wfn.org | Executive Council meets in San Jose, lays groundwork for new triennium

[ENS.parti@ecunet.org (ENS)]

February 27, 1998
Episcopal News Service
James Solheim, Director
(212) 922-5385
jsolheim@dfms.org

98-2097
Executive Council meets in San Jose, lays groundwork for new triennium
By James Solheim
	(ENS) The Episcopal Church's Executive Council moved briskly into the new triennium at its meeting in San Jose, California, February 13-17, welcoming a new presiding bishop and testing a revised committee structure approved by last summer's General Convention.
	Dispensing with a formal address from the chair, Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold called attention in his opening comments to "a new pattern" of leadership and shared his impressions after his first month in his new position.
	Griswold said that his investiture on January 10 at Washington National Cathedral was "a hopeful day," filled with "good energy." In addition to nearly 4,000 participants in the cathedral, Episcopalians across the country  joined the service in local settings, suggesting ways "we can connect the community, giving people a sense that they can be part of something larger than themselves," Griswold said. He opened the possibility of a similar teleconference event some time during the triennium.
	Prior to his first consecration of a bishop in Louisiana, Griswold said that he spent time with diocesan clergy, including the bishop-elect. That meant that he already had a connection with the diocese and was "not a visitor from outer space who just dropped in" to do a consecration. And he said that he hopes to consider the possibility of staying over for a Sunday following the consecration so that he can experience parish life, as he did following his investiture by joining a local black parish in an economically depressed area of Washington.
'A ministry of connection'
	Similar meetings with clergy in Florida and Connecticut provided Griswold with an opportunity to "be something more than an issue."  While admitting that he would struggle with a tendency to overextend himself, he looks forward to "substantial and protracted opportunities to be with people, especially at the local level, as the best way to be a minister of connection." 
	It is too easy, Griswold observed, to be "co-opted by urgent voices" in the church and he said that he prefers the opportunities to "savor and be strengthened" by positive energy at the local level. He said that he looks forward to preaching, teaching, writing and leading retreats. One of the major tasks in his first year will be to determine the "balances," trying to save time for reflection while meeting a whole new set of demands.
Griswold said that his eagerness to foster a sense of community in the church also extends to the staff at the Episcopal Church Center in New York where he has met with some staff members to discuss how to strengthen worship life and find regular occasions to meet in an informal setting.  In a question-and-answer period later with council members, he paid tribute to the "incredible reserve" the church has in its national staff.
	Griswold said that he has engaged a consultant to help him shape his own staff and will look at the systems at the Church Center to find ways to make it "more accessible and transparent." He announced that he and Pamela Chinnis, the president of the House of Deputies, had agreed on the choice of an assistant for administration but he couldn't share that choice until all the background checks had been completed. (Shortly after his return to New York, Griswold announced that Patricia Mordecai of Washington, D.C., had accepted the position.)

New sense of hope
	In her comments, Chinnis agreed with Griswold that she had a sense that "there is a lot of hope in the church-and it is not limited to the investiture." As one example she cited "good signs" that some dioceses are ready to negotiate a new relationship with the national church. 
	Chinnis expressed a hope that the church would look at the "awkward" transition time following the election of a new presiding bishop and the actual transfer of authority. She said that a group is looking at the problem and will make suggestions to the commissions on Structure and Constitution and Canons. It looks possible, she added, that the date for the election could be moved to late September or early October and that the new presiding bishop could preside at the first meeting of Executive Council after General Convention. As a partner in the church's leadership, Chinnis said that she is getting a feel for Griswold's leadership style.
 
Cautious optimism on the budget
	Treasurer Stephen Duggan told council members that the final financial report for 1997 was not complete but that it looked as though there might be a deficit which must be addressed since the church is canonically required to balance its budget. He expressed a cautious optimism that the financial picture would be better in 1998.
	When asked about the controversy over the audit of the church's trust funds, Duggan pointed out that "it's not a lawsuit," but rather a complaint filed with the Attorney General in the State of New York asking that the funds be examined in light of allegations of possible misuse during the period when Ellen Cooke was treasurer. Cooke admitted to embezzling $2.2 million and is serving time in prison.
	Duggan cited the complaint as one unanticipated complication in last year's financial picture. He said that it has been "a very costly experience-and not part of the budget." Attorney's fees have already cost the church "over $300,000," more than the church lost in the wake of the Cooke embezzlement.
The church's response to the complaint has been "very involved," requiring substantial staff time and energy. At this point Duggan told the council he doesn't know of anything that has been uncovered but said that the whole situation has been "unexpected and embarrassing." He would not predict the eventual response from the office of the Attorney General.

