A Wonderful and Sacred Mystery

A Wonderful and Sacred Mystery: A Practical Theology of the Parish Church is the new book available from Ascension Press. You can get it as an eBook on Amazon at this link for $9.99. It will be available as a paperback soon. The book is the first offering of the new Shaping the Parish series from Ascension Press. Michelle Heyne and Robert Gallagher, two professed members of the Order of the Ascension have collaborated in writing the book. 

About A Wonderful and Sacred Mystery: A Practical Theology of the Parish Church

Our starting place is what is organic in the inner life of any parish church. To effectively and faithfully shape the parish, the work needs to be grounded in an understanding of the natural functioning of the body of Christ; in the inherent functioning of that microcosm called the parish church.

The need is to shift our focus to the organic reality of the parish—we gather and we scatter, we are renewed and we go forth into our apostolate. It just happens. As Evelyn Underhill put it, “You are to be taken, consecrated, broken, and made a means of grace; vehicles of the Eternal Charity.” In our pastoral strategy, we want to pay attention to the natural organic rhythms and dynamics of the parish church. Once we have some understanding of that, we might better shape the parish in ways that align with those rhythms. 

Our hope is that this book will provide accessible pathways to understanding, shaping, and enriching the parish church’s purposes; and perhaps offer new clarity about both what is possible and what is already true. 

 Contents

Introduction
Chapter One: Images of the parish’s intrinsic dynamics and rhythms
Chapter Two: The goals of parish development 
Chapter Three: Power from the center pervades the whole
Chapter Four: Cultural density
Chapter Five: The knowledge and skills
Conclusion
Appendix A: Cultural density – US Marine Corps
Appendix B: Parish Development Leadership/Consultant Assessment

 

Improving vestry meetings

Raise your hand if you look forward to your next vestry meeting. Many of us, clergy and lay, experience the meetings as “necessary” (as in a "necessary evil” that we must endure) or at worst, we dread them. In many parishes if you surveyed the vestry, you might find that about 10% felt good about the meetings, 30% were very dissatisfied, and the rest someplace in between. The in-between people often having low expectations and hopes and a sense of fatalism.

We see the place vestry meetings have when the pressure builds to make them shorter or to have them on Sunday after the Eucharist. We rush through the agenda.

Dismal, isn’t it? Many of us find the meetings dull and the climate murky.

But, but, but …. “Not so in my parish, friend!! We have excellent meetings. They are productive and they satisfy the soul. Okay if I stop reading this?”

Nope. This is for everyone. If your meetings are less than satisfying, how can you improve them? If they are very satisfying, how can you keep them satisfying?

The best meetings are like the best Eucharist. The community is reconstituted as it recalls its identity and purpose and is fed by sacrificial love to be instruments of love in their families, with friends, in the workplace and civic life. The priest presides at the vestry meeting as she presides at the Eucharist. Her task is to bring all the gifts present into harmony and service for the mission of divine love.

“Well, holy shit! That’s awesome! If only …”. Some might say, “Yes, and if pigs could fly.”

So, where do we begin?

We are the Body of Christ, and the meeting has a task to advance and relationships to honor and nurture.

The parish is a microcosm of the Body of Christ within a particular setting. It is the one, holy, catholic church in this place. And it seeks to be effective and efficient, safe and risking, engaging and life enhancing. It wants to manifest the fruits of the Spirit and the full stature of Christ.  

What happens at the center impacts the whole body. So, if the center is kind and persistent, it's more likely the whole parish will show such fruits in its life. And there are two centers. The vestry (priest and laity) are one, the less important one. And those who live an Apostolic faith and practice are the more critical, though less visible.  My concern in this article is with the first. For the second, get a copy of Fill All Things: The Spiritual Dynamics of the Parish Church, and read the chapter on Shape of the Parish.

Let’s start with the idea that the vestry has a task to advance and relationships to honor and nurture. The broad task is the pastoral oversight of the parish. The vestry and rector each have responsibilities for that oversight. The rector carries that responsibility even when a vestry may be unable or unwilling to do so. And we also share in the work of enhancing human life and dignity; dealing with one another as beings in the divine image.

The Shared Leadership model from the world of organization development is useful. It sees all groups as having three elements which exist in some degree of harmony and tension: task, relationships and individual wants and needs.

Take a look at Shared Leadership: the Maintaining of Task and Relationship Functions. Also at this related assessment worksheet.

“All groups have these three elements. They each require attention if the group is to be productive in its work and satisfying to its members. There is a tension among them. A group that is excessively task-oriented may get the job done but may build up resentments among its members because relationship and individual needs are not adequately addressed. A group that is overly relationship-oriented may enjoy being together but let its task drift. The most effective groups are those that learn how to attend to all three aspects of the group’s life.”

