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Council Shapes Role In Heartland Meeting

Episcopal News Service. June 25, 1987 [87134]

CLEVELAND (DPS, June 25) -- Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning stressed a servant ministry embracing both evangelism and social action in his message to the June 16-19 meeting of the Episcopal Church's Executive Council here. Much of the week was taken up with working on a mission statement for next year's General Convention.

Council members also approved a stewardship statement and affirmed the work of the Episcopal Church Center's ethnic desks and of the Women in Mission and Ministry office and program.

Using as his text Jesus's statement "I am among you as one who serves" (Luke 22:27), Browning told the Council, "In our human limitations, we talk of evangelism and social action as separate. In Jesus Christ, they are not two but one." Giving charge and challenge to both those whose central concern is evangelism and those whose efforts center on social action, Browning said: "Here is a crucial message for evangelists. Find yourselves in the Servant Lord first. Let his loving presence shape your presence with others. His evangelism is his loving invitation to let him wash your feet and feed you. There are no right or wrong ways in servant-like evangelism. There are only the infinite ways of inviting and encouraging others to eat of the bread Jesus offers and to come among the people who proclaim his loving, compassionate presence in the world. Evangelism begins and ends in prayerful relationship with the Servant of the word of God, Jesus Christ.

"Here is, likewise, a crucial call for social activists to be servant-like. Jesus' deeds of healing and inclusion of outcasts and correction of injustice are never contentious. His deeds confront and liberate. They do not pick a fight and they do not put down. They are addressed to specific human needs. The Servant discerns the need and meets it. Our service and work for justice and peace must be his service and justice and peace working through us. Christian social action begins in the love of Jesus Christ and so is most deeply a matter of conversion. One speaker counselled the House of Bishops in 1967: 'We must learn to involve ourselves not in our social action but in Christ's social action.'"

Citing examples of those who embody these ideals, he added, "Evangelism and social action are not only partners. They demand each other. Each needs the correction of the other."

Following the message from the chair, Council heard a panel presentation on mission imperatives emerging from the Church Center's in-house week, the Under One Roof conference, the Presiding Bishop's Vision conference and the Committee on the State of the Church.

A staff presentation of program objectives included an outline, from the Rev. Earl Neil, executive for National Mission in Church and Society, on the history and work of his unit's ethnic desks, listing some of the reasons for their existence:

  1. "To remind the church of the presence of people of color in their midst and that we, too, share the call to bring the Kingdom of God. Though great strides have been made towards racial inclusiveness, much remains to be accomplished. Until we and our constituencies area automatically thought of, until we and our constituencies have equal access to all aspects of our church's mission and life, there will always be a need for the desks. A need exists now, more than ever, as we view our wider society.
  2. "To serve as a vehicle and means to sensitize our Constituencies to come to grips with their own identities and roles in the life of the Church, and to carry their identities with them in serving the Church at parish, diocesan and national levels. We, also, serve to sensitize the wider church to our roles.
  3. "Existence of the ethnic desks is not a narrowing of focus but rather a broadening of vision, experience and insight. We know that God never intended to be seen only through AngloSaxon eyes and experiences, thereby declaring myopia to be a virtue. We know that in Christ we are called to oneness which supercedes all of our particularities. However, we also have learned, and need to continue to learn, to celebrate together the variety of our racial and cultural identities, without shame or apology. All of us respond to the voice of God through the voice of our culture and experiences, and we believe this is for our mutual enrichment to the glory of God."

Theological reflection led by the Rev. Frederick Borsch paved the way for small group meetings in which Council members continued the work of developing future directions for the Church, a task in which Council and staff have been engaged for some months.

During group reports later in the meeting, there was some enthusiasm for emphasizing Christian education. This was evident in Council's response to a report on the work of the Christian Education Task Force. The need to lift up worship, liturgy and prayer -- both for themselves and as a means of evangelism -- was also a concern. Council concluded by passing three resolutions which provide:

  • That a vision statement to be the foundation for the mission imperatives for the Executive Council be developed by the Presiding Bishop, mindful of the contents of his messages to the Executive Council at the March and June 1987 meetings.
  • That the Council entrust the Presiding Bishop and the continuation committee to edit and refine the March 31, 1987 mission imperatives for the whole Church, eliminating the priorities.
  • That the continuation committee work with the Presiding Bishop's staff to review the development of the program and budget particulars, emphasizing the imperatives most appropriate for national Church implementation as reported by Council to the June 1987 meeting.

