Browning Appoints Three New Unit Executives
Episcopal News Service. September 4, 1986 [86186]
NEW YORK, (DPS, Sept. 4) -- Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning has promoted three staff members to positions as unit executives at the Episcopal Church Center. They are Judith Gillespie as Executive for World Mission, The Rev. Earl A. Neil, as Executive for National Mission, and Sonia Francis as Executive for Communication.
All three units will be part of the Mission Program cluster, one of three clusters around which Browning has organized the Church Center work.
Of his recent appointments, seven have been lay people and four of those women. Three have come from the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church and four from within the staff of the Center. Commenting on that range, the Presiding Bishop noted that he had made a strong effort to have his appointments reflect the total ministry of the Church and "putting lay people in key posts certainly reflects that fact.
"What I really want to stress, though, is that all of these appointments have come after very thorough searches and that absolutely excellent people have applied both from within the staff and outside for all these positions. The quality of ministry being offered around the Church is tremendous.
"In every case, the decision has been wide open until it was made. The key has been my desire to create a team rather than simply appoint individuals to do individual ministries. These are all people who can work together effectively for the Church."
Francis has been a member of the Church Center and Communication staff since 1966, when she became radio traffic coordinator after service in the U.S. Army. She held a variety of offices in the Radio and Television division and, at this appointment, she was director of radio, television and audio visuals for the unit and was interim director. Her work has covered all aspects of Communication from policy development and film editing with the Center to promoting satellite consortiums and human rights educational projects ecumenically.
She has chaired National Council of Churches communication commissions and served as an officer and director on worldwide, regional and metropolitan Church media organizations. She is a member of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, American Women in Radio and Television and Women Executives in Public Relations and holds a degree in communication and cultural studies from the State University of New York.
Neil Joined the Church Center staff in 1974 after a 14-year career as a parish priest and human rights activist in Wichita, Kans., Chicago and Oakland, Calif. In his last parish, St. Augustine's, Oakland, he served as spiritual advisor to and liaison from the Black Panthers and their families, a collaboration that led to setting up a pioneer free breakfast program that fed 135 children daily.
He then joined the Church Center as an officer in the Community Action and Human Development program from 1974 until 1977, when he took over the newly-created Coalition for Human Needs program. He forged a network that now serves as the principle social ministry funding unit for all Church ethnic and specialized ministries and oversees a program of Church grants and matching funds that has touched most dioceses of the Church.
He was educated at Carleton College in Northfield, Minn. and has earned master's degrees from Seabury Western Theological Seminary and the University of California at Berkeley.
After studies at Purdue University, Gillespie spent 13 years with the Wayne Gossard Corporation, developing programs in sales promotion and training, skills that served her well when she decided on full time lay ministry. She served for a year with a large New York parish, coordinating a self-study and then implementing the development and program plans that emerged from the study.
In 1977, she was called to the Church Center as coordinator for the United Thank Offering. That program of mission education, prayer and response doubled to a $2 million annual ingathering that supports building, transportation, scholarship and partnership programs throughout the nation and Anglican Communion.
She moved in 1983 to the post of deputy to the executive for World Mission and has served there, coordinating the work of the Overseas Bishops Coalition and the varied ministries of ecumenism, development, missionary work and relief that make up the unit. Most recently, she has been acting executive.
All three officers have been called on periodically to serve the Office of the Presiding Bishop in special commissions and investigations.