In the
presidential campaign of 1928 in which Herbert Hoover ran against Alfred
Smith (and won by a landslide), he used the slogan: "If I am elected,
there will be a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage."
Considering what happened just a year later, I'm not sure that
came to fruition, but the dream and sentiment persisted,
and not just in the area of poultry and automobiles...
The Episcopal
Church has had two heydays in its American history.
The first was in the late 1800s and the other was in the
mid-twentieth century. (For a great graphic look at this, check out
this link-
In the New
England diocese of my origin, at the time when I was serving (early 2000s)
there were 172 parishes in a diocese with 169 towns.
In our
diocese, the number of churches is fewer, and the playing field is different: here,
we are more likely to talk about counties than towns. I am still
learning the difference between townships and boroughs and cities, but it
appears that our planting of congregations has been judicious. (There are 25
counties in our diocese and approximately 750 municipalities in Central PA
including everything from one-stop sign towns to large urban centers. In
some of my research, I have learned that what we call "Central PA" is
really three different geographic regions: South Central, Central, and
North Central. There's a lot to learn!)
Two years
ago, now, when my husband and I took a road trip to look around at the Diocese
of Central PA, we got to giggling as we entered every small township and found
not one, but two or more Methodist churches in every town square.
We would pull up to the stop sign, look across the square and say,
"Methodist!," and then confirm our hunch, as we pulled closer
to the building. The Methodists, by example, have 850 parishes in their Susquehanna
Conference alone which covers the metropolitan areas of Altoona, State College,
Williamsport, Harrisburg, York, Lewisburg,and Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Wow.
This is due, mostly to numerous mergers during the 20th century which made
the United Methodist Church the second-largest Protestant denomination in the
USA behind the Southern Baptist Convention. A merger of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and the Methodist Protestant
Church in 1939, resulted in the formation of the Methodist Church. Coupled with
the Evangelical United Brethren, the United Methodist Church (UMC) was formed
in 1968.
Denominational
Statistics are fascinating to me- but here's the point: I think
that we need to break the mindset of a church in every town, a priest in
every parish, a chicken in every pot, ecclesiastically speaking.
It is time for us to explore ways to think regionally about our church
and to think about how we can have "an Episcopal Presence" in towns
where there may not be a physical Episcopal structure. We need
to think about our convocations as mission fields that include
townships and boroughs with no Episcopal presence, but that can still receive
the ministrations of our Church.
So what
might that look like?
Some of the
ideas that might seem fresh to us today are old, actually, and extend
back to the days of the Colonial settlement and the later Westward Expansion of
our country. (For a good read on this with a Central PA connection, read My
People of the Plains by The Rt. Rev. Ethelbert Talbot, third Bishop of
Central PA, as he tells about his missionary experience ministering in the
Rocky Mountain Region in the territory we now call Idaho and Wyoming in
the late 1800s.)
Here are
some ideas:
Circuit
Riding (as
the jobs shrink in size, invite one clergy person or a team of clergy people to
minister to several congregations.)
Clustering this is similar to circuit
riding where each parish maintains its own building but as a group, the parish
entities share resources like bookkeeping, parish administrators, train up one
team for pastoral calling, etc.
Merging
Two
parishes (or more) combine and form a new entity with one parish body and
one location and one priest. This is most successful if the chosen
site is new to each party.
Mission Fields Send a team of ministers-
lay and ordained- into a place with no Episcopal church and conduct services in
a secular setting (i.e.: coffee shop, park, library) or rent space from another
denomination. Personally, I prefer the idea of an Episcopal service in a
secular setting rather than a "borrowed" church as it feels more welcoming to some
unchurched folks. Do this on a regular, weekly or monthly basis.
Pop-up
Church
Plan a regional, semi-spontaneous rotation of Episcopal worship in places
where there is no Episcopal church in order to raise awareness of our
tradition and provide direction to the closest planted Episcopal church- focus
on a spring and summer of worship in parks: call it "For the
Beauty of the Earth" and publish a schedule of different parks
that you'll be setting up services in for the months of May-Sept.
Seasonal Collaboration form a cluster of churches
that have, say, 3 ordained ministers for 6 churches and rotate priestly
presence by the season. Maybe one or more of the churches is closed down
for a season at a time and the congregation attends their sister church. (Good
signage explaining the location of the worshipping community when not at
their home space is essential so as not to miss occasional visitors and can
actually be presented in a way that lauds the good stewardship of resources.)
Ecumenical
Partnerships
in some places, Lutheran and Episcopal Congregations worship
together, in the same building at the same time with one pastor/priest
and they alternate using Lutheran or Episcopal liturgies by the week,
month or season. It works!
Building
Sharing/Faith Sharing invite another congregation from another denomination (not
ELCA or Old Catholic or Moravian with whom we are already in full communion) to
share your building.Every other week worship in the tradition of the other
denomination. Episcopalians welcome all the baptized to share in our
sacramental worship. We are welcome in many other traditions, as well.
This does not provide an "Episcopal experience" or one of
"Common Mission" every week, but it might work in some very
rural areas.
Home Church gather a group of folks
for Episcopal worship in homes, taking turns. Stained glass and organ
music is nice, but not essential.
These ideas
do not touch on the idea of lay presidency of the eucharist, intentionally.
That is a bigger subject to open at another time. And, it offers a
rich variety of possibilities for worship that at this time are not canonically
permissible in our Church... but stay tuned. There's so much
to think about.
For now,
share your responses in the comments section or on Facebook about the various
physical and structural possibilities presented here and please, give some of
your own good ideas!
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