Members of the Executive Council and staff who had attended the seventh Anglican Consultative Council meeting in Singapore reported on their experiences.

In other action, the Executive Council, after some debate about language, unanimously affirmed the Lusaka Statement on apartheid and Southern Africa; the statement pledges to "work for the removal of the present (South African) rulers who persistently usurp the stewardship of God's authority" (Eds.: see DPS 87121). In related resolutions, Council expressed its support for the Presiding Bishop's recent statement on South Africa and called for the Church to respond to the Lusaka Statement with material aid by the Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief, development of consciousness raising materials, lobbying efforts in support of U.N. Resolution 435 on the occupation of Namibia by South Africa and prayers for the Church and people of Namibia.

Council also voted to approve a stewardship statement to "individually and corporately affirm the tithe of ten percent as the minimum standard of giving" and pledge to bring their own giving to that minimum, if not already there, within three years. The statement, which calls the tithe "a critical and necessary way of witnessing to our faith and sharing with others," is to be reviewed and renewed each triennium. Each Council member was given an individual copy to sign, if they wished, as a personal witness; all those present did so. Copies are being mailed to members who were not able to be present at this meeting.

During the course of the meeting, Council members also found time for a boat trip along the Cleveland waterfront, with its abandoned industrial sites and burgeoning entertainment district, but the cruise on Lake Erie and up the Cuyahoga River was intended as more than recreation. It was followed by a visit to the cathedral, where Council members heard a presentation from the Diocese of Ohio outlining local ministries to the unemployed, the homeless, the hungry and the poor, many former members of the middle class who have fallen victim to the area's industrial decline.

The Rt. Rev. James R. Moodey, bishop of Ohio, told Council members that what they had seen from the boat was reflective of life not just in Cleveland but in that whole area of the country, where the withdrawal of the steel and automotive industries, among others, has resulted in widespread unemployment.

Dr. Thomas J. Marchione, director of the Ecumenical Great Lakes Appalachian Project, a regional group having its origins at the cathedral, gave the Council a general picture of what has been happening in America's industrial heartland in terms of population loss and economic decline. He told his listeners, "I believe the Church has the power not only to minister to the suffering but to help end it," and he urged them to work for a just and productive economy, as well as relief.

But relief work is a beginning, and Marchione was followed by four members of the diocese who described such work: Ruth Beshalske, who is part of a ministry to street people in Toledo; Robbin Harvey, who told of a support group for the unemployed begun when someone in her Akron parish lost his job; the Rev. Albert Jennings, rector of the Church of the Redeemer in Lorain, who described a joint feeding program of his parish and a local Baptist church; and the Rev. Harry Nevels of Emmanuel Church, Cleveland, a parish in a once white and affluent area which now is home to a program bringing former members and others from the suburbs as volunteers to aid in its present ministry.

The Presiding Bishop announced the resignation of Council member Thomas Tisdale of Charleston, S.C., due to demands of his law practice and family concerns. An election to replace Tisdale, whose term expires at next year's General Convention, will be held at the November Council meeting in Princeton.

The Executive Council Stewardship Statement

We the undersigned members of the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church individually and corporately affirm the tithe of 10% as the minimum standard of our giving.

Each of us is either already tithing or has adopted a personal program which will bring us to this standard of giving in the next three years.

We do this joyfully and in thanksgiving because of our conviction that each of us is created in the likeness of God who is a God of giving and creating.

We are able to respond by being givers and sharers ourselves. While the stewardship of what has been given to us involves far more than money, we recognize that the tithing of our money is a critical and necessary way of witnessing to our faith and sharing with others.

This statement of commitment is to be reviewed and renewed every Triennium and a copy of this shall be sent to each Executive Council member prior to the first meeting of the Triennium for consideration.

We invite the whole church to join us in this witnessing of faith.

[thumbnail: Presiding Bishop Edmond L...] [thumbnail: Presiding Bishop Edmond L...]