The Lead

Looking over video of questions and answers from the October walkabouts in the Diocese of Minnesota (the election is Oct. 31st), we note finalists' responses to the sticky question, "How would you approach the difficult task of closing and merging congregations on life support?"

Bonnie Perry:

If a community is focusing all its energy and all its resources on maintaining a building, then I would say that they have become more curators than Christians. And if that's the case, and if they're no longer able to sustain the income to take care of that building, then it's time.

Marianne Budde:

What I've been thinking about was my experience in pastoral care with families, when an elder of a family is unable to care for him- or herself in the homestead any longer... If a family can begin that conversation sooner rather than later, while the (elderly) person still has his or her authority and ability to make decisions, ... the conversation goes a lot better than if you wait too long and all of that's taken away and the family has to step in with a more authoritative hand.

Doug Sparks:

I understand the real tension between tent and tabernacle... Our forebears in Israel lived in the tent, and the ark was in the tent for a long, long time... And then they got the Temple... they became confined in some ways.... I don't stand here suggesting I have any easy answers for our future in terms of mergings/closings, but I am committed to exploring and staying with every congregation as they look at those challenging questions...

Doyle Turner:

I think closing a congregation needs to be the last possible step.

Brian Prior:

There's a part of me that often thinks, Have I exhausted, would we exhaust, everything we could do to really make that place as viable and healthy as possible? That's the question to begin with, and you can't ask that question unless if you really haven't spent time with the people there....
When it comes to [working with] congregations, ... help them discern, help them assess, help them find where God is calling them to be.

Comments (7)

FYI - The link to Brian Prior's remarks is not working.

Posted by Neil Alan Willard | October 28, 2009 3:49 PM

Thanks Neil - fixed now.

Posted by Ann Fontaine | October 28, 2009 4:55 PM

These people need to come visit Wyoming to see what we have done to revitalize congregation and develop new leadership to become a ministering community in their area.

Posted by Ann Fontaine | October 28, 2009 4:56 PM

Don't just brag, Ann, tell us what you've done!

I wish all parishes large and small spent more time in self-examination. Instead we usually fob it off onto the vestry or Bishop's committee, and send out chatty newsletters full of book reviews and lists of birthdays.

Posted by Josh Thomas | October 28, 2009 10:55 PM

The deliciously default ambiguous answers from from standard Episcopal candidates, none of whom seem to think beyond the creaky parish model.

Posted by Paul Woodrum | October 29, 2009 9:28 AM

Josh- it was not my doing - come and see. It is hard to explain the whole model in a comment box. It does take a lot of work and commitment of the diocesan leadership - does not work if the process is short circuited or we fall back into the old father/mother knows best parish model.

Posted by Ann Fontaine | October 29, 2009 3:34 PM

CATEGORIES

Organizations