Making progress is mostly dependent on the rector’s skills for creating the needed processes and structures and in part on the behavior of each member. Do the methods used by the rector in the meeting adequately enable the various task and relationship functions? Is there a critical mass of members exercising the needed group functions?

Five matters to concentrate on

The rector’s spiritual maturity and emotional intelligence

There’s no way around this. In organization development it gets referred to as “the use of self.”  A rector’s wisdom grounded in training and experience is the most significant factor in having better vestry meetings. We’re not talking about some abstract “perfect.” All priests come with sin and human limitation. There is a spectrum of humility seen in how priests design and lead meetings. An openness to feedback and formal training in group development and methods helps.

On spiritual maturity       Emotional Intelligence

Related resources are under “Spiritual Maturity and Emotional Intelligence” on the Shaping the Parish Resources page.

Core abilities

There are several core abilities needed for a vestry to be most effective. My list includes proficiency in Episcopal spiritual practices, ability to work as part of a team, understanding and acceptance of Episcopal Church polity regarding the parish church, and skill in areas of work that are routine for the vestry of this parish. Take a look at the assessment form. You might come up with a slightly different list. You could generate a useful conversation by having the vestry develop a list and prioritize it, have the rector do the same before seeing what the vestry came up with, and running all that up against the list on the worksheet. Talk with one another. Listen.

An assessment worksheet - What do you bring to the table?

Assessments of our work and life as a group

Why assess the vestry meetings?

1.     It’s a way of building a sense of responsibility in people. We all have responsibility to make our meetings productive and hospitable

2.     It can set in motion improvement process by which meetings get better

3.     It’s a way of inculcating values

What process  might be used?

1.     Each year assess the vestry’s meetings at least once.  If it is a new practice it may be useful to do it two or three times in a six month period. Best to alternate rather than doing it on back-to-back meetings.

2.     Collate on the spot (meaning, total the results and share them with the group right then). This has the most impact on people. It’s more likely to produce a change in behavior.

3.     Discuss – What do you make of the results? Let’s go around the room with each person making a short initial response.

4.     Close the process with a question like this - What might we do better?  Or what did you learn from this? What challenges does it suggest for us/for you? Go around the circle 

Here are two assessment worksheets. The first is a Likes/Concerns/Wishes process. It helps us hear people in their own voice. They say what they like, what concerns them. The second is a Meeting Assessment that offers a spectrum. Such assessments can help people consider group issues that they may not be fully aware of. Can help encourage productive values in the group. Other worksheets are available under “Group and Team Assessments” on the Shaping the Parish Resources page.

Why are we so hesitant?

I’ve come to believe it’s a mix of fear, shame, and embarrassment. Rectors and wardens are anxious that the information received may suggest they have made a mistake, they are doing something wrong, they aren’t as competent as they want people to believe. Of course, with a slight shift of mental models in our head, we can simply look upon such data as suggesting “there can be improvement.” This returns us to the first consideration regarding spiritual and emotional maturity.

Group and trust development theory

Groups have predictable dynamics and stages. It does require some skill to see them. Even more to appropriately act in relationship to them.  There are training programs that can increase your skill—NTL, Crosby, EQHR Center. At least a five day workshop to get a sense of what’s happening in you and in the group. Many years ago, it took me until the middle of the third week for my eyes to open.

Knowing a few group/trust development theories will help. Here are two. The first, Group Development Theory: Leadership Issues has been around a long time . It notes three stages that a group needs to go through, and then go through again, to become productive. The second is Trust Development which looks at four stages. Other theories are available under “Group Development Theory” on the Shaping the Parish Resources page.

Meeting design

We need to design meetings, not just plan them. Most of us learn to attend to the meeting itself. We think about having an agenda. A series of business items to go through.

If we want meetings to be both productive and interesting, to attend to both the task and the relationships, we need to broaden our thinking.  A first step is to understand and use A Meeting Cycle.  The cycle begins the advance work need for a meeting, then designing the meeting, moves to conducting the meeting, and finally engaging the needed follow through.

Designing a Meeting involves being sure that any necessary advance work has been done, seeing that the “right people” will attend, and having clear objectives for the meeting. That last is critical. We need to learn how to shift from thinking, “I have to get us through this agenda,” to “I need to help us focus on the results we seek.”

Have a few methods to help the vestry manage the energy, work both at the task and the relationships,  and deal with the extroverted – introverted dynamics. If you use just a few of the methods routinely they’ll become normative and owned by the vestry. Consider methods like these:

1)    Go Around the Circle. That’s a way to hear from everyone. 

