Bishop Mary Gray-Reeves 2014 Address 34 th diocesan convention, Salinas, Cal. November 15, BE the Church

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1 Bishop Mary Gray-Reeves 2014 Address 34 th diocesan convention, Salinas, Cal. November 15, 2014 BE the Church O God of unchangeable power and eternal light: Look favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; by the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquility the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. These seven years we have had themes for each convention and for our spiritual focus as a community. We have Wondered, considered Churches Without Walls, given ourselves permission with the theme of Thou Mayest. We have examined who is in the church and who is a partner to the church through the theme of Citizenship. We have pondered Walking the Way in order to think about where we are going. We have examined how we see the world and the language we use to express that perspective through Cubits: Found in Translation. This past year we Lived in the Questions in order to highlight openness, that essential inner orientation for living a life of faith. This year, I would like us to ponder what it is to Be the Church. All of our themes are related to this one. All themes in coming years will always be related to this one. Be the Church emerged out of a conversation I had with Rob Fisher, rector of St. Dunstan s in Carmel Valley. He relayed a conversation to me that he had with his 1

2 spiritual director, a monk. As Rob waxed eloquent about how St. Dunstan s was doing so well and how they were growing, the monk interrupted and said, Oh Rob... don t grow the church, live the gospel... We laughed together at the correction and the conversation morphed along. I happily remembered the Chevy Chase line from Caddyshack. If you remember when Chevy is teaching the character Danny to play golf: Be the ball Danny, beeeee the ball that s it be the ball. Danny is confused about what that means and does not understand what it is to be in the zone of golf. He thinks it is just about hitting the ball. Any athlete will tell you that one s inner posture and mental attitude has everything to do with making the shot or the move or the swing. Anyway, it was a silly film; but certainly one that achieved cult status for those who were in college at that time! Nonetheless, the words stuck with me (as they also did for Rob), and somehow in my head live the gospel became be the church. Those two phrases should mean the same thing, but as we humans are wont to do, we make the gospel, the vision of the church Jesus himself in our own image. We bland down those radical visionary entities so they are more palatable for our own easy consumption. We avoid their true otherness; which is sometimes quite a contrast to the daily practice we call church. It is the hope of diocesan leadership that the strategic plan and the ways we are resourcing its achievement will help us to be the church with greater depth and effect. I am going to highlight in this address a few of the goals that are more difficult to achieve, because they require that we look at ourselves, consider how we engage our communities and develop relationships. Relationships now there is an easy topic! To begin, the stewardship goal of the strategic plan is: to create a culture of healthy stewardship in our diocese. Our Stewardship Commission in its work is calling our attention to the fact that we often lean into a consumer model when we are anxious about church growth. We try to figure out how we can program church so people will come. Certainly, being attractive and organized in our spaces says something about our inner life, but trying to program church better and be more relevant in order to attract the consuming public is not the answer. Besides which, the proverbial mega-church has us beat on many fronts: coffee, 2

3 parking, grounds, a more entertaining youth group, staffing and sometimes better music. Nobody has better liturgy, or in my humble opinion, theological health I will give us that. But there is no competing with the campus or programming of say, Saddleback, Shoreline (right here in Monterey County) or All Saints Pasadena. If there ever was a be-all-end-all answer to how to be church, the notion of THE lifesaving programming somewhere out there is over. While a focus on growth is good, an obsession with growth is not. Likewise, a repulsion from growth is equally dysfunctional. Jesus is not a product to be sold; he is our essence as Christians. Numerical growth can come as a result of how we practice that essence. On the other hand gospel values are not exactly the world s values, and we may repel people if we get too close to the potentially radical reality of the gospel. It is good to clean up, serve better coffee, have good quality programming, excellent staff both paid and volunteer at the least - but the best churches do such practices because they know and are emboldened to practice their essence. So meditating this year on Being the Church then is about discovering more fully how we are living our essence in relation to the gospel and to the world, to hear truth that challenges us from both places, and in the safety of grace, have the courage to change as we might be called. A few reflection questions: Could we reflect more deeply about who we are at our essence, in Christ? Could we notice the differences we see between ourselves as church and the gospel? The differences between the church and the world? Could the truth we experience engender some new thinking and bold steps in Being the Church? Such prayerful reflection might help us practice our essence in ways that feel more compatible with the gospel. They might help us be more authentically the church. Another important objective of our strategic plan has been to expand our capacity for cross-cultural and cross-generational relationships and to cultivate the treasures in our neighborhoods. We have partnered with The Kaleidoscope Institute, led by the Rev. Eric Law, from whom you heard last night and who is 3

