“The heartbeat of our Episcopal Church will forever be ‘mission, mission, mission.'”
This statement of “priorities” appeared in the published budget presented to the 76th General Convention in Anaheim, California, by the Joint Standing Committee on Program, Budget and Finance. There can be no doubt that mission is a central priority of the Episcopal Church. Sixty-two percent of our budget is expended on program and mission.
Sadly, the budget for the 2010-2012 triennium shows scant concern for what, in the absence of better language, I would label “branding,” “marketing” and “advertising” the Episcopal Church. Actually, I do have better language — evangelism.
In the upcoming triennium, the Episcopal Church plans on spending more than $3 million to preserve our past through our Archives Offices and another $3 million to communicate with our own members through budgeted communications expenses and such vehicles as Episcopal Life.
Nowhere is there evidence of an equivalent financial commitment to sharing the Episcopal Church’s compelling story of mission and ministry and our unique presentation of the gospel of Jesus Christ in a strategic, systematic and significant way to the millions of people in this country who are unchurched and who, according to reliable research, increasingly identify themselves as “not Christian.” In fact, in passing the budget for the upcoming triennium, the 76th General Convention skewered an exciting and carefully developed plan for strategic evangelism and growth among Hispanics and Latinos, the single largest-growing segment of our nation, allocating only $300,000 for the project instead of the $3 million originally requested by those ready to do the work.
Why?
The PB says that there is nothing special about Jesus that any other religion can’t do.
There is no such thing as sin so there is nothing be saved from.
God makes no demands, loves us where we are and all go to heaven with out any effort on our part.
So why bother? It seems that a Sunday morning playing golf would be more productive.
I am struck that the heartbeat of the church is mission and yet neither VTS nor GTS are replacing the professors of mission they each recently lost.
Even mission has a different meaning these days.
Br. Michael – my thoughts exactly. If there are many paths to the devine, then why bother with mission? What does TEC have to offer then, other then a nice way of packaging social activism, and having coffee and donuts in the parish hall after the service?
Sorry, that should be “divine”. Although “devine” may be more appropriate.
So what would be the central message from TEC in “advertising” to people who (1) are members of another Christian denomination or (2) are not Christian? What is the compelling message?
The heartbeat of TEC is “missing,” “missing,” “missing” and not “Mission……”
Here are 2 mission/evangelism ideas that one pewsitter has proposed. Both were met with a giant yawn (OK, they are at once serious and a bit goofy … that’s marketing for you!):
1) Send a postcard to each new homebuyer in town as identified by real estate transactions. (Such sales are published, in these parts, in the Saturday newspaper. It’s easiest if a municipality has one Episcopal church and one zip code.)
The postcard would have nice images of the church, its rector, its people gathered, etc, along with the weekly schedule, location/directions, etc.
Online direct mail providers can help create and execute _very_ nice send-outs. May be a bit expensive – ~$.70 a delivered postcard – but who said effective mission/evangelism is cheap? Homemade postcards could, of course, be just the cost of a stamp.
2) “Episcopalians Agree: Clean Is Good.” A campaign to counter the widespread notion that Episcopalians cannot agree on anything. For fun and profit, Episcopal youth groups could assemble and sell any/all of the [url=http://exploitenterprisedata.com/clean.jpg]items here[/url].