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Workspace Index From: Jennifer
Ezell Wednesday 4/26/2006 11:37 AM
Parish: St. Timothy's, Mt. View
Following last night's briefing by
the DESC, may I respectfully offer
the following input. Please also
receive my appreciation and
encouragement for the task that you
have undertaken, and the work that
you are doing. At no time should
anything I say be taken as a lack of
faith in the DESC. I also welcome a
response or opportunity to clarify
anything I write here, if it is an
appropriate use of the committee's
time.
It seems to me that the primary
function of the DESC is to
evaluate the diocese's structure
and effectiveness, and the
recommendations for change are the
secondary function. Last
night, it felt like we were skipping
the primary function and diving
headlong into the secondary
function. We have set up a critical
path analysis that requires a
premise about a new structure in
order to write next year's budget --
but is that accurate? Last night,
it was clearly said that whatever is
decided would be transitioned over a
few years, so the need to do
everything simultaneously no longer
applies. Last year, we stalled on
changing our funding model because
it needed to be subsidiary to
something greater -- the mission and
vision of the diocese. Now we're
proposing to do everything
simultaneously in a short period of
time, with limited open dialogue and
no participation by the bishop we
will call. I am extremely
uncomfortable with that.
I realize the draft organization
charts that were shown but not
released last night are initial
drafts, but I would like the
opportunity to comment. I find
myself in agreement with George
Lockwood -- I believe it is your
task to simplify, not to reinvent
the structure, until a new bishop is
present to participate in the
process.
I embrace shared ministry. In the
models shown, we seemed to be moving
away from the scriptural model of
shared ministry, and binding the
church with additional layers of
bureaucracy. Jesus walked away from
the "institutional" and
"hierarchical" to do personal,
relational ministry at the ground
level. He called and taught others
to do likewise. He worked lean on
financial resources, and taught the
disciples to do so. He fed those to
whom he ministered and sent them
into ministry, rather than assess
their resources to fund his. He
believed in God's abundance, and
modeled it in ways that got people's
attention.
My understanding of the role of a
bishop, for what it's worth, is to
support and send disciples, priests,
evangelists, missioners. The
parishes are not just the funding
base, they are the disciples,
priests, evangelists and
missioners. Adding strata between
the bishop and priests and people
guarantees that no bishop can
succeed. Adding regional
convocations or deaneries as an
institutional level creates
bureaucracy and necessitates new
accountability structures. It
deters individual parishes from
engaging parishioners in their own
mission and ministry. In all sorts
of ways, we are pulling the work of
the church away from parishes as if
we don't believe they are capable,
rather than helping them be capable.
We're making an unwieldy structure
more unwieldy and less dynamic and
flexible.
I am concerned about the distance we
are putting between the bishop and
the people. It reflects a deep
distrust of a bishop, and an
expectation that we will call a
bishop who is not a servant leader,
who needs to be carefully confined.
We need to have a structure that
makes it possible for a bishop to be
a servant, call servant leaders, and
be in personal and collective
relationship with them. Binding the
bishop in layers of bureaucracy does
not protect our shared ministry --
it paralyzes it. Let's find and
call a bishop who believes in "a
nation of priests" who know we are
called to the Great Commission and
wants to help us in that calling.
That's shared ministry. That's how
the Diocese of El Camino Real is
going to accomplish what we are
called to accomplish.
If we get the model right, we will
get the finances right.
1) The current model looks
disturbingly like Samuel's warning
about the cost of a king.
2) An offering is an offering. A
levy is a levy. It changes the
whole dynamic of people's perception
and participation in the diocese. I
agree with Ed McNeil: if the
diocese is a place where people can
participate with significance, they
will joyfully engage, and they will
open their wallets. (My experience
in financial management of a
nonprofit and at St. Tim's bears
this out.) People give generously
in churches where they are excited
about what is happening and their
part in it.
3) I call to mind Paul's example.
He gathered offerings for the church
in Jerusalem, which were given and
received as a gift and a sign of
shared mission. It was understood
that the newly evangelized
congregations supported the "home"
church as empowered peers. Our
mission model instead sets up a
responsibility for the established
churches to indefinitely fund
certain churches. This model a)
cripples the donor churches at their
own task of mission and evangelism;
b) creates dependency and
disempowerment in the receiving
churches; c) limits the growth of
the church to how many subsidiary
parishes can be funded from the
center; d) creates tension between
congregations within the diocese.
4) We need to behave like a people
that believes in faith and
abundance. We are behaving like
people who believe in control and
scarcity. We cannot surrender to
that.
Please accept any apologies if this
offends anyone. My prayers really
are for the success of what you are
doing, for the empowerment of this
diocese, and for the life of the
church.
Respectfully,
Jennifer Ezell
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