Budget Cuts at The Episcopal Church Center leave many good resolutions with no staff to implement them

Budget Cuts at The Episcopal Church Center (known as "815") leaves a lack of staff for implementation of resolutions passed at General Convention:


It is at least sad and a disappointment that good work done over the last two weeks in Anaheim in terms of mission, evangelism, church development, and peace and justice work will not be implemented by The Episcopal Church because of drastic cuts ($25 million) to the Episcopal Church Center's budget.


I tend to think that (perhaps) these budgets should have been dealt with at the start of the two weeks, in order to save some people's time and energy (and money) on these various resolutions which will not be enacted and lived out because there is no staff to implement them.



From The Episcopal Cafe:

At his blog, Father T. Listens to the World, the Rev. Terry Martin writes about the staff cuts at the Episcopal Church center and to the evangelism budget in particular:

A drastically reduced budget has been approved by General Convention. Among the cuts are various programs at the Episcopal Church Center.

I'm sorry to have to inform you that the entire Evangelism program, including my position [Program Officer for Evangelism and Congregational Life], has been eliminated from the budget.

Other program officer positions eliminated include Worship and Spirituality, Women's Ministries and Lay Ministry.

All together, 37 positions at the Episcopal Church Center have been cut. No explanation has been offered as to why these programs were chosen for elimination.

One of the most frustrating things about this unexpected development was that it follows right on the heels of the positive time I spent last week with the Evangelism Legislative Committee as they carefully crafted various resolutions. There were plans in place to host evangelism events with our ecumenical partners, create an innovative evangelism "toolkit," and develop training programs for evangelists, among other things. All these resolutions passed both Houses. I was quite enthusiastic about those proposals. But now, since the entire Evangelism program is gone, I'm afraid there will be no one to implement those excellent ideas. How sad.

So, after eleven brief months, I'll be moving on.

Read it all. Father T. is also known in the blogosphere as Father Jake.


From Jason Cox, "bloggers on the ground" at the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, 2009, writing "Why is the Blue Book Maroon":

"Its not that I'm opposed to structure--as President Anderson pointed out in a press conference on Saturday, you have to support the structure because the structure is there to support the mission. But I do think the structure--the EC and all those CCABs--collectively could do a better job at vision-casting and goal setting, directing funding to those goals, and then measuring progress.

One difficulty I see is the disconnect between the policy setting bodies (the CCABs and EC) and the staff. The way Church staff are organized bears almost no relation to the policy setting bodies. As anyone involved in the non-profit world could tell you, boards are great, but staff do the actual work. Staff carry out the policies. So there's a problem if there's a Standing Commission meeting every now and then (at no mean expense) and setting amazing policy goals--for Small Congregations, say, or National Concerns--but there's no staff person tasked with carrying those policies to fruition. Is anyone surprised that there are things left undone? Closer coordination and mutual information sharing between CCABs and Church Center staff would go a long way to creating a more efficient and effective church.

This sense of disconnect and lack of effectiveness is stressed over and over in the current Blue Book. In the recommendations of the HoD Committee on the State of the Church, they write, "The Episcopal Church needs to take a look at the way we lead . . . we need to see . . . how we have addressed tasks that no longer need our attention and we need to identify what is being called into ministry or action . . . and how we are to meet these challenges." The committee also comments on TEC's perceived lack of identity and encourages continuing work so that we can say clearly to the world who and why we are.

Unfortunately, these recommendations aren't embodied in any resolutions, which I fear will make it all too easy for them to be overlooked, a footnote in the church archives. This is a shame, since all the recommendations are worthy of attention, and represent no small amount of time and effort and money that went in to producing them."

It is also worth your time to read Bryan Owen's post, Eliminating Evangelism at his Creedal Christian blog....!

This is an issue that should be dealt with, examined and debated, and solutions should be found. I wonder whether the expense of General Convention itself could be cut in any way (I have heard they will cut a few days off the convention). Any other solutions? Any other ways forward?

I'd love to hear them...better yet, tell your diocesan conventions!

~The Rev. Peter M. Carey