Can we talk, here? I mean, just you and me? No blame; no shame? Let me start the conversation (right now it’s a monologue but I hope you’ll join in, right?). Here are the facts: three out of four of our finest entrepreneurial leaders in charge of a failed “start” eventually leave the Episcopal Church, after leaving the ministry. Do you understand the significance of that well-documented statistic? It means that, while we say we want to learn from our failures, we don’t quite know what to do with the very person who needs to lead the inquiry! It means that, while we love it when industry leaders advise us to “fail early and fail often” to discover what works, we’re still a little scared when it comes to shamelessly and blamelessly working through our own failures in order to discover what works. It also means that, while we get awfully passionate about recycling tuna cans and paper towel rolls, we don’t know how to “recycle” our own best leaders. We let them wander off stage to fend for themselves without even thinking to ask, “How can we help you find your next post in our church?” or, “How do we learn from this venture so that we do better the next time?”
Amen. We (Anglican or Episcopal) under-resource church plants… hope for the best… then throw a lot of guys under the bus when the plant doesn’t bear fruit. Failure, in church planting, isn’t allowed… which means… learning, in church planting, isn’t allowed.
The point that we as a church or diocese should learn from these failures is fact and well spoken. The premise that these failures occur with the “finest entrepreneurial leaders” in charge may nor be factual and that may be one of the things we need to learn. Great “idea people” may survive and thrive in a strong congregation where somebody else gets the jobs done, and utterly fail in a startup. “Recycling” may mean finding a position more suited to the Rector’s skills, and not making more inappropriate assignments to “startups” (or “recoveries”). We have a lot of clerical (clergy) “talent” which needs to find another job.
All is well. See http://afmclavier.wordpress.com/2009/12/02/be-of-good-cheer-we-are-in-decline/ . It’s endemic.
Hmmm. The most dynamic and successful church planting organization I have ever seen was a TEC parish. It was Truro Episcopal Ch. in Fairfax, Va. It was constatly starting new parishes through the 80’s and 90’s. It made huge numbers of converts from Catholics to Evangelicals. Great and fearless preaching of the gospel truth with both sensitivity and unflinching intensity and directness was its trademark. And, while I am a committed Catholic today, I owe much of who I am as a priest to Truro and to now bishop John Howe.
Truro was one of the parishes that left TEC in the big Virginia exodus a few Christmases ago. It took all its church starts with it and formed CANA.
My point is that ultimately there is no church growth, no Church at all without an essential commitment to the challenges of the gospel, no matter how inconvenient, no matter how demanding.
So, for TEC to speak of church planting seems to me to be an empty proposition. Before seeking converts, seek conversion.
And as a recent commenter here at T19 observed, the moral teachings and disciplines of the Church antedate the creed by 3 centuries and the canon by nearly 4 centuries. They are fundamental to the faith. So worry not first for making converts, “but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides.” Matt 6:33.