This is a useful method of allowing everyone to be heard, and is something I’ve used with up to 45 people. Participants speak in turn around the circle. The comment is to be brief and on one point.  The method helps equalize the voices in the room so the more hesitant are heard along with the more assertive. It can be especially useful when dealing with controversial issues. 

Variations include the fishbowl and the Samoan circle. The methods are defined in different ways by various facilitators. In both cases there is a group that sits within the larger circle of participants and engages in a conversation. The inner group is to consist of the various positions on an issue, or might be an “expert panel.”

Depending on your objectives and issues, such as the time available, the outer group might remain silent, or there might be an opportunity for comment or questions from the outer circle, or there might be a way for someone from the outer circle to join the inner circle. From “In Your Holy Spirit: Shaping the Parish through Spiritual Practice.: R. Gallagher, Ascension Press.

2)    Use newsprint for recording and managing decision making

Using newsprint pads to record the group’s thinking can improve participation, reduce repetition, and help people feel heard. The best arrangement is to have pegs in a wall allowing several pads to be hung. It’s better use of space, reduces the number of flip chart easels a parish needs, and eliminates the temptation to “flip” the page over and thus hide the work just completed. From “In Your Holy Spirit: Shaping the Parish through Spiritual Practice.: R. Gallagher, Ascension Press.

3)    Short, small groups

It helps avoid group-think and usually restores the groups’ energy to have people break into groups of 2 or 3. Keep it simple and brief. “We’ve heard the proposal. Let’s break into groups of three with people sitting next to us. How about we spend 5 minutes seeing what questions we each have.”

See, simple. You can significantly improve vestry meetings.

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Respect and awe

I’ve heard a good bit of comment during the pandemic about how the daily office has become part of the fabric of many parishes. Across the country parishes arranged for the Office to be said using Zoom or live streaming. Since early 2020 I would shift about from doing Morning Prayer on my own (with the whole communion of saints) to joining the live stream Office of Atonement, Chicago or St. Mary’s Hamilton Village where I was ordained a deacon in 1970. Members of the Order of the Ascension are obliged by Rule to say the Office each day, and if in charge of a parish, to offer a public Office. The obligation protects me from basing my spiritual life on my inconstant, capricious, and vacillating feelings and opinions.

Now most days, I say Morning Prayer on Zoom with Sister Michelle, OA. After that I walk to Uptown Expresso, read the news with a mug of coffee, walk a bit, do some grocery shopping, and return home to write or read. The heartbeat of the Office grounds me in respect and awe.

I picked up the phrase, “respect and awe” from Abbott Andrew of St. Gregory’s Abbey reflection in their Fall newsletter. He writes of “Benedict’s realism” in the face of “the past year and a half (having been) traumatic and disorienting in many ways.” He says this in a section on the Office.

The Divine Office immerses us in the Christian story as active participants. The Psalms, which are the backbone of the Divine Office, are profoundly realistic about human experience between humans and between humans and God. That is, the Psalms lead us to expressions of joy, sorrow, even rage, emotions we feel all the time as we make our way through life. The Office is done communally, which means we also have to work with the strengths and weaknesses of ourselves and others in our varying abilities to sing and recite the office well. We are made conscious of the people around us and of the people we are praying for. We are also made aware of God. Fundamentally, we sense God truly through respect and awe, the attitude with which Benedict would have us listen to the Gospel as it is read. Moreover, the office has the ability to ground us emotionally, even when its content takes us into the depths of pain. That is to say, the Divine Office can be a powerful resource for helping us live with traumatic situations such as the pandemic.  A PDF of the Abbey Letter

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Friends and family

During most of the pandemic Fr. Kevin has offered a daily reflection as part of Morning Prayer. Today was about marriage and friendship. I first knew Kevin and Ron at Trinity, Seattle when Kevin and I were priest associates and Ron was responsible for adult formation programs.

The Lesson -Ruth1:6-22

6 Then Naomi started to return with her daughters-in-law from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the country of Moab that the Lord had had consideration for his people and given them food. ⁷So she set out from the place where she had been living, she and her two daughters-in-law, and they went on their way to go back to the land of Judah. ⁸But Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, ‘Go back each of you to your mother’s house. May the Lord deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me. ⁹The Lord grant that you may find security, each of you in the house of your husband.’ Then she kissed them, and they wept aloud. ¹⁰They said to her, ‘No, we will return with you to your people.’ ¹¹But Naomi said, ‘Turn back, my daughters, why will you go with me? Do I still have sons in my womb that they may become your husbands? ¹²Turn back, my daughters, go your way, for I am too old to have a husband. Even if I thought there was hope for me, even if I should have a husband tonight and bear sons, ¹³would you then wait until they were grown? Would you then refrain from marrying? No, my daughters, it has been far more bitter for me than for you, because the hand of the Lord has turned against me.’ ¹⁴Then they wept aloud again. Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.

