The Rev. Gay Jennings, who helped lead the charge for structural reform at the 77th General Convention and now serves as president of the House of Deputies, says this reform may lead to fewer church committees.
“This may be hard for some of us to accept, but I think that we are in the death throes of the current standing commission and committee structure,” Jennings told Executive Council June 7. “Both those who are on TREC [the Task Force for Reimagining the Episcopal Church] and those of us who aren’t need to begin imagining new ways of bringing together laypeople, clergy, and bishops to accomplish the work of General Convention.”
As a veteran of four General Conventions, I wish that I had confidence that the essential committees will continue. Unfortunately, the traditionally essential committees seem to be the least popular while the more modern add-ons enjoy the spotlight.
Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Indaba,daba-do, anyone?
TREC [the Task Force for Reimagining the Episcopal Church]
That would make the Executive Council “trekkies”?
I would not worry all that much about TEC committees. When GC wanted to streamline, what did they do? They formed a brand new committee to tell them which committees were unnecessary, and what new committees would be needed.
What they should be worried about is GC. Note that what this TREC is all about is having a tiny group of politically focused Piskies work with the EC in order to remove “unnecessary” committees that were created and given their charge by GC. GC will have no say in this, it will all be taken care of by the EC in their stead. Huge centralization of power, all the while under the fiction that “We believe in distributed authority that includes all voices — bishops, clergy, and laity.†Right, with all of the distributed authority distributed to the people on the TREC committee and EC. But then, some people are more equal than others.
GC needs radical renewal. I suggest a General Convention of 45 members, one bishop, one clergy, one lay person for each 50,000 Average Sunday Attendance by Province:
I New England 1 each 56K ASA
II NY/NJ/Haiti 2 each 95K
III Mid-Atlantic 2 each 101K
IV Southeast 3 each 171K
V Upper Midwest 1 each 62K
VI Plains 1 each 30 K
VII Southwest 2 each 77K
VII West Coast 2 each 83K
IX Caribbean 1 each 20K
All major decisions subject to approval by diocesan conventions before implementation.
5. TomRightmyer, Interesting suggestion. How would you implement it?
Or, more bluntly, are there those – in positions of power in TEO – who want to return to Christian ecclesiology?
“… new ways of bringing together laypeople, clergy, and bishops to accomplish the work of General Convention.â€
How about focusing on accomplishing the Great Commission? How EVER did the early church become the dominant faith in the Roman Empire without all those standing committees …
Downsizing GC and its many committees will happen only when the money runs out. We are seeing in NC the gnashing of teeth as state government attempts modest change. And on the federal level note the protests at the sequester. The merger of the remain Episcopal remnant in Quincy with Chicago and the effort to make one diocese in northern Wisconsin, and the election of part-time bishops in some dioceses are signs that some change is possible.
Not meaning to be snarky, but it seems to me that all of these committees……composed of people who’ve attended GC for years in some cases……are really unnecessary. What do they accomplish aside from making public what it is that they intend to do? And yet they form another committee to decide what it is that they want to do to reorganize a church which is top heavy with committees? How about using what I call the ‘one, two, three’ formula? One bishop, two priests, and three laity?
I read the article to the end, then saw this immediately below:
Trinity Plans New Tower
Thursday, July 25, 2013
The vestry of Trinity Wall Street has selected Pelli Clarke Pelli to design a new mixed-use building at 68-74 Trinity Place.
#8 is likely right. TEC’s leadership culture reminds me of a friend’s alcoholic father when I was a teenager. He was willing to destroy everything in his family…relationships, love, joy, hope, income & finances…so that he could keep up drinking with his buddies. Finally, when everything fell apart and he nearly died, he got sober and lived a sort of dry half-life for the remainder of his years. I don’t see many of the current bishops and deputies being able to learn anything new about the faith…they are committed to what amounts to a grand heresy…but they will change some of their ways when it they cannot pay for the current system and structure. Given recent trends, I expect them to concentrate more and more power in the hands of bishops and lawyers (this is where things go when the focus in on maintenance, not mission). However, after some turnover in leadership, one may yet pray that God will bring something new out of this tired and seemingly self-destrcructive Gomer of a church, as we read in Hosea.