A diocese that is diverse-and soaking wet
	Bishop Richard Shimpfky of El Camino Real welcomed the council to Silicon Valley, "in the apple of El Nino's eye." The record rains were still causing serious damage, isolating many communities amid reports of extensive property damage.
	Noting that the diocese is a young one, formed in 1979, he said that the diocesan membership is still 93 percent white in a rapidly growing area of the state where the population is almost half non-white. In accepting the obvious mission challenges, he said that the diocese is investing much of its energy in multi-cultural ministry. Shimpfky explained that the diocese is in the center of a "vast missionary area" where only 15 percent claim any church affiliation, depriving a whole generation of any knowledge of God. As the diocese struggles to "come of age," he said that it is laying plans to take advantage of "an enormous missionary moment." 
Lay leaders from a Chinese parish and a Filipino rector offered examples of the diocese's ministry in the highly diverse area around San Jose, already California's third-largest city. And the Rev. Rene Miller of the diocesan staff told the council that ministry in the Latino community was especially frustrating because there were so few clergy available. As an example, she talked about a mission congregation meeting at the cathedral that had grown to 1,800 members and now needed four services each Sunday.
Council members had an opportunity to experience first-hand the energy of the mission congregation when they were welcomed con mucho gusto to an evening service at Mission Nuestra Senora de Guadelupe. Griswold celebrated the Eucharist in Spanish and dozens of children crowded around the altar to receive the sacrament.
	On Sunday council members fanned out in the diocese to experience the variety of church life, returning on Monday to share a wide range of exciting stories about what they had seen and learned. Many said that the church must find a way to share more widely the power of ministry at the local level.

Struggle for healing, reconciliation
	In her sermon at the council Eucharist, Chinnis said that "it is challenge enough to live in harmony with the people I like. Blessing those who persecute me does not come naturally.... Yet God chooses us, now, to lead our little corner of the church, and charges us with the tasks of loving, living in harmony, blessing those who persecute us...None of us can live this way-except by the grace of God."
	Chinnis pointed out that "conflict and division in the church are not a modern invention....Over and over again, Christians have disagreed about what God required of them. Over and over again the church has shuddered and splintered and split on the hard rock of human error and sin." Yet the task  is "to repair and restore the community of faith. Like Francis in his time, and Frank Griswold today, and countless others in between and yet to come, we are called to repair the fraying bonds of trust and commitment that bind us within the one Body of Christ."
	Chinnis warned that by being "held captive to the problems... we will be trapped in frustration and anger and bitterness...If we focus anxiously on our disagreements and discord and divisions, it will be difficult-perhaps impossible-to see God or to live in harmony with one another... Yet by the grace of God in Christ Jesus we are set free from our individual and corporate sins to love and serve one another. By the power of the Holy Spirit we shall receive wisdom and courage to repair the church in our own time."

Response to Florida
	In its own effort at healing and reconciliation, the council unanimously adopted a response to a letter from Bishop Stephen Jecko of Florida which cited a frayed trust in the national church. In the letter, Jecko and the Diocesan Council had indicated that support for the national church would depend on Griswold's response to several items. The list included completion of an audit of church trust funds, a statement by the House of Bishops that they would resolve to "abide by the doctrine and discipline of the Episcopal Church," and a suggestion that the national church conduct "a national survey of unimpeachable integrity" to discover  "the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats perceived by all members of the Episcopal Church . . ."
	The council said that it took the concerns seriously and thanked the diocese for continuing its 1998 pledge at the same level as 1997, or 10.6 percent. "Certainly we hope that increasing trust and a growing sense of partnership between us will enable you to increase your level of giving to the national church budget in the future."
	The council said that it did not feel its role was to respond to concerns about the House of Bishops or those addressed directly to Griswold, who said that he would send a personal letter to Jecko covering those issues.
	"We intend for all we do as the council of our church between conventions to be in some way for the spread of God's kingdom in obedience to the Divine Commission," the letter concluded.

In other actions, the council:
* Heard a report from the new communications committee, charged with developing and implementing a comprehensive communications strategy. The committee recommended a review and evaluation of current efforts as a first step in building a strategy and "vision of future needs."
* Gave permission to the Missionary District of the Episcopal Church in Micronesia to use its land as security for a business administration loan and authorized the treasurer to respond to a request for a low-interest loan toward the $3.3 million to rebuild St. John's Episcopal School on Guam, which was heavily damaged by a typhoon last December.
* Endorsed a statement by Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey supporting continuing pressure on the Iraqi government to accept the United Nations requirements in full. The archbishop warned that not to do so would bring further disaster and suffering and cause a "potentially disastrous outcome" to Iraq and its neighboring countries.
* Commended an open letter by the presiding bishop and other church leaders calling for an end to the rift that has divided the U.S. and Cuba. In response to Pope John Paul II's visit, the document to the U.S. government urges the restoration of direct flights to Cuba and an end to the embargo on the sale of food, medicines and medical supplies as first steps in the healing process.
* Contributed more than $1,000 to a "drop in the bucket" project developed by Don Betts in Nebraska to support the Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief. 
* Elected the Rev. Robert Sessum of Lexington, Kentucky, as the Episcopal Church's representative to the Anglican Consultative Council.
* Instructed Duggan to vote in several shareholder resolutions on a range of issues dealing with equality in the workplace, corporate environmental responsibility, and human rights abroad.

-James Solheim is director of news and information for the Episcopal Church