This is the second of three parts.

By George Clifford

One thousand people (perhaps as many as fifteen hundred) spending ten very long days at General Convention represents a tremendous amount of time, energy, and money. If the Church devoted those resources to mission, amazing things would result. My point is not that the Church should eliminate its General Convention. Living together requires investing in our common life. My point is that good stewardship demands that the investment should be as effective and efficient as possible.

The proposals presented below are catalysts intended to begin a conversation about ways to improve our governance and to be better stewards of the resources God's people have entrusted to the Episcopal Church rather than as definitive ukases:

(1) General Convention should focus exclusively on establishing the Episcopal Church’s broad priorities for ministry and mission. In several days of prayer, study, debate, and conversation the HOD and HOB could profitably outline the priority or priorities for the next triennium, leaving the implementation of those goals to Executive Council, the Provinces, the Dioceses, and parishes. Clear priorities and intentional focus on their implementation is integral to faithful living and good stewardship. This limited purpose should enable more diverse lay participation in a briefer General Convention, reduce the importance of people serving multiple terms as deputies, and free more resources for ministry and mission. The Episcopal Church lacks the membership, financial resources, and theological rationale for an agenda that unilaterally undertaking the totality of God's work.

(2) Executive Council, in cooperation with dioceses and provinces, should assume the remainder of General Convention’s functions. Executive Council should handle all routine (e.g., election of Church Pension Fund trustees), minor issues (e.g., interfaith relations, adding or deleting an observance from Lesser Feasts and Fasts), and implementation of ministry and mission priorities (e.g., approving budgets and staffing plans for the national Church).

(3) Provinces should elect all Executive Council members.

(4) Upon petition by a majority of provinces or dioceses, Executive Council would have to submit an issue to the Dioceses for consent; non-routine matters (such as changes to the Prayer Book, Canons, or Constitution) would automatically require consent from a majority of Dioceses. In all cases, Dioceses would have the option to approve or to disapprove, but not to amend. Allowing Dioceses to amend wordings could potentially create a never-ending cycle of changes, as each change would restart the consent process. Dioceses could each establish their own consent process (e.g., which issues go to Diocesan Council, to the Bishop and Standing Committee, or to Diocesan Convention). Issues requiring the time consuming consent process will inherently lack urgency – the Church, after all, has functioned without the proposed change or initiative for decades if not centuries. Any issue for which Dioceses or Provinces unsuccessfully petition for referral to the consent process obviously lacks wide support across the Church and probably does not reflect the Church’s thinking.

(5) A significant number of resolutions at each General Convention request that the Episcopal Church take an official stand on an issue, empowering the Church’s Washington Office to act on the Church’s behalf. Executive Council should deal with all such resolutions, permitting fuller, more substantive discussion.

These proposals arguably broaden involvement in the Church’s decision-making process, ensure timelier, fuller consideration of important matters by an appropriately sized deliberative body, and provide a check on Executive Council to prevent it overreaching its appropriate authority. This plan also preserves authority within the Episcopal Church as a unique blend of lay, clergy, and bishop mutual decision-making while balancing the efficiency of central authority with distributed responsibility and decision-making.

Doing more with less is a popular management mantra. That mantra has limited applicability to the Church. The Church should strive to make the best possible use of its resources, efficiently avoiding waste and striving to achieve its mission as effectively as possible. Concomitantly, the Church must first and last always be the Church, true to its identity, cognizant of its limitations, and focused on incarnating God's love. An agenda appropriate for an established Church will rightly look very different that the agenda of a relatively small Church in a secular democracy. These proposals recognize that the Church often requires many years to discern the mind of Christ accurately, incorporating essential elements of the Anglican genius, living with ambiguity and avoiding premature votes.

The Presiding Bishop has called the Episcopal Church to have a heart for mission. The Episcopal Church’s current governance structure emphasizes business as usual rather than mission. A Church with over two million people in five thousand plus parishes located in seventeen nations on three continents constitutes a large institution that requires a global outlook while sustaining a pastoral vision locally. Little that the Episcopal Church does nationally or internationally requires immediate action. The most notable exception to that generalization is disaster relief, for which Episcopal Relief and Development has responsibility. Thus, the Episcopal Church can adopt a structure well suited to its needs, a structure that emphasizes carefully articulating a global outlook that identifies ministry and mission priorities grounded in solid theological study.

The Rev. Dr. George Clifford, Diocese of North Carolina, served as a Navy chaplain for twenty-four years He taught philosophy at the U. S. Naval Academy and ethics at the Postgraduate School. He blogs at Ethical Musings.