Changes in Structure Proposed to Streamline and Refocus Church
Episcopal News Service. June 6, 1997 [97-1792]
Nan Cobbey, Features Editor for Episcopal Life
(ENS) Changes recommended for the national church and its top leaders could bring a greater sharing of power with the church outside the national headquarters in New York if they win approval at General Convention this summer.
The Standing Commission on the Structure of the Church will present 51 resolutions. They call for a less powerful and less hands-on presiding bishop, a greater share of authority for the president of the House of Deputies, enhanced responsibilities for the Executive Council, the addition of an "executive director" at the Episcopal Church Center and a revision and reduction of the plethora of commissions and committees that oversee the church's work.
"It's a refocus on the diocese as the basic unit of the church," says Judge George Shields, Executive Council liaison on the commission. "[It] recognizes that there is a new way of doing business which is basically networking and task forcing... We are really trying to empower local mission and ministry."
Such a refocus had been the goal of many at General Convention in 1994 when a series of aggressive resolutions proposed moving the church center out of New York, reducing the size of General Convention, re-assessing the roles of presiding bishop, Executive Council and national program staff and cutting back financial support for the national offices and staff.
Most of those proposals were defeated, but sentiment for change remained high, leading General Convention to charge the Structure Commission with evaluating national commissions and committees with an eye to reorganization. A few months later, Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning and House of Deputies President Pamela Chinnis expanded the commission's charge, asking members to make proposals "as if we were starting a new institution."
That broadened charge allowed the commission to focus on the roles of presiding bishop, House of Deputies president, Executive Council and national staff. The final recommendations attempt to balance power and authority at the top and redirect responsibility for program and ministry.
In brief, the commission recommends:
- making the presiding bishop more pastor and prophet than CEO by giving national program oversight responsibilities to a new "executive director" nominated by the presidents of both houses and responsible to Executive Council.
- increasing the responsibility and accountability of Executive Council and making national program staff responsible, through it, to General Convention rather than the presiding bishop.
- expanding the authority of the president of the House of Deputies and giving that person, with the presiding bishop, the power of appointing the chairs of all commissions and committees and nominating the executive director and financial officer of the Executive Council.
- reducing and realigning national commissions, committees and boards, and changing their membership, adding more lay members, reducing the number of bishops.
Eight standing commissions would be eliminated -- church in small communities, health, human affairs, the church in metropolitan areas, peace with justice, evangelism, church music and the liturgical commission. The Board for Church Deployment, Board for Theological Education and Council for the Development of Ministry would be merged into a new Standing Commission on Ministry. The Committee on the State of the Church would be eliminated. Added would be: Standing Commission on Common Worship, Standing Commission on Domestic Mission and Evangelism, Standing Commission on National Concerns, Standing Commission on Anglican and International Concerns.
- shifting responsibility for program development and oversight to agencies, networks and task forces.
"We are putting the emphasis on local dioceses and congregations," said Shields. They would carry on the mission and ministry "with staff assistance but not actually have the church center conducting programs."
"Local, diocesan, provincial and network activity... are to be preferred over centralized and institutionalized activities and programs and overhead expense," said the Structure Commission's report to convention.
Of all the commission's recommendations, those promoting networking could have the most impact, predicts commission chair Betty Gilmore of the Diocese of Northwest Texas. "The networking aspect generates a great deal of enthusiasm," she says.
And coupled with reduced expense because of the consolidations, a less centralized, more local emphasis should please many in the church, she believes.
"Some of the dioceses are responding with their pocketbooks to the feeling that we can do this better and more cost-efficiently at home," Gilmore observed. "They're simply not sending in their money. I am one that certainly thinks we must have a national church, but I think we also need to look at what can be done [locally]. I believe some of the things will naturally fall to the dioceses."
The commission's proposals do have critics. Browning has commented that they "seem to divide program between the national church and the local church... that loses the partnership concept we have been building."
Diane Porter, senior executive for program until March, fears that the proposed changes could undermine much of the work that has originated at the national headquarters which she calls "an incubator" for ideas and ministry.
The Rev. Robert Sessum, chair of the to-be-eliminated Peace with Justice Commission, expressed his concern that the church may lose an important element of its international conscience. The commission responded by charging the proposed Standing Commission on Anglican and International Concerns to have "particular emphasis on issues of international peace and justice."