AnglicansUnited.com

Fr. Todd H. Wetzel, Executive Director of Anglicans United & Latimer Press

www.anglicansunited.com * anglicansunited@sbcglobal.net

July 9, 2009

The first thing I learned in the many church growth seminars  I’ve attended over the years was, “If it isn’t local it isn’t real.”  In short, dioceses  grow only when parishes do.  Much of what really happens in this Church happens at the local level.

At the local level, people live together long enough to catch glimpses of what is truly real about each other.  You come to understand that behind  Emily’s constant smile,  there is a very frightened and still grieving  widow.  Now alone, she is re-appraising her faith – secure since before her marriage just out of high school – but now under question.  There too is Harry, the friendliest guy in the parish, who is a bachelor and deeply lonely.  And then there is Susan, who volunteers regularly for every church school event and seems the perfect mother. It is now known that she and her husband are barely civil to each other.  People in the parish love and admire both and know nothing of their life at home.  There is Tom, an excellent and diligent Eucharistic minister, much admired, who questions everything and refers to himself as an “infidel.”  And Anna who is 85 and a widow.  She is a prayer warrior and  occasionally she gossips.  She is loved by all.

True, the parish is a more transient place than it was even 15 years ago.  The average parishioner’s stay is an all too brief three to five years.  The average clergy stay is not much longer.  But, for those who are active in their attendance that is a significant slice of life.  We see each other at our best and, rarely, something less.  Pastoral care is a function of the entire parish and our clergy are privileged to be at the point where parochial care meets personal need.

But what of the General Convention?  It is a triennial meeting that creates an artificial national community  of constantly changing faces, (40% of this year’s Deputies are new)  attended by people elected by another legislative layer of the church’s “life” called a diocesan convention .  Deputies are representatives first of their parish then their diocese, which makes them twice removed from the realities of parish life and the drama of daily parochial interaction.

If the heart of the church is to be found in the parish, this Convention is a long way from home.  For a first time deputy, as I was in 2006, staying in a hotel room, knowing few people beyond my fellow deputies from Dallas, immersed in an ephemeral environment that is confusing at best because information comes flying at you from every conceivable source.  Thinking becomes increasingly difficult.  And that is how you are expected to make decisions.  Away from home and parish.  Listening to speeches more filled with emotion than solid thought (theological or otherwise) with little reference to authority whether Scripture or science or whatever.  

There was a time when these gatherings made sense.  Conventions brought Christians together to meet one another, share ideas and overcome the parochialism that is inherent in parish life.  People returned from these gatherings with ideas and new programs to be tested in the fires of parish life.

But at some point, probably in the mid-1950’s, someone got the idea that these meetings could be the change agents for the Church and the Culture.  The agenda began to fill with resolutions covering a wide range of subjects from race relations, to wars and rumors of wars, to sexuality, to the conduct of the American Presidency.  These debates could be rancorous.  Legislative debate serves up winners and losers.  The democratic process may not be the best means whereby to discern the mind of Christ.  The debate creates policy, not relationships. Divides rather than unites.  Wounds but seldom anoints.

Parishes will continue – its where individuals become real communities.  And, fortunately, where the body of Christ is present more often than not.  But maybe it is time to take a hard and unsentimental look at the General Convention.  We have technology that makes it possible for every Episcopalian to weigh in on issues.  No representatives are needed.  Arguments for and against ideas and activities can be made available to everyone.

Having witnessed some six of these Conventions, I have real difficulty believing that the collective wisdom of all Episcopalians can be any less enlightened than those few who gather here in this ephemeral reality.  Why not limit Convention to building relationships (networking), sharing ideas and programs and that most rewarding of all Convention events – worship.

Maybe it is time to rethink the way we do church beyond the parochial level.  There simply has to be a better way to discern our own common mind let alone the Mind of Christ.