As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be ..." is a prevailing ecclesiastical attitude. We love talking about altering the structure of the Episcopal Church, but are very uncomfortable in turning words into actions.

Our present denominational structure is not ancient, bearing all the fingerprints of the 20th century. Only in 1919 did the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society, and the boards of Education and Social Ministry merge to form a centralized body, while the Presiding Bishop did not become C.E.O. without diocesan jurisdiction until after World War II.

Received national structures are never sacrosanct. If the church is to be an effective vehicle for God's mission, flexibility and adaptability must be the name of the game. Fresh visions and new ways of being the church will become possible as programs initiated by the national church diminish and staffing is reduced to a skeleton of what it used to be. Future initiatives must be predominantly local and regional.

Despite the gospel's call that we be adventurers for Christ, at its heart the church is risk-averse. We would rather not change unless compelled. During the '90s, old hierarchical structures have held out against the encroachment of a changing environment and a rejection of Enlightenment understandings of the faith; but as the decade has gone on, the structures have continued to come apart, with all the symptoms of advancing ill-health.

The church has become less and less able to serve those in the front line - women and men, lay and ordained - Christ's people in local congregations. Almost paralyzed and a prisoner of its past, it keeps missing the spiritual opportunities taking shape as we lurch through this gigantic chapter change.

These days parishes are nurtured by a network of organizations and services whose stated task is to help them do everything from educate their young to participate in global mission. World mission agencies, centers of Christian education, publishing houses, ecclesiastical issue groups, renewal ministries, evangelists and spiritual directors, are eagerly ferreting out opportunities to help believers grow into the fullness of Christ.

Like it or not we are fast being propelled into a post-denominational age. This does not mean the denomination is dead, rather it is turning into something else. Moving into the next century, we can see a significant realignment of Christians. We have no doubt that Anglican Christianity in its richness has a fundamental role to play in the era which is emerging. The question is how it will be "packaged" in North America.

With such instabilities simmering in the background, it is essential that the national structures we retain be streamlined and focused upon enabling the mission of the local church. Everything they do needs to be reviewed, the crucial question being, "Does this (whatever it may happen to be) facilitate or impede the mission of bringing redemption and reconciliation through Jesus Christ?" At the very least this will mean stripping away an accumulation of barnacles. Even then the question is likely to be, "Is this enough?" While dismantling of received structures continues, the church will be building new structures focused on enabling the mission of the baptized from the parish upward.

There are signs of serious planning and re-evaluation, undergirded by theological reflection and prayer. In the wake of the world mission imbroglio stirred up by ill-advised budget decisions of the Executive Council in early 1994, a task force was established by General Convention to "Re-Vision the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society." This committee, of which one of us is part, is working on a far-reaching proposal that the DFMS become a "network of networks" of all those intentionally involved in mission at home and abroad.

The implications of such transformation are breathtaking. Should this happen, we will quickly discover that no network can be contained within traditional denominational frameworks.

A restructured church will require a different style of primacy. The task of the next Presiding Bishop will be to lead the first phase of this transition, as well as totally remake the position. The Presiding Bishop has to bear the brave new vision for a new millennium, as well as exhibit another basic attribute of episcopé, by being a symbol of unity.

The time is long overdue for the Presiding Bishop to be, like the Archbishop of Canterbury and most other primates in the Anglican Communion, a diocesan bishop again, even if this demands canonical changes to permit a suffragan, assistant, or coadjutor bishop to have most day-to-day diocesan jurisdiction. Returning jurisdiction to the office will help reduce the isolation which has afflicted successive holders of the office. In a decentralizing era like ours, we should return to the original vision, the P.B. being president of the House of Bishops and official representative of this church ecumenically and in worldwide Anglicanism. Above all, the P.B. must be pastor to a divided and pummeled episcopate.

However structures change, a massive overhaul is required. Tinkering no longer works. We desperately need a national vision which enables us to capitalize on the extraordinary opportunities before us. As we have said before in this series, no church tradition has a right to exist, not even ours. The question the Episcopal Church has to be asking, as it considers structures, is what future is there for ecclesial families that insist on dancing with dinosaurs?

The Rt. Rev. Roger J. White is the Bishop of Milwaukee. The Rev. Richard Kew is coordinator of the Russian Ministry Network.

The authors are writing a book concerning the topics presented in this series. Ideas and comments may be sent to them at 2015, P.O. Box 92936, Milwaukee, WI 53202.