Provincial Planning an Example of Partnership
Episcopal News Service. November 5, 1976 [76337]
DALLAS, Tex. -- Provincial and diocesan representatives from the vast and disparate Seventh Province shared their plans, hopes and doubts about the concept of Partners in Mission in a two-day meeting from which the preliminary designs for their own Partnership consultation emerged.
In preparation for the April 1977 Partners in Mission consultations throughout the Episcopal Church, each of the nine provinces has created a coordinating committee to oversee the planning, logistics and structure of complex, multi-level program. These committees began work in late summer and most have held their second meetings and have plans in hand and assignments mapped out.
Sixteen national or provincial churches throughout the Anglican Communion have already held these consultations in which the local church gathers with partners representing sister Anglican churches to share and plan ways in which modern, effective mission work can be carried out. The Episcopal Church consultation will be a two step affair slated for the last two weeks of April. The first step -- the province meetings -- will bring together representatives from all dioceses and many special interest groups within a province for a four-day meeting April 19-23, with six to eight invited partners. (The Episcopal Church is inviting representatives of churches with whom it maintains ecumenical relations as well as partners from the Anglican communion.
At the conclusion of these nine provincial meetings, province representatives, all of the 60-70 partners and the Executive Council of the Church will gather in Covington, Ky., for another conference, focusing this time on the special mission of the whole Church in the United States. This meeting will last from April 27-30.
Much of the burden for these consultations has fallen on the small provincial coordinating committees -- aided by a seven-member national committee. In the Seventh Province, this is a nine-member group with the Ven. Richard Wilson of Northwest Texas as coordinator. At their recent meeting, at the Diocese of Dallas' Bishop Mason Retreat Center, these nine were joined by diocesan representatives from some of the 11 dioceses in the province.
The members heard the Rev. David Birney, of the Episcopal Church Center in New York -- who is assisting the planning groups -- describe the consultation process as it has been used in other national churches. Birney, a member of the partner teams for three recent overseas consultations, described the painful days as partners and churchmen in the Church of the Province of South Africa attempted to create a sense of mission in the apartheid African country, while the smoke of the Soweto riots still hung in the air.
He explained that the consultations -- and in a larger sense the whole Partnership concept -- were an attempt to break the Church out of old modes of thinking that saw some as "giver" churches and others only as receivers. He pointed out that the concept was already in practice in the Episcopal Church through organizations like Coalition 14 and the Coalition of Overseas Dioceses, through networks like Episcopal Asiamerica Strategies Task Force (EAST), and in any situation in which parishes or dioceses pooled resources or shared solutions to common problems.
After Birney's remarks, the group began to grapple with the issues raised by the consultation planning. Chief among these were the relationship to the Venture in Mission (VIM) -- a renewal/fund raising program which was authorized by the Minnesota General Convention in September -- to the Partnership consultations and the future of the province itself, a structure with little ongoing life that ranges from St. Louis to the Rio Grande valley and back to the Ozark Mountains.
In response to the VIM question, Birney pointed out that while the General Convention in 1973 had asked that such a plan be investigated, it was only finally authorized in 1976 and was a plan of renewal for the Episcopal Church while the Partnership concept was the creation of the whole Anglican communion and was an attempt to find new ways to share the mission in the whole world. He further noted that some 16 Anglican churches will have already held their own consultations before that of the Episcopal Church takes place in the spring.
In the other matter, the group discussed the possibility that the attempt to find common concerns and resources -- which is a major function of the consultation -- may actually lead to the dissolution or radical re-alignment of the province. Talk of this surfaced again and again throughout the two-day session -- first in an apprehensive fashion that gradually gave way to the conviction that examing such a possibility may actually serve to strengthen the mission that the dioceses and province carry out.
As the conversation shifted from general matters to planning, the group found itself re-examining the list of those special groups which had been invited to be present or to report to the consultation. They were led, finally, to strike a number of groups -- or reduce their role -- in order to invite the participation of the varied ethnic groups that make up a large part of the provincial population.
After supper, the committee regathered to hear plans for communication and an audio-visual report of the life of the province that will be presented at the consultation. A Dallas advertising man -- Charles Varner -- had volunteered to produce this. As Varner completed his presentation, the group enthusiastically began to suggest other possible pictures or sounds that would give a more vivid picture of life in the province. A canvass will be made of all the dioceses for slides representative of the area to flesh out the presentation.
At its first meeting -- held in the late summer -- the committee had raised a number of general questions about the nature of the Partnership concept and the final business of the first day was a report from the Church Center's communication staff on a possible pamphlet of answers to these questions. They criticized and amended them and then agreed to share them with other provinces of the church which may be grappling with the same questions.
The second day was devoted to more detailed planning of the conference itself, which will be held (as are most of the conferences) at a retreat center. Since the conference site is near Dallas, that diocese has agreed to take on much of the responsibility for administering the details.
Open sessions on dreams and hopes for the consultation concluded the meeting with Bishop William Jones of Missouri pressing hard for the idea of "mini consultations" to follow up on the thoughts laid out in April. Others, including Province President, the Rt. Rev. William Davidson of Western Kansas, enthusiastically endorsed the idea that a structure should be created now that will enable the Church to take advantage of any new ideas that will come out of the April session.