4 with us again this morning. We invited Kaleidoscope Institute to help us create a context in which we could open ourselves to the opportunities of this very big and deeply relational goal. Relationships are the hardest work of all. They demand our best efforts and leads us to acknowledge our dependence on God alone as the prayer goes. In other words, building relationships, especially with people who are different from ourselves, takes us to our knees in every way. The truth between us is not always easy to hear, but it does have the power to convert us. We currently have eleven congregations involved in the Kaleidoscope training. They meet a few times a year, but the real work is done in the congregation as real conversations are had with the gospel, one another, and our neighbors. You will hear in a few minutes some of our leadership speak about the process in which they are engaged. We will also do an exercise together so we can experience something of the Kaleidoscope work first hand. If your congregation is currently not part of the workshops, please feel free to speak with Canon Jesus Reyes about exploring the possibility of joining us in this important and transformative work. The strategic plan goals of stewardship and expanding our cross-cultural, crosssocial and cross-generational capacity converge in our work with Kaleidoscope. One of the images that Kaleidoscope Institute has brought to us is the Cycle of Blessings. When we think of stewardship, we tend think only of money. We toss in time and talent, but it is usually money that we are thinking of when we hear the word stewardship. We need money but it is not our only resource. This image from the Kaleidoscope Institute is a helpful one because it broadens our understanding of how much we have to work with in our communities. It calls to mind the wide array of power that is in play all the time in life. It expands our concept of healthy stewardship. We must value and develop our resources beyond the financial. There is: Currency of Time and Place Currency of Gracious Leadership Currency of Relationships Currency of Money 4

5 Currency of Wellness Currency of Truth You can think of more, I am sure, but the interaction and balance of these are key to being a healthy and abundant church. And the great news is we all have some of these blessings we all have some of this currency. I think most know now that Community Organizing is another mode by which we are learning the wealth of our resources, and how to partner them in our neighborhoods. There has been some resistance to community organizing, I will say. I respect the variety of opinions around the history, method, people and concepts associated with it. My primary goal in engaging community organizing principles and networks has been to get us out of our buildings. We will die if we stay isolated from our neighborhoods. It is just a fact. There is no emotional baggage or blackmail in that statement. Churches that close themselves off from the world cease to exist. There is no church when there is no relationship with the world. That relationship is part of our essence and the practice of Being the Church. Whatever else did Jesus model for his followers except to be fully present and engaged with the world around them? You don t get church without the world and all our ecclesiology would want to promote that you don t get a Godly world without the Church. May God s kingdom come! We have 15 congregations involved in some way in Community Organizing and they all report stories great and small about their conversion to new ways of approaching being church. They report courageous acts of talking to strangers, inviting them to church-related events, going to neighborhood events, being involved together in various community efforts, discovering neighbors they did not know and having their hearts changed when they hear their stories. They share that ministries end and new ones are born as a result of this engagement. Congregations are noticing and supporting neighbors and neighbors are noticing and supporting churches. St. Dunstan s has not officially participated in the Community Organizing training, but they are using the principles to connect with the local music community. They are building an organ, and not all of the money is coming from parishioners! 5

6 So, Being the Church is to grow the church by practicing the essence of who we are as followers of Jesus. Being our essence and living our practice builds up the body and makes us strong for all sorts and conditions of real life, both easy and challenging. As we practice our faith in all kinds of places, we become spiritually stronger. We are more capable of proclaiming the gospel in a greater variety of contexts. Now, here is some data on our growth. Last year, there were 14 dioceses in The Episcopal Church (that spans 17 countries) that were recorded as growing. That is a scary number. We were on that list of 14. The latest numbers came out just this week and I am sorry to say we went back to our previous numbers. On the other hand, we are in one the most secular regions of the country, so even being on the list last year is great news. The gain and loss was only a 1% move, which basically means we have been stable in the last couple of years, and this is still a solid improvement from the challenging decline of a few years ago. We should also consider the fact that, during the last two years, we are seeing new ways of being the church in our Diocese. Some congregations have merged, and the new numbers they provided reflect a realistic audit of where they stand in relation to their current membership. Our hope is that this new merging alternative will bring great benefits to all of us both in numbers and in ministerial relevance. But don t worry so much about the numbers that you lose sleep. Think not how can I get more people in my church? But rather, how can I be in relationship with my neighbor? I know you wonder how I am following Michael s death. My clergy tell me it is a constant question. They also tell me that they tell you I am a person of faith and I am okay. One of our rectors said the other day, when you make deposits daily into your faith journey, the resources will be there for you when you need them. Mary lives like that. She is okay. And he is right. I am coursing through all the expected highs and lows of this sudden, tragic and life-changing event, but I am okay. I have a lot of support. My faith in resurrection (every last crazy, illogical detail of it) and in grace is solid. I trust those two things even though they are ultimately a mystery. One does not need to rationally understand something to trust it. In fact, I would say my faith has gotten stronger, because I can see how 6

