The main mission is hostage to a host of distracting issues
Whenever I read this - the subtext I hear is that justice and the place of lgbti in the church is "distracting" from the main message- if justice as per Micah 6:8 is not a main message I don't know what is.
I would have hoped KTS had been a bit more clear and not spoken in such glittering generalities. Our day is not one of single voices - it is one of dispersed leadership and message - even Al Quaeda knows this with their network centric actions. We have our "message" from Jesus - follow him and whenever we do something for the least of these - we are "on message" - maybe there will be many voices - and a whole body doing the will of God and not 1 or 2.

The kind of leadership KTS is suggesting is exactly the kind demanded by the baptismal ecclesiology of our current Prayer Book. If there is a "crisis in leadership," it is because too many clergy (and even "lay" leaders) have failed to embrace the kind of mutuality and radical equality to which such an ecclesiology calls us.

I was in the process of writing what Bishop Epting said when I noticed that he had already said it. I did want to add that I am not sure that everyone in the employment of the church agrees with us about the need to decentralization and shared decision making.

I don't think we've got a big leadership crisis as long as Bonnie Anderson is around.

But if we needed to make a structural change so "our voice could be heard," maybe we should empower the President of the House of Deputies over the President of the House of Bishops.

We are blessed with loving clergy, but it's the laypeople who carry out the work of Christ. Maybe our polity should catch up with the truth.

Josh Thomas writes:
"We are blessed with loving clergy, but it's the laypeople who carry out the work of Christ. "

I'd like to believe that clergy of all orders are carrying out the work of Christ even if imperfectly. (Mind you, no one except Christ can perfectly carry on the work of Christ.)

Sure Kevin but the laity are 99% of the church - If they are not leading we are sunk

Like Ann, I find the piece damned by glittering generalities. Perhaps the piece suffers because KTS had too much she wanted to say.

Like Ann, I find "distracting issues" an unfortunate phrase that suggests equal status for women, gays and other groups discriminated against -- I'm thinking of African Americans in the Episcopal Church (in an earlier time only?, even today?) -- that suggests those issues are not of the same urgency as "the main mission."

Unless I missed it, I'm not sure if "main mission" is spelled out clearly. Is it spreading the gospel? (And is that what is meant by the "communicate meaning" jargon?) Is it serving the greater good?

I did like this: "Leaders cannot sequester congregants in beautiful spaces of worship with glorious music and liturgy without also engaging them in deeper reflection about what it means to live one's faith responsibly in the world" translating "that meaning into responsible, ethical actions that serve the greater good."

That's KTS writing -- and if I am mistaken she's in agreement with what Chris Epting and others above are saying.

Changing to another related topic, there is another hypothesis about why churches are dying, and that is the growth of the state provision of social services, displacing a role previously filled by church. In Canada and Western Europe the decline of the church is well ahead of the decline in the U.S. Even with the passage of Health Care Reform, the U.S. public safety net is far smaller. Has the church in those countries lost its meaning?

To a large extent, we don't have leadership. We have management, and we have managers *talking* about leadership (in theory) and actively discouraging it (in practice). Because leadership involves change, and we think we can avoid change (yes, "progressives" too).

The challenges of the future are these: debt and wealth distribution. Demographics (including health care). Consumption and resource depletion (particularly fossil fuels). Climate change. And the coming transformation of industrial civilization as we have known it. Leadership calls us as Christians to pay attention to these things, to how they will affect our communities, to get ahead of the problems with some concrete, achievable solutions that will bring life and hope in Jesus Christ. But it's an uphill battle with "management" in charge.

Oooh, brilliant, Jan!

...and w/ REAL problems like these, is it any wonder that too many of us---yes, I include myself---would rather just obsess re, respectively, lifting LGBTs up OR smacking them down? [I can get FAR more righteously enraged re my second-class status in church & state, than I can my carbon footprint!]

JC Fisher

This "mainline leadership crisis"...who can address something like this in the comments section of a blog? LOLOL

For my part, to do me and my friends any good, refrain from using words like "mission" and the "good news of Jesus Christ to the world" and all that other church-ese that lulls us to sleep and involuntarily rolls our eyes. Think of something else to say, for God's sake. It is the trap of a tired, almost gnostic jargon--a jargon that no one seems to know the meaning of anymore, or cares about--that has put linguistic bars around the Church.

What is the "Good News"? Do we even know anymore, now that no one believes the world is going to end really soon, at the command of YHWH? What is it to "proclaim the risen Christ," or to "proclaim Christ, crucified"? What does it mean to "follow" Jesus Christ? Is "follow" still a good translation? Is "follow me" a good translation? Is our current idea of what a follower is, and to follow, what Jesus really said to The Usual Suspects? Are we called to walk with Jesus, or walk behind him? Does he say to us, "Watch this...got it? Now give it a try..." or does he say, "Watch this...now worship me because of that"? Which kind of follower are we talking about? Are we talking about "obedience to our Lord...obedience to Him (always capitalized!)" Yuk, do we really talk that way, in this day and age? Is that a convincing path to becoming fully human?

I have no idea what any of this means, and while everyone is worried about dead Haitians and raped African women and all those things we really should be worried about, what makes This Thing different from any other social service charity? What makes This Thing That We Have any different from, say those life insurance fraternities from the turn of the previous century, who later just dropped the rituals and remained life insurers? Am I making any sense?

Thanks Clint -- lots of great questions. What makes it different for you? For me it makes me less fearful to speak out and act about the things I think are important. Worship is sort of like getting my wheels aligned and tires balances -- my life runs better. YMMV

I sent this on to our Vestry and one member responded as below:

"I don't agree. I don't see her points in the Episcopal community. We are the exception to the rule. Other religions rule authoritarian. We are quite the opposite. Episcopalians lead from the bottom up. Many of the responses that our Presiding Bishop stated in Bethlehem when she was here reiterated that sentiment. She kept saying it is up to the individual parishes to solve the issues/ problems that they are faced with or want to confront."

I think its the leadership model many parishes, clergy and laity have been operating on for quite some time.

Peace,