Presiding Officer Highlights 1976 Triennial Plans
Episcopal News Service. April 21, 1976 [76145]
Pam Chinnis, Presiding Officer 1976 ECW Triennial Meeting
I feel a tremendous excitement, a great liberating effect in the conviction that the Triennial Meeting of Episcopal Churchwomen is no longer a "shadow church" or a miniGeneral Convention. I see it as unique and performing a completely different function. I hear people like Marian Kelleran, one of the great women of the Episcopal Church, saying that over the years it has been the women, for the most part, who knew most what was happening in the Episcopal Church and the Triennial Meeting has been largely responsible for that.
The Triennial Meeting has no canonical status. It can make no decisions which are binding upon the whole church. However, time and again, through the Triennial Meeting, the women have been free to be the innovators, the educators, the reconcilers and the missionaries.
A great deal of the excitement of my job as presiding officer has come from the opportunity to travel all over the country... and to recognize our diversity and yet our community in the body of Christ. The Triennial provides the same opportunity to people from all over the country to come together, to exchange, to learn from one another, to give to one another, to truly know mutual responsibility and interdependence in the body of Christ.
The decision to continue Triennial meetings was made in Louisville in 1973 when delegates voted to continue "Christ-centered regular meetings" concurrently with sessions of the General Convention. It was also decided that delegates should deal prayerfully and forcefully with all sides of issues facing the church, make their convictions known to General Convention and allocate the current year's United Thank Offering.
Two implementing resolutions provided for the election of a Structure and a Program Committee. Already in existence, of course, was the United Thank Offering Committee. Thus it is that there are three committees working on Triennial planning. Each has been hard at work since June 1974.
The Program and Structure Committees are each composed of five members elected at large by and from the delegates to the 1973 Triennial Meeting and one member elected by each of the nine provinces. Additionally, there is one member from the UTO Committee and one from the Lay Ministries Committee making a total membership of sixteen.
Planning for the 1976 Triennial began to move into high gear in April of 1975 when the three committees met together on the convention site in Minnesota.
The Structure Committee was the first to meet. In addition to its first task of developing a proposed structure for future Triennial Meetings it...
- set the length of Triennial, Sept. 11-22
- set the delegate strength -- up to five from each diocese
- adopted a voting procedure that would give each diocese the same voting strength regardless of the number of participants sent
- developed criteria for the election of the presiding officer and assistant presiding officer
- set up a process of electing the presiding officer and assistant presiding officer that provided for soliciting nominations from each diocese and communicated the proposed process of nomination and election to each diocese well in advance so that complaints and suggestions could be registered.
None were, 13 nominations were received and in a well-documented meeting in November 1974 the presiding officer was elected. A completely separate but similar process was followed in the election of the assistant presiding officer.
A proposed structure has been sent to every diocesan and ECW president and to each Triennial participant for study, discussion, and evaluation preparatory to action in Minneapolis.
In developing the program for the 1976 Triennial, the Committee used as a foundation the resolutions passed by the 1973 Triennial. In keeping with those resolutions it was decided to de-emphasize the legislative aspects and to focus on the inspirational, educational, Christ-centered elements with a great deal of emphasis on community building in small groups.
As the program emphases began to evolve, our time at Minneapolis began to feel more and more like a personal spiritual journey or pilgrimage which would begin with a look at our individual ministry. From there we would move into challenges we face in our journey through life from birth to death, focusing on how one gets help to face these challenges and how one gives help to others facing challenges. The final step of our journey we envision as moving from an individual ministry to a corporate commitment.
With the evolution of the program, we developed criteria for the kinds of persons we wanted to accompany us on our journey. By unanimous decision we chose Verna Dozier, Marion Kelleran and Carman Hunter and they have accepted.
The Rev. Dr. John Coburn, president of the House of Deputies, will be among special speakers. He will explain the legislative process of General Convention and identify some of the critical issues coming before the Convention.
One special part of the program being planned is a Triennial Resource Fair. It will be an all-day, informal carnival-type informational exchange open to all who attend General Convention. It will cover many subjects and programs but a unique aspect will be a sharing of diocesan ECW innovative and successful programs. The Executive Council staff and affiliated agencies such as the Church Periodical Club Daughters of the King and Girls Friendly Society will also have displays.
Worship, of course, is central to our life together. The great opening service of praise, prayer and proclamation for all those attending the sessions will be held at 4 p. m. Sept. 11. The United Thank Offering Ingathering and Eucharist will be Sept. 19 with the Archbishop of Canterbury as preacher. Each weekday morning there will be a joint worship service. Triennial is also planning three eucharists of its own.
As I look toward Minneapolis in September, I find the Triennial Meeting one of the most exciting things happening in the Church today. A number of women, in competition with men are saying, "Let us in!" to that male world because that is where they think the action is. I hope and pray and I do believe, we are beginning to realize that we as women don't have to follow the male formula but that we can be open to new and creative ways of looking at and coping with the church's and the world's problems. We are not a "shadow church" but we do have the opportunity to be the prophetic church.