7 important it has been during this most difficult time. Faith works, my friends, it works! In our personal lives and in our common life, day-to-day deposits in our faith life, both large and small, they pay off. I have had several people say to me that one of the best worship services they ever attended was Michael s Celebration of Life. That is high praise, since while some of those who commented do not go to church, others who said it were clergy. A lot of work went into that service, no doubt. 830 people attended. Over 20 bishops including two Roman Catholic colleagues attended and participated. The music was glorious, the homilies and eulogies meaningful and memorable, the love, support and grief palpable, the reception inviting and filled with good food. And perhaps like a wedding, at such a Celebration of Life, you can hardly go wrong. It was just great church. We put it together in a matter of days and our ability to do that was not just the people involved, but that the inner resources, along with all the currencies we have in this church, were present: able to be drawn together as we needed them. They were faithfully built up over the years and ready, quite literally, at a moment s notice. One could say all those things could be programmed each week. Some churches do that. They invest mightily in the logistics. They staff for it. But what made that service amazing was that the body of Christ was fully present, completely authentic and transparent to all who would come that day. Hospitality was apparent everywhere, open and vulnerable hearts were the posture of the day, our Christ-centeredness was obvious. We were ourselves, the church in the diocese of El Camino Real. It was real. It was great church. I personally thank you for it, but I was not surprised at the witness we made. We were ourselves and it was good. We are enjoying our missio-mercials today to hear a few examples of being the church at the neighborhood level, and I want to add a few more ways we are being great church on a diocesan-wide level. The Sargent House: We are almost there. Almost there! We have renovated a tired but treasured building in a neighborhood of Salinas that needs every currency it can muster for the common good. Through it we are accomplishing one of the earliest visions of this diocese. We are supporting diocesan staff so the 7

8 staff can better support our common and local ministries. It is a pillar in sustaining our ability to be the church for years to come. The success of the Bishop s Appeal is another sign of how being the church grows the church. We have met the goal for the three-year period in terms of pledges, and that fundraising piece will continue as a way of sustaining our ministry. We have hired Elrond Lawrence, our extraordinary Communications Specialist, and our Development Officer is soon to be chosen. The preparatory steps that the Bishop s Appeal successfully made has readied us to move toward our capital campaign. We anticipate that this will get underway next spring. The campaign, if you recall, will create an endowment to support clergy healthcare costs: a critical part of the package when calling clergy to serve in our church. Depending on what we can raise, we will begin with every qualified vicar or rector, and then add additional clergy and lay staff as we are able. This is a considerable diocesan effort that will have substantial and positive consequences for our local congregations. You will hear more about this in the months ahead. The capital campaign is a goal of the strategic objective to Build Leadership for the Future. Leadership is key in any organization. A good leader can make all the difference. Good leadership is highly relational. Gracious leadership is one of the Kaleidoscope currencies, because it encourages other currencies to be drawn out, invested and engaged in the economy of life and ministry. Such will be our legacy. The generations to come will be grateful that we will have empowered them to sustain their ability to be the church even further into the future. Finally, to Be the Church requires that we walk together. There is no room for lone rangers, or a competitive spirit. All currencies and members matter in our ability to Be the Church. I am thankful we have begun a series of pilgrimage walks this past year, taking them a couple of times a year. We form community in our few hours together and become better acquainted with the neighborhoods of nature, if you will. They are a great way to introduce friends to church. They are a metaphor for this journey of life and ministry; a metaphor for walking both our spiritual and physical landscapes as Christians. May we continue the journey together, walking in the way of Jesus. 8

9 I conclude with the collect with which we began: O God of unchangeable power and eternal light: Look favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; by the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquility the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. 9