Church begins considering the work given to it by General Convention
[Ed. Note: The most important fact of this meeting is a training session for internet and phone meetings. Much of the budget of these committees and boards was radically reduced at last summer's General Convention. Instead of many meetings around the USA, most of these bodies will meet via phone conference or via the Internet . Exceptions are the Church Pension Fund Board and the Executive Council, which will still hold quarterly face-to-face meetings. Cheryl M. Wetzel]
Volunteer members of interim bodies gather in Chicago
By Mary Frances Schjonberg, November 18, 2009
[Episcopal News Service -- Chicago, Illinois] The work given to the Episcopal Church by the July meeting of General Convention in Anaheim, California, has begun.
Nearly 270 volunteer members of 24 of the Episcopal Church’s so-called interim bodies, the Committees, Commissions, Agencies and Boards (commonly know as CCABs) are having their first meetings here Nov. 17-20. The meeting included an orientation session the morning of Nov. 18.
Each CCAB will also have 18 hours meeting together here. Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson commissioned the members during a Eucharist at the end of the orientation session.
The CCABs receive resolutions from General Convention and set policies for their implementation during the interim three years until the next meeting of convention. Each has a mandate from the body to which it reports. CCABs also report to General Convention via what is known as the Blue Book, which is released in the months preceding the next meeting of convention and includes recommended resolutions and policy decisions.
“No CCAB can accomplish its mandate in a triennium,” Executive Officer and General Convention Secretary Gregory Straub told the orientation session.
Jefferts Schori appoints bishops to those bodies whose members are not elected by convention, and Anderson appoints clergy and lay persons.
The Presiding Bishop also appoints Episcopal Church Center staff as liaisons to the CCABs. The liaisons meet with the CCABs to help inform, guide and counsel them, Straub said. While staff liaisons do not have a vote in CCAB deliberation, Executive Council liaisons (appointed to all standing commissions and most of the committees of council) have both voice and vote, he added.
During the triennium, Straub said, the CCABs ought to aim for “transparency” in their work. Updated rosters, minutes and scheduled meeting dates and location will be posted here under the links for the individual bodies. However, during the orientation some glitches arose about the practicalities of that aim.
Each CCAB will have an “extranet” website to facilitate its work by posting documents and communicating among the members. Non-members will not have access to those sites. Straub said they are meant only for communication between members. Caspar Van Helden, Straub’s former deputy who is acting as a consultant to build the extranet, said that members will be able to choose where or not to make certain documents public on the sites.
However, Sally Johnson, chancellor to the House of Deputies president, asked how the rest of the church will be able to observe or participate in anticipated telephone-conference meetings of the interim bodies. She said she was worried that the new practices being developed run the risk of “shutting out” the public and the media.
“It allows things to become not public,” she said.
Straub said that “no one has asked the question” about public access to virtual meetings and that her concern will be taken under advisement. He added that there are canonical requirements for openness on the part of CCABs.
The money available for the CCABs to meet face-to-face was reduced when the 2010-2012 budget was cut by $23 million from the current plan. It is anticipated that the groups would meet primarily online or with telephone conferencing. During opening remarks on Nov. 17, Anderson cautioned the gathering about other pitfalls of such a plan.
“Words on a page, voices over the phone or even the occasional video cam conference cannot take the place of looking each other in the eye, of breaking bread together, at the Eucharist and around the table,” she said.
“The quality of our work and the integrity of our decision-making depend upon our relationships with each other. We are meant to be in community with each other. And that requires that we be together once in a while.”
Each face-to-face meeting costs approximately $15,000, Straub said during the orientation. The church’s 2009 budget included $300,000 for the kick-off meeting, but a similar amount was cut from the 2010-2012 budget.
Both Jefferts Schori and Anderson praised the talent found in the CCAB membership.
“I’m astounded by the generosity in this church and the generosity of the people in this church and the willingness to offer those gifts during this triennium and beyond,” Anderson said. She added that her goal of having the CCAB membership reflect the church’s diversity is furthered by the 2010-2012 appointments.
Jefferts Schori urged the CCAB members to “be creative, to look forward rather than backward, and to be serious about taking risks for the sake of the Gospel. The reign of God hasn’t arrived yet, there is work to do and that work is going to involve change. You are the ones who are called to help lead that change.”
She said that those efforts “need the ministry of all the baptized … every person baptized is baptized for leadership somewhere, to bring about change toward the reign of God.”
Anderson echoed that idea, noting that the Episcopal Church was founded in part on the “strange idea … that all the baptized belong in the counsels of the church.”
“The way in which we govern ourselves allows us to bring all of our gifts to bear on the issues confronting our church,” she said. “None of us has what it takes to do this work by ourselves. We don’t have all the gifts in one person; we need each other to do that.”
She also reminded the participants that they are working in one cycle of the church’s governance that runs from convention to convention.
“Each cycle, if it’s treated prayerfully and conscientiously, creatively brings together all the voices and all the gifts we have so generously been given,” she said. “We have the potential to move us closer to God’s vision of a world reconciled.”
The realities of the smaller 2010-2012 budget “bring us creative possibility in addition to what feels like pain to many,” Jefferts Schori said.
“There is no more business as usual and there shouldn’t be,” she said. “I think we stand at a moment that is not reproducible. We stand at a crisis moment — a decision point — that offers us the ability to choose a future for the Episcopal Church that will help to re-create it in new ways for the 21st century. Don’t take that crisis lightly.”
There are 14 standing commissions: Anglican and International Peace with Justice Concerns; Communications and Information Technology; Constitution and Canons; Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations; Health; Lifelong Christian Formation and Education; Liturgy and Music; Ministry Development; Mission and Evangelism of the Episcopal Church; Social Justice and Public Policy; Small Congregations; Stewardship and Development; Structure of the Church and World Mission.
The three joint standing committees include Nominations; Planning & Arrangements; Program, Budget and Finance.
There are also nine Executive Council committees: Science, Technology and Faith, Status of Women, Anti-Racism, Indigenous Ministries, Investment, Jubilee Advisory, Economic Justice Loan, HIV/AIDS and Corporate Social Relations.
In addition, there are two House of Deputies committees: State of the Church; and Study Committee on Church Governance and Polity.
The list of committees, with roster of members and their mandates, is available here.
– The Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg is national correspondent