wfn.org | Episcopalians: Executive Council hears 20/20 progress report

[dmack@episcopalchurch.org]

October 17, 2002

2002-240

Episcopalians: Executive Council hears 20/20 progress report

by Jan Nunley

(ENS) At its fall meeting in Wyoming, the Executive Council 
heard a preview of the 20/20 Strategy Group's planned report to 
the 2003 General Convention from group co-chair Sarah Lawton of 
the Diocese of California.

"20/20 is more than church growth," Lawton told the council. 
"It's a shift in how we think about mission as a church." 
Recounting "the story so far" of the 20/20 movement, Lawton's 
presentation centered around strategies emerging in eight of the 
key areas identified by the strategy group at a January meeting 
at Camp Allen in Texas. The ninth area is the planning for 
General Convention itself.

"Now, even more than when the 20/20 initiative was first 
embraced by General Convention, the Episcopal Church faces 
variables of international scope that affect our approach to 
mission, including an ongoing worldwide war on terrorism, a 
globalized economic uncertainty, and scandals pointing to 
deficiencies of accountability in the wider Body of Christ," the 
report said. "We also face the challenge of speaking the diverse 
languages of the communities we serve--including idioms of 
generation, culture, and place. Thus, a major theme throughout 
the program areas is a call to offer a broad range of resources 
appropriate to this new time.

"The real work of 20/20 is local and a 'work in progress.' 
Thus, the work of the 20/20 Strategy Group and program groups 
will of necessity follow an iterative, spiral model of constant 
reevaluation and retooling to meet new challenges as they 
emerge," the report continued. Most of that work, Lawton 
reported, has been done using the Internet as a meeting place.

Lawton's report emphasized that the 20/20 approach has been 
"thoroughly integrated and woven into the fabric of existing 
programs at the Church Center, redirecting existing work and 
driving new initiatives."

Wanted: strong leaders

"Without strong leadership--lay and ordained--none of the 
work of 20/20 can be accomplished," Lawton reported. That 
includes recruiting leaders with church planting and 
revitalization skills, experience preaching and teaching the 
Gospel in a postmodern context and using appropriate technology 
tools, and multilingual and intercultural skills. The report 
recommends seminary courses in church planting, congregational 
"turn-around" ministry, intercultural leadership, and  
contemporary foreign language courses or the equivalent. Night, 
weekend, and online/distance learning tracks should also be made 
available by Episcopal seminaries. 

Canonical changes that will permit multiple "tracks" for 
ordination, tailored to church planters or revitalizers, are 
recommended, along with allowing young adults to be sponsored 
for ordination by campus ministries or internship programs. 
Proficiency in a contemporary language other than English and 
intercultural field education, the report said, should be 
required of candidates for ordination. And clergy should be 
trained in how to lead congregations through change and 
conflict.

"The cost of a three-year residential seminary education is 
so prohibitive as to discourage talented potential leaders from 
seeking ordination," the report stated, and so strategies must 
be developed to subsidize seminary education. These could 
include grants, debt reduction, or loan forgiveness to those 
qualified to serve in priority mission areas, including new 
church plants, multicultural and specialized cultural 
ministries, and rural areas. An advanced certificate in interim 
ministry should also be added to seminary curricula, the report 
suggested.

To attract high school and college students to ordained 
ministry, the report called for internship and leadership 
development programs aimed at 16-25 year-olds, increased funding 
for campus ministries, and a "user-friendly ministry recruitment 
tool" on the national Episcopal Church Web site.

Spirituality and statistics

The church needs multilingual resources for faith formation 
and education of both children and adults, the strategy group 
decided. That means music and worship resources in Spanish that 
are appropriate to the wide variety of Latino cultures in the 
United States. The group also recommended regional "music and 
liturgy unbounded" conferences and mission-based prayers of the 
people, to be published in print and electronically via the Web 
and for personal digital assistants (PDAs).

"The lack of current, accurate, and thorough demographic data 
on Episcopal parishes and membership is a pressing need," the 
report said. "We rejoice in the news that a highly qualified and 
experienced director of research has been hired at the Episcopal 
Church Center and that he will begin work on November 1."

Recommended actions include changes in the annual parochial 
report to include "snapshots" of ethnicity/race, language, 
gender, and age of congregations, and also of congregational lay 
and ordained leadership, and a requirement that vestries and 
bishop's committees review and sign the parochial report, and be 
held accountable for its accuracy--"zero tolerance for faking 
it," Lawton added.

To aid in improved accuracy, software versions of the parish 
register (with an "easy automatic calculator mechanism built-in 
to help arithmetic-challenged rectors") would be offered as 
inexpensive or downloadable "freeware."

But the information stream would not be one way only. 
Individualized annual reports on attendance, demographics, and 
stewardship results would be sent to every congregation and 
diocesan bishop, based on information in parochial reports, with 
easy-to-read graphics and trend projections out to 2020 based on 
current reporting. 

Developing congregations new and old

The report envisions an annual national conference of church 
planters, to foster ideas for a variety of new church plants, 
including language- or ethnic-specific, multicultural, urban, 
and "next generation" models. A matching-funds driven National 
Mission Fund to assist with capital campaigns for land purchase 
and construction costs for new church plants would draw on the 
resources of dioceses and national structures.

Dioceses would be encouraged to identify congregations by size 
and life cycle, and to "work one-on-one" with them using 
parochial reports and local demographic data to identify trends 
of growth or decline and develop a "plan for growth and 
vitality."  At the same time, dioceses would be discouraged from 
keeping any congregations on "life support."

Raising up a new generation

"Demographically, we are an aging Church with an aging 
clergy, in a world where most people make a commitment to follow 
Christ in their early adult years," the report said. "Blessed as 
we are by the leadership and faithfulness of those born in the 
first half of the 20th century, we must reach out to and raise 
up leadership from those born in its second half to sustain the 
mission God has given us through the 21st century and beyond." 
Among the recommendations were the establishment of a resource 
fund and online resource kit for ministry with younger 
generations, more youth and young adult commissions churchwide, 
and the election of more General Convention deputies under 40 
and under 30 years of age. 

The report envisions an upgrade of the national church 
Website, with user-profiling tools to deliver content according 
to user preferences, and new multilingual and next generation 
resources for downloading. It also calls for a nationally-funded 
20/20 radio and TV ad campaign, with companion print ads funded 
by local dioceses or parishes.

The report also asks that the Episcopal Church Center "invest 
in linguistically and culturally skilled staff" so that news and 
materials will be available in multiple languages, with 
production values equal to those of English-language materials.

The report noted that "significant fundraising, in the form 
of a capital campaign for National 20/20 Mission" must get 
underway at the national level, and encouraged the adoption and 
implementation of the Alleluia Fund in all dioceses, with funds 
raised to be used in part for local 20/20 initiatives.

------

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