15 So she said, ‘See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.’ 

¹⁶But Ruth said,

‘Do not press me to leave you
   or to turn back from following you!
Where you go, I will go;
   where you lodge, I will lodge;
your people shall be my people,
   and your God my God.
¹⁷ Where you die, I will die—
   there will I be buried.
May the Lord do thus and so to me,
   and more as well,
if even death parts me from you!’
¹⁸When Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more to her.

19 So the two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they came to Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them; and the women said, ‘Is this Naomi?’ ²⁰She said to them,
‘Call me no longer Naomi,
   call me Mara,
   for the Almighty has dealt bitterly with me.
²¹ I went away full,
   but the Lord has brought me back empty;
why call me Naomi
   when the Lord has dealt harshly with me,
   and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?’

22 So Naomi returned together with Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, who came back with her from the country of Moab. They came to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.

 Father Kevin’s Reflection

Ron and I had a conversation very early on that while marriage was extremely important, it was also important that we not put all our eggs in one basket. We both had deep friendships of many years with others who were important parts of our lives and those friendships continued understanding that those friends also met the needs of each of us.

While we both held marriage as sacred, we also understood that our friendships were also sacred in a different but similar manner. These were people with whom we had established trusting and affectionate relationships going back, in some cases, for decades. These were people to whom we were committed though maybe a bit differently than our commitment to each other. We needed them and they needed us and in some cases fulfilled a need neither Ron nor I could fulfill for each other. One example is that Ron loved opera. To me, Gilbert & Sullivan is high opera. Wagner bores me to tears. So, he had his opera buddies and off they’d go for dinner and lots of women in horned helmets bellering at the top other lungs. And we were both content.

The point is that friendship is also sacramental. Friendship is an outward and visible sign of God’s gift to us of each other – people with whom we can journey through life, shares life’s ups and downs, its joys and sorrows in trusting affection. The key to both marriage and friendship is not taking the other for granted and caring for one another. Both require hard work which pays off. Both require forgiveness and reconciliation when things go wonky. And, for Christians, friendship acknowledges that Christ is present in the mix, the source of love and affection, of trust and forgiveness.

Make a list of your real friends today – maybe just the first name or the middle name. Set it in a place of honor and light a candle next to it. Your spouse or partner might even be one of them if you have one, either living or departed. Offer a prayer of thanks for these people who grace/have graced your life. Give thanks that you and they have been put together to experience life together and in so doing have experienced a slice of the abundant life which Jesus promises us.

The Rev’d Kevin Corbin Smith

Rector, St. Clements Parish, Seattle

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Keeping death before our eyes

I’ll add one Benedictine thought to Kevin’s reflection. Our friends and family  become even dearer when we listen to Blessed Benedict, “Keep death daily before your eyes.” Here’s an additional source of reflection from The Dispatch.

Longtime Boston journalist Jack Thomas recently learned he has inoperable cancer, which his doctors say will kill him within months. In the Boston Globe, he wrote a remarkable reflection on his life in response. “Does the intensity of a fatal illness clarify anything?” he asks. “Every day, I look at my wife’s beautiful face more admiringly, and in the garden, I do stare at the long row of blue hydrangeas with more appreciation than before. And the hundreds and hundreds of roses that bloomed this year were a greater joy than usual, not merely in their massive sprays of color, but also in their deep green foliage, the soft petals, the deep colors and the aromas that remind me of boyhood.”

And

It becomes clearer every day that we will all be suffering with the physical, economic, psychological and spiritual consequences of the coronavirus for some time. We should be willing to learn the lessons God wants to teach us. A great temptation is to demand that God return what we have lost. In the field of tragedy, God sows seeds of new life. We all must water them with our prayers (both seen and unseen), our sacrifices and, perhaps, even our lives. But death does not have the last word.  The entire posting

​Very Rev. Dom Benedict Nivakoff, O.S.B.
Prior,  Monastero di San Benedetto in Monte

Losing life and finding it

For stability means that I must not run away from where my battles are being fought, that I have to stand still where the real issues have to be faced. Obedience compels me to re- enact in my own life that submission of Christ himself, even though it may lead to suffering and death, and conversatio, openness, means that I must be ready to pick myself up, and start .all over again in a pattern of growth which will not end until the day of my final dying. And all the time the journey is based on that Gospel paradox of losing life and finding it. ..my goal is Christ. Esther deWaal 

The Roman Catholic bishops may be moving in a direction to reinforce a kind of cult like existence.  Which turns the word, Catholic, upside-down. 

