Well, so I have proposed two resolutions to General Convention (the text of which are in my previous post). The first one proposes that the Anglican 5 Marks of Mission be adopted as strategic priorities of the church, around which the budget should be structured. This looks like a resolution designed to improve our relations with the Anglican Communion, but as far as I'm concerned this good result is only a side effect.
To me, the key to the resolution lies in the paragraph that states that "the first mark of mission, proclaiming the Good News of the Reign of God, is really a summary of what all mission is about, and therefore instead of being just one of five distinct activities, that this is the key statement about everything we do in mission." In other words, this resolution would recognize evangelism as the top strategic priority of the Episcopal Church. I think it is vital for us to recognize this fact. Not only has our church been shrinking at an alarming rate, but we have forgotten the priority of reaching out to new people in Christ's name - and if there is anything clear in the gospels, it is the fact that Jesus has commissioned us to do exactly this. The other vital ministries that Christians perform all grow out of the fact that they are Christians. And, well, you have to hear about Christ first, to become a Christian and perform Christian ministry.
Sadly, the powers that be have assigned this resolution to the World Mission committee, which I worry will abandon it in favor of Bonnie Anderson's resolution to "adopt" the 5 Marks of Mission. Her resolution doesn't say anything about what we will do with them once we have "adopted" them (in contrast to ours, which requires us to structure the budget around them). Her resolution is also missing the crucial paragraph that names evangelism as the key priority on which the others are based. She has two fine paragraphs about informing the Anglican Communion that we have "adopted" the marks, but surely they will ask themselves - "adopted" them as what? It looks like lip service to me.
My second resolution calls for several groups to collaborate on producing a strategic plan "for growing the church, increasing congregational vitality, planting new churches, and redeveloping dying congregations." The hope is that the strategic plan would be implemented at all levels of the church and cause a renaissance in evangelism and church growth. I am puzzled that this resolution, which so clearly centers on evangelism, has been assigned to the Stewardship and Development committee - apparently because they have a couple of other strategic planning resolutions to deal with as well.
Well, wish me luck. We'll see how all this turns out.
No comments:
Post a Comment