Excerpts from the Presiding Bishop's Address During a Report of the Executive Council to the 71st General Convention
Episcopal News Service. September 7, 1994 [94161]
Henri Nouwen talked about community being a quality of heart. And then, in speaking of these next days, he urged us to "take a few risks with your heart." And that is what I am going to do now. I am going to take a few risks with my heart when I say these next things to you.
My friends, I have participated in the Executive Council process that brought us to this place, with the budget proposals that you have before you. It has been a faithful process and a process that has integrity. But I am not happy about where we find ourselves. The proposed program and budget go to the absolute extreme in cutting our mission together. The dioceses don't send them off to "some place else." There is no some place else -- and there is no someone else. This is just us.
The money that comes from the parishes to the dioceses and from the dioceses into our national church is for what we want to do together because we are the church together, because we are a community, because we are stronger together, because together we have greater wisdom about how we are called.
We have gone absolutely as far as we can go in cutting back our mission together. Since Phoenix we have cut the legs off of it. Some would say that our financial planning has been prudent. Some would say that it was cautious. I am taking a risk with my heart and saying that we are being fearful. We are not challenging one another.
And while I am taking risks with my heart, I want to share with you another matter that lies heavy on it. Some of the reason for our financial difficulty is because we have allowed our sisters and brothers to believe that it is acceptable to punish the totality of our body by withholding funds from our mission, or by being lukewarm about their participation as a way of saying that they are uncomfortable with the struggling we are doing around difficult issues: sexuality, inclusive language, racism, peace, justice, abortion, capital punishment, gun control, the Prayer Book...I could go on.
We have not risen up in the healthiness of our total corporate life and said "No." This is not acceptable. This is not of God. This is not stewardship." We have not said, "We need you. We love you. We are called together to be on mission and you can't just pick up your cards and go home."
We have cut $3.5 million out of our budget since we left Phoenix. Let us name this for what it is: lost opportunities. The things that would have been done are worthy things. The people who would have been helped, here and around the world, have human faces. We decided in good faith that we did not have the money. But let us say that a little differently: What we said was that we couldn't raise the money.
When we made decisions about our national program, we wanted to share equitably in the hardships felt by dioceses and parishes. This is good and right and proper and appropriate. However, we did not take the next step that I believe is part of responsible and visionary leadership. We did not challenge our dioceses and our parishes to join in the common mission. We did not say, "Here are the needs and the commitments and if we all join in this we can not only do it, we can do it with love and zest and joy." We did not talk about living life abundantly, as Jesus did. We talked about dealing with the pinch.
I say we have cut the legs off of our common mission program. If we cut anymore, if we go below the bottom line of the Executive Council proposal, we will not just have cut off the legs, we will have cut out the heart.
I have been saying to Executive Council all through this triennium that we will come up with new and creative ways of being in partnership and then we will test them. The program proposals before us mean that dioceses and provinces will do more locally and that the national program will provide resources, and help network local efforts. Then, over the next three years, we will test this and see if we have the balance right.
I fear that we may have already gone too far. We must certainly go no further because we are on the path of retrenchment. During these opening days of convention there is something goading me and spurring me to say to you that I fear the program we are proposing is already precariously close to shutting off all sense of a common mission. We have so cut our national center that the dedicated men and women who are my staff are hard pressed to serve the provinces and dioceses. Their support staff have been cut in many cases, and they have been given more to do. We are testing a new way of being in partnership, but it will not have a fair test if the national partner is so weakened that it can't assist the diocesan and provincial partners.
These Executive Council proposals mean both opportunity and risk. We have the opportunity of being mutually responsible and interdependent. We run the risk of becoming more fragmented, of drifting over the line from being locally empowered, into being narrowly parochial. Our safeguard against narrow parochialism and the loss of a sense of world mission is a strong center that challenges all of us to think beyond ourselves. To our peril do we at the same time try to strengthen the parish and diocesan partners and weaken the national partner. We need more accountability to one another, not less. Something is goading me and spurring me to say to you that if we change the bottom line on the Executive Council proposals, it must go up, not down. In 1992, the last year for which we have statistics, the assets of the church increased nine percent and the increase in each pledging unit was approximately five percent. Further, during a time when giving from parishes to diocese is going up -- which indicates a growing vision on the part of parishes about what it means to be part of a wider community -- we are vigorously pruning back the mission that reflects our commitment to the wider community, to our Anglican partners. What does this say about our vision of who we are?
We may be the victim of too many good ideas, some of which are clashing in time. I think we have planted some seeds but what we have is seedlings that need to remain for a while in the seed bed until they are hearty enough plants to go into the ground and take root, and flourish, and bear fruit. Changes in our funding method are proposed, and that is a good idea. One possibility is to base the asking on diocesan income. I personally support that. But some dioceses are not ready for that. There is a disparity between dioceses and what they ask of their parishes and how they challenge their parishes to be a diocese, with all that means. I believe that our dioceses need help in working on their funding systems. How are we going to provide that help? Is this the time to gut our stewardship program, as the cuts we have made have done?
It is not too late for us to be sure that the decisions we make about funding and spending are based on a sense of a creative new partnership and a sharing of resources between parishes, dioceses and the national program -- and not on a failure of nerve or a failure to respond to the imperatives of the Gospel. The program and budget which the Executive Council has submitted to you anticipates no increase in our funding. It is a cautious approach. Does this really say what we want to say about who we are? Is this in any way related to all that I have just said to you about how God calls this church? I fear not. I remind you that caution and good stewardship are not necessarily the same.
What are we saying about ourselves and how we are called as a faith community when, as our total assets increase and our pledges increase, we make the decision to cut the legs off of what we do together? What does this say about our vision of who we can be? What does it say about our response to God's call.
I have taken a risk with my heart in saying all of this to you and now I wonder if you can be in this with me. As the bishops of this church and the leaders of the dioceses, are you willing to go back and say to your dioceses and to your parishes that we are one community called to witness boldly together to the Gospel? Are you willing to challenge your parishes and your dioceses to move beyond timidity to faithful witness?
My dear brothers and sisters, my community of faith, there is a way to be cautious and careful and take risks in faith all at the same time. The person swinging through the air, off of the trapeze, does so with every expectation of being caught. As Henri Nouwen said, the hero is the catcher. And who is our catcher? Is there any doubt? Is there any doubt that, if God calls us, God will be there for us? Is there any doubt that, if we do our part and use all of our skills and abilities to be wise about our funding and spending, that God will do God's part?
We have in our assembly people who are very wise about funding and spending.
Our Standing Committee on Program, Budget and Finance is laboring from early in the morning until late at night. They are struggling. They are listening. And I have no doubt that they are praying hard.
The Executive Council and I did what we were called to do. We looked at some bottom lines and worked hard and in good faith to propose new partnerships. Now PB&F will do what they are called to do, which is to sift and to sort all of this data and make some proposals to us.
Then General Convention will do what we are called to do. My dear friends, I believe we have seen the bottom line and now it is time to look up. And as we do, I believe we are going to see the face of Christ, smiling on our enterprise together.