Partners in Mission -- Nine Questions
First, it's an acknowledgment that 65 million Anglicans share God's mission with one another and with other churches. In Dublin, three years ago, representatives of the worldwide Anglican Communion agreed that "... responsibility for mission in any place belongs primarily to the Church in that place. The universality of the Gospel and the oneness of God's mission, however, mean also that this mission must be shared in each and every place with fellow-Christians from each and every part of the world. "
That's the concept. What will happen in April is a highlight of the way in which we have been -- and will continue to be -- building that concept into the life and mission of the Episcopal Church. It is the opportunity to discover -- in the presence of brother and sister Christians from throughout the world -- what our role, responsibility, needs and gifts are in carrying out the Episcopal Church's share of the mission.
You. might say the Holy Spirit! The Partnership concept was a logical (although not easily reached) outgrowth of the way the whole Anglican Communion began to look at mission in the early 1960s. In wrestling with this sense of mission, the 1968 Lambeth Conference of bishops of the whole Church created the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC). The Episcopal Church is one of the 25 national or regional churches comprising the ACC and it is the ACC which was the impetus behind the Partnership concept.
At this point, what was implied above has to be made clear. Partners in Mission is not 815's (Episcopal Church Center's address) creature. The Episcopal Church got involved because it is part of that worldwide communion which shared in the decision and because we have participated as partners with 14 of the 16 national or regional churches which have already held their consultations. (In a sense, many of our partners will come here in April 1977 with more experience in the consultation process than we have. They've already been through it.
We take part through the basic units in which we carry out our part of the mission: parish, diocese, province, national church, coalition. And, in a very real sense, we've already taken part in it. That's why the consultation itself is a highlight of an ongoing process
In every way in which we share a program that has been worked out from the needs or hopes of separate units of the Church, we are demonstrating Partnership in Mission. In the Episcopal Church this ranges from the full sharing and planning of 14 dioceses in the west and midwest which form Coalition 14 through EAST, a nationwide network of programs for Asian and Pacific peoples that sprang from the needs of the people it now serves. In the Appalachian Peoples Service Organization, a vibrant shared ministry has grown up among a community that runs from Western New York down through Tennessee. All of these and the work of the Coalition of overseas Dioceses give flesh to the concept of one mission shared and celebrated that we will work on in the April consultations and after.
That 1960s new look at mission resulted in the Church's commitment to the concept of Mutual Responsibility and Interdependence in the Body of Christ, a concept which acknowledges that the former daughter churches had grown up and begun to undertake their own mission in their own area as unique responding creations of God. Ten years later, in 1973, the Church, through the ACC, noted that while this concept of equally shared mission was easy to preach, it was hard to practice, in part because the resulting project is intended to reinforce (or continue) the concept that the Church was divided into giving and receiving branches. The Partnership plan is an attempt to raise up and celebrate -- on a practical basis -- the notion that all branches of the Church are both givers and receivers simultaneously.
There are three major steps to our consultation. In the first, the ACC diocesan data gathering form has already been placed in the hands of each diocesan bishop. Through as wide a consultation as possible, each diocese is expected to use this form to lay out -- in outline form -- its resources, shortcomings, skills, the nature of its work, problems and hope for the future. This report is to be accompanied by both written and oral reports in the next stage which "put flesh" on the data gathering instrument.
In the second stage, diocesan and provincial representatives will gather on April 19 with the partners invited from sister Anglican churches and from those with whom the Church carries on ecumenical relations. These are the nine provincial consultations which will go on simultaneously throughout the church. After the reports from the dioceses, special groups and the province and a short response from the partners, the sharing process begins under a trained moderator. This process attempts to lay out the life of the Church in that province and seeks ways in which that life can be strengthened and renewed to focus on God's mission.
The results of all nine province meetings will be brought together at a further consultation with the Executive Council which -- following the same process -- will grapple with the role of the national Church in assisting in that mission.
The dollar cost will vary from province to province according to the geographic makeup of these nine widely disparate structures. Dioceses, provinces and the Executive Council each will bear its share of the costs and the Partners will cover their own travel. United Thank Offering grants have been awarded to help a few specific situations.
The people costs will also vary. Some have been recruited to frame the dioceses reports. Others will be asked to take part as diocesan delegates, provincial representatives to the consultation or as members of the provincial planning groups.
And certainly, after April, as the implications of this ongoing process begin to impress themselves on the Church, the involvement of all who are part of the Episcopal Church's share of God's mission will burgeon.
What will come most immediately from the April consultations will be the realization that we are not carrying on our mission alone -- and that it is not even "our" mission. As the sense of interdependence grows, new alliances of shared concerns and talent will emerge. These alliances in turn are likely to foster new forms and seek new routes for what will certainly be a renewed sense of both the oneness and uniqueness of God's mission for the Episcopal Church in the U. S. and the world.
First, these brothers and sisters in Christ have -- many of them -- been through this consultative process already. Their presence will enable us to listen to one another in new ways as we share our own sense of the mission fields that we work.
Secondly, they are our Partners in mission and will offer the insights and gifts that have developed from their own experiences -- experiences ranging from the start of mission work with mission societies to the struggles of trying to make the Gospel real to vastly different cultures.
Their insights, gifts, experiences and their own needs will help to challenge us as the Episcopal Church seeks to find its response to the call of the creating, redeeming and sustaining God.