Hello. I’m John. Brendan has asked me to write a guest post
regarding the church structure resolution he is sponsoring, since he’s clearly
biased. He assures me that my general
familiarity with his scoring system (from reading the blog) and my possibly
passable knowledge of Episcopal affairs are the only requirements. Still, I’m going to keep this brief so I
don’t make a fool out of myself.
I’m not going to try to go into the resolution’s intentions
too much, as I imagine its sponsor might have a few words to say about it
himself. But very briefly, General
Convention this year passed a resolution to establish a task force to create a
plan to reform the Church’s structure and governance and present it to the next
General Convention. It’s my
understanding that the resolution passed unanimously. The resolution to be put before the Diocese
of Indianapolis at its convention is a resolution to support that effort, and
to establish a similar task force for the diocese.
Of course, the guy who wrote the scoring system, wasn’t
going to sponsor a resolution that failed the test, right? Well, let’s see.
1. Is the resolution likely to pass unanimously? Well, I might have guessed not, but if the
similar resolution passed unanimously in GC, I’m gonna have to lean yes here.
-1
2. Does the resolution call for someone in the church to do
something concrete? Yes. It calls for
the creation of a committee, and for the committee to deliver reports at both
the 176th and 177th convention of the diocese. +1
3. Might the resolution call for the person who proposed it
to do something concrete? I’m not sure
it does in itself. However, I am sure
Brendan, as its sponsor, will be engaging enthusiastically
with the task force’s work (whether or not he is on it himself). So this gets a yes. +1
4. Does the resolution contain an escape hatch? Not that I can see. +1
5. If the resolution calls for an allocation from the
diocesan budget, is it clear how the funding would happen? The resolution does call for the Executive Council to “make such
resources available to the committee as necessary to enable this resolution to
be implemented energetically and successfully.”
It does not specify how much resources that would take nor where it
would come from, so I’m going to have to say no. -1
So, our final score is 1, and would be a 2 if C095 didn’t
pass General Convention unanimously. I
proclaim that you can vote for this resolution with a clear conscience. I look forward to Brendan clarifying anything
I got wrong on this one, and learning more about his vision for the future.
John,
ReplyDeleteFirst, let me say thank you for writing this post. This is exactly why I wanted a neutral third party to take a critical look at it.
Nonetheless, I'm not sure I totally agree on this. Regarding whether this will pass unanimously, I'm not too confident. There are two reasons for this. 1) There is a competing resolution about which I'll write more later. But I have been in touch with the sponsors of that resolution, and we're working toward a common goal. Nonetheless, there may be people who will prefer one resolution over the other for various reasons. 2) I think some constituencies at diocesan convention may feel under some threat by a serious restructuring of the diocese. Here I'm specifically thinking about the congregations that receive financial support from the diocese. Aided churches make up a very large part of the diocesan budget, and it doesn't take too much imagination to see a revisioning of the diocese as a menace.
Writing as the senior warden of a parish that until two years ago was on diocesan support of one form or another for half a century by some measures, I totally get that. But I also have to add that I've noticed in recent years that our diocese is doing some new things to help aided congregations reach financial self-sufficiency. A recent example is a nearby parish where the vestry felt terrified to spend money on growth because they felt they had to maintain adequate reserves for building repairs. In this case the diocese underwrote the building to allow for more creative mission and outreach. Restructuring the diocese is an opportunity to hone our tools, not wield the ax, but there are some who may not see it that way.
But hey, if this passes unanimously, who am I to complain?
The second point is regarding the budget allocation. So I didn't specify exactly how much this would cost (not much, I don't think), but I did try to point out that the Executive Council does have constitutional and/or canonical (I can't remember which now) authority to administer the budget. There are certain kinda squishy line items (leadership development, say) that might be able to be diverted to this purpose. I did it this way because there were countless resolutions at General Convention that asked for specific dollar allocation that ultimately the budget committee (aka PB&F) ignored. Directing Executive Council to administer the budget in a way that supports the work of the committee seemed more likely to fly. But your point is fair enough - I feel like it's specific enough to get things done, but yeah, it's not super-specific.
In any event, you gave me a positive score. Hurray!
What a great idea! Please keep us posted on how this conversation goes in your diocese.
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