Episcopal Press and News
Small Churches Lead the Way in General Convention's Support for Mission
Episcopal News Service. August 6, 1997 [97-1909]
(ENS) The inauguration of a yearlong celebration of small church ministry helped focus widespread energy at the 72nd General Convention over issues of outreach and mission.
Small churches are "the leading edge in creating the updraft on which the rest of us will rise or crash in the decades ahead," said Bishop Martin Townsend of the Diocese of Easton (Maryland), a member of the Standing Committee on the Church in Small Communities.
The committee oversees work with small congregations and rural communities for the Executive Council, which is sponsoring the "Year of the Small Church."
By necessity, small churches have learned to do more with less, Townsend said, developing innovative and effective approaches to evangelism, formation and outreach with a minimum of resources and by tapping into the talents of church members.
In his introduction to a video titled "The Leading Edge," Townsend stressed the vibrancy and innovative approach to ministry underway in small churches.
While the challenges can be daunting, the story of the small church is not one of despair, Townsend said. Through sharing their gifts, lay members realize they have an equal and vital role to play in their congregations.
"The intimacy in small congregations strengthens our baptismal ministry and our self-awareness as the body of Christ," he said.
His message was underscored in the stories of a dozen congregations told in the 22-minute video shown to the bishops. Among the voices affirming the ministry of the laity was the Rev. Canon Ben Helmer of the Diocese of Western Missouri. Members of small churches in his diocese, Helmer said, "know they are baptized ministers and are not afraid to say so."
The vicar of a Baton Rouge church described how his members have broadened their view of the church. "We have learned that we need to work with all types of people, all cultures, all classes."
At another Louisiana congregation, the members have learned that a church structure is not a prerequisite to effective ministry. This mission church, which occupies a downtown storefront, has transferred its building funds into an endowment for outreach ministry. The main concern, said one parishioner, is attempting to meet "a diversity of needs without many resources."
Townsend, who served as narrator in the video, told the bishops the celebration of the small church should not end in 1997 "but continue into the next millennium."
Bishop Wesley Frensdorff, Nevada's pioneer in "total ministry" who died in 1988, "is looking down upon us and telling us to go for it," added Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning in a postscript to Townsend's presentation.
Structural changes adopted by the convention replaced three standing commissions on evangelism, churches in small communities and metropolitan areas with a single Standing Commission on Domestic Mission and Evangelism.
The role of the Standing Commission on World Mission also was clarified and its membership broadened to include more people with direct representation in world mission. Wording in the original resolution that would have required that half the membership be from jurisdictions outside the United States was deleted.
Convention authorized the continuation of the office of rural and small community ministries with a call that the positions of national officer and field officer be filled as soon as possible. The Council for the Development of Ministry and the Board of Theological Education were combined under the new Standing Commission on Ministry.
Convention also amended the canons to add missionary theology and missiology -- the study of mission -- to the subjects in which candidates for ordination must show proficiency, and directed seminaries to prepare graduates on interfaith issues. A church-planting goal of 1 percent for each diocese also was adopted.
Other General Convention actions related to mission and evangelism included approving resolutions:
- calling for the Executive Council to fund a full-time congregational development position for the next triennium;
- encouraging dioceses with metropolitan areas to prepare congregational development strategies;
- saying "the effects of 'welfare reform,' especially as they have impact on the lives of women and children, (should) be a priority in diocesan mission outreach planning and action";
- adopting a domestic missionary outreach to ethnic minorities;
- supporting outreach to migrant workers, urging the church to give greater responsibility to the dioceses and provinces to sustain and develop ministries among migrant and seasonal farm workers;
- directing the Executive Council to initiate development of a Partnership for Global Mission in a way that pulls together many groups that work on mission while retaining the authority of the council over the work;
- designating the last Sunday of Epiphany of each year as World Mission Sunday;
- urging comprehensive use by the Episcopal Church of revolutionary technologies to provide information and to further community;
- renewing commitment to college work;
- calling on the church to "reclaim the essential mission of evangelism in the remaining years of the Decade of Evangelism and beyond;
- encouraging the mission outreach of the Convocation of American Churches in Europe;
- urging those engaging in evangelism to cooperate in their work;
- directing the Evangelism Office of the Episcopal Church Center to prepare resources for spiritual preparation for mission in the next millennium.
- supporting new directions in American Indian leadership training through the Indigenous Theological Training Institute of North America;
- directing examination of racial and ethnic ministry development by appropriate church bodies;
- encouraging Episcopal Church education throughout the life span;
- conducting a survey of preparation and training of the laity for ministry in all dioceses;
- affirming the church's commitment to theological education through parishes contributing 1 percent of their income to one or more seminaries;
- recommitting the Episcopal Church to the Indigenous Native Ministry;
- encouraging congregations to support the ministry of and by older adults;
- requesting the presiding bishop to designate one Sunday a year as Theological Education Sunday;
- establishing a new Title II, Canon 15, setting a minimum continuing education standard for clergy of 36 hours annually; and
- calling on dioceses to develop plans for continuing education for clergy and lay professionals.