As Executive Council gathered for its penultimate meeting before General Convention, heavy rain was pelting the south windows of the Maritime Institute like hard little fists, making everyone grateful for the solace of dry warm spaces. This was Executive Council’s third meeting of this triennium in this venue, a reflection of a money-saving strategy to contract to meet in a couple of places, Linthicum Heights, MD, and Salt Lake City, UT. In prior triennia, Executive Council had moved around the church, meeting once in each of our nine provinces, but our new discipline of choosing only two money-saving venues is a reflection of our willingness to adapt to changing financial conditions.
The draft budget for the 2013-2015 triennium overshadowed all the other Executive Council business at this meeting. The budget conversation began at the June 2011 Executive Council meeting, also held at the Maritime Institute, when members were challenged to “change the conversation,” to seek a way to take on the adaptive challenges facing all denominations in a post-Christian era of declining interest in the institutional church. The Joint Standing Committee on Finances for Mission (FFM) already had begun working with the treasurer in mid-2011 on a financial projection model and determined that the current spending model is unsustainable. At that time, it was pointed out that the chairs of Executive Council’s standing committees had previously not provided much input into the budget process. The Executive Council’s newly formed Executive Committee was charged with developing a process for the triennium budget that would challenge the church to new ways of engaging God’s mission.
I tried to read it all, but could not make much out of it. It sees the are concerned about the Sudan, and stopping child marriages, not much about what they plan to do locally.
By the way, it is interesting to look at Hadaway and Price’s data on TEC decline, which seems to lurk behind all of this.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/79692388/TECdata
#2 — I wonder why in this otherwise complete and candid report there is no chart showing the contributions of dioceses to ‘the national church’? I ask in part because the EC was throwing around asking figures (15% and 19%) when it is by no means clear anything like that will come in.
Dr. Seitz–That information used to be available, but I can’t find it on the TEC webpage anymore. There is still some statistical data on the webpage but contributions and other actual dollar amounts are no longer there. To be honest, I haven’t really checked out the data lately, so it may have been gone for a long time.
Excuse the brief fisk:
[blockquote] Executive Council worshiped together at a noontime Eucharist celebrated by the Rt. Rev. James Cowan of the Anglican Church of Canada…
In his sermon Bishop Cowan reminded us that the “`Good News’ is not fair, it is about Grace and Mercy, receiving what we do not deserve, and not receiving what we do deserve.†[/blockquote]
We aren’t getting the money we deserve…Waaahhh, it’s not fair!
[blockquote] He asked, “Who is a prophet in today’s Church? How is that person listened to? [/blockquote]
By listening to and elevating the false prophets and condemning the rest.
[blockquote] Where are the communities where we see the teaching power of God?[/blockquote]
Judging from the TEc numbers, those communities must be somewhere else, but you might take a cue and check out DSC.
[blockquote] How is the prophetic and teaching power of God being used by us – corporately and individually?[/blockquote]
That’s easy, to squash those who might actually preach it and teach it!
[blockquote] “As we strive, with fear and trembling to work out our salvation, or for what the Collect calls, “the renewal of our lives†how are we supporting and encouraging one another in our endeavors?â€[/blockquote]
Forget trying to work out your salvation, somebody has already laid down His life for that.
Try communicating that for a change.
Y’know, I asked that same question publicly on June 22, 2010, making note in a post that I had been asking the question even before then for some years, “Where are the prophets in TEC?”
I didn’t get much response, well, no response, probably the same as the bishop from Canada.
However, I applaud his asking the question. I wish I had heard it to see if he DEFINED what a prophet is, what a prophet says, for Whom are they speaking?
I know the answer, but my guess is that Bp Cowan and I aren’t working with the same definition. From his point of view (and forgive me bishop for the presumption) prophets are who we decide are acting and preaching and teaching as we think prophets should.
I take the definition of a prophet from both the OT and the NT, and read examples of such throughout.
#3 and #4 – I don’t know the source of that, either, but I see a little information on page 7 here:
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/sites/default/files/downloads/dfms_12-31-2010_consolidated_statements.pdf