come out of this meeting.
The task force facilitated the church's response to both the Nassau and St. Andrew's drafts of the Anglican covenant. The response to the first draft is available here. The response to the second draft second draft is here.
Also on the council's agenda is:
- a report from its strategic planning task force;
- an update on the effort to construct a new building for the Archives of the Episcopal Church;
- an update on the work of a group conducting a three-year study of the United Thank Offering; and
- a consideration of whether it will confine its meetings to one location as a cost-savings measure after the February 19-22 meeting in Omaha, Nebraska.