Episcopal Press and News
General Convention Fails to Agree on Moves to Restructure Church
Episcopal News Service. September 7, 1994 [94140]
Alice Clayton, Communications Officer for the Diocese of East Tennessee
After three years of listening to a wide range of suggestions about the structure of the church, the 71st General Convention came close to adopting a plan that would respond to grassroots cries for change. In the end, however, bishops and deputies could not agree on the form that change should take. Although deputies hammered out a resolution they thought would move the Episcopal Church closer to restructure, the bishops chose to endorse changes already being implemented at the national level such as reducing staff and reorganizing church program into a single Service, Witness and Education unit with six clusters.
The resolution -- which combined nearly half a dozen resolutions on reforming church structures into one -- called for the formation of two committees, one to conduct an independent administrative review of structures and the other to organize provincial forums on structural issues.
The deputies approved the resolution, but the bishops rejected it for some of the same fears raised by dissenting deputies -- that two new committees would further burden an already overburdened structure and the $75,000 price tag to fund the committees was too high.
The proposed committee for renewal and reform for mission and ministry would have studied the role of the presiding bishop; the function of the Executive Council; the location and role of the national church headquarters and the role, organization and function of provincial synods.
A proposed forum committee would have conducted two national forums to lead the church in dialogue about restructuring for mission, similar to the Shaping Our Future Symposium held in St. Louis in 1993.
Although one deputy called the resolution "a fantastic step forward" that carried out the work of the Partners in Mission Consultation and the Executive Council's diocesan visitations held last year, Deputy Byron Rushing of Massachusetts urged the church to stop talking about structure and to go out and "do mission." He added, "By going out and doing the mission, the structures will come about, because we cannot have a structure that doesn't follow function."
Bishop Robert Tharp of East Tennessee also spoke to the need to get clarity about the church's mission before overhauling its structure. He reminded the bishops of a point raised by Loren Mead at the Shaping Our Future Symposium that "mission becomes structure."
After deputies adopted the omnibus resolution, five other resolutions on structure were discharged. This action prevented debate on resolutions dealing with the reduction in size of the House of Deputies, restriction of the number of resolutions General Convention could consider, holding General Convention every five years instead of three and declaring the Great Commission from Matthew: 28 as the mission of the Episcopal Church.
Structure resolutions making it to the floor for debate received mixed reviews. Deputies and bishops soundly defeated the Executive Council proposal to study reorganizing the General Convention from a bicameral legislative body into a unicameral body. As in past conventions, deputies and bishops agreed that the time was not right to move the Episcopal Church Center out of New York.
The convention did, however, vote to reduce the presiding bishop's term from 12 years to nine, beginning at the close of the 1997 General Convention with the new presiding bishop. And it approved the division of the Diocese of Michigan into two dioceses.
Heeding the hue and cry to provide a new way of asking dioceses for national program funding, the convention adopted a single asking plan which offers dioceses the option of calculating the amount they send to the national church for program based on income actually received from congregations. In the past the asking was based on the total income from congregations. (See separate story on budget).
Passage of the budget also responded to concerns that the Episcopal Church was moving away from its commitment to foreign mission. The final budget restored full funding for appointed missionaries and Volunteers for Mission for the next three years and added a line item designated for "mission opportunities." Although not funded for 1995, $407,831 would be available in 1996 and $1,280,792 in 1997 for racial and ethnic scholarships, funds for black colleges and Cuttington College in Liberia and grants for Jubilee Ministries and other social justice concerns.
Full funding of $800,000 was also restored for the development of a church-wide computer bulletin board service using the InterAnglican Network known as Quest, which may prove to have a profound effect on the way the church communicates in the future. In a budget hearing, Betty Gray, editor for the New York-based Associated Parishes and a volunteer on the convention telecommunications team, said that "Quest is not just a communications tool, it's also a tool for ministry."