wfn.org | 20/20 vision needs plan, says Executive Council

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2001-299

20/20 vision needs plan, says Executive Council

by Jan Nunley

     (ENS) As far as the Executive Council is concerned, after a year of study 
the Episcopal Church's 20/20 mission initiative remains a vision in search of a 
plan.

     At its fall meeting in Jacksonville, Florida, the council heard a long-
awaited report from the nine-member 20/20 Task Force, appointed to prepare a plan 
for doubling church membership over the next 20 years. 

     The final report focused on eight "action areas":

     celebrating the 20/20 movement

     spirituality, prayer and worship

     research and analysis

     new church, congregational and diocesan development

     identifying, recruiting and training leaders 

     the next generations

     funding

     communicating the 20/20 vision

     Each action area contained recommendations, but the task force was emphatic 
that 20/20 is "neither a program nor even a series of programs" but "a movement 
that is already underway." "Part of me wanted to do this in pencil," Bishop 
Gethin Hughes of San Diego, who chaired the task force, told the council during a 
presentation of the report on October 15. "This is a work in progress, not 
something chiseled into stone."

     The task force called for modifying the General Convention resolution 
establishing 20/20 as a mission imperative, from a commitment to doubling 
membership to doubling average Sunday attendance. The group "believes Sunday 
attendance is a much more accurate gauge of our effectiveness as disciple-makers 
and disciple-multipliers," the report said.

     They also called for the establishment of a national research and analysis 
unit and a redesigned parochial report; planting 300 new mission congregations by 
2006; revitalization of youth and campus ministry; and the development of 20/20-
related liturgical and theological resources.

Responsibility moved to evangelism commission

     During the conversation following the report, a number of council members 
called for more specifics than the report seemed to offer. "We didn't get a plan, 
we got a vision," said Shelly Vescovo of Dallas, chair of the Congregations in 
Ministry (CIM) committee, to which the report was referred. Louie Crew of Newark 
responded, "We had a vision at General Convention. I want a plan. You can't go 
very far without a plan. Everybody already buys the vision." 

     During some lively discussion, members of council expressed appreciation but 
also some lingering concerns. After an initial vote that Jim Bradberry of 
Southern Virginia called "mediocre and pitiful," and Presiding Bishop Frank T. 
Griswold called "unsettling," time for discussion was extended. Further work by 
the CIM committee "took us out of the quagmire created by the report," said 
Bradberry.

     In a resolution, the council received the report "with enthusiasm and 
gratitude," but recommended that the Standing Commission on Domestic Mission and 
Evangelism (SCDME) be "enlarged immediately" with ten new members in order to 
"monitor and report this Church's participation in the 20/20 Movement." To 
"represent the fullness and diversity of the Episcopal Church," the new 
appointees to the SCDME are to be "women under the age of thirty and/or women 
representing racial, ethnic and sexual minorities." Thirteen of the 16 members of 
the evangelism commission are men.

     The resolution also charged the commission with "helping this church expand 
our understanding of mission and evangelism to include social justice and work 
with marginalized persons and populations," reflecting a concern of some council 
members that attention to social justice issues might be eclipsed in an attempt 
to avoid potentially divisive topics.

     Approximately $50,000 remaining from the work of the 20/20 Task Force will 
be applied to the budget of the SCDME for the remainder of the triennium.

     The council also passed a resolution recommending that the theme of the 2003 
General Convention center on the "health, vitality and mission (missio Dei)" of 
the church.

Major disappointment

     Disbanding the task force was a "major disappointment" to some of its 
members, who had hoped that Executive Council would reappoint them as a 
continuing "work group" to shepherd the 20/20 process through the 2003 General 
Convention.

     "Basically what seems to have happened at the Executive Council after we 
left is that those of us who were involved in creating the plan were removed from 
any further involvement in it," said the Rev. Richard Kew. " It was clear that 
certain members of the Executive Council were extremely uncomfortable with what 
we had presented, and this was being communicated loud and clear."

     "I suppose that it comes down to one's definition of a plan," Kew remarked. 
"We presented a vision and the action steps that need to be taken as a result of 
embracing that vision, to be a church of disciples that makes disciples, but we 
did not presented a detailed route map, replete with budget, specificities, et 
cetera. Had we done so, I am sure there would have been even more consternation." 

     But Ted Mollegen, the sole member of the task force who is also on the 
evangelism commission, wasn't quite so gloomy. "The Task Force has outlined in 
broad strokes what needs to be done in eight action areas, and people in all 
parts of the church start looking at these areas to decide how they can 
contribute to achieving, or even surpassing, the 20/20 vision," Mollegen said by 
email.

--The Rev. Jan Nunley is deputy director of Episcopal News Service.