In the Episcopal Church I’ve had my own experience of those in authority wanting to silence me.  Even our most liberal form of Catholicism has its totalitarian and autocratic moments.

Most of the Roman bishops don’t like the President’s views on abortion. Fair enough. I’m sure they are also disturbed by the percentage of members who don’t agree with their teaching.[i] Twice in my 50 years as a priest I’ve had either diocesan or parish leaders so upset with my expressed views that they sought to suppress the documents or have me punished for daring to say what I’d said.[ii] 

I often wonder how many others are been attacked. How many needed conversations inhibited and buried. 

In my own experience, and what is happening in the Roman Catholic Church, I believe that all those involved are Apostolic Christians and genuine in their views.  They believe something like this, organizational leaders need to avoid publicly stating views that disturb the unity of the Body and confuse the less mature members of the Body. Some of the Roman bishops think the President has committed the sin of scandal. All that comes out of a tradition in the church of leaning toward maintaining harmony by emphasizing the impact on the spiritually immature.[iii]  It’s the logic that because someone might get upset everyone should walk on eggshells. We the bishop's understand what you're saying and doing; it's the ignorant masses we're concerned about.

The alternative is for bishops to gather together and say what they believe. Even to expect it to be read in the churches. And for the faithful to listen with respect.  We require more of that Benedictine form of obedience -- to listen with the ear of our hearts, to ponder and consider what is being said. We need that kind of a obedience. The obedience of listening and respect not of servile conformity.

The teachings and wisdom of the bishops (Roman and Episcopal) are not mere suggestions nor are they infallible pronouncements. They need to be listened to. The difficulty arises when those with power want to be listened to but aren’t willing to actively engage those who disagree with them. They don’t really want a listening community. They don’t want the conversation.

I don’t believe in magic. The impulse to engage or flee from people and ideas that make us uncomfortable will never disappear. The church and society will always face a struggle. Will our harmony be largely based on refusing to acknowledge and engage our differences or will it be based on behavior only possible as we engage our patience, humility, persistence, and courage?

All of it is part of the journey.

      And all the time the journey is based on that Gospel paradox of losing life and finding it.  

      -E. deWaal

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[i] A 2008 Marist College Institute Public Opinion survey reported that 36% of Catholics who attend church at least twice a month, consider themselves "pro-choice"; while 65% of non-practicing Catholics considers themselves "pro-choice", 76% of them says that "abortion should be significantly restricted". According to the National Catholic Reporter, some 58% of American Roman Catholic women feel that they do not have to follow the abortion teaching of their bishop. 

[ii] The first time was when “Stay in the City” was published. The second was when Michelle Heyne and I published St. Paul’s Parish: Growth and Decline ( and a website with more context). In the first, after the booklet inspired an overwhelmingly positive response in the church as a whole, the assistant bishop (a good friend who agreed with me) came to me saying, “You need to start looking for another position outside the diocese.” There were members of the diocesan staff and a few other influencers who wanted me punished. I ended up on the staff of another diocese where that bishop had given “Stay in the City” to the Diocesan Council saying, “This is the kind of thing I want to do here.” In the more recent case, the local bishop told me he wouldn’t license me to function unless I agreed to do no more writing about  St. Paul’s or other parishes in that diocese. I returned my license. Some parish leaders attempted to have me punished by filing a Title IV complaint. That resulted in a pastoral letter from my bishop to me (I don’t live in the diocese in which I am canonically listed). It was a most agreeable message that he and I worked on together. There was also a failed attempt to force me to remove the article from the web. It’s still unclear whether that was initiated by the same “parish leaders” or the local bishop.

There were people in both cases that offered reasoned disagreement with the articles. Those people wanted a conversation. We talked. We wrote back-and-forth. Those who tried to shut down the conversation were in positions of power they tried to use their power to shut down the conversation. Those at St. Paul’s who told us they found our contribution helpful were also not invited to be part of an open discussion of the issues.

[iii] “Therefore, if food causes my brother to sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I may not cause my brother to sin.” (1 Corinthians 8:13) It’s worth noting that his concern is about leading others into sin not about disagreements over mission strategy or doctrine (which have always been common in the church). Paul also wrote, “On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable” (I Corinthians 12:22). I’d agree. The difference is that in today’s world where liberal democracy is under attack from the left and the right and the old days of heresy trials and bishops having to approve books  mostly gone– it’s time to take an approach that has more respect